Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Why are we “the Doomers” for thinking oil is limited? Clinical psychologist Kathy McMahon (“the Peak Shrink”) finds people all over the world are worried about our fossil civilization collapsing. In this hot new speech, she has answers for our own sanity, in a crazy world.
– Soup swaps help stock your freezer and foster friendships
– The mellow Monbiot: How to make apple juice that doesn’t cost the Earth
– Robert Putnam (“Bowling Alone”) on Social Capital and Happiness
– Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood talks about livable communities
– Janaia Donaldson of Peak Moment TV (what she’s learned)
– Embrace the Cooperative Movement – video interview
– Climate Change, Like Slavery, Needs a True Cultural Shift to Stop It
– A climate, oil and economic crisis looms: Will we avoid or adjust? (Kathy McMahon)
When I first developed this story, as part of a presentation to Culture Northwest a few years ago, I went on to make a comparison between the 20th century corporation, which still believes that it can control its environment, and the coming organisation, which understands that it needs to tread lightly on the world, to test its external environment for changes, and to respond by adapting accordingly.
We will see if a safe and prosperous Taiwan emerges or will it be melt down; The China Syndrome – (although if you are in China then perhaps it is the USA syndrome?)
-World Bank to lead economic push on nature protection
-A Planet In Square Brackets
-Japan offers hope to biodiversity summit with $2bn conservation fund
The only flicker of enthusiasm that I got when I presented to a group invited by Saphon Wang in Kaohsiung – (who is a general manager of a local law firm) was when I re framed climate change and peak oil as both risks but more importantly opportunities. I quoted that well worn observation that the word crisis in Chinese is comprised of two characters- danger and opportunity.
I have been astonished to learn as I visited more than 100 transition initiatives over the past 6 months, that nearly all of us are off comers, and with this somewhat dubious title actually seem to breathe fresh life into the communities we have chosen to live in, perhaps for this very reason, delving deeply into the roots of our cherished new homes, and bringing them up for fresh examination in a way that those well established in an area have perhaps become so accustomed to that the value is no longer recognised.
Two worlds will collide in Cancun, but they share a single planet. If the world that defends our current model of production and consumption prevails, the planet will edge ever closer to catastrophe. The second world offers hope of a new path. Its solutions are multiple and small-scale, and require political will more than massive resources or new technologies. This second world seeks a new balance in our lives between our environment, our food systems, and our jobs.
A “perfect” lawn is a truly human artifact, a triumph of elegance and simplicity, using machines, chemicals and Poa pratensis in its making. We need an aesthetic sense that an ornamental landscape’s beauty isn’t only about visual effect, but about holistic function–about how the landscape contributes to the biotic community, to the ecosystem’s health.
Environmentalists, especially in wealthy countries, have often approached the question of environmental sustainability by stressing population and technology, while deemphasizing the middle term in the well-known IPAT (environmental Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology) formula. The reasons for this are not difficult to see. Within capitalist society, there has always been a tendency to blame anything but the economic system itself for ecological overshoot.
– Coming Soon to America: Big Push for Austerity
– French Lessons for U.S. Workers
– The Tory ‘big society’ relies on women replacing welfare
– Monbiot: For the Conservatives, this is not a financial crisis but a long-awaited opportunity
– Mapping Global Wealth
