Population – Sept 17
-Factoring People Into Climate Change
-When It Comes to Pollution, Less (Kids) May Be More
-Copenhagen and population growth: the topic politicians won’t discuss
Population
Start by Asking the Right Questions – Thinking About the Terms for the Debate on Local and Organic Food
One of the reasons discussions of whether “organic” and “local” can “feed the world” often founder so badly is the whole set of presumptions that preceed such a discussion. So let’s talk about those – James McWilliams’ book _Just Food_ and others have stirred up a good bit of controversy on this subject, and lots of people seem to know the answers. But the real problem is that most people don’t really seem to understand what the questions are.
The just food debate – Sept 10
-The Problem With ‘Eat Local’
-James McWilliams’ over-hyped and undercooked anti-locavore polemic
-Just Food
Scale
Within the span of a couple generations, we abandoned a durable, finely textured, life-affirming set of living arrangements characterized by self-sufficient family farms intermixed with small towns that provided commerce, services, and culture. Worse yet, we traded that model for a coarse-scaled arrangement wholly dependent on ready access to cheap fossil fuels.
India, China and Copenhagen
India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests has released a quick set of five studies to support the Indian government’s claim that it can quickly grow its economy without destabilising emissions negotiations. The intention is clearly to take a ‘scientific’ stand at the Copenhagen meeting in December to project the central government objective of steady GDP growth. Although India’s climate arguments versus the west are allied with China’s, the People’s Republic has publicly been more diplomatic.
ZPG2: zero population and zero oil growth
One “emerging consensus view”, even among politicians who continue rooting for economic growth if only to claw tax receipts for paying off swollen national debt, is that world oil demand will ceiling if not crater. Peak Oil has won converts, some of them even able to openly admit it is real, but mostly selling oil saving and oil substitution to consumers as part and parcel of the hunting down of the Evil Molecule called CO2.
Whack!
The next case of $120 oil, assuming we get there before the industrial economy falls into the abyss, will be brutal for an already over-stretched American consumer. Banks are falling like dominoes on a mule cart over the bumpy terrain of declining energy supplies. When will the lights go out?
Solutions & sustainability – Aug 7
-‘Eco-Therapy’ for Environmental Depression
-Saving the planet, one block, one small project at a time
-India pays couples to put off having children
Deep thought – Aug 6
-Unpopular Science
-“Peak Civilization”: The Fall of the Roman Empire
-The Problem is Us
Temporary Recession or the End of Growth?
Everyone agrees: our economy is sick. The inescapable symptoms include declines in consumer spending and consumer confidence, together with a contraction of international trade and available credit. Add a collapse in real estate values and carnage in the automotive and airline industries and the picture looks grim indeed.
it’s the end of the world as we know it (…and I feel fine) (1)
it’s the end of the world as we know it (…and I feel fine) (1)
Probably few saw this meltdown coming. We have come to view human progress as a given, and an ever growing economy and living standard as an entitlement.
Investing in durability
If you are planning to withdraw, please tell me where you’re going, and send directions. If not, it’s time to start thinking about how you and your family or tribe will muddle through the years ahead. One word comes to mind: durability. If that wasn’t the first word that came to your mind, I’m not surprised.
