Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
There have been a lot of talks about banks lately in France, both because of the Cypriot debacle and because the minister in charge of the French IRS has been caught red-handed hiding a substantial amount of money in some Swiss bank.
What is the relationship between social justice and resource sustainability? Many authors have tackled this subject from many directions, including Illich (1973), and O’Riordan (1976). In the developed world, freedom includes emancipation from nature, where freedom does not occur until we escape our limits. The spiritual is separate from the material, and energetic limits are not a consideration. Adequate society means that everyone else attains the first world countries’ level of development (Mies and Shiva, 1993).
The collapse of Spain’s property-led economy stands to highlight the intense yet fraught relationship between capital and the built environment in times of economic crisis.
When various transitioners and change makers seek to influence the politics, economy and future course of a small town, they first organize a civic association. There are many kinds, from churches and town beautification committees all the way to activist groups and guerrilla gardener clubs. Alexis de Tocqueville rightly saw such civic underpinnings as something essential, the very foundation of American democracy.
One of the things Ferananda Ibarra and Jeff Clearwater stress in their New Economy workshops is the importance of not framing the terms and concepts of this economy the same way the old Industrial Growth Economy is framed. It’s much like getting sucked into debating conservative or Orwellian terms like “right to life”, “entitlements” or “freedom” (as in “free” trade etc.) in the frames in which proponents of a particular worldview on these subjects argue from. Or trying to explain how to meditate using intellectual language. You’re at a disadvantage before you start.
I thought maybe I coined a new word recently: physophilia, meaning love of growth. It describes the — at times irrational – preoccupation with and addiction to economic growth that possesses politicians and many economists.
The technical-corporate-financial elite which controls our energy supplies has no clue about how to manage those supplies in the unfolding age of energy scarcity. That portends considerable political upheaval as the public becomes more engaged in shaping our energy future.
The hard work of reinventing democracy in a post-imperial America, the subject of several of last month’s posts, is only one facet of this broader challenge. I’ve mentioned before that the pursuit of empire is a drug, and like most other drugs, it makes you feel great at the time and then wallops you the next morning.
Among the various lessons we learned in 2012 there is also whether or not the so-called “mainstream media” really can be trusted to tell the truth about environmental issues. Or can it be trusted to do just the opposite, and in various diverse and difficult to detect ways?
We could postpone healthcare reform a decade, and the cost would be terrible — all the suffering not responded to over those 10 years. But when we returned to it, the problem would be about the same size. With climate change, unless we act fairly soon in response to the timetable set by physics, there’s not much reason to act at all.
Politics can be involuntarily funny. The 2000 presidential election certainly was, seen from this side of the Atlantic, and while the Dominique Strauss Kahn debacle was traumatic, the circumstances of our former president to be’s fall make the whole episode somewhat amusing, at least in retrospect. We just have had another of those Florida 2000 moments, but one which is very indicative of the situation of our political system and of why we shouldn’t count on it to give a meaningful answer to our predicament.
We are in the midst of an amazing energy boom, but by sweeping the idea of peak oil under the rug we are ignoring a significant fact: the relationship between hydrocarbon reserves and flow rates are not the same as they used to be—reserves have increased but flow rates are not as high or sustainable.
