A Better Way of Making a Living for Humanity
Alternatives to Political Systems, Bio-regional Organizations, Consumerism, Eco-Villages, Food Shortages, Peak Oil, People Systems, Population, Society, Village Development — by Chuck Burr
We are no more able to find our way forward living as Homo modern as we are living as Homo hunter-gatherer. Both ways are blocked. Living today on the infinite growth treadmill as Homo modern results in the death of our planet. Homo sapien has exploded our population to a level that we can no longer run back into the forest to make a living like the Mayan did. So what are we to do?
The question is actually, not “what are we going to do?”, but is “how are we going to make a living?” First lets rule out the obvious, we can no longer make a living as Homo consumer. Peak oil will put an end to our happy motoring and consuming lifestyle before we get the chance to consume the world.
Comments (0)Posted on: January 5, 2009
Slip Hazard
Comedy Break, Consumerism, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by Marc Roberts
With apologies to Robert Newman
A percentage of climate scientists expect that climate engineering of some sort will be required - because we as a species just can’t be arsed with changing our behaviour.
Marvellous. Can I have my Jet-Pack now?
Posted on: January 3, 2009
Woody Harrelson Waxes Poetic on the Life that Shouldn’t Be
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Deforestation, Food Shortages, GMOs, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Musical Interlude, People Systems, Society — by Craig Mackintosh
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Posted on: December 14, 2008
Global Warming, Hitler and World War II Rationing
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Craig Mackintosh
 Peer pressure, national pride, and legal mandates worked together against the common evil |
It’s an unusual title, I know - but bear with me.
If you were to personify global warming, to literally morph it into some kind of effigy - something you could tie to a stake in the town square, and throw cabbages, or rocks at - what would the guy look like?
I guess the degree of grotesquery in your visualisation would largely depend on where in the world you live, and to what extent this ‘person’ has adversely influenced your life, although in some ways it could be easy to conjure an image of one of last century’s most notorious, infamous villains - Adolf Hitler. Couldn’t it?
Comments (5)Posted on: December 7, 2008
Powering Down - Will We?
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Peak Oil, Population, Society — by Craig Mackintosh
 Most underestimate the implications… |
Through our Hollywood-tinted glasses we’re accustomed to happy endings. The instinctive “it won’t happen to me” mentality is alive and well, but, whilst perhaps preserving the comfortable status quo (if not our sanity), it does little to promote objectivity. In a world threatened by global warming, potential constructive accomplishments are thus too often hampered and bogged down in the realm of discourse and debate.
In plain English - we need to get real.
On this note, check out the following clip. Richard Heinburg, the author of the book “Powering Down“, has much to say on possible strategies, or failing that, outcomes, for our post peak-oil world. I think it’s time we really examine, not just computer climate models - but societal projections.
Comments (0)Posted on: November 11, 2008
Exodus
Comedy Break, Consumerism, Deforestation, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by Marc Roberts
 Click for larger view Courtesy: Throbgoblins |
Whilst the newly elected president of the Maldives brings up the massive issue of the resettlement of whole nations due to sea level rise, the UK panics over a more imaginary inundation, and limits non-EU immigration to ballet dancers and sheep-shearers. The Dutch, meanwhile, - in their great tradition of physical nation building - plan to build a hydro electric island in the north sea. The basking shark, amongst others, begins its long goodbye.
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New Beginnings?
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Economics, Society — by Craig Mackintosh
 Click for larger view Courtesy: Throbgoblins |
I don’t blame old Cantankerous Frank here (at right) for getting all excited. Everyone likes to hope - and there’s nothing like a perceived new beginning to get people all agitated in a positive way, ready to pick up the ‘ol load again, and trudge forward, excitedly, into a golden new age.
For myself, half of my relief over the election was just as much that McCain didn’t get in as it was knowing that Obama will step into the Oval Office in January. The thought of just more of the same old Bush mentality was more than I could stand (I mean - really - how did he get in that second time around? Okay, let’s not go there).
And, now it’s down to Mr. Obama - a man who is the smack-dab centre target of more expectations than Santa ever was. Boy has Obama got his work cut out for him. If there was ever a great big pile of doggie do left on someone’s desk, it is this end-of-term.
Comments (0)Posted on: November 5, 2008
The Flaw of Western Economies
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Economics, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Marcin Gerwin
by Marcin Gerwin, Sopot, Poland. Marcin graduated with a Ph.D. in political studies, from the University of Gdansk, Poland, with his thesis: “The idea and practice of sustainable development in the context of global challenges”.
 Cob House Photo, Gerry Thomasen |
Let’s imagine a green and responsible consumer. Let’s call him George. George lives in a sleepy town, near the center and the park where he often goes for a walk with his dog. George built his house with his friends two years ago. It is a very small house, only 320 square feet and it was made with cob – clay mixed with straw and aggregate. The clay for construction was extracted from George’s land behind the house - now you can see a nice pond there with water lilies. George was fortunate enough to find some recycled timber for the roof from the old garage that his neighbors were demolishing. He considered making a turf roof with wild flowers and herbs, but eventually he decided that a slate roof will be more practical because he will be able to collect rainwater from it and use it for watering his garden during warm summer days.
Comments (0)Posted on: November 3, 2008
Escaping the Matrix - Lifestyles Without Limits
Consumerism, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Craig Mackintosh
How many of you remember having to share the bath water with your siblings? A few baby boomers may get nostalgic here, but younger ones will laugh, or shreak “eewww!”.
