Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Information, Gregory Bateson used to say, is a difference that makes a difference. The ability of energy to do work, and the usefulness of material substances, also depend on difference. What do these seemingly abstract considerations have to do with the fine old art of insulating hot water lines and heating ducts? Plenty. With a roll of fiberglass insulation in one hand, the Archdruid explains.
At the same time that we speak about the public accomplishments of women in Science, Art, Education, Politics, Social Justice, Law and more, we need to speak of something else – the degree to which the accomplishments and shifting roles of women over the last century and more have tracked and been transformed by not only our own intention and activism, but by cheap energy.
The world-system has been in a structural crisis since the 1970s. The primary characteristic of a structural crisis is chaos. This is not a situation of totally random happenings. It is a situation of rapid and constant fluctuations in all the parameters of the historical system. This includes not only the world-economy, the interstate system, and cultural-ideological currents, but also the availability of life resources, climatic conditions, and pandemics. The one encouraging feature about a systemic crisis is the degree to which it increases the viability of agency, of what we call “free will.” When the system is far from equilibrium, every little input has great effect.
The regime changes in Egypt and Tunisia have been hailed as victories for democracy, as proof of the liberalizing power of social networking media, as testimony to the power of nonviolent political action. All of that they may indeed be; but the events in Egypt and Tunisia also illustrate a major defect in our economic thinking, one from which we should draw a very different and much more cautionary conclusion.
People of conscience face two crucial challenges today: (1) Telling the truth about the dire state of the ecosphere that makes our lives possible, no matter how grim that reality, and (2) remaining committed to collective action to create a more just and sustainable world, no matter how daunting that task. Ellen LaConte’s new book, Life Rules, is a welcome addition to the growing literature on these crises. It offers an unflinching assessment of the problems and an honest path to sensible action. In an interview, I asked her to elaborate on her background and path to the insights of the book.
Commoning represents a “third way”—not locked into the profit-driven mechanics of the market nor solely dependent on government agencies—that enables everyday citizens to actively make decisions and take actions that shape their future of their communities. Although most folks who do it, probably don’t call it “commoning”— they simply think of it as “common sense” or the “common good”.
A society is not as simple as a balloon but it can easily explode in revolutions, collapse, breakdowns, civil wars and all sort of rapid and unpredictable changes. Societies, it seems, are fragile, at least in terms of the stability of their governments. This behavior looks normal to us because we have seen it happening many times. But, just as for balloons, it is difficult to explain exactly why societies “explode.”
– McKibben, Greenpeace, RAN: We need big, brash, nonviolent climate protests. Are you in?
– Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go
– Controversialization: A Key to the Right’s Continuing Domination of Public Debates
– 2011 is 1848 Redux. But Worse
I wrote a while ago about Transition Finsbury Park’s fantastic Confronting Change event at the South Bank Centre just before Christmas. Well, thanks to the fine efforts of Miguel Faliero, Simon Maggs, Dan Roberts and the TFP team, the films of the event are now available for your delectation.
I’m writing you today about Tim de Christopher. For you that don’t know his name, here’s a short story: In its last days, the Bush administration was selling off 77 parcels of federal land totaling 150,000 acres for drilling, a last round of favors to the oil and gas industry. The leases were on wilderness areas, including some areas next to national parks. Business as usual. Then a student at the University of Utah named Tim de Christopher showed up.
So often each of us evaluates the present based on our fantasy of the future. That fantasy has been heavily influenced by the science fiction genre in books and film–a genre which is, of course, an outgrowth of faith in unlimited technological progress.
Why then don’t complex agricultural societies, or the even more complex civilizations that they sometimes evolve into, rely on ecological complexity to solve problems? Because by their very nature they are committed to ecological simplicity. Their size, population density and social complexity are in most places the result of grain monocultures.
