For Those Who Love Life
Biodiversity, Consumerism — by George Monbiot July 16, 2012
The people cutting open bluefin tuna nets are heroes
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
One of the purposes of government is to protect public goods threatened by the self-interest of unscrupulous people or corporations. But what happens when governments fail? When they are either unwilling or unable to protect something valued by the many from the depredations of the few? What do you do, for example, to defend the bluefin tuna?
Comments (3)Permaculture, a Step by Step Change
Consumerism, General, Society — by Juan Pablo Martinez July 13, 2012
To me, the simple idea of changing from an energy guzzling, water polluting, fertilizer junkie to a full ecological ‘Permie’ was just bogus. So far, it has proven impossible to make the full change in the last three years.
I want to share with you some of my thoughts, ideas and frustrations; maybe you’ll find them familiar. What I have found is that my most important asset is my will. I am sure you have it to. Without it you will be disappointed after the first setback or caustic comment from someone you care about.
Comments (15)Ordeal: Mulling the Meaning of Rio+20
Conferences, Consumerism, Society — by Albert Bates July 6, 2012
Leaving Rio de Janeiro, site of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, we mulled the meaning of what we had witnessed, but could hardly put it any better than Charles Eisenstein in his excellent summary, Why Rio+20 Failed:
Comments (2)You know folks, I’m a bit worried about my 16-year-old son, Jimi. When he was 13, he grew three inches. When he was 14, he grew five inches. When he was 15 his growth slowed to three inches, and no matter how much I feed him, now he isn’t growing at all past his current six-one. Could someone please tell me how to achieve sustainable growth for my son, so that he can keep getting bigger forever?
Coal to Liquids – Racing to the Bottom With the Fuel from Hell
Biodiversity, Biofuels, Consumerism, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor July 4, 2012
I thought I’d add to George Monbiot’s recent post highlighting moves to persevere with fossil fuels by sharing a little piece on how feeding our oil addiction is taking us to ever-dirtier lows.
Comments (12)Preparing Our Children For a Resilient Future, Part I: Recycling
Consumerism, Education, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Anthea Hudson July 3, 2012
Our Role as Facilitators
Having been a home educator for nearly 18 years, I have become aware of the value of hands-on experiences for helping children learn and really understand concepts — experiences that are relevant to their lives and help prepare them for a real future, in much more than just academic ways.
We as parents, or educators, can help children explore the concepts and skills they will need to develop to equip them for the very different future they will no doubt be facing. Often our role will just be to be there and help with materials and tips if needed. A lot of the value of these discoveries is in allowing children to experiment, make ‘mistakes’ now and then, and to find workable solutions. I think we should try to curb the natural desire to solve the problems which may occur, immediately, and give the children a chance to sort it out themselves first.
The activities in this article, and those in following parts of this series, are designed to get kids involved with the ‘nuts and bolts’ of creating a more resilient lifestyle and understanding how the things in our world connect and how we can all help these connections to flow naturally. In Part I we will look at various aspects of recycling.
Comments (0)False Summit
Consumerism, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society, peak oil — by George Monbiot
We were wrong about peak oil: there’s enough in the ground to deep-fry the planet.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
The facts have changed, now we must change too. For the past ten years an unlikely coalition of geologists, oil drillers, bankers, military strategists and environmentalists has been warning that peak oil – the decline of global supplies – is just around the corner. We had some strong reasons for doing so: production had slowed, the price had risen sharply, depletion was widespread and appeared to be escalating. The first of the great resource crunches seemed about to strike.
Comments (16)Preparing Our Children For a Resilient Future, Part II: Food Security
Community Projects, Compost, Consumerism, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Food Shortages, Medicinal Plants, Nurseries & Propogation, Plant Systems, Processing & Food Preservation, Recipes, Rehabilitation, Seeds, Soil Biology, Trees, Urban Projects, peak oil — by Anthea Hudson
I doubt many would disagree that food is one of the most important things that we are going to need to become reconnected to, in times to come. Without a reliable food source, much hardship can be predicted and even potentially losses of life. In the future, food security will probably rely much more on sources of our own creation, by producing food ourselves and establishing networks with others in our community.
We will also need to acquire the knowledge to put these food systems into practice. It’s one thing to have wheat seeds to plant, but wheat doesn’t grow and become bread by itself. We have to know, and become proficient in, the processes involved in whatever we plan to produce — preferably before there is an urgent necessity to do so!
The activities below will introduce your children (and you!) to some of the principles and practices of creating food resilience.
Comments (8)Resilience Through Simplification: Revisiting Tainter’s Theory of Collapse
Consumerism, Economics, People Systems, Society, Village Development, peak oil — by Samuel Alexander July 2, 2012
Below, Samuel Alexander summarises his new Simplicity Institute Report, which discusses ‘voluntary simplification’ in the context of Joseph Tainter’s theory of collapse.
