Media & Communications

Waking up, walking away

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Today’s industrial societies preen themselves on their openness to change and the vast number of choices they provide to their inmates — er, citizens. Why is it, then, that all those changes and choices inevitably amount to more of what we’ve already got — which is not exactly working well any more? The Archdruid considers the options, and offers an unwelcome but necessary suggestion.

The shared patterns of indigenous culture, permaculture and digital commons

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If there is a common challenge in creating a commons in diverse contexts – indigenous culture, permaculture, cyberspace – it is about how to build enduring trust. Trust is needed as a prerequisite for mutual commitments, experimentation and innovation beyond those enabled by markets. Trust is needed whether it is an open source software commons or a water commons.

Security by Design

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It is commonly assumed that our national security depends only on our capacity to project military power beyond our borders and has little to do with how we organize the internal business of the country. The nation’s armed strength and its “soft power” are necessary components of security, but they are not—and cannot be—the whole of it. A larger vision of security includes the internal resilience, health, and sustainability of the nation, that is to say its capacity for self-renewal. Real security, in other words, is inseparable from issues of energy policy; education; public health; preservation of soils, forests, and waters; and broadly based, sustainable prosperity.

Energy efficiency lives! Devastating debunking of rebound effect and Breakthrough Institute

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We provide new statistical evidence to show that energy efficiency policies and programs can reliably cut energy use—a finding that is consistent with the policy stance of leading experts and organizations like the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) and the World Bank. Additionally, we take our policy message one step further—by using new insights from the emerging multi-disciplinary literature on “energy efficiency gap,” we recommend that the world needs more energy efficiency policies and programs to cut greenhouse gases—not less as implied by the BTI and its cohorts in the media.

The liberation of civil society through p2p working – Creating Commons in our life

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Freed up creativity enabled by open source technology is the chance to liberate us from the chains of an outdated economic model based on market pricing. Will it enable us to co-create a commons orientated contributory culture? Our challenge is how to make the new prototype which cannot fully socially reproduce itself at present into a full mode of production for a sustainable society.

Currency warts and all

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As the struggle for dominance in the 21st century global marketplace intensifies the battle over which currency that economy will be denominated in is becoming more explicit. Can we see Osborne’s appeals to China to use London as its banker to Europe and the world as the final betrayal of the dollar empire?

Why Jane, you look lovely! Review: AUSTENtatious Crochet

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With so many books on our shelves we have a trove of tips and techniques to draw on far into the future as we re-skill our way forward. And, providing we make the preservation of the Internet a priority, our Web hubs will allow us to exchange information and ideas to help us adapt in place most delightfully.

eCOOLnomics

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“The drivers of climate change are embedded in our global culture. No amount of haggling will address these real problems without deep and dramatic cultural change. That change can be positive, however, and eCOOLnomics explores the potential transition paths and modalities.”

De Gustibus Non Est Disputandum

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Tastes in food are obviously personal, but so are tastes in labor. Just as I’m fascinated by the implicit personal tastes that shape our supposedly objective evaluations of good food, I’m also intrigued by how we feel about certain jobs. Often our perception of what can be done or cannot is based less on objective facts than on our tastes in work….I thought a great deal about tastes of both kinds as I was reading Jennifer Reese’s _Make the Bread, Buy the Butter_ which describes the author’s exercise in making from scratch any number of things, and calculating whether the homemade versions are cheaper and/or better.

Shale gas – Jan 16

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-Cornell Study Links Fracking Wastewater with Mortality in Farm Animals
-U.S. Shale Bubble Inflates After Near-Record Prices for Untested Fields
-Study needed on shale gas effects on health: group
-Ministers slammed over fracking
-Fracking is ‘pretty safe’, says British Geological Survey
-Bulgarians protest, seek moratorium on shale gas