For us in the North, long gone are the days of little Johnny going in last, the days of gathering wood and doing your best to make it last the winter, the days of cold mornings and dimly lit rooms. Frugality has given way to frivolity, conservation to carelessness. For decades our collective psyche has looked to infinity and beyond. We’ve lived lifestyles without limits.
Last century the phrase ‘The Great American Dream’ was coined. Our dream was to live the rags to riches story, to be whatever we wanted to be, to reach for the stars. It was a pleasant fiction, and some of us even got to live it. Just some.
Comments (1)Posted on: October 30, 2008
The Rise and Predictable Fall of Globalized Industrial Agriculture
Conservation, Consumerism, Deforestation, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Peak Oil, Population, Soil Erosion & Contamination — by Craig Mackintosh
Today I’d like to introduce you to a (well written and beautifully presented) report, titled - ‘The Rise and Predictable Fall of Globalized Industrial Agriculture‘ (55 page, 2.4mb PDF). The title says it all. Should you be concerned? Yes.
Your concern, however, should not be that the globalised industrial agribusiness model will collapse - this is not only inevitable, but also necessary, and, might I add, desirable - the focus should instead be on when and how it will fall.
Let me explain.
If you were to ask the Average Joe what is the largest contributor to global warming, many will say cars, trucks and aeroplanes - or coal fired power plants. While these are large contributors, they cannot compete with the largest, yet mostly overlooked contribution from our present system of farming and global food trading. Global warming is primarily due to agriculture. Indeed, much of the above-stated contributors are merely essential aspects in maintaining the globalised agricultural model:
Comments (0)Posted on: October 27, 2008
Human Footprint
Consumerism, Society — by Craig Mackintosh
One life. One Lifetime. What does it all add up to? Imagine that you could see, piled up in front of you, all the things that you will ever use and produce in your lifetime.
The UK’s Channel Four has done the imagining, and the research, for us. The following documentary is a unique way of looking at the impact of our short, modern life — our individual human footprint. It is a documentary of excess, about an ‘average’ UK existence.
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Posted on: October 26, 2008
Doors of Perception
Biodiversity, Comedy Break, Consumerism, Economics, Society — by Marc Roberts
The supermarkets seek to save a percentage of their energy costs and pretend that they give a shit about their carbon footprint by putting doors on some of their fridges. They are worried, however, that this might baffle some of their customers, who are apparently used to simply reaching in and hoiking chilled offal straight down their necks. Throbgoblins International suggest the prominent display of instructional diagrams illustrating correct door usage - with helpful pointers towards arse and elbow.
Elswhere Opec tops up its coffers and the UK government actually plans some investment in a more sensible infrastructure, whilst a leading conservation organisation plans to head off the species crunch.
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Learning from the Past
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Deforestation, Global Warming/Climate Change, Population, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination — by Earth Policy Institute
by Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute, Washington D.C., U.S.A.
Our twenty-first century global civilization is not the first to face the prospect of environmentally induced economic decline. The question is how we will respond. We do have one unique asset at our command–an archeological record that shows us what happened to earlier civilizations that got into environmental trouble and failed to respond.
As Jared Diamond points out in his book Collapse, some of the early societies that were in environmental trouble were able to change their ways in time to avoid decline and collapse. Six centuries ago, for example, Icelanders realized that overgrazing on their grass-covered highlands was leading to extensive soil loss from the inherently thin soils of the region. Rather than lose the grasslands and face economic decline, farmers joined together to determine how many sheep the highlands could sustain and then allocated quotas among themselves, thus preserving their grasslands and avoiding what Garrett Hardin later termed the “tragedy of the commons.”
Comments (0)Posted on: October 24, 2008
This is What Denial Does
Consumerism, Economics, Food Forests — by George Monbiot
The economic crisis is petty by comparison to the nature crunch. But they have the same cause.
by George Monbiot - journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist
 Click for full view Courtesy: Throbgoblins |
This is nothing. Well, nothing by comparison to what’s coming. The financial crisis for which we must now pay so heavily prefigures the real collapse, when humanity bumps against its ecological limits.
As we goggle at the fluttering financial figures, a different set of numbers passes us by. On Friday, Pavan Sukhdev, the Deutsche Bank economist leading a European study on ecosystems, reported that we are losing natural capital worth between $2 trillion and $5 trillion every year, as a result of deforestation alone(1). The losses incurred so far by the financial sector amount to between $1 trillion and $1.5 trillion. Sukhdev arrived at his figure by estimating the value of the services - such as locking up carbon and providing freshwater - that forests perform, and calculating the cost of either replacing them or living without them. The credit crunch is petty when compared to the nature crunch.
Comments (0)Posted on: October 15, 2008
The Other Bail-Out
Consumerism, Economics, Peak Oil — by George Monbiot
Another set of corporations is pressing for public money. Governments should let them die.
by George Monbiot - journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist
While all eyes were fixed on the banking bail-out, a bucketload of public money was quietly sloshed into the pockets of another undeserving cause. Last week, George Bush agreed to lend $25bn to US car manufacturers. It’s a soft loan, which will cost the government $7.5bn(1). Few people noticed; fewer fought it. The House of Representatives approved the measure by 370 votes to 58. The great corporate bail-out is spreading like the plague.
It has already crossed the Atlantic. Yesterday European car makers demanded that the EU hand them €40bn ($54bn) in cheap loans to match the US subsidy(2). Where will the public spending spree end?
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