Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The project of transforming society to use less resources, have less environmental impact, or emit less carbon, does not necessarily have anything to do with the project of making society more equal. Environmentalism != Socialism, to reduce it to a bumper sticker.
Vermont officials are serving up a new plan to boost the state’s food and farm economy. The Vermont Farm to Plate Investment Program was created in 2009. Its goal is to improve the state’s food system and make it easier to get healthy local food. The Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund has spent the past 18 months developing a strategic 10-year plan which they say will meet those goals. They’ll release it to lawmakers today.
When a movement for change is reduced to dreaming of a global dictatorship as the only remaining vehicle for its hopes, something has gone very wrong. For at least some elements of the climate change movement, that point has apparently arrived, and the peak oil movement could benefit from a close look at the mistakes that have driven the failure of climate change activism. With the aid of a large can of tuna and an electric can opener, the Archdruid explains.
The events of a single day in three continents are a lesson in the interlocking crises that will define the decade.
A soil scientist considers how we might organize a truly ecological civilization:
– the critical characteristics that underlie strong ecosystems
– why societies are not adequately implementing ecological approaches
– how we might use characteristics of strong natural ecosystems as a framework to consider a future ecological civilization. (Excerpts)
-Oil spill report: Initial analysis
-Disregard for safety led to Deepwater Horizon spill
-Panel Faults Oil Firms, Calls for Better Oversight
-National Oil Spill Commission Finds Right Problems, Issues Wrong Solutions
-Missed Opportunity: Spill Commission Rejected by Drillers
In spite of the recent consultation over access to the countryside in England, there is little serious linkage between land ownerhship, sustainability, and food security in the English shires. By constrast, what is happening in the newly devolved territories of Scotland and Wales may be the beginnings of a revolution.
-What’s So Green About Doing it Yourself? Ownership & Knowledge
-The Forest As Garden: Visions of Plenty
-Post-Carbon Politics III: The Ends of Freedom
-Earth System Science – the science of the whole Earth system
America’s problem today is that almost nobody in any official position is willing to publicly recognize the real nature of the problem we face and start talking about realistic solutions. So long as our elected officials and our media continue to speak endlessly about the recovery that is supposedly underway and continue to hold out the hope that, by voting for this or that candidate, all will be well, the great charade will continue and the people will get madder and madder.
– How the Recession Changed Us (graphic)
– Gail Tverberg: Oil Limits Overview
– The Japan Myth
– East and west converge on a problem
– Global Crisis – A Russian Perspective (Boris Kagarlitsky interview)
– Marx at a book signing, speaks on crisis
In the second video in the series “Peak Oil and a Changing Climate” from The Nation and On The Earth productions, Richard Heinberg, senior fellow with the Post Carbon Institute, discusses how depleting oil supplies threaten the future of global economic growth. According to Heinberg, historically there has been a close correlation between increased energy consumption and economic growth. If the economy starts to recover after the financial crisis and there is an increased demand for oil but not enough supply to keep up with that demand, we may hit a ceiling on what the economy can do.
Despite blanket media coverage of Wikileaks and Julian Assange, there has been little discussion of the fact that Assange is merely one leader within a large and complicated social movement, the “free culture movement.” The present situation was predicted by visionary hackers over thirty years ago, and they set out to ensure the victory of free culture over proprietary culture, open organisation over closed, and privacy over Big Brother.
