Peak Oil Review – August 19
A weekly review including: Oil and the Global Economy, The Middle East & North Africa, China, Quote of the Week, The Briefs
Economy
Gauging the urban appetite
The agendas that are set so solemnly for international (or global) food and hunger problems cannot be used at the sub-national or local administrative level, which must analyse its own problems and find practical solutions, All too often, catering sensibly to the food needs of urban populations is ignored by policy makers, while economic ‘development’ (more infrastructure, more financing, more consumption, more personal mobility at the cost of public transport) is welcomed. The provisioning of food and the planning for shortening and localising food supply chains is usually abandoned by public administrators to the ruthless methods of the market
Peak Oil Review – July 15
A weekly review including: Oil and the Global Economy, The Middle East and North Africa, The Oil Market Report, China, Quote of the Week, The Briefs
The necessary transition to a new economy
Even Forbes is jumping on the bandwagon of the “sharing economy” with a recent article on AirBnB. This closely follows Van Jones’s CNN article about the “sharing economy,” but the push to transform our broken economy isn’t just about sharing, though; it isn’t even just about renewable energy, energy efficiency, public transportation, and the other elements of the green economy movement. There is a “new economy movement” that’s pushing for a fundamental shift away from the neoliberal policies that have dominated our economy and society for decades.
From Green New Deal to New Economy Coalition (Part I)
Here is a short overview and strategic assessment of the green economy movement, including its organizational makeup. It concludes with recommendations for transitioning from a double bottom line movement to a triple bottom line one: being more inclusive of historically marginalized communities.
A patchwork blanket
Long gone are the days when the job you’d grow up to do would more or less be determined by the jobs your parents did. But going now is the concept of the “job for life”; something you’d study for in youth and then spend your life improving your skills at, earning more and more pay until you’d retire with a generous final salary pension.
Spain: from ‘los indignados’ and ‘15 M’ to the first strike by society
400,000 evictions, a hunger strike by Carmen Armaña, and the suicide of Amaia Egaña as the eviction police came up the stairs to put her family out on the street, have brought mass anger and fury at unjust political and financial decisions in Spain…
So, what do you do?
Informed as much by new economic thinking as necessity, people are rediscovering and reinventing gift culture, experimenting with different means of exchange, and finding work arounds to “business as usual” sources of capital through peer-to-peer lending and crowd funding.
Gridlock in Europe
The latest twists and turns in the saga of the Greek debt crisis are signs that the brief honeymoon the Fund enjoyed in the wake of the “Great Recession” has ended.
We cannot avoid the global crisis… but we can deal with it
There is no doubt in my mind about the potential power of markets and business to be a positive force for change. There are, in the world of business some very smart and passionate people with enormous capacity to help society move forward. We have not yet seen that potential realised, but I know it is still there – waiting for its moment.
Who will get this economy going? No one
"We’ve got to get this economy going again!" Unless your cave lacks wifi, cable or satellite, you’ve heard this once or twice in the last four seconds.
Economic Growth: The missing link in environmental journalism
Environmental journalists are like doctors. Doctors run from patient to patient, harried, dealing with symptoms more than causes. They’re too busy dispensing pills to talk about holistic health. It’s an approach that makes money for the health industry but isn’t so great for public health.
