The Fight of the Century
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Deforestation, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Population, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Village Development, Water Contaminaton & Loss, peak oil — by Richard Heinberg February 22, 2012
As economies contract, a global popular uprising confronts power elites over access to the essentials of human existence. What are the underlying dynamics of the conflict, and how is it likely to play out?
by Richard Heinberg (Article originally published on www.postcarbon.org)
1. Prologue
As the world economy crashes against debt and resource limits, more and more countries are responding by attempting to salvage what are actually their most expendable features — corrupt, insolvent banks and bloated militaries — while leaving the majority of their people to languish in “austerity.” The result, predictably, is a global uprising. This current set of conditions and responses will lead, sooner or later, to social as well as economic upheaval — and a collapse of the support infrastructure on which billions depend for their very survival.
Nations could, in principle, forestall social collapse by providing the basics of existence (food, water, housing, medical care, family planning, education, employment for those able to work, and public safety) universally and in a way that could be sustained for some time, while paying for this by deliberately shrinking other features of society — starting with military and financial sectors — and by taxing the wealthy. The cost of covering the basics for everyone is within the means of most nations. Providing human necessities would not remove all fundamental problems now converging (climate change, resource depletion, and the need for fundamental economic reforms), but it would provide a platform of social stability and equity to give the world time to grapple with deeper, existential challenges.
Comments (1)Plutocracy, Pure and Simple
Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by George Monbiot
Now it’s a straight fight with the billionaires and corporations.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
Shocking, fascinating, entirely unsurprising: the leaked documents, if authentic, confirm what we suspected but could not prove. The Heartland Institute, which has helped lead the war against climate science in the United States, is funded among others by tobacco firms, fossil fuel companies and one of the billionaire Koch brothers(1).
It appears to have followed the script written by a consultant to the Republican party, Frank Luntz, in 2002. “Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.”(2)
Comments (6)The Time for Change is Now!
Consumerism, Society — by Zaia Kendall February 21, 2012
What is happening in the world today and how can people help themselves, each other and the planet, so that the future will look bright again.
by Zaia Kendall
I would like to start off by saying how much I love Australia. The people are great, there is a lot of opportunity here for everyone and we have a lot of space and an enormous amount of wealth.
Unfortunately, this also means that people become complacent.
Comments (9)Global Economy Expanded More Slowly than Expected in 2011
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Economics, Society — by Earth Policy Institute February 18, 2012
by Brigid Fitzgerald Reading, Earth Policy Institute
The global economy grew 3.8 percent in 2011, a drop from 5.2 percent in 2010. Economists had anticipated a slowdown, but this was even less growth than expected, thanks to the earthquake and tsunami in Japan, unrest in oil-producing countries, the debt crisis in Europe, and a stagnating recovery in the United States. As richer economies struggle to recover from the financial crisis of 2008–09, poorer countries are facing high food prices and rising youth unemployment. Meanwhile, growing income inequality and environmental disruption are challenging conventional notions of economic health.
The total value of goods and services produced worldwide in 2011 was $77.2 trillion, twice as much as 20 years ago. The global economy expanded by an average of 4 percent each year in the decade leading up to the 2008 slowdown and the 2009 contraction. Industrial economies typically grew by about 3 percent annually in the 10 years before the recession but only 1.6 percent in 2011. Developing economies, which grew by an average of roughly 6 percent annually in the decade before the recession, grew by 6.2 percent last year.
War Made Easy: 50 Years of Deception and Media Spin
Alternatives to Political Systems, Society — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor February 16, 2012
War Made Easy: 50 Years of Deception and Media Spin
Duration 1:13 — Narrated by Sean Penn
Many permaculturists would agree that one of, if not the, worst aspects of our modern ‘civilised’ civilisation is centralisation. Centralisation equates to decisions made without objectivity, without empathy, and often with purely selfish interests as their core motivating factor, by a far-removed, situation-detached, ‘elite’.
Comments (3)The Big Green Question
Biodiversity, Biofuels, Consumerism, Deforestation, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by George Monbiot February 15, 2012
Is environmentalism compatible with social justice?
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
It is the stick with which the greens are beaten daily: if we spend money on protecting the environment, the poor will starve, or freeze to death, or will go without shoes and education. Most of those making this argument do so disingenuously: they support the conservative or libertarian politics that keep the poor in their place and ensure that the 1% harvest the lion’s share of the world’s resources.
Comments (0)ReOccupy Portugal
Alternatives to Political Systems, Bio-regional Organisations, Community Projects, Eco-Villages, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Millo Magnocavallo February 11, 2012
I have seen a possibility and a lot of factors that are working in favor of this possibility, so it has motivated me to start working on my idea. It’s about collaboratively re-occupying and regenerating abandoned rural land, starting here, where I am in Portugal. Since I know of no other cases of this here in Portugal I will be starting with my own land as a lead case study, lead example or pilot project for lack of a better term. I am currently in the process of investigating this further, but let me explain the idea….
