Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Self-restraint clearly failed to abolish slavery in the American South—nothing else bar a war did. But the future is not written, and we can learn from our mistakes. History suggests that the negotiators in Cancun should thus push for incremental self-restraint while making sure people are offered an alternative to fossil fuels.
The Community Supported Agriculture model is providing very successful around the world in various manifestations. It can involve communities owning a share in a local farm, setting up their own farm, paying an annual subscription to a farmer they support, and many other variations on the theme. The model is also being applied to other enterprises, such as pig clubs or community supported bakeries. Where possible, use the community buy-in generated by your Transition initiative to support community supported initiatives.
The biggest stories of 2010 were financial. But you could say that the continuing Great Recession, the deficit debate, and more and more mortgage defaults were really stories of energy-driven economic crisis. This year also had plenty of big stories directly on energy, including some breakthroughs on peak oil. Here are our top picks. It’s a highly subjective list; so please chime in with any stories you think we left off.
Currently, as financial markets stagnate and food prices swing wildly and the environment is under siege, more and more people, communities, and nations are taking steps to reduce their vulnerability to a volatile global economy.
Consuming less doesn’t mean we have to sacrifice freedom or walk around in grey smocks and eat gruel, as many free marketeers would have us believe. Capitalism can foster innovation, but as the dearth of truly ecologically sane consumer choices reveals, capitalism also hinders innovation when it’s not profitable enough.
Post-Carbon and Heinberg are telling a critical story – but the actors they need to engage, all the hands they want on deck are not engaged, because they aren’t part of the tale. That needs to change.
In the spirit of keeping things light-hearted, I thought it would be interesting to compose a top-ten list of songs with a steady state theme.
The best of EB 2010. We tried to mix it up. You picked some. We picked some. Happy Holidays from EB.
We all remember the oil price run-up (and run back down) of 2008. Now, with prices similar to where they were in the fall of 2007, the question quite naturally arises as to whether we are headed for another similar scenario.
Fewer and fewer children get to explore the outdoor world and experience the thrill of watching birds or finding a turtle on the other side of a rotting log. Fewer children know about weeding a garden, let alone the special feeling of coming home a bit scratched up and sunburned after a long afternoon of exploring a local creek. Getting your feet wet and hands dirty is fun. There is something ineffably joyous about interacting with the natural world, but, more and more, that bliss is generationally bound, a gift today’s children won’t receive.
– The value of a nuclear Iran (Shi’ite oil)
– Green War: “Because the Earth is worth the fight!” (greenwashing)
– S. American mountains hold key to electric car’s future: lithium for batteries
“If I plant a garden and all my neighbors are starving, I’ll have to share it with them and it’s not going to go very far,” says Gail Tverberg, known to readers of the Oil Drum as Gail the Actuary. “You have to solve the problem for the whole population.”
Maybe that’s why Tverberg thinks that people who care about peak oil need to reach out beyond energy buffs to a larger public
