Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Kurt Cobb The devolution of political power is once again front and center in the news as the citizens of Catalonia vote for independence from Spain. This development is just the latest in a series of devolution tremors that point to the limits of complexity as a strategy for organizing our societies.
From an ecological viewpoint President Donald Trump’s trade war takes on a deeper, more significant meaning, one that creates a window onto our troubled energy future.
The Italian government is doing something that challenges our ideas about the nature of government debt and taxation. What if governments don’t need to borrow or tax to pay their bills? In my blog post for this week read why a sovereign currency makes this possible and even desirable:
1. Oil and the Global Economy
2. The Middle East & North Africa
3. China
4. Venezuela
Focusing on some of the tactics of stabilizing population growth without offering an understanding of the urgency of the crisis we face undermines overall population efforts.
This book is excellent in its forthright account of the way the global economy has been structured by and for Western elites and consumers. It deals with the history of brutal colonial grabbing, the creation of global inequality and the way Neoliberal doctrine enables continued polite plunder today. It disputes the conventional faith that Third World poverty is being eliminated. However I think Hickle’s discussion of alternatives is disappointing, and I want to suggest more effective options.
When the electricity stops in modern civilization, pretty much everything else stops. Not even gasoline-powered vehicles can get far before they are obliged to seek a fill-up—which they cannot get because gas pumps rely on electricity to operate.
Is it wise to assume uninterrupted access to critical goods from faraway places? The recent decision by the U.S. International Trade Commission regarding imports of solar panels raises the question.
We are now used to hearing about once-in-a-1,000-year floods. The fact that we are used to hearing about them tells us that they will no longer be rare. In fact, since climate change is at the heart of these events and continues unabated, we can expect that storms practically everywhere will get worse.
Thanks to modern science and technology—satellites and computers—we have days of warning before a hurricane hits. Science and technology have also enabled us to forecast “storms” of another kind. Using computers and data about population, energy, pollution, natural resources, and economic trends, it’s possible to generate scenarios for the future of industrial civilization.
Harvey will almost certainly be styled as a tragedy. The storm is undoubtedly a colossal misfortune, and we should have compassion for those affected. But from a literary standpoint, it is not a tragedy at all. A genuine tragedy requires that the main players be unaware of how their own flawed character is leading them to self-destruction.
As climate change rips away the icy armor of the Arctic, nations surrounding the North Pole and companies eager to exploit the area’s mineral wealth–particularly oil and natural gas–are growing giddy with anticipation.
