Media & Communications

Star Trek and the future of science fiction

by

I don’t know what kind of future movies, television and YouTube have, as improving technology runs up against decreasing energy and economy. I don’t expect them to vanish in the next few decades, though, although they might be available to fewer people. Science fiction fills the top-grossing movie lists and whole sections of the bookstore, and probably won’t go away as a genre either. But what would it look like? If it predicts a future of small farms and small towns — like, say, Mayberry – is it science fiction anymore?

How To Boil A Frog (film review)

by

A lively film promoting activism via video that is in itself a sophisticated example of the medium. With a personal narrative from author/activist Jon Cooksey, this is a rapid fire account of five problems that are bringing the human race to the brink of disaster due to ecological deterioration of the planet.

 

The freedom lobby

by

If you want the freedom to be thirsty or to be hungry or to be hopelessly flooded out of your home near the ocean, you can join the freedom lobby and enjoy a few more years or perhaps even a decade or two of huffing and puffing at the imaginary enemies of freedom before the real basis of your freedom, an intact and functioning nation and community, starts to degrade inexorably.

Halve it!

by

If you are new to trying to lower your impact, or just trying to save money and energy, it can be helpful to think in terms not of giving things up, but of halving them – using a combination of techniques to stretch things out a bit, and let you use or need only half as much. Because everything you halve, means half as much pollution, half as much waste, half as much money.