Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Saudi Arabia recently announced that it had halted a $100 billion oil production expansion plan to raise capacity to 15 million barrels a day by 2020. At this point, the country claims to have capacity of 12 million barrels a day. What does this mean for its future? Let’s take a look behind the figures.
For money, he does restaurant work, but his passion is photography. He travels by mass transit to Occupy events in the San Francisco Bay Area, documenting them with gorgeous art photos.
The most important piece of news yesterday, this week, this month, and this year was a new set of statistics released yesterday by the Global Carbon Project. It showed that carbon emissions from our planet had increased 5.9 percent between 2009 and 2010. In fact, it was arguably among the most important pieces of data in the last, oh, three centuries, since according to the New York Times it represented “almost certainly the largest absolute jump in any year since the Industrial Revolution.”
Monstrous as the consumer economy has become, consumer spending is not the biggest environmental problem. Most waste and pollution is caused by industrial, military and commercial processes, over which consumers have no control.
The first round of the social justice movements took multiple forms across the world – the so-called Arab Spring, the Occupy movements beginning in the United States and then spreading to a large number of countries, Oxi in Greece and the indignados in Spain, the student protests in Chile, and many others.
The degree of success may be measured by an extraordinary article by Lawrence Summers – remarkable, considering that he has been personally one of the architects of the world economic policy in the last twenty years that has put us all in the dire crisis in which the world finds itself.
European leaders are preparing to unveil their plans for addressing the sovereign debt crisis that’s threatened to tear apart the eurozone. Both France and Germany are expected to push for changes to the eurozone treaty, including centralized oversight of national budgets and tighter reins on debt. In a speech on Thursday, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said radical changes are needed in order to save the euro. Sarkozy’s address came after central banks, including the U.S. Federal Reserve and European Central Bank, took coordinated action to prevent a credit crunch among European banks. For more on the developing crisis in Europe and its implications worldwide, we are joined by economist and professor Richard Wolff.
– The Atlantic: A Conversation With Rob Hopkins, Transition Movement Founder
– Mark Bittman: Making Local Food Real
– Crowdshare and other events: How to share
– U.N. Envoy: U.S. Isn’t Protecting Occupy Protesters’ Rights
– Occupy’s new grammar of political disobedience
– Hard Times at Occupy Boston
– Thousands rally in Durban for climate action (BBC video)
– Dateline: Tahrir Square
– Letter from Cairo: the liberals, the Brothers, and the poor (some lessons for Occupy)
Now that the current phase of the Occupation movement—one that involved camping out in public places—is drawing to a close, thoughts turn to other, even more effective venues and exploits. Occupying the front lawns of mansions owned by the 1% would certainly send a message, although a very brief one, since trespassing happens to be illegal.
And then it hit me: Occupy flotillas floating up to crash swank exclusive seaside gatherings.
– Powering the Future: A Nobel-Prize Winner Takes a Look Deep into the Energy Future
– Global warming, population growth, and food supplies: When will Americans finally “get it”?
– Feminism, Finance and the Future of #Occupy – An interview with Silvia Federici
– The Tailor of Ulm – a look at the Italian Communist Party
– Bill Clinton joins Obama to champion Washington energy saving strategy
– Obama’s Push for Better Mileage: This Is a Big Deal (Thomas Friedman)
– Report highlights Obama’s broken environmental promises
– Hans Noeldner: Spending the Middle Class out of existence
– Rotating blackouts possible in Texas this winter
