Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
I want to speak to those who feel…either confounded or bludgeoned and “powerless” facing the intransigence of modern civilization to recognize overshoot and the limits to growth. I speak also to those who have a seemingly contrary reaction: flickers of intrepidness and hope despite recognition of enormous obstacles and dilemmas…
In his newest book, Full Planet, Empty Plates, Lester Brown writes…"The U.S. Great Drought of 2012 has raised corn prices to the highest level in history. The world price of food, which has already doubled over the last decade, is slated to climb higher, ushering in a new wave of food unrest…."
Resilience – ‘the capacity to bounce back’ … is a desirable condition. The trouble is that a lot of people perceive resilience…to be a new variety of risk management that gives them the opportunity to carry on with business-as-usual.
These days, people are maxed out on every level trying to get through life as everything gets more tedious, expensive, and uncertain. The onslaught of “glittering generalities” and opinionated political rhetoric coming from popular media and paid advertising on “both” sides is enough to make many shut off and tune out – their philosophical bandwidth running at full capacity until it is choked off entirely.
In this essay, which will appear in five installments, I hope to explore some of the social implications of simplification and decentralization. Will wars and revolutions break out with ever-greater frequency?…Or will local food networks and Occupy groups positively transform society from the ground up?
Enjoy this satirical look at the politics of energy by PCI Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg…At a hastily organized news conference, president Obama this morning called for a new national effort to restore America’s greatness by combating “entropy.”
Science is a phenomenal institution. Sometimes I can’t believe we created this construct that works so incredibly well…Yet science seeks truth, and sometimes the truth is not what we want to hear.
Growthbusters is the inspiring story of Dave Gardner’s efforts to challenge conservative Colorado Springs’ failed growth promotion policies. The film begins by focusing on the insanity of local councils cutting essential public services to “jump start” growth. However it also takes a broader theoretical look at the overall failure of economic growth to solve the global economic crisis. More importantly it tackles head-on the deeper and more serious issue of population control – and the conspiracy of silence on the part of institutional environmental groups (such as Sierra Club) on the issue.
Post Carbon Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg took his challenging and compelling messages on resilience, sustainability and a healthy future to Auckland, New Zealand. He asked and answered some of the most challenging questions we face today.
In early October, the eco-village, Änggärdet, Sweden, hosted two days of Live Action Role-Play (LARP) along the theme of life 2016-2027, post peak oil and post economic collapse. Players got the opportunity to explore what various scenarios would be like, including being commaned into a work detail bu the military to harvest the last remaining potatoes by hand, and by joining a self-organised, worked-by-hand co-housing combi-farm.
Unsung Films watched Mike Freedman’s Critical Mass this year when it screened at the Biografilm Festival in Bologna, Italy. On approaching the filmmaker with a short review of his documentary, we ended up with a great deal more: a 3000-word interview taking readers deep into the story of how Freedman’s film came together, how it affected him – both personally and professionally — and what we should expect in the years to come.
Whether you buy into Revolution’s watered-down examination of social contract theory, the show’s premise reinforces Post Carbon Institute’s position that it is absolutely necessary that we plan our energy future. We must work hard to transition as smoothly as possible to largely fossil fuel free communities. If we’re caught off guard (too late?), chaos is quite likely.
