Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has been weakening Canada’s environmental regulations and slashing funds for oversight and research — all while promoting aggressive resource development. Critics warn these unprecedented actions pose a major threat to the nation’s vast natural heritage.
For anyone watching peak oil this has been a busy week. The Harvard report by Leonardo Maugeri, covered in last week’s newsletter, has been seized upon by those waiting for a chance to consign peak oil to the dustbin of history. In Britain, columnist George Monbiot fell for it hook line and sinker, presenting the report as conclusive proof that peak oil is bunk – evidently without a moment’s critical appraisal…read on for exclusive analysis…
Brown rice diets, asceticism and vows of silence and/or poverty have much in common with marathons, martial arts, the Aboriginal walkabout, and boot camp. The common theme is ordeal.
Each time we resolve to “never again” punish ourselves with such sacrifice, pain, fatigue and sweat, we wipe all that resolution away in the instant that we reach our goal, when we have our moment of light and love and ecstatic remembrance that this is what life is all about.
Perhaps the pain and disappointment of Rio+20 and all the other conferences that promised so much and delivered so little are mere ordeal, the prelude to the ultimate awakening.
The proponents of basic income claim that we deserve it because our societies are so rich. The problem is that this richness does not come from nowhere. A part of it is the product of a a failing but still vigorous imperial system which transfers wealth and resources from the south to the north under threat of military force. Another part come from the frenetic overexploitation of non-renewable natural resources, which basically means we have stolen it from our descendants. For what is probably the most favored class in the whole human history, past and future, to claim it deserves to divert still more resources so as to be able to live well without contributing anything is pure unadulterated entitlement.
– A Climate Scientist Battles Time and Mortality
– Green sculptor-farmer in his studio-yurt: Arlo Acton of North San Juan
– “A Face in the Crowd”: Andy Griffith’s rivetting premiere as a folksy sociopath
– Bookchin on Bookchin: An appeal for support (for a documentary)
– Ivan Illich: Writing on the Web
KMO welcomes Mark Robinowitz of OilEmpire.us back to the C-Realm Podcast to discuss why both the mainstream political left as well as the right in the United States cannot address the demands of Peak Oil in a realistic way.
With the announcement of the surprising and remarkable fact that the obese now outnumber the hungry — both forms of malnourishment — we need to be looking deeper into our food system and the industry that has created a world that is stuffed and starved. In his recent books Raj Patel looks at this open secret and the battle between an increasingly aggressive industry and the social movements who are responding to this assault by reclaiming food sovereignty for their communities.
– Kunstler’s new book: ‘Too Much Magic & Wishful Thinking’
– El tercer principio ético de la permacultura
– The Spiritual Crisis of Capitalism: What would the Buddha do? (Marx and the Dalai Lama)
– The Emerging Left in the ‘Emerging’ World (Democracy, nature and a smaller scale)
– Collapse Fatigue: Prevention And Treatment
The global recession has accelerated the transition, revealing the current order’s weaknesses, and showing the people in the emerging nations that they have outgrown it. The major nations continue to defend the current systems, a futile effort wasting time and resources that could be better spent adjusting to the new world now evolving. (Report from a group that includes officers and ex-officers of the U.S. military)
Though cities are responsible for about 70 per cent of global warming emissions, it’s a rare city that owns, regulates or reaps taxes, jobs or other benefits from oil, gas or coal reserves or many of the companies that spin off these resources.
As often as not, high emissions in cities are the result of subsidies and other practices embedded at the national level. Resource and allied companies (pesticide and fertilizer companies, for example) hold sway at the national, not city, level.
This week saw further confirmation that all is not well in the shale gas industry as ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson admitted “We are all losing our shirts today.”…”We’re making no money. It’s all in the red.” The news comes as little surprise since the price of production is estimated to be around $4-7/per million BTUs and prices have been languishing around $2…
Since the end of 2011, when police shut down most encampments, the Occupy movement’s future has been uncertain. Without the long-term occupations that gave the movement its name, where would participants meet and make their presence felt? Would the movement be able to sustain itself without these rallying points? Would it release policy demands or try to bring down a big bank?
