Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
– WikiLeaks Is the New Journalism
– Could Wikileaks change or destroy the Internet as we know it?
– NYT: Keeping Secrets WikiSafe
– Predicting the future of WikiLeaks: Follow the media!
– Pentagon scrambles to prep for ‘thermonuclear’ Wikileaks release
– Six Anti-Theses on WikiLeaks
– Guardian’s country-by-country round-up
The UN Climate Conference (COP16) in Cancun is turning out to be both anti-climactic and anti-climatic. There will be no major agreement to stop global warming this week, despite the timed release of a number of reports that show that the phenomenon is advancing more rapidly than expected, with lethal consequences. There likely will be announcements of progress in schemes to allow contaminating industries and nations to continue with business as usual and add another lucrative area to their portfolios—trade in carbon offsets and credits. It’s a worst-case scenario for the planet.
Oil reached a two year high above $90/barrel this week before falling back on mixed economic news. A growing list of analysts including JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs and Barclays Capital are now forecasting prices above $100/barrel in 2011…
‘Tis the season of giving and Oprah is in a giving mood. For most of the last decade, the TV personality and cultural trendsetter has annually bestowed upon unsuspecting studio audiences a smorgasbord of gifts large and small. The reaction of audiences is almost impossible to believe, let alone describe. I have to admit to watching clips of this year’s “Oprah’s Favorite Things” over and over again, with a mix of fascination and revulsion.
There is growing evidence that prices of staple foods, like maize, rice, and wheat will rise steadily due to increased population and income growth. And climate change adds more pressure to these already big challenges.
– A Case Study in Web Survivability
– Live with the WikiLeakable world or shut down the net
– Massive Release of Raw WikiLeaks Files Threatened if Assange Harmed
– WikiLeaks avoids shutdown as supporters worldwide go on the offensive
– WikiLeaks, the web and the power of the people
– WikiLeaks a blueprint for things to come
– How to Think About Wikileaks
– Shell boasts it has infiltrated Nigerian government
– WikiLeaks climate change cables
– Wikileaks Reveals Hushed Concern Over Tar Sands Oil in US State Dept.
– Bolivian Ambassador Pablo Solón Responds to Secret U.S. Manipulation of Climate Talks
– WikiLeaks: oil deal executive ‘was paid £46,000 a month’
The yawning gap between the real world and the discipline and profession of economics has never been wider.
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
-Nigeria
-Redefining Prosperity
-Finding Rootedness in the Age of Vulnerability
-Transition: The Sacred, The Scared, and The Scarred
-Treading Softly: Paths to Ecological Order
-The “Stuff” of the American Energy Footprint
The Big Society is associated with localism, cuts in spending and de-regulation as opposed to community-led re-localisation. While we agree with the need to give more power to local government and local communities, how and why that is done is crucial. What we have done in Transition is to create a powerful story, around resilience and localisation, around unleashing the creative genius of communities to respond brilliantly to times of great challenge. At the end of this paper, we set out what such a story for the Big Society might look like.
The word resilience is going the way of sustainability – becoming so over-imbued with meaning that it becomes meaningless. I recently heard a presentation by somebody who was basing a whole research project around meanings of sustainability. It seems to me the time would have been better spent organising a Potato Day like the one we have coming up in Stroud.
