Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
With any reasonably successful blog, you have a conversation going on, often between an author and commenters who have a long history and background, and people coming into the conversation for the first time…Balancing the degree to which you write for the regulars and to those new to you is always an interesting exercise.
An Olympian game of musical chairs in global finance heads for a climax in the days ahead as so many eyes are diverted to alternate festivities in British Columbia, where grown men compete for gold by riding things that look like cafeteria trays down icy mountainsides — is this the moment that comes every four years when you wonder why you didn’t get your kid a luge for Christmas?
When I think about dyed-in-the-wool, dystopian End-of-the-Worlders, MarketWatch’s Paul Farrell does not come to mind. I think of Club Orlov and its Honorary Members, people like Jim Kunstler or others in the Club who I have talked to in the past.
-Can Climate Shift the Biology of Ecosystems?
-Arctic sea ice vanishing faster than ‘our most pessimistic models’: researcher
-Snowmaggedon Backs All Climate Change Views
-Time to think small on climate change
-U.N. climate panel needs overhaul, top scientists argue in ‘Nature’
The Story of P(ee)
-Forest Carbon Scheme Gains Support, Faces Hurdles
-Warming Water Spurs U.S. to Consider ESA Protection for 82 Coral Species
-Rewilding’ the World: A Bright Spot for Biodiversity
-War at Home: The Local Eco-Warriors Making a Big Noise
-Brock Dolman on water: “Basins of relations: reverential rehydration revolution”
-Pathways to Re-Localisation with Joel Salatin
-Die Transition Towns-Bewegung – Städte und Menschen im Wandel
-Environmentalists launch low-carbon ‘churches in transition’
-Could chicken manure help curb climate change?
-Saudi Arabia Says Peak Demand for Oil Is an ‘Alarm’
-Virgin’s Richard Branson takes on peak oil
-Oil groups mount legal challenge to Schwarzenegger’s tar sands ban
We stand at a critical point in human cultural evolution. Going back to the old normal where peace is just an interval between wars is not an option; what we need is a fundamental cultural transformation.
The best way to influence policy is for the “scientists and engineers” to influence policy makers directly — and you don’t do that in a report, in a letter, on a petition, or a blog. It requires a commitment to face-to-face relationship building, nurturing, and maintenance. Rarely does a policy discussion center solely around facts.
To those familiar with the science and the IPCC’s work, the current media discussion is in large part simply absurd and surreal. Journalists who have never even peeked into the IPCC report are now outraged that one wrong number appears on page 493 of Volume 2. We’ve met TV teams coming to film a report on the IPCC reports’ errors, who were astonished when they held one of the heavy volumes in hand, having never even seen it. They told us frankly that they had no way to make their own judgment; they could only report what they were being told about it. And there are well-organized lobby forces with proper PR skills that make sure these journalists are being told the “right” story.
This is the story of two very different cities. One is a city whose past is steeped in historic achievement, and recent failure. The other is a city whose horrific past has gotten desperately worse, but whose future… well, who knows? Though world’s apart, these places embody a common metaphor for an elusive global possibility.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-China’s Growth
-India
-Quote of the Week
-Briefs
