Media & Communications

Arctic Opening: Opportunity and Risk in the High North (report)

by

Lloyd’s of London, the world’s biggest insurance market, has become the first major business organisation to raise its voice about huge potential environmental damage from oil drilling in the Arctic.

The City institution estimates that $100bn (£63bn) of new investment is heading for the far north over the next decade, but believes cleaning up any oil spill in the Arctic, particularly in ice-covered areas, would present “multiple obstacles, which together constitute a unique and hard-to-manage risk”.

Ask the fellows who grow the beans

by

“Leaves are easy,” Josiah tells me. “It’s the staples we need to look at.” I’m putting together a story on the Urban Food Landscape for the upcoming Transition Free Press. There are all manner of innovative veg growing enterprises in the cities: inner city and peri-urban farms (including Norwich FarmShare which he has helped set up), Abundance projects, collectives like Growing Communities in Hackney, Transition allotments and school gardens. We’re growing chard and lettuce in cracks and crevices, burying potatoes in barrrels, filling salvaged basins and gutters with seedlings in our back yards. But what about the big stuff? Our daily bread.

Getting the market to tell the truth

by

Moving the global economy off its current decline-and-collapse path depends on reaching four goals: stabilizing climate, stabilizing population, eradicating poverty, and restoring the economy’s natural support systems. These goals–comprising what the Earth Policy Institute calls “Plan B” to save civilization–are mutually dependent. All are essential to feeding the world’s people. It is unlikely that we can reach any one goal without reaching the others.

Natural gas is a bridge to nowhere

by

A new journal article finds that methane leakage greatly undercuts or eliminates entirely the climate benefit of a switch to natural gas. The authors of “Greater Focus Needed on Methane Leakage from Natural Gas Infrastructure” conclude that “it appears that current leakage rates are higher than previously thought” and “Reductions in CH4 Leakage Are Needed to Maximize the Climate Benefits of Natural Gas.”

Capital, debt, and alchemy

by

The ancient alchemists wanted to transmute corrosion-prone base metals into permanent, non-corruptible, time-resistant gold. Modern economic alchemists want to convert spoiling, rusting, and depleting wealth into a magic substance better than gold — not only does it resist corrosion, but it grows — by some mysterious principle the alchemists referred to as the “vegetative property of metals.” The modern alchemical philosopher’s stone, known as “capital” or “debt,” is not only free from the ravages of time and entropy, but embodies the alchemists’ long-sought-for principle of vegetative growth of metals. But once we replace alchemy with chemistry we find that the idea that future people can live off the interest of their mutual indebtedness is just another perpetual motion delusion.

Creating community: Lessons from Occupy

by

Whether Occupy is able to deal effectively with the substantial external threats and internal obstacles is yet to be determined. It will depend partly on the capacity for self-reflection and compassionate listening, as well as the success of channeling anger and frustration into powerful, constructive action.

Many specific suggestions have come from psychologists and activists, such as those at the OccuPsy meeting last month in Oakland.

A time of gifts

by

We are a market people. In a world where all things are a commodity – air, water, food, animals, the seeds we plant in the ground, the minerals under the ground, the genetic make up of our bodies – money is our god. Everything we do we do in the name of profit. We emulate the rich, we despise the poor. All things on earth are property. This bird, this child, this lake, this mountain has value only insofar it can bring us financial reward. Every day we bow down to Mammon.

Does the U.S. really have more oil than Saudi Arabia?

by

People are often confused about the overall extent of U.S. oil reserves. Some claim that the U.S. has hundreds of billions or even trillions of barrels of oil waiting to be produced if bureaucrats will simply stop blocking development. In fact, in a recent debate between Republican candidates contending for Gabrielle Giffords’ recently vacated House seat, one candidate declared “We have more oil in this country than in Saudi Arabia.” So, I thought it might be a good idea to elaborate a bit on U.S. oil resources.

Review of Lt. Col. Eggen’s thesis, Impact of the Peaking of World Oil Production on the Global Balance of Power

by

The U.S. war colleges continue to generate insightful analyses of the potential effects of Peak Oil. Recently the U.S. Army Combined and General Staff College (USACGSC) released an excellent study by Lt. Col. GS Pascal Eggen, Swiss Armed Forces.