Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
-Dickson Despommier on the Rise of the Vertical Farm (Podcast)
-We’re all paying for Europe’s gift to our aristocrats and utility companies
-Reinventing the Farm with Cheryl Rogowski, (podcast)
-Scarcity and degradation of land and water: growing threat to food security (FAO report)
– CO2 sensitivity possibly less than most extreme projections
– Ice age analysis suggests global warming may be less severe than predicted
– Chris Huhne: a new global climate change treaty is not a luxury
– At Durban, the Big Emitters Will No Doubt Fail Us Again on Climate Change
– Rules of Engagement for Non-Profits and Unions Working with the #Occupy Movement
– Stan Goff: A Million Gardens (for the 99% of the 99%)
– Naomi Wolf: The shocking truth about the crackdown on Occupy
It’s another edition of Monday Mayhem, where talk radio hosts Rob Roper and Carl Etnier are guests on each others’ shows. Roper hosts Common Sense Radio on WDEV, Waterbury, Vermont, and the show’s focus is “improving the economic well being (sic) of Vermonters through reliance on free markets, limited government, and fiscal responsibility.” Etnier hosts the Monday edition of Equal Time Radio, focusing on energy, food, and the local economy at the end of the age of oil. The theme this Monday Mayhem is Occupy Wall Street.
The last two months of posts here on The Archdruid Report have focused on the murky interactions between the crisis of the industrial world and the deep structures of our minds — and the ways in which those deep structures have been manipulated by marketers and advertisers at the bidding of competing political and economic interests. Abstract as though these issues may seem at times, they link up directly to the most practical issues we face at the end of the age of cheap energy — and the link between them has very often been the missing piece in proposals for dealing with the challenges of the future.
The Occupy movement, unlike the peak oil/climate/Transition movement (?) is a bottom-up not a top-down approach. That appeals to the younger people and many of the older ones as well. What they are doing is not coming in the form of ‘delivered wisdom’ from the ‘experts in the field’ with their laundry list of what we ‘must’ do.
When civil society sleeps, we’re just a bunch of individuals absorbed in our private lives. When we awaken, on campgrounds or elsewhere, when we come together in public and find our power, the authorities are terrified.
After my talk in Norwich last week, I met a local authority emergency planner, who said that he had found the talk, and the Transition take on resilience, very illuminating. He pointed me in the direction of the latest “Strategic National Framework on Community Resilience”, the latest “national statement for how individual and community resilience can work”, published by the Cabinet Office in March of this year. It is a fascinating document, and is indeed the first official government document on community resilience that refers explicitly to the Transition movement, and as such deserves a post reflecting on it. It also offers a tantalising glimpse into what a government response to peak oil, climate change and economic contraction might look like if anyone had the imagination to create one.
Decentralization of the Occupy movement is as important as the decentralization of any other piece of our infrastructure. If the #OWS crowd popped up in small groups around NYC, they would be easier to raid individually, but not much worth it. If one goes down, there are sites still available to regroup and relocate. … Good communications could combine dispersed occupiers for various marches and individual protest demonstrations. Seriously, we need to be in little, flexible, creative bunches everywhere, not in one giant lump.
– New Yorker: The origins and future of Occupy Wall Street
– John Robb: The HIDDEN logic of the Occupy Movement
– Juan Cole: How Students Landed on the Front Lines of Class War
– Bloomberg, Kelly Finally Piss Off The Media
– Biggest Week Yet for Occupy Wall Street Coverage
– The Importance of Creative Protest
– Mike Davis: Ten Immodest Commandments
– The Revolution Is Love – video by Charles Eisenstein (author of “Sacred Economics”)
– Jan Lundberg: How bad or hopeful is our situation as a culture and species?
– Economists Say Europe Facing ‘Lost Decade’
– Eurozone Crisis Q&A
– Why Iceland Should Be in the News, But Is Not
– Resources for Understanding the Crisis in Greece
