Media & Communications

Web & Media – Jan 18

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‘Eco’ packaging
-Google defies Chinese censors after cyberattacks on Gmail accounts of activists
-Public Produce: Filling the Sidewalks with Fruit Trees
-As the World Burns
-Movie Review Friday: The Road
-A New Eden, Both Cosmic and Cinematic
-Photo Gallery: Homes for a Changing Climate

The Oceans are Coming Part III – Staying Afloat

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Had Noah built his ark and the Great Flood never materialized, he would have felt very, very silly indeed! Noah could thank God for such an accurate weather forecast. In the biblical story, once the waters receded, God told Noah that there won’t be any more Great Floods, and some of us may still find comfort in this bit of divine dispensation, but rising ocean levels are a fact that more and more of us will be forced to take into account as we redraw our coastal maps.

A Freddy and Fredericka Future

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In one of my favorite non-science fiction novels, “Freddy and Fredericka“, the future King and Queen of England are dropped naked from an airplane into America as sort of a rite of passage. Though heir to the throne and infinitely wealthy back home, Freddy must use only his wits, skills of persuasion and physical abilities to somehow rise to the unlikely position of the leader of the USA – if he manages this, basically from scratch, he will then have earned the throne of England not only due to hereditary decree but via his own merits.

Food, agriculture, and a new economy? – Jan 18

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-Emissions from UK food industry far higher than believed
-Poachers Arrive at Egg Farms
-Striking a bargain: With supply limited, state targets water demand
-Will Anyone Stand Up For American Industry?
-The Key to Local Food Systems’ Survival: Strong Community Support

The problem of community

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John Michael Greer has a superb piece up about our reluctance to seriously consider real community and organizational strategies. I think it is well worth reading for anyone interested in this question of community – because we have to ask ourselves, if this is the tool we’ve got, why do so few of us want to do the work? Why are so few of us able to do the work?

2010 State of the World – Transforming Cultures: From Consumerism to Sustainability (excerpt)

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…Now I know that cultural assumptions, even well-established ones, can be overturned, which is why I am excited about State of the World 2010. It calls for one of the greatest cultural shifts imaginable: from cultures of consumerism to cultures of sustainability…It advocates rethinking the foundations of modern consumerism—the practices and values regarded as “natural,” which paradoxically undermine nature and jeopardize human prosperity.

Climate & environment – Jan 14

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-The year climate science caught up with what climate scientists have been saying privately for years
-Where on earth is it unusually warm?
-Britain’s cold snap does not prove climate science wrong
-Coral Can Recover from Climate Change Damage, New Research Suggests
-The resurgence of El Niño means that 2010 could yet be the hottest year on record
-The sinking Sundarbans
-Major Antarctic glacier is ‘past its tipping point’