The full report, ‘Resilience through Simplification,’ is available here (360kb PDF).
A society or other institution can be destroyed by the cost of sustaining itself. — Joseph Tainter
 Joseph Tainter |
In 1988 Joseph Tainter published his seminal work, The Collapse of Complex Societies, in which he presented an original theory of social complexity that he offered as the best explanation for the collapse of civilisations throughout history. Tainter’s theory essentially holds that human societies become more socially complex as they solve the problems they face, and while this complexity initially provides a net benefit to society, eventually the benefits derived from increasing complexity diminish and the relative costs begin to increase. There comes a point, Tainter argues, when all the energy and resources available to a society are required just to maintain the society, at which point further problems that arise cannot be solved and the society then enters a phase of deterioration or even rapid collapse. Not only is Tainter’s theory of historical interest, many believe it has implications for how we understand the world today.
Comments (1)Village Repair: Permaculture Design Maquettes for Small Towns and Villages
Consumerism, Education, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Delvin Solkinson
Download the free, open source printable files for 3 placemaking worksheets here :
- Placemaking Worksheets (PDF)
The Village Repair branch of Gaiacraft is a local grassroots initiative growing in the mossy cedar rainforests of Mt. Elphinstone, British Columbia, Canada. In the Heart Gardens and surrounding downtown core of our coastal village, a unique community comes together to build foundations for a regenerative future. Here we can see social permaculture vignettes intended to inspire creative placemaking in small towns and villages around the world. Village Repair focusses on creating relationships, gathering places and habitat that promotes healthy interactions between people, animals, birds, reptiles, insects, plants, fungi and all other living and non-living links in the ecological community. As an activated social permaculture program and transition initiative, Village Repair hopes to inspire communities to redesign their own neighbourhoods into thriving, abundant and diverse ecosystems which support the web of life for all living and non-living things. Visioned by Delvin and designed by Lunaya, this community media platform includes a team of visionaries and new thinkers, artists and activists, conscious businesses and cultural creatives. Gratitude to Mia Van Meter, Eddit Hooker, and Mark Lakeman of City Repair in Portland for creating the placemaking movement that has wholeheartedly inspired this media platform.
Comments (5)Hope for a New Era: Before/After Examples of Permaculture Earth Restoration – Solving Our Problems From the Ground Up
Aid Projects, Alternatives to Political Systems, Biodiversity, Community Projects, Conferences, Consumerism, Deforestation, Demonstration Sites, Food Forests, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Plant Systems, Population, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Trees, Urban Projects, Water Contaminaton & Loss, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor June 28, 2012
If you aren’t in a reading mood, and/or just came to look at the before/after photographs, click here to jump down the page.
Loess Plateau, Early September, 1995
Loess Plateau, Early September, 2009
Rio+20 has been and gone, and, in the big scheme of things, has achieved little, or worse. With this post I’d like to take the opportunity to jot down some thoughts, and images, that might help us shake off disappointment, disillusionment and despair, and give us something we can all consider, adjust and rally around. Our ‘leaders’ are taking us ‘down the garden path’, but, unfortunately, in the proverbial, rather than literal, sense. It’s truly time to forge new beginnings, create new economies, and to prioritise natural and social capital with the goal of restoring ecological and social health.
Comments (15)Two Views of Our Future
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Deforestation, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Population, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss, peak oil — by Earth Policy Institute June 27, 2012
by Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute
No previous civilization has survived the ongoing destruction of its natural supports. Nor will ours. Yet economists look at the future through a different lens. Relying heavily on economic data to measure progress, they see the near 10-fold growth in the world economy since 1950 and the associated gains in living standards as the crowning achievement of our modern civilization. During this period, income per person worldwide climbed nearly fourfold, boosting living standards to previously unimaginable levels. A century ago, annual growth in the world economy was measured in the billions of dollars. Today, it is measured in the trillions. In the eyes of mainstream economists, our present economic system has not only an illustrious past but also a promising future.
End of an Era
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Deforestation, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by George Monbiot
So now what do we do to defend life on Earth?
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
It is, perhaps, the greatest failure of collective leadership since the first world war. The Earth’s living systems are collapsing, and the leaders of some of the most powerful nations – the US, the UK, Germany, Russia – could not even be bothered to turn up and discuss it. Those who did attend the Earth summit last week solemnly agreed to keep stoking the destructive fires: sixteen times in their text they pledged to pursue “sustained growth”, the primary cause of the biosphere’s losses(1).
