Culture & Behavior

On settling down

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Most of us are here where we are without substantial ability to change our circumstances, at least in a deep material sense. I think this observation is true, but painful for many people – that is it is possible that we may move about, it is possible that we may change jobs. But we are on a gradual slide away from economic stability, away from a dream that growth could always continue or come back, away from the idea of giving our children better in the sense of material increase, and utimately, towards the realization that we are staying where we are in the largest sense – the possibility of new frontiers has been erased. We can no longer go to the always-already-imaginary unpopulated west. We will not live in space. There is no empty place – and never was.

Civil disobedience vs the tar sands – Aug 22

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-Tar Sands and the Carbon Numbers
-A Debate: Should the U.S. Approve TransCanada’s Massive Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline?
-Interview: James Hansen on the Tar Sands Pipeline Protest, the Obama Administration and Intergenerational Justice
-Dozens Arrested in Pipeline Protest
-Tar Sands Pipeline Protests Continue

How to build a people’s movement

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The United States is entering the fourth year of its deepest downturn since the Great Depression. The official unemployment rate is rising again, and labor force participation among many groups has plummeted to historic lows. A stillborn economic “recovery” has distributed 88 percent of its benefits to corporate profits and one percent to wages and salaries….If ever there was a time to challenge economic orthodoxy, this would be it. Yet there has been no effective movement in the United States to ease the suffering of millions, shift patterns of growth and investment, and make job creation a priority.

Colin Campbell on embedded energy

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Colin Campbell is the originator of the concept of “peak oil” with the article that he wrote in 1998 in “Scientific American”, together with Jean Laherrere. He is also the founder and honorary chairman of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil (ASPO). He lives in Ireland, in the village of Ballydehob with his wife, Bobbins. Last month, he wrote me a letter that contains several interesting observations on embedded energy and on people’s life. With his permission, I am reprinting it – slightly edited – together with my answer.

The pain in spain

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The Spanish uprising was born largely online in the wake of the Arab Spring, when hundreds of small-scale grassroots groups joined together to form Democracia Real YA — Real Democracy Now — to unify their efforts in demanding social change. Taking their slogans from Stephane Hessel’s internationally famous manifesto Indignez-Vous (translated Time for Outrage in English, Indignaos in Spanish), the group helped to move massive demonstrations on May 15 as public outrage against the Spanish government austerity measures and bank bailouts reached the boiling point.

A journey home – Seeking the essence of Transition in England

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This essence was beyond figuring out where our food will come from or how we’ll keep the lights on. I couldn’t put my finger on what that essence was, but I also couldn’t get this feeling out of my mind. It had nothing to do with Britain being the only one “doing Transition” properly, or that this essence didn’t exist anywhere else. I believe that it does. But Britain was my initial experience of Transition, and of course the home of the founders of the movement. I was creating in my mind a myth of Transition. It was a myth to me as I was unsure whether it was true. But I believed that within this myth was the essence of what Transition is.

An economy turned upside down

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While mainstream America is hoping for federal economic reform, some social justice organizations have a radically different idea, and are organizing low-income communities to build a new economy from the grassroots up. Tired of asking for change from the top down, they are taking their economy into their own hands. Social justice organizations, having a strong membership base rooted in community, are ideal spaces to cultivate alternative economic projects, as relationships of trust and solidarity have been nurtured over time through education and a history of taking action for justice. Here are some exciting examples of grassroots alternative economy projects for social justice.

The twilight of meaning

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For those of us who have been thinking and talking about peak oil for more than a few years, one of the most common sources of frustration tends to be the vacant looks generated in so many faces by what are, after all, straightforward and reasonable concepts. Maybe it’s time we talk about the cultural forces that foster, at all levels of American society, the almost trancelike conviction that everything will somehow come out fine.

Disorder in world cities: comparing Britain and France

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Irresponsible acquiescence to budget deficits and mounting debt by numerous countries has translated into austere fiscal policies and drastic cuts in social services. These choices have generated public protests in Latin America, Israel, Spain and Greece. I recently analyzed thirty years of disorder in French and British cities, the only European countries experiencing recurrent urban outbreaks.

The most dangerous machine ever built

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I could never understand why activists picked on the personal automobile so much. Sure, people die in accidents. The car also uses a lot of oil and spews a lot of pollution. But so do planes, ships and lots of other machines. And won’t gasoline cars soon be replaced by cleaner hybrids or even 100% clean electric vehicles? Now, after reading “Stop Signs,” I can see the problem — as the main gateway drug to excessive consumption of everything from suburban homes and appliances to self-storage, more than anything else, the auto literally drives climate change and peak oil.