Media & Communications

2011: Living in interesting times

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Some economists have high hopes for 2011. The stock market has broken 11,000 and many predict GDP growth. I don’t necessarily see a rising stock market and GDP as indicators of economic health, especially since the vast majority of stock market gains goes to a very small minority of people. The stock market may zoom, GDP may grow, but what will be happening to the majority of people – considering the forces and trends that are in play? Maybe it’s my pessimistic side, but I continue to have some major concerns about the economy…

Changing the frequency

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In one of the last entries for 2010 on Transition Culture Rob Hopkins posts his interview with Christopher Alexander, a discussion of the links between A Pattern Language and the new Transition ingredients. At some point the architect and writer’s wife, Maggie enters the conversation: “If Transition was successful, what the community would feel – it would feel like home. Simple. Everyone can feel that feeling. You know it when you see it; it just feels like home…

Wikileaks, Karl Marx and you

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Despite blanket media coverage of Wikileaks and Julian Assange, there has been little discussion of the fact that Assange is merely one leader within a large and complicated social movement, the “free culture movement.” The present situation was predicted by visionary hackers over thirty years ago, and they set out to ensure the victory of free culture over proprietary culture, open organisation over closed, and privacy over Big Brother.

Who moved my “Conservative?”

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According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, “conserve” means “to keep in a safe or sound state… especially: to avoid wasteful or destructive use.” The first example given? To “conserve natural resources.” Obviously! “Conserve” goes with natural resources like “defend” goes with country and “safeguard” goes with Constitution. That’s why those who conserve natural resources are called “conservationists.”

The sound of air escaping

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If the previous chapter had been written as a novel, one wouldn’t have to read long before concluding that it is a story unlikely to end well. But it is not just a story, it is a description of the system in which our lives and the lives of everyone we care about are embedded. How economic events unfold from here on is a matter of more than idle curiosity or academic interest.

Commentary: The Tierney-Simmons bet

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Five years ago, John Tierney, a columnist with The New York Times, and Matt Simmons, peak oil guru and founder of energy investment bank Simmons & Co., made a bet. Simmons argued that oil prices would be much higher in 2010. Tierney, a believer in human ingenuity and a follower of economist Julian Simon, took the other position. Simon, a so-called Cornucopian, argued that there would always be abundant supplies of energy and other natural resources and that the real price of commodities like oil would remain stable or decline over time.

The machines change, the work remains the same

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I have recommitted to local organizing that aims mainly to strengthen institutions and networks on the ground where I live, rooted in a belief that those local connections will be more important than ever in coming decades. At the same time, I try to maintain and extend connections to like-minded people around the world, hoping that those connections can contribute to the possibility of coordinated global action. In short, I am trying to become more tribal and more universal at the same time.

On love and farming: The dirty life

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Kristin Kimball is an accidental agrarian. A reporter in her early thirties living in New York City, she fell for a farmer in upstate New York–the subject of a story she was writing–and then fell in love with farming with him at Essex Farm. She tells the story of leaving the city to grow food and more in her new book The Dirty Life, a compelling memoir that gives insight into the growing young farmer movement in America.