The efforts of governments are concentrated not on defending the living Earth from destruction, but on defending the machine that is destroying it. Whenever consumer capitalism becomes snarled up by its own contradictions, governments scramble to mend the machine, to ensure – though it consumes the conditions that sustain our lives – that it runs faster than ever before.
Comments (4)How “Sustainability” Became “Sustained Growth”
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Deforestation, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Population, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss, peak oil — by George Monbiot June 24, 2012
Editor’s Preamble: In a prevous editorial life, I used to make a decent attempt at commentary for these large international events — those organised with some pretention towards shifting us onto a ’sustainable path — but I no longer have the energy for it. Pinning our hopes on politicians’ plans for ‘greening the economy’ is a bit like using your digital alarm clock. The alarm rings, then we hit ’snooze’ periodically — with a multi-year interval between wake up calls…. All these meetings seem to do is cement a mindset of ‘leave it to the experts’, whilst these ‘experts’ obfuscate with shifting nuances of language. The results coming out of Rio+20 are certainly disappointing, but in no way surprising. It is said, and it’s not hard to believe, that a large industry can do more damage in a couple of hours than the average individual can make in their entire lifetime. While ‘consumers’ are generally targeted as the main culprits (it’s very convenient for industry, and the politicians that pander to them, to pass the blame to the little guy), incentivising or mandating change in industry is therefore of the upmost importance. (Indeed, some industries need to disappear entirely, whilst other new carbon-neutral/positive industries need to begin.) These industries do ’serve’ consumers, however, so no matter what way we look at it, the end user is at least partly responsible for the resource use, emissions and pollution of the industries whose products and services they avail themselves of. But, due to the mass consolidation of industry over the last few decades, it has become increasingly difficult for consumers to have a choice — and even more difficult to really know the environmental cost of the products and services we use, as what we know about these usually far-removed industries is only what they tell us. Political frameworks/policies, industry, media and advertising largely shape social structures — so consumers can ultimately end up being captive participants in a system not of their making. These players will never reinvent the system for us, so we should quit waiting for that to happen.
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The Rio Declaration rips up the basic principles of environmental action.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
In 1992 world leaders signed up to something called “sustainability”. Few of them were clear about what it meant; I suspect that many of them had no idea. Perhaps as a result, it did not take long for this concept to mutate into something subtly different: “sustainable development”. Then it made a short jump to another term: “sustainable growth”. And now, in the 2012 Earth Summit text that world leaders are about to adopt, it has subtly mutated once more: into “sustained growth”.
The Mendacity of Hope
Biodiversity, Conferences, Consumerism, Deforestation, Economics, GMOs, Global Warming/Climate Change, Population, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by George Monbiot June 23, 2012
The summits which promise to save the world keep us dangling, not mobilising.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
Worn down by hope. That’s the predicament of those who have sought to defend the earth’s living systems. Every time governments meet to discuss the environmental crisis, we are told that this is the “make or break summit”, upon which the future of the world depends. The talks might have failed before, but this time the light of reason will descend upon the world.
We know it’s rubbish, but we allow our hopes to be raised, only to witness 190 nations arguing through the night over the use of the subjunctive in paragraph 286. We know that at the end of this process the UN secretary-general, whose job obliges him to talk nonsense in an impressive number of languages, will explain that the unresolved issues (namely all of them) will be settled at next year’s summit. Yet still we hope for something better.
This week’s earth summit in Rio de Janeiro is a ghost of the glad, confident meeting 20 years ago. By now, the leaders who gathered in the same city in 1992 told us, the world’s environmental problems were to have been solved. But all they have generated is more meetings, which will continue until the delegates, surrounded by rising waters, have eaten the last rare dove, exquisitely presented with an olive leaf roulade. The biosphere, that world leaders promised to protect, is in a far worse state than it was 20 years ago(1). Is it not time to recognise that they have failed?
Comments (2)Coal Seam Gas – Music to Soothe the Mining Beast (28-30 June, 2012)
Consumerism, Deforestation, Global Warming/Climate Change, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss, peak oil — by Gordon Fraser-Quick
Editor’s Note: If you’re in the Northern Rivers area of NSW, Australia (or if you can otherwise make it!), please support this important initiative!
Coal Seam Gas (CSG) mining, or ‘fracking’ (see here and here), has potential to impact adversely on the natural environment and community.
In response to the threat of growth of the damaging CSG mining industry a troupe of volunteers based in Lismore, NSW has embarked on an ambitious musical educational adventure.
CSG The Musical is being produced along the lines of a musical theatrical extravaganza with humour, satire and high energy theatre to provide education and entertainment.
On show at the Lismore Workers Club on Thursday 28 June to Saturday 30 June the fun filled fast facts and laughter will raise much need funds for the battle against the damaging CSG industry.
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