Media & Communications

Leaving the casino

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I work with the assumption that waking up to Peak Oil and preparing for Transition is just a special case of awakening in general, and that this awakening requires really looking at the symbols we’ve created and how we relate to them. Casinos provide an illuminating glimpse into the challenges of waking up within entrenched and often tyrannical systems of signs.

A culture of dependency

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Energy systems do not exist in a social vacuum but are subject to culture and imagination. Anyone interested in promoting an energy transition away from oil and fossil fuels more generally needs to take this fact into account. Unfortunately, energy culture has often been overlooked as an explanation of U.S. energy development.

Nuclear energy: man’s low-carbon best friend or planet-polluting worst enemy? – July 4

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-Has the green movement lost its way?
-Radioactive Cesium Is Found in Tokyo Tap Water for First Time Since April
-Revealed: British government’s plan to play down Fukushima
-Don’t believe the spin on thorium being a ‘greener’ nuclear option
-Response: don’t dismiss the potential of thorium nuclear power
-French nuclear power plant explosion heightens safety fears

ODAC Newsletter – July 1

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The fallout from the IEA’s recent decision to release 60 million barrels of oil reserves continued this week. OPEC members criticized the IEA for “breaching its own principles” and interfering with the market. Traders too seemed little impressed with the move as prices recovered last week’s losses, as Greece drew back from the brink. After all, 60 million barrels is less than a day’s global consumption.

U.S. nuclear scares, Fukushima update, and De-growth

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In this episode we talk about three nuclear facilities in the United States hovering on the brink of catastrophe in the last month of June 2011 – due to climate change. We also bring you an update on the Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan and we also hear from two panelists from a recent “de-growth” conference in Vancouver, Conrad Schmidt and Bill Rees.

How not to play the game

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A very large fraction of the alternative energy projects being proposed these days are large, expensive, and designed to perpetuate the specific technological and economic forms of the present. A very large fraction of the equivalent projects envisioned and tested during the energy crisis of the Seventies, by contrast, were small, cheap, and presupposed a significantly different way of dealing with concepts of energy, technology and wealth. The former may be more popular just now but the latter have much more to offer in the future into which our present actions are backing us.

Reducing food waste: Making the most of our abundance

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According to staggering new statistics from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), roughly one-third of the food produced worldwide for human consumption is lost or wasted, amounting to some 1.3 billion tons per year. In the developing world, over 40 percent of food losses occur after harvest—while being stored or transported, and during processing and packing. In industrialized countries, more than 40 percent of losses occur as a result of retailers and consumers discarding unwanted but often perfectly edible food.

Intellectual consumerism

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Within a society where physical consumerism has been the norm, consuming events — we might call it intellectual consumerism — is a real issue.  I see it a lot in my native Los Angeles, particularly within the old-style environmental circles. People show up for a meeting or a movie or a political rally, but it doesn’t scratch the surface. There’s no lifestyle change, or there’s negligible lifestyle change to go with it. They show up for the meetings but then go home to same-old, same-old. It’s revealed by their small talk, by the THINGS they admire and coo over. There are some people who are massive consumers of environmental events.