Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Tom Barefoot and Linda Wheatley explain the idea behind an upcoming conference in Vermont on how governments can measure the success of their policies using gross national happiness, not gross national product. And Ben Hewitt, author of the book about Hardwick called The Town That Food Saved, tells what he learned from the people of Hardwick about the difference between economic prosperity and quality of life.
Hollywood images of the future tend to be pretty grim: most video stores even have a single section now entitled “science fiction / horror,” since any future they show is likely to be horrifying. Just the last few years have given us The Book of Eli, The Road, 2012, I Am Legend, Children of Men, 28 Weeks Later, Resident Evil, Terminator films and series, and even WALL-E, the first post-apocalypse children’s movie.
Philosopher-farmers Wendell Berry, Wes Jackson and Gene Logsdon discuss the future of agriculture, the environment and changing our ideas about growth and progress.
2010 might very well be seen in retrospect as the year when Peak Oil became, if not exactly mainstream, at least something of a subject for the powers that be…Yet very little of it transpired into mainstream press and we can be quite sure, as Matthieu Auzanneau himself acknowledges, that a lot of water will run under the bridges of Paris before any kind of policy is implemented to address the problem. And there are unfortunately very good reasons for that.
Communal life – our tribal past – valued the group over the individual. We left our communal past to put the individual’s benefit (and especially material benefit) before the common good, in the process losing much of our memory of community.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-Iraq
-Iran
-Power shortages
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
This post was inspired by single bicycle holiday: an Easter cycling adventure around the Spanish Pyrenees. While the experience proved that cycle holidays can be fun (its primary purpose), it soon became clear that the single case study could provide a basis for practical advice and broader discussion. The former (stuff, planning, safety, money) may be of use to aspiring low-energy holidaymakers. The latter (energy analysis, viability) may be of interest to those who want to think about low energy futures.
Historically money has evolved through three phases: (1) commodity money (e.g. gold); (2) token money (certificates tied to gold); and (3) fiat money (certificates not tied to gold).
Post Carbon Fellow Bill McKibben and Executive Director Asher Miller discuss Bill’s sobering assessment of life on earth as presented in his brand new book Eaarth. Bill also provide an update on the efforts of his 350.org campaign.
In a piece in USA Today Bjørn Lomborg, Danish author of the much criticized book, The Skeptical Environmentalist, recycles claims that “many key environmental measures” are getting better. As you sift through the piece, you will see that his “key environmental measures” relate almost exclusively to the health and well-being of humans. And, this is what he uses to build a three-fold strategy to deceive the public.
Oil demand was down this week — as were most European flight schedules. The eruption of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano wrought further damage to the airline industry,which is already on its heels as a result of high fuel prices and recession…
These days, I see how optimistic and positive disaster and apocalypse movies were. Remember how, when those giant asteroids or alien space ships headed directly for Earth, everyone rallied and acted as one while our leaders led? We’re in a movie like that now, except that there’s not a lot of rallying or much leading above the grassroots level.
