Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Every year in Washington DC, the annual Environmental Film Festival screens thought-provoking films. And at this year’s festival in March 2012, one of the world premieres was the film”Switch.” Switch follows Dr. Scott Tinker on a spectacular journey to explore the world of energy in a sweeping period of transition.
Oil prices fell dramatically this week to $107/barrel for Brent, on worsening economic news from China and Europe, and assurances from Saudi Arabia that it is ready to pump more oil to keep prices down. The speed of the fall on Monday however is something of a mystery and has led to an investigation by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission and the FSA.
The ritual performance of the legend of democracy in the autumn of 2012 promises the conspicuous consumption of $5.8 billion, enough money, thank God, to prove that our flag is still there. Forbidden the use of words apt to depress a Q Score or disturb a Gallup poll, the candidates stand as product placements meant to be seen instead of heard, their quality to be inferred from the cost of their manufacture.
-Fracking: Boom or Doom
-Deepening Doubts About Fracked Shale Gas Wells’ Long Term Prospects
-Gazprom Rethinks Shale as European Gas Prices Sink
-Britain’s bosses back shale gas to cut imports
-Fracking banned by Quebec government
“There have been few more passionate debates in resource economics than around peak oil, whether it has or hasn’t happened and indeed whether peak oil is about resources left or production levels.”
It’s fifteen years after the Great Blackout. The United States, at the very least, is entirely free of electricity for reasons as yet unknown (but it sure smells like, get this, a conspiracy!) Humans have left the cities for the countryside to live in communal villages or prey on one another. The good guys sport henleys and hoes. The bad ones also wear henleys, but they ride horses and carry swords…
Transition folks from around the world gathered last weekend at Battersea Arts Centre for the 6th annual Transition Network conference. In a week when the Arctic ice reached its smallest ever extent, scientists warned that the world’s weather could be on the verge of running amok and it was suggested that Saudi Arabia, always meant to be the ‘swing producer’ on whom the rest of the world could depend for reliable oil supplies, may become a net importer of oil by 2030, the theme of the conference was, appropriately, ‘Building resilience in extraordinary times’.
This apparent disconnect between the symptoms of a failed state and the remedies suggested by what is seen to constitute its healthy counterpart makes it difficult to imagine a way out of failed-statehood. We contend that it is necessary to rethink what a failed state is, to understand, at a rather more practical, grassroots level, the drivers of failed or successful societies.
Transition folks from around the world gathered last weekend at Battersea Arts Centre for the 6th annual Transition Network conference. In a week when the Arctic ice reached its smallest ever extent, scientists warned that the world’s weather could be on the verge of running amok and it was suggested that Saudi Arabia, always meant to be the ‘swing producer’ on whom the rest of the world could depend for reliable oil supplies, may become a net importer of oil by 2030, the theme of the conference was, appropriately, ‘Building resilience in extraordinary times’.
For the past two years gardening has been my great obsession. I’ve planted fruit trees, vegetables, and flowers, with great hopes for how beautiful and nourishing they’ll be both now and in the years to come. I’ve even taken on beekeeping and have one beehive near my back porch. The only things missing are chickens.
Can we begin to reconceptualize how we interact with Nature and afford it the legal protections that are now available only to people? Along with Bolivia and Ecuador, New Zealand appears to be in the vanguard of this fascinating, welcome trend.
Occupy is now a year old. A year is an almost ridiculous measure of time for much of what matters: at one year old, Georgia O’Keeffe was not a great painter, and Bessie Smith wasn’t much of a singer. One year into the Civil Rights Movement, the Montgomery Bus Boycott was still in progress, catalyzed by the unknown secretary of the local NAACP chapter and a preacher from Atlanta — by, that is, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. Occupy, our bouncing baby, was born with such struggle and joy a year ago, and here we are, 12 long months later.
