Stripped Bare
Alternatives to Political Systems, Economics, Financial Management — by George Monbiot February 19, 2011
Shocking new financial manouevres by the British government show who it’s really working for.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
You think you’ve seen the worst of it; you haven’t. Last week I wrote about how the British government, while imposing extra taxes and devastating cuts on ordinary mortals, has quietly engineered a new tax exemption for the banks and corporations, which also encourages these businesses to shift some of their operations overseas(1). I thought that was as bad as it got. I was wrong.
On the day I wrote that column, the Conservatives were doing something just as repulsive, and far more dangerous. On Wednesday George Osborne told the House of Commons that “we will make sure we learn every lesson that needs to be learnt – so that this [the financial crisis] never happens again”(2). Two days before, his government demonstrated that nothing has been learnt at all. Let me first explain the context.
Comments (6)We’re All in This Together?
Comedy Break, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by Marc Roberts February 18, 2011
Courtesy: Marc Roberts
Climate Belief Forensics II
Consumerism, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by Thomas Fischbacher February 17, 2011
Editor’s Note: This is part II of a series. If you haven’t already, read Part I first.
Considering the Latin root of the word, "forensics" is about bringing something before the forum the public perhaps should know about. And certainly, exploring the question where influential beliefs about the climate come from seems quite relevant.
These days, all the world is talking about all sorts of things that were before secrets of the U.S. government but which have recently been revealed to the public — and occasionally these are quite dirty secrets too it seems. One should, however, not be misled into thinking that all those things actually were ’secrets’. Concerning, in particular, the very important question over why our present-day collective resource management is so catastrophically bad, there are more tangible, and more immediate answers than the lofty "there is something wrong with us as a species" statement. Indeed, there are answers that are not secret at all, yet mostly unknown to the public.
What are the most evident problems with our resource management? It is not as if we utilized critical (especially: mined) resources in a disorganized way — far from it. And, as finding and exploiting such resources is done in a highly organized and systematic fashion, there evidently must be people claiming to be experts in this field. (The reason why I write "claiming to be" is that a discrepancy between actual and claimed insight might explain a lot about our problems.)
Comments (11)Seller’s Market?
Comedy Break, Consumerism, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Marc Roberts
Courtesy: Marc Roberts
Permaculture Design for Horses, People & Habitat
Animal Forage, Commercial Farm Projects, Economics, Energy Systems, Financial Management, Gabions, Land, Livestock, Plant Systems, Swales, Waste Systems & Recycling, Working Animals — by Nick Huggins February 16, 2011
Click for larger view
Introduction
I want to share with you a few things about a permaculture design project I finished in late October 2010. Details of the design, some details of working with clients on design projects, basic costing and what to be aware of when doing so. I also outline how I put the project together and what it included.
Comments (14)A Corporate Coup d’Etat
Economics, Society — by George Monbiot February 8, 2011
You thought elections counted for something? Look at what wasn’t in the manifesto.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
“I would love to see tax reductions,” David Cameron told an interviewer at the weekend, “but when you’re borrowing 11 per cent of your GDP, it’s not possible to make significant net tax cuts. It just isn’t.”(1) Oh no? Then how come he’s planning the biggest and crudest corporate tax cut in living memory?
If you’ve heard nothing of it, you’re in good company. The obscure adjustments the government is planning to the tax acts of 1988 and 2009 have been missed by almost everyone(2,3). They are, anyway, almost impossible to understand without expert help. But as soon as you grasp the implications, you realise that a kind of corporate coup d’etat is taking place. Like the dismantling of the NHS and the sale of public forests, no one voted for these measures, as they weren’t in the manifestos. While Cameron insists that he occupies the centre ground of British politics, that he shares our burdens and feels our pain, he has quietly been plotting with banks and businesses to engineer the greatest transfer of wealth from the poor and middle to the ultra-rich that this country has seen in a century. The latest heist has been explained to me by the former tax inspector, now a Private Eye journalist, Richard Brooks and current senior tax staff who can’t be named. Here’s how it works.
Comments (3)Forest Chumps
Alternatives to Political Systems, Deforestation, Economics, People Systems, Village Development — by George Monbiot February 2, 2011
The sale of England’s state forests is a chance to do something interesting. It’s being squandered.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
It took the previous Conservative government 13 years to propose a sell-off as unpopular as this one. The privatisation of the railways was opposed by 85% of British voters(1), and helped to derail John Major’s administration in 1997. Cameron’s plan to flog the public forest estate, presented to the nation after eight months in office, is opposed by 84% of the public(2). So much for his brilliant political instincts. And yet, stupid and destructive as this sell-off promises to be, it’s just a stone’s throw from something really interesting.
Sustainable Transport
Comedy Break, Consumerism, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by Marc Roberts January 28, 2011
Courtesy: Marc Roberts
Pulling Up the Ladder
Economics, Society — by Marc Roberts January 25, 2011
Click for full view
Courtesy: Marc Roberts
As youth unemployment in the UK reaches for the skies, the Coalition decides to pull up the ladder so the oiks don’t muscle in on their action.
