Deep thought – May 17
-The Barcode moment, Part 1
-Learning To Love A Wounded World
-It’s all right
Culture & Behavior
The twilight of protest
It’s become common to see activists rejecting, often with quite a bit of heat, the suggestion that they might want to embrace in their own lives the changes they hope to get the rest of the world to adopt. In the twilight years of American empire, that’s a very convenient attitude, but it deprives peak oil and environmental activists of a tool that worked remarkably well the last time it was tried, and closes off avenues for shaping the future that might be better kept open.
The commons law project: A vision of green governance
For the past two years or more, I’ve been working on a major research and writing project to try to recover from the mists of history the bits and pieces of what might be called “commons law” (not to be confused with common law). Commons law consists of those social practices, cultural traditions and specific bodies of formal law that recognize the rights of commoners to manage their own resources. Most of these governance traditions deal with natural resources such as farmland, forests, fisheries, water and wild game. Commons law has existed in many forms, and in many cultures, over millennia.
Environment – May 16
– WWF Report: Consumption of Earth’s resources unsustainable
– Monthly Review: Marx’s ecology and the understanding of land cover change
– New report from Club of Rome warns about humanity’s ability to survive without a major change in direction
– The Big Fix: documentary exposes BP, U.S. Gov’t on Gulf disaster/Interview: the Tickells, filmmakers
– James Hansen: Game Over for the Climate
Deutschland – 16 Mai
– Transition Town erobert Regensburg: „Die Stadt im Wandel“
– Die glücklichsten Menschen leben in Nordeuropa
– Überflutungen, extremes Wetter, verheerende Dürren (Club of Rome)
When the experiment fails
Celebrating Failure is perhaps the least understood ingredient in the book. Because we live in a culture of success. No matter how we talk about losing being part of the game, it’s still losing. Victors take all, stand on the podium crowned with laurels, king of the castle, biggest banker on the block. No one wants to be in the beaten team, on the bottom of the pecking order. But to be in Transition means we have to understand this win-or-lose mindset as an old order we need to transform.
Commentary: Major oil companies on peak oil
With the exception of the French oil company Total, the International Oil Companies (IOCs) have denied concerns about the impending decline in world oil production, often called “Peak Oil.”
Some possible explanations for the IOC position are as follows…
Caught in our own words
Much of what we believe, and much of what we are trying to change, is rooted in the terminology, the language we use to discuss it. If we want to change our own ideas, beliefs and worldviews, we need to stop using that terminology, because it leaves us anchored in the paradigm we are trying to escape.
Deep thought – May 10
– Don’t call me an environmentalist
– James Gustave Speth: America the Possible: A Manifesto, Part II
– Limits to growth, food security issues and the rapid growth in Australia’s population – Philip Adams interview
Equality and inequality in a shrinking economy–strategies and consequences: INTERACTIVE VIDEO CHAT
Political economist, activist and writer Gar Alperovitz and Post Carbon Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg discuss ‘Equality and Inequality in a Shrinking Economy–Strategies and Consequences’.
This is a recording of video chat recorded May 22, 2012.
A vision of America the possible
The deep, transformative changes sketched in the first half of this manifesto provide a path to America the Possible. But that path is only brought to life when we can combine this vision with the conviction that we will pull together to build the necessary political muscle for real change.
The peak oil crisis: perspective
While waiting to see how the Iranian nuclear confrontation and the various Eurozone crises sort themselves out, there is time to step back and look at the interaction of the major forces that will shape our future. While the problems of oil depletion are already upon us, shrinking resources are only a part of global dynamics currently.