Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
We do have to talk about population – we have to talk about it honestly and clearly, and with an eye to the real complexities of the issue. We have to put it on the table and stop being afraid of it. We have to have these conversations even when they are difficult, personal, emotional and when they are hard.
-The Ultimate Oxymoron: Industrial Civilization And Mental Health
– Nicole Foss: We Need Freedom of Action To Confront Peak Oil (video)
– La Niña as Black Swan – Energy, Food Prices, and Chinese Economy Among Likely Casualites
– The Guardian: The population explosion
– Jerome a Paris: Neo-feudalism and neo-nihilism
Population: One planet, too many people? is the first report of its kind by the engineering profession. Unless the engineering solutions highlighted in the report are urgently implemented then the projected 2.5 billion more people on earth by the end of this Century (currently there is 6.9 billion) will crush the earth’s resources.
Translation into Dutch of a talk by Dr. Albert Bartlett on population.
– How Mr. Condom made Thailand a better place
– After 2 years of eco-living, what works and what doesn’t
– New book on biochar by Albert Bates
– Growing ‘lots of delicious food for the least possible work’
– Eco villages are your best investment
Our psychological health on the issue of growth warrants some serious analysis, and maybe even some therapy.
Should we be thinking about the number simultaneously alive or the cumulative number ever to live?
– What will future generations condemn us for?
– Policy at Its Worst (dysfunctional US)
– Why I was wrong about population
– Living off our capital
For a few days last week, global news agencies pursued the peculiar story of the world’s worst traffic jam, which was reported to have lasted for around nine days and stretched across about 100 kilometres of a major highway leading to Beijing. China’s latest instance of leading the world, now in the scale and size of traffic jams, is a direct consequence of the modern uses and abuses of energy.
When it comes to controversial issues, population is in a class by itself.
The Transition Movement in the ‘West’ (and therefore North) has for the most part been unable to conceptualise a response to the human development and social justice needs of the South. Much of this lack has to do with the very formidable inertness which western societies inherited from the transformations wrought by the Industrial Revolution, and the apparently incontrovertible ideas of ‘progress’ and ‘growth.’
Oil and safe drinking water are on parallel courses to depletion – a scarcity that will lead to starvation, disease and warfare. The issue here is drinking water. And there is a lot less of that than seawater. Due to a number of management issues, made worse by climate change, drinking water is fast becoming a geopolitical resource to rival oil – a flashpoint at various places around the globe.