Comments (0)Respecting Ourselves, Part III: Needs Met Ineffectively or at Great Cost
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, People Systems, Population, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Village Development, Water Contaminaton & Loss, peak oil — by Kyle Chamberlain January 18, 2011
Editor’s Note: This is Part III of a three-part series. If you haven’t already, please read Part I and Part II before continuing.
Those of us who live in the ‘developed world’ frequently see their higher needs compromised. But, unlike much of the world’s population, we rarely find ourselves destitute of our most basic requirements, like shelter, water, and food. Our housing may not be particularly secure, our water may not be too clean, and our food may be low on nutrition, but we have, at least, some semblance of the basics.
Our piecemeal life support system works well enough that many of us become fat. The tragedy of this system is not just the substandard services it provides, but also the extreme wastefulness and inefficiency.
Recalling that these basic services were once provided freely by the environment, it’s clear that they’ve become remarkably expensive today. Studies of some hunter/gatherer groups found that their members typically labored just three or four hours daily for their sustenance. Today, the nine hour work day is the norm, with an astonishing proportion of our incomes going to basics, like housing and food.
Comments (7)The Great Food Crisis of 2011
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Population, Soil Erosion & Contamination — by Earth Policy Institute January 15, 2011
by Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute
As the new year begins, the price of wheat is setting an all-time high in the United Kingdom. Food riots are spreading across Algeria. Russia is importing grain to sustain its cattle herds until spring grazing begins. India is wrestling with an 18-percent annual food inflation rate, sparking protests. China is looking abroad for potentially massive quantities of wheat and corn. The Mexican government is buying corn futures to avoid unmanageable tortilla price rises. And on January 5, the U.N. Food and Agricultural organization announced that its food price index for December hit an all-time high.
But whereas in years past, it’s been weather that has caused a spike in commodities prices, now it’s trends on both sides of the food supply/demand equation that are driving up prices. On the demand side, the culprits are population growth, rising affluence, and the use of grain to fuel cars. On the supply side: soil erosion, aquifer depletion, the loss of cropland to nonfarm uses, the diversion of irrigation water to cities, the plateauing of crop yields in agriculturally advanced countries, and—due to climate change —crop-withering heat waves and melting mountain glaciers and ice sheets. These climate-related trends seem destined to take a far greater toll in the future.
Comments (5)Gerald Celente on 2011 – Internet Revolution and Lawn Liberation
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Economics, People Systems, Society, Village Development, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor January 13, 2011
A reader of my recent ‘crystal ball‘ post supplied the following video via comment. I thought I’d put it up front and centre, as it’ll likely get missed by most otherwise, and Gerald Celente’s thoughts are quite interesting, as we embark on another year’s journey in an increasingly interesting life.
Most of us are realistic enough to balance what we want to see happen in the world (and our efforts to bring it about) with what we actually see going on. As it happens, sometimes they both merge, even if not quite as seemlessly as we might hope.
Comments (4)
Respecting Ourselves, Part II: Needs Not Met
Consumerism, Economics, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Kyle Chamberlain January 12, 2011
Editor’s Note: This is Part II of a series. If you haven’t already, please read Part I first.
In the noise and confusion of the modern world, it can be an uphill battle just to learn the truth about what we need. But this is only the beginning of the journey toward self respect. Actually meeting those needs is tougher still.
I’ve come to think of our civilization as one of scarcity. The scarcity I see goes beyond the poverty and starvation overseas which I’ve only read about. This destitution is visible everywhere, even here in the privileged ‘developed world’.
In times of scarcity, people and other life forms prioritize, focusing on their most basic needs first. For instance, during a famine, a person generally ignores their need to play, focusing instead on meeting their need for food. Thus, when we see people ‘cheating’ their higher needs for the sake of their lower needs, we can infer a condition of scarcity.
Comments (5)Organized Barter and Redistribution of Surplus
Community Projects, Consumerism, Economics, Ethical Investment, Financial Management, Markets & Outlets, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Thomas Fischbacher January 11, 2011
In chapter 14 of the Permaculture Designers’ Manual, Bill Mollison gives an interesting example of a restaurant (Zoo Zoo’s) that needed money for renovation but came up with a creative alternative to borrowing it at interest from a bank: they sold dated vouchers at a discount — e.g. an "a meal worth $10, redeemable in July" voucher for $8 — and thus raised money via a subscription system. (Vouchers were dated to prevent the problem of everybody showing up at the same time.) An interesting and maybe un-intended side effect of this was that these vouchers started to become "money" in the sense that people who had them but where short of cash started using them to pay one another for entirely unrelated economic activities (think piano lessons, hedge trimming, etc.). Evidently, these vouchers had a clearly visible value, and hence could be used to meet obligations between people who shared the belief in the value of these vouchers.
Comments (4)Glancing at the Crystal Ball – What Do You See?
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor January 8, 2011
As the new year turned over, I noticed a few websites running article series where correspondents made their predictions about what they anticipate being hot news topics over 2011. Although a few deteriorated into meaningless waffle over who’ll be top of the pops, or who’s going to light up the silver screen this year, there was a general overriding focus on the likelihood of increasing economic gloom. It seems 2011 is starting off with a decent touch of realism, even if they’re still, mostly, ignoring the central cause of that economic gloom — that being the cost of the energy that keeps our modern world ticking over.
