New deal – Dec 17
Richard Heinberg on the Green New Deal
The Crisis: An Opportunity to Save the Planet
The newer deal for a newer world
Politics
Peak oil review – Dec 15
A weekly review including:
– Prices and production
– The December 17th OPEC meeting
– Obama’s energy team
– Automobiles
– Briefs
A green scorecard for stimulating the economy
In evaluating an economic recovery package, the new U.S. administration and Congress must weigh any proposed spending – on highways or mass transit or wind-power transmission routes – on the basis of clear criteria that would assess just how green the projects will be.
On looking ahead – Dec 15
Sharon Astyk’s 2009 Predictions
Kunstler: Change You Won’t Believe
Tom Friedman discusses foreign policy, green, and other ‘stachey matters
United Kingdom & Europe – Dec 15
Greece: How police shooting of a teenage boy rallied the ‘€700 generation’
If we’re going to spend, then let’s invest in Britain’s future
This won’t deliver without a global deal
Solutions & sustainability – Dec 15
Ecotopia: The Novel That Predicted Portland
A Yankee Model for Sustainability
Green gifts are made locally to last
Bright Neighbor uses online barter system to build community
Peak oil warfare: community security strategy
When talking of security, we must first understand that security does not necessarily equate to military solutions. Community (or National) security includes many different aspects, the most significant of which are economics, diplomacy, information, and military power.
Deep thought – Dec 14
Hubbert: king of the Technocrats
Astyk: Why Failure is normal, and should be part of the plan…but isn’t
A distant mirror: Ireland’s great famine
New Scientist: Top 10 environment articles in 2008
ODAC Newsletter – Dec 12
A weekly round-up from a UK perspective
United States – Dec 12
Energy secretary pick argues for new fuel sources
A Past President’s Advice to Obama: Act With Haste
Obama starts filling energy team
Hurdles, opportunities for ‘green’ stimulus
Browner to get the nod as Obama’s top energy and climate adviser
Christine Todd Whitman talks about greening the GOP and running the EPA
Dissensus and organic process
Following on last week’s discussion of the lessons of evolution, the Archdruid explores the need for organic processes in preparing for the end of the industrial age, and the value of dissensus — the deliberate avoidance of consensus as a way to broaden options and foster creativity.
Guerilla Gardening: Eating The Suburbs
The Age recently had an article on the emerging practice of “guerilla gardening”, taking a look at the “Gardening guerillas in our midst”. This concept seems to have steadily increased in popularity in recent years (admittedly from a very low base) as the permaculture movement’s ideas have been propagated through the community.
Unlike the usual approach taken when trying to grow food in the suburbs – converting spare land on your own property (as discussed by aeldric previously and, more recently, in Jeff Vail’s series on A Resilient Suburbia) – guerilla gardening involves cultivating any spare patch of urban land that isn’t being used for another purpose, which could provide a substantial addition to the food growing potential of suburbia.
