Media & Communications

ODAC Newsletter – Jan 7

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2011 blew in with strong echoes 2008 as food and fuel prices rose strongly. The UN warned food prices are reaching “dangerous levels” as the global food index rose above the level that caused widespread rioting three years ago, and the IEA’s Fatih Birol cautioned rising oil prices could derail the economic recovery. WTI is around $88/barrel and Brent crude almost $94.

Unleashing of the first Transition slum with rap and samba

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It was a sizzling Saturday morning in December when members of the low low-income Brasilândia community of 247.000 people in São Paulo, gathered with great expectancy for the official unleashing of ‘Transixion’ Brasilândia. Led by the initiating group created earlier in May with representatives from the arts community, environmental groups, health workers, educators, local authority and members of Stickel Foundation, the first part of the morning was dedicated to celebrate a remarkable chain of achievements.

31 Books – The Resilient Gardener

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It is rare for me to read a book that does all three things – that fills that middle gap by offering me genuinely new and engaging ideas, is local to its place but thoughtful about how information gleaned in one environment might connect to another, is written by someone who does have limits on time and energy and occasionally desire to do it perfectly, and finally, is conscious of the need to garden in response to difficult times. That’s why Carol Deppe’s _The Resilient Gardener_ is such a gift.

Peak Moment 186: Your money, your life, your happiness

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People examine their assumptions about money, decide what is “Enough,” get out of debt, and free up life energy to invest in what matters most to them. Vicki discusses applying these same tools to relationships with our time, opportunities for creativity and exchange, building community, and her ten-mile food diet.

Peak oil and a changing climate

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The scientific community has long agreed that our dependence on fossil fuels inflicts massive damage on the environment and our health, while warming the globe in the process. But beyond the damage these fuels cause to us now, what will happen when the world’s supply of oil runs out? In a new video series from The Nation and On The Earth Productions, Bill McKibben, Noam Chomsky, Nicole Foss, Richard Heinberg and other scientists, researchers and writers explain.

Needing to know what we need

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A market economy is designed to meet needs so that resources are efficiently used and utility is maximised, but how do we know what we need? In a world where some societies suffer from consumption-related “status anxiety” while in others people die from starvation it is difficult to find empirical justification for the theoretical position that markets ensure allocative efficiency. The environmental crisis adds an extra dimension to this question: as a closed system the earth has finite resources and a limited capacity to absorb the waste products of industrial society.

Transition cities: Mission impossible?

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People have said it to me directly over the years, in person and in email.  It’s impossible.  How can you even think about Transition in Los Angeles?  It’s too big. Within Transition circles we counsel each other to “start where you are.”  Well, where I am is in the middle of Los Angeles, the eleventh largest metropolitan area in the world, 10 to 12 million people.  This is my home town.  This is where we started.