Culture & Behavior

Transition Culture roundup – Mar 9

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-A March Round-up of What’s Happening out in the World of Transition
-Transition on ‘One Planet’ on BBC World Service
-Transition Sunshine Coast delivers EDAP
-“Genuine resilience results from expanding the human footprint”. Discuss

Using behavioral science to make smarter energy policy

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On Friday, journalist John Fleck made a great point, comparing coverage of two new pieces in Science. One is about the latest potential climate disaster: methane venting from the seafloor in the Arctic. The second is about a promising new climate solution: using behavioral science to influence energy use. Not surprisingly, the disaster got tons of coverage. The solution got none. This is entirely typical. As Fleck says, “The problem space gets more attention than the solution space.”

Peak Moment 164: The World of Ecovillages

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The ecovillage movement is gaining a lot of traction and in some surprising forms, says Diana Leafe Christian, the author of Finding Community: How to join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community. Drawing from ecovillages worldwide, she describes many examples of these “human-scaled, full-featured settlements.” Ecovillages aim to integrate human activities harmlessly into the natural world and be sustainable indefinitely. To succeed, they need to have multiple centers of initiative (e.g., business enterprises), and support healthy human development (like cooperation and having fun). (www.EcovillageNews.org).

Economics – Mar 8

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-S&P Rally Slowed by Fastest Cash Depletion Since 1991
-Economists: Another Financial Crisis on the Way
-Thousands rally on campuses, streets for schools
-China’s worthless economic statistics
-Murray Bookchin on Growth and Consumerism
-Swaps and Robbers
-We’re all PIGS now
-The Great American Bank Robbery

The Story of Transition Tales

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This is the story of Transition Tales, a small group within Transition Town Totnes. One of the aims of this project is to raise awareness within Primary and Secondary School children of the transition solution of community led response to the twin challenges of Peak Oil and Climate Change by creating positive stories.

Peak Oil And The Tea Party Movement

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Time Magazine recently had an article (Why the Tea Party Movement Matters) that looked at the latest manifestation of populism in the United States, with widespread discontent at the state of the US economy and the US political system, particularly the lack of transparency evident in many government initiatives ranging from the bail-out of the financial system to proposed changes to healthcare, along with discontent about costly wars in the middle east that seem to be never-ending.

Collaboratively We Are Really, Really Smart

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KrisCan talks with designer Ken Eklund, the creator of World Without Oil, an online game that dealt with the first 32 weeks of a global oil crisis where players were encouraged to contribute stories, podcasts or videos that chronicled their experience of an imagined reality…

The Tyranny of Positive Thinking

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Could it be that “thinking positively” is contributing to our blindness and inaction around energy issues, environmental degradation and economic devastation? I’ve hammered this point home in a number of posts, the most widely read being “Do You Have a Panglossian Disorder?.” Now, a trenchant social observer provides a clear outline of how that may well be so, elaborating on the ‘dangers of positive thinking.’

Want the Good Life? Your Neighbors Need It, Too

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We live in a world of deep inequality, and the gap between the rich and the poor is widening. We in the rich world generally agree that this is a problem we ought to help fix—but that the real beneficiaries will be the billions of people living in poverty. After all, inequality has little impact on the lives of those who find themselves on top of the pile. Right?