Media & Communications

ODAC Newsletter – Sept 18

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This week saw further oil discoveries in the Santos Basin and off the coast of Ghana, extending a run of sizeable finds in recent weeks. Following much breathless reporting of such discoveries, it was good to them put into context by solid analysis from Morgan Stanley and Bank Macquarie…

Food & agriculture – Sept 17

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-Japan’s recession brings growing interest in fruit and vegetables
-Thoughts on the legacy of Norman Borlaug
-The Ultimate in Eating Local: My Adventures in Urban Foraging
-The Big Question: Should landowners be forced to give up space for allotments?
-Gardens launch own organic meat
-Feeding the future: Saving agricultural biodiversity
-Davenport man: Good time to plant food in public spaces
-USDA to unveil “Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food” initiative
-Feeding the world: which countries are most at risk?

Solutions & sustainability – Sept 17

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-What we need to form Florida’s green economy
-Britain’s first housing co-op leads the way in sustainable living
-No Impact Man and the Pursuit of Happiness
-Enabling Inward Community Investment: insights from the DTA conference
-Squatters’ rights
-One Man’s Trash …
-Real people, real preparation, Part 5, Carolyn Baker Interviews Robin Rucker
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Daydreams of Destruction

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The troubled future of industrial society has become tangled up in our collective imagination with a dizzying array of hopes and fears. Will the end of our age bring more meaningful and fulfilling lives to the survivors, as some people insist nowadays, or have daydreams of destruction become an inkblot onto which too many people project fantasies of redemption?

Time To Decide What Matters

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How important do you think humans are? For millennia we have been taught that human beings have a vital almost divine role in the Great Chain of Being, and to look around the cities where most of us now live you could indeed be forgiven for thinking that we are ecologically dominant, if not vital to the functioning of life on Earth: I think it’s about time this was put into some kind of perspective.

The Thermodynamics of Local Foods

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I am going to make an argument I don’t see much. Reading the pros and cons on this subject is a bit like watching a pea roll around on a plate. My goal is to stick a fork in that pea and focus on something very fundamental. The point I will make is that one can say with high confidence bordering on certainty that only a predominantly local food system will ever be sustainable.

Climate & environment – Sept 16

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-The Royal Society’s Report on Geoengineering the Climate: Geoengineering or Geopiracy?
-Forget about 2050, we’re blowing the carbon budget now
-Red Snow Warning
-Scientists find CO2 link to Antarctic ice cap origin
-A triumph for man, a disaster for mankind
-Climate change will damage your health
-New York City Girds Itself for Heat and Rising Seas
-Staff in carbon footprint trial face £100 fines for high emissions