Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
One of China’s leaders’ biggest fears, expressed repeatedly in public pronouncements, is that the nation will grow old before it grows rich (Japan, in contrast, got rich before it grew old).
Perhaps the route to real change, long-lasting and deep change, isn’t through deepening polarity, but through a re-weaving of what has been torn apart, a seeking of common ground, an appeal to universal values, creating a safe space where people can sit together and not feel judged, and through the creation of viable, nurturing and life-affirming alternatives that have a strong and broad sense of ownership.
There was a step forward this week for recognition of peak oil in the UK political agenda. Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has agreed that the Department for Energy and Climate Change and ITPOES (UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security) should work more closely together on peak-oil threat assessment and contingency planning.
For a long time we have been able to be the audience to history, to live our lives theoretically. We can watch everything on our screens, at arm’s length. But now history is coming into our streets and into our lives and we need to know how to act, or support those who act on our behalf. If we cheer for those bold protesters in Tahrir Square, in Wisconsin, for the thousands of campaign groups that Paul Hawken wrote about in Blessed Unrest, we need also to cheer for those who occupy Fortnum and Masons and the Royal Bank of Scotland, who protest against the corporations who threaten those fragile eco-systems on which we depend.
At many of the screenings of the movie, I’ve been asked “what to do” about the farm bill. Well, it is complicated, and many issues and opportunities to act will be coming up this year as we get closer to voting time (in 2012), but here’s something that’s already happening.
– British Government Faces Up To Peak Oil
– Fukushima nuclear plant is leaking like a sieve
– U.S. Suit Sees Manipulation of Oil Trades
– China’s Utilities Cut Energy Production, Defying Beijing
– WikiLeaks Documents Hint of Slick Plans for Arctic Oil
– Danish warship sails into Greenpeace Arctic oil protest
Spain’s people’s movement has finally awoken, la Puerta del Sol in Madrid is now the country’s Tahrir Square, and the ‘Arab Spring’ has been joined by what is now bracing to become a long ‘European Summer’.
We want a world as it should be: a world where people quit fouling their own nest, where money isn’t the only object, a world where people consider the planet we are leaving to our children.
The energy descent from peak oil production imposes decades of contraction in the global economy. An orderly contraction, particularly in the US, is not likely for a number of reasons. The decline of the oil civilization is a phenomenon and spectacle of such complexity that understanding it requires a systems perspective. This summary of the case for a disorderly contraction and its core drivers demonstrates the capacity of systems tools to show the interlocking feedback structure that shapes how this momentous change plays out over time.
The equivalent of the GMO industry’s panzer corps is moving into our farm fields and from there into our kitchens. We may soon regret this creeping annexation of our dinner tables. Once the invasion of GMO genes around the world is complete, we may find it harder to roll back than Hitler’s armies.
– Spaniards To Continue Mass Action for at Least a Week
– Tens of thousands defy Spain’s pre-election protest ban
– Spain eyewitness: The people demand to be heard
– Nick Griffin and the fall of the BNP
– Money Troubles Take Personal Toll in Greece
– Athens Plunges Deeper Into Crisis (ethnic strife)
– Danish and German Policies suggest work-sharing or subsidized leave policies might help ease the pain of U.S. recovery
The story of the presidential campaign of former U.S. Representative John B. Anderson is so at odds with anything we see going on in politics today that it almost seems like it happened in a whole other country if not to say on a completely different planet.
