Mind control – July 24
– Murdoch Censorship Gives the Lie to ‘Freedom of Speech’ Claims
– Journatic worker takes ‘This American Life’ inside outsourced journalism
– Forgive us our Press Passes (audio)
– Aggressive Cluelessness: Then and Now
Media & Communications
Fool me twice, shame on me: The oil industry repackages the fake abundance story (from the late 1990s)
Only the oil industry would now have the audacity once again to peddle a story that it has gotten wrong for more than a decade as if it were brand new. Enlisting the media and its army of paid consultants, the industry is once again telling the public that oil abundance is at hand. And, what is doubly audacious is that it is promoting this tale as oil prices hover at levels more than eight times the 1999 low.
ODAC Newsletter – Jul 20
Oil prices rose this week as geopolitical tensions trumped economic concerns. The Syrian conflict, oil sanctions against Iran, and a suicide bombing of an Israeli tourist bus in Bulgaria, which Israel blamed on Iran, all added to fear of disruption in the region…
On the Far Side of Denial
The last six months or so have seen an unprecedented flood of official pronouncements and media stories attempting, with dubious results, to brush aside the reality of peak oil. Those of my readers who know their way around old science fiction serials know what this means: something is about to explode.
Twilight of the Elites: Chris Hayes on How the Powerful Rig the System, from Penn State to Wall St.
Amidst a series of recent scandals that have rocked the global banking system, journalist Chris Hayes joins us to discuss his new book, “Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy.” The book examines how Wall Street and other major institutions, from Congress to the Catholic Church to Major League Baseball, have been crippled by corruption and incompetence.
The times they are a changin’
-You might be screwed: Commencement Speech University of Oregon
-common pitfalls of challenger movements
-The Story of Change
Unlearn, Rewild
One of the least useful words in the English language is the word “wilderness.” I grew up wandering the woods, and, to me, where the road and the trail end and the animal (and human) paths begin is a point of fundamental transition: beyond this point lies something else an older, perfectly ordinary, normal way of being, in which we are just another animal among many others.
Interview: Author William deBuys On Climate Change In The Southwest
As part of my summer reporting project on energy and climate change in the Southwest, I had the pleasure of driving deep into the heart of the Santa Fe National Forest and interviewing deBuys at his home about an hour and a half from Santa Fe. We discussed how he ended up in a far-removed mountain hamlet in New Mexico, what drove him to write his most recent book, and what the biggest takeaways from the project were, among other things.
Hocus pocus as national strategy – Review: ‘Too Much Magic’
These days, it’s as if Americans are permanently and pervasively stuck at age seven, more focused on the imaginative powers of Harry Potter’s wand and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (or the latest iGadget) than running their own adult lives.
Gar Alperovitz’s Green Party Keynote: We Are Laying Groundwork for the “Next Great Revolution”
“But I do think that the emerging era of history into which we are living our lives, the era into which we are living, may well be the most important period of American history bar none.”
Climate change and peak oil: two sides of the same coin?
As I perceive it Climate change and Peak Oil are the two most serious threats to biodiversity, human life, and civilisation as we know it. The main purpose of this talk is to consider three possible visions or scenarios concerning Peak Oil and Climate Change.
Moral Failing
With the national weather maps pinker than a Barbie® SUV, more Americans are grudgingly accepting that climate change is for real, that it’s largely caused by humans, and that it’s a major threat to us here and now. It’s probably only a matter of time before America and the world finally start taking the problem seriously…
