Culture & Behavior

Food Storage on No Budget

by

The people who most need a food reserve are the people who struggle the most to get it. As food and energy costs inflate, and the safety net for the poor begins to break apart, the lower your income, the more urgent it is for you to take advantage of economies of scale, to buy food at lower prices, the more necessary it is that you have some reserve to tide you over in hard times. But that’s incredibly tough if hard times are already here.

Matt Simmons and the Five Psychological Stages of Grief

by

This is a wonderful clip. When Matt Simmons was recently asked to go on CNBC’s ‘Fast Money’ to discuss the high oil prices, he clearly stunned the presenters with his forthright analysis of society’s current perilous situation. When asked if $147 a barrel is a ‘wake up call’ he replied “yes, but we’re not having a wake up call, we’re having a witch hunt for who got us here”, a succinct analysis of the current world situation.

Rob Hopkins uses the reaction to the situation by the studio panel to illustrate the Five Psychological Stages of Grief that he believes people go through in coming to terms with this information.

Could sustainability lead to an authoritarian future?

by

Those who imagine humans eventually returning to agrarian societies also often imagine that such societies have the potential to be much more democratic and egalitarian than our current world. But, among those who imagine what I’ll call a sustainable industrial future, there is little discussion of future political arrangements.