Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The power of the Transition to Unsustainability relies on the threat of physical force backed up by the story that there is no alternative: that there is no way of belonging. Here in Scotland (as I am sure elsewhere) that story has been given the lie over the last 15 years as communities on the west coast have taken back their land into community ownership.
The language in Journey of the Universe is something that is deeply dependent on scientific discoveries. It’s not using any kind of overt religious language. But it is suggesting, what are the grounds for environmental concern and ethics and action? We are not naming it from any particular perspective — it’s an evocation more than a preachment.
From their zero-mile bistro to zoning and financing innovations, O.U.R. Ecovillage in BC, Canada has paved the way for many communities worldwide. For Brandy Gallagher, the story on the planet right now could be a shared ethos of caring: “Everyone is fed. Everyone is taken care of.” Asserting that “No is just an uneducated Yes,” Brandy shows how a village mindset can transform individuals, preserve land, reduce resource use, apply permaculture principles, change laws, and even the way money works.
Occupy events in big cities like New York, Oakland, and Los Angeles receive considerable coverage in the corporate media, especially when police react. Yet in small towns and mid-size cities throughout America, peaceful occupations occur that engage people in conversations and education in public spaces and beyond.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-Europe in the breach
-China slipping
-Notes from the World Petroleum Congres
-Quote of the week
-The Briefs
-E.P.A. Links Tainted Water in Wyoming to Hydraulic Fracturing for Natural Gas
-Shale gas drilling’s dirty secret is out
-Encana throws cold water on EPA report
-Ex-oil worker blasts shale gas industry
-No U.S.-style shale gas boom in EU: E&Y
-Petrochina says new shale gas find tough to develop
While the Bakken boom offers a hopeful story in which American ingenuity and nature’s endless bounty emancipate us from energy oppression and dependence on evil and oppressive foreign dictators, musings of energy independence are premature, misguided and misleading. The problem with the Bakken story as told by Crooks and others is that it lacks historical context. Referring to recent developments as an energy revolution implies that there are no lessons to be learned from history. But as Mark Twain put it, “history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.”
“The good news is we avoided a train wreck,” said Alden Meyer for Union of Concerned Scientists, who only a day earlier had been forecasting a likely failure. “The bad news is that we did very little here to affect the emissions curve.”
Vampires were quick to point out that climate legislation would be good for humans. “Of course we care about the environment,” said eight-hundred year old vampire Neills Carson. “But mainly, we care about humans – they’re our primary food source. And if you guys are all crowded up around Siberia and Canada, fighting for space and getting drowned in tsunamis and dying of malaria and famines in fifty years or so, well, let’s just say that things are going to get ugly. I sure as hell don’t want to live through another century of the Black Death – do you?”
– Putin and Medvedev try to calm Russian election outcry (50,000 protestors in Moscow; 50+ cities affected)
– Quiet after the storm – official silence after Russia protests (video)
– Russia’s Great December Evolution
– Putin’s Big Mistake?
– Occupy protesters blocking gates at West Coast ports, halt operations at some
– Launching a New Online Library that Can’t Be Destroyed
– (Re)learning the Value of Place and Occupying a Sustainable Future
– The Fracturing of Occupy Wall Street
Our collective efforts forced the US to back down from locking in the “worst idea ever”: delaying agreement on a new climate treaty until 2020. The roadmap agreed to in Durban calls for a climate agreement to be reached by 2015, with full implementation five years later. It’s better than “the worst” possible outcome, but it’s still a cowardly, unacceptable delay on global climate action — and a recipe for climate disasters.
