Happiness & dysfunction – March 22
Are we happier in the West?
U! S! A! We’re Number …. 15?
Experts agree giant, razor-clawed bioengineered crabs pose no threat
U.N. raises “low” population projection for 2050
Culture & Behavior
UK & Europe – Mar 20
UK road traffic rises 25% in 15 years
‘Miracle’ saved Balkans from blackout during gas crisis
Climate causes Switzerland and Italy to redraw border
Swiss direct democracy protects against modern world “change bias”
Food & agriculture – Mar 20
Organic price tags may be hard to swallow
Doomer Dinner Party – Challenge
How Might We Be Fed? Part Two
Housing & urban design – Mar 20
In Hard Times, Public Places are More Important Than Ever
Kunstler on South Africa
Robert Rapier’s Year Without a Car
Genji and the printing press
Many discussions of preserving information for the deindustrial future focus on the internet and other high-tech options. A step or two down the technological ladder offers options that are much more likely to find their way from discussion into reality.
The role of religious communities in the Long Emergency
Religious communities are going to have a large and powerful role in the future – one that ideally, we’d begin shaping and preparing for today. This is one of the reasons I’m never so delighted as when I’m asked to talk to religious communities – because in many ways, I think that they provide an existing infrastructure that is potentially powerfully adaptable to the life we will be living.
Review: Future Scenarios by David Holmgren
This new book by the co-originator of permaculture offers fascinating and fertile challenges for engaging Peak Oil and climate change. It confronts us with the question that will not die: Will our journey to a post-petroleum world be a transition or a trauma? The longer we wait to make the profoundly radical choices necessary at this juncture of history, the greater the certainty that choices we would not prefer will be made for us.
Sprouts!
Sprouting is a great way to produce some of your own food. If you have access to some clean jars, lids with screens, clean water, and appropriate seeds, you can raise your own sprouts.
Conflict – Mar 19
World faces ‘perfect storm’ of problems by 2030, chief scientist to warn
Klare: The Second Shockwave
Civil War in the United States?,br>
Transport – Mar 18
$8 billion could help revive travel by train
Start-ups are racing to get electric motorbikes to market
New book: “Pedaling Revolution”
Electric Cars and Peak Lithium
Powerdown Toolkit # 5: Getting Around- Transport and Mobility
Heathrow’s third runway: planning for aviation boom times is no way to deal with economic bust
Water & environment – Mar 18
Global forum seeks to avert water crisis
Preparing for Water Quarrels, if not Wars
Chilean Town Withers in Free Market for Water
Climate & environment – Mar 18
The Age of Stupid Premiere at the Eden Project
Maldives first to go carbon neutral
Monbiot: If we behave as if it’s too late, then our prophecy is bound to come true
Wall Street set for another big dive
