Solutions & sustainability – Oct 29
-Gardener: Urban pioneer Greensgrow Farm leads by example
-Quick and Not So Dirty: No-Sweat Composters
-How High Speed Rail Can Spread Across the U.S.
-“Agriburbia” sprouts on Colorado’s Front Range
Politics
The recession is dead … long live the recession!
The world’s first peak-oil recession has come to a close, according to third-quarter numbers invented by the federal government. Apparently dumping trillions of dollars onto big banks, insurance companies, and automobile manufacturers interrupted the plummeting descent of American Empire. The stock markets skyrocketed expectedly. Predictably, so did the commodities markets.
Afghanistan again – Oct 28
-Push for Afghanistan troop increase continues on deadly day
-Success elusive for U.S. policy in Afghanistan
-Former Marine captain resigns in protest of Afghanistan war
-The great gamble
-A Crash Course in Democracy
Path to a peace economy
I start with a basic truth. A persistent pattern of violence against people, community, and nature is inherent in the institutional structure of our existing economy. You don’t treat a cancer with Band-Aids, and we can’t resolve our current economic crisis with marginal regulatory adjustments. It is time to rethink and restructure.
Midwest farmer speaks on rural crisis, financial collapse
“We need to break up the big banks. We need banks that understand good farming practices, soil stewardship … and look at the long-term picture for the good of the environment and not just short-term profits.”
European gas buyers unwilling to pay for security of supply
Even as we’ve been going through years of hand-wringing about security of supply, and about how Russia was an unreliable gas supplier, it comes out the European gas buyers are themselves increasingly refusing to pay the price that underpins the security of their Russian supplies, and are breaking their contractual obligations towards Gazprom, making Europe, erm, a less reliable customer…
The great biofuels debate – Oct 27
-Biofuel Displacing Food Crops May Have Bigger Carbon Impact Than Thought
-Biofuels rather than electric cars to meet renewables target
-Tanzania Suspends Biofuels Investments
-Who says it’s green to burn woodchips?
-Carbon advantage of biofuels may be overstated
Economic dominoes continue to fall
Passing the world oil peak has had, and doubtless will continue to have, relatively little impact on the long-term price of gasoline. The economic implications of getting through the first half of the Oil Age have been much more significant, a trend that seems likely to continue until the collapse is complete.
Economics – Oct 27
-Wall Street’s Naked Swindle
-Where Will the Jobs Come From?
-New School of Thought Brings Energy to ‘the Dismal Science’
-The greatest theft in American history
-Are You Ready for the Next Crisis?
-Revolutionizing Economic Thought
Deep thought – Oct 27
-Salon interviews the late Adam Smith
-What Jane Jacobs Can Teach Us About the Economy
-Welcome to 2025
-Carolyn Baker reviews Daniel Elgin’s “The Living Universe”
-Bill Moyers: How Can the U.S. Be an Empire and a Democracy at the Same Time?
Copenhagen Is Supposed to Fail. DIY!
Much passionate concern is flying around regarding the United Nations meeting on climate this December in Copenhagen. We hear it from honest activists and from politicians who sound trustworthy on this most crucial matter. An example is Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of Great Britain, who deserves a prize for eloquence in warning us of climate change.
Self-jiving nation
The scene in the White House these days must be a sort of Opera Bouffe, in which an earnest and rather grave young man moves from one roomful of lesser officials to another in which all agree to pretend that they have prevented the nation from falling into something they call “the abyss.” At the end of Act I, a young deputy FDIC commissioner in the Little Mary Sunshine mold gets down on one knee, belts out a show-stopper about the glories of a bright and shining “tomorrow,” and the audience goes out for intermission to discover that the city has been burning down around the theater all night.
