Culture & Behavior

Bill Rees’ last lecture

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Last December, after more than 40 years teaching at the School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) at the University of British Columbia, Bill Rees gave his last lecture as a full-time professor. As one of his last students, I found his class captivating, and in following up with many of his former students, realized they felt the same way. His career defined the modern science of sustainability, and touched the lives of many, inspiring individuals to devote their lives towards adapting our species to live responsibly on this planet.

Poor Mitt

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Mitt seems to believe what most Americans believe, which is that those on social welfare programs are doing just awesome, while the real victims are middle class Americans. This is a pretty funny idea, but it isn’t just Mitt’s. The notion that lower and middle class Americans are struggling more than the truly poor is not an uncommon one by people who look on social welfare programs with hostility. If there’s anything really different about his assumptions it is the very funny classing of the desperately poor with the extremely rich as having a lot in common.

Is there such a thing as ethical capitalism?

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In response to a growing realisation that neo-liberal capitalism is morally and literally bankrupt, Britain’s political leadership have provided three visions of ethical capitalism for us to aspire to. So, is there such a thing as ethical capitalism? And why is this question being asked now?

The recovery of the human

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The myth of the machine, the theme of last week’s Archdruid Report post, has implications that go well beyond the usual terms of discussion in the peak oil scene. One of those implications, which I mentioned briefly last week, unfolds from the way that so many people who are concerned about peak oil fixate obsessively on the hope that some kind of machine will solve the problem.

Why design cannot remain exclusive

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The recent political struggles between Hollywood and networked culture underscore a profoundly disruptive fact: exclusive ownership rights are no longer as valuable as they once were. What really matters is the flow. Increasingly, knowledge and other intangible things are more valuable when they can circulate — when they can be freely copied, shared and modified via open platforms.

connecting with our roots – a plants for life talk

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But to connect with the plants is to connect with the rhythm of the year, to locate yourself in time and space. It is to connect with the neighbourhood you find yourself in and discover, that even though your world has apparently shrunk because of economics and peak oil, it has in fact grown hugely. It has by your attention to detail, brought memory, fragrance, belonging back into your life, as you notice the limes in the churchyard, the sage in the library garden, the butterburr along the highway. Each plant a small universe with its own story to tell, its own medicine to bequeath.

Resilient people, resilient planet: a future worth choosing

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Now more than ever, leaders need to focus on what matters most – the long-term resilience of people and the planet – the High-level Panel on Global Sustainability urged in its report presented today to UN Secretary-General BAN Ki-moon in Addis Ababa.

The 22-member Panel, established by the Secretary-General in August 2010 to formulate a new blueprint for sustainable development and low-carbon prosperity, was co-chaired by the presidents of Finland and South Africa. The final report contains 56 recommendations to put sustainable development into practice and to mainstream it into economic policy as quickly as possible.

(excerpts from the final report)

Squandering the wealth of life

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In the immediate aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, Bank of England staff attempted to estimate the financial costs to the UK economy. In 2009 Andrew G. Haldane, Executive Director for Financial Stability at the Bank estimated that the permanent loss to the UK economy from the banking crisis was anywhere between £1.8trn. and £7.4trn.

The softer, less measurable, more human consequences are only just now becoming clear.