Comments (30)To Everyone Feeling Screwed Over by the Economy
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Economics, Population, Society, Village Development — by Kyle Chamberlain February 10, 2012
Editor’s Note: If you enjoy the article below, and you missed Kyle’s past 3-part series, amongst others, be sure to check them out! (Part I, Part II, and Part III.)
To everyone feeling screwed over by the economy,
We are told that our problem is that there aren’t enough jobs. This message is everywhere. The media gauges our plight with regularly updated unemployment statistics. Politicians debate theatrically over who can create more work. People everywhere clamor for scarce positions at factories and corporations.
I’d like to point out the great irony of this situation — people hate their jobs. How many people do you know who love their job? The truth is, most of us who have ordinary jobs can barely tolerate them. All else being equal, we’d rather not do them.
Comments (64)Incorporating Disability Access and Therapeutic Spaces in Permaculture Design
Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Land, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Elspeth Brock February 9, 2012
Ilma Lever Gardens garden designed for wheelchair access
When working in various gardens for community usage I found we often needed to consider access for gardeners of a range of abilities without compromising the overall function of the design. I want to outline some things I have found useful to make spaces disability-friendly whilst also maintaining the permaculture principles of multiple use values and productive landscapes. Access issues you may need to consider include wheelchair movement, limited bending, blindness, unstable gait from stroke or acquired brain injury.
Many permaculture systems are beneficial as they already aim to reduce the amount of physical labour e.g. no dig, animals doing the work for you, zoning, etc. So here I will focus on more specific elements.
Comments (3)Peer-to-Peer Themes and Urban Priorities for the Self-organizing Society
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Education, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Nikos A. Salingaros February 7, 2012
by Nikos A. Salingaros, The University of Texas at San Antonio
Abstract
This essay presents desirable social functioning as basically a matter of free individual decision. I discuss two basic polarities: Left versus Right, and P2P (Peer-to-Peer) versus Global-mass-society. Each polarity takes certain distinctions and concerns as key to understanding political life. A self-organizing P2P society is driven by individuality, publicly-shared patterns, and common culture based on shared loves; whereas Global-mass-society is based upon groupthink, expertise, and glitzy consumerism, and is run by a small group of intertwined political, economic, and knowledge elites. These two polarities Left/Right, and P2P/Global-mass-society are split in their basic attitudes towards the past, towards authority, and towards religion. I argue that the concerns that have divided Left from Right are less important now than formerly, and that the P2P/Global-mass-society polarity is a better way to understand many important issues today. I then propose that the concerns that have motivated both Left and Right suggest the possibility of enlisting both on the side of P2P. We can overcome the traditional Left/Right distinctions in the name of a new political humanism.
Comments (6)Nichole Foss to Give Talk at The Channon (Feb 10, 2012)
Economics, Food Shortages, Society, peak oil — by Tim Barker
What: Nichole Foss talk on the present and future crises
Where: The Channon Community Hall, near Lismore, NSW, Australia (and a stone’s throw from the PRI’s Zaytuna Farm)
When: 10th of February, starting at 5.30 pm
Cost?: Donation at door
Nicole M. Foss is co-editor of The Automatic Earth (TAE), where she writes under the name Stoneleigh. She and her writing partner have been chronicling and interpreting the on-going credit crunch as the most pressing aspect of our current multi-faceted predicament. The site integrates finance, energy, environment, psychology, population and real politick in order to explain why we find ourselves in a state of crisis and what we can do about it. Prior to the establishment of TAE, she was editor of The Oil Drum Canada, where she wrote on peak oil and finance.
The Search for Sustainability in the Negev
Aid Projects, Community Projects, People Systems, Society, Village Development — by Alice Gray February 2, 2012
The Bedouin of the Negev are an ancient people whose cultural history spans centuries, if not millennia. Historically, the Bedouin have been semi-nomadic pastoralists, who made the desert their own through a combination of dry-land farming of forage crops and cereals, rainwater harvesting and seasonal mobility: rotating their presence between their winter and summer grazing grounds. When water and forage ran short, they would move on to another place where they knew they could find what they needed – a cistern that would probably be full, an area where small shrubs would be abundant.
Like all people, everywhere, they created a complex cultural landscape through their activities: modifying the environment they lived in to suit their needs. Like all people, everywhere, they developed their own codes of conduct for sharing the resources upon which they depended among themselves, between different families and tribal groups. Grazing rights, water rights and rights of safe-passage were enshrined in cultural codes, tribal territories were known and respected (or disrespected at the peril of transgressors).
Comments (13)Common Ground, Not Landscape Design: Improving the Uptake of Permaculture Ideas in Schools by Not Trying to Teach Permaculture
Education, Society — by Nelson Lebo February 1, 2012
This presentation makes a radical departure from many previous approaches to permaculture education in schools. It does not include gardens or design principles. Instead it considers the main purpose of schools — students learning — and the main factor that influences that purpose: the teacher. Most teachers feel overworked and are reluctant to add anything to what they consider an over-crowded curriculum. Most teachers have low ecological literacy and lack confidence to incorporate sustainability issues into their practice. For them, permaculture is just another multi-syllable, unfamiliar concept. It is the rare teacher who will embrace permaculture and run with it. Good on them!
But for the vast majority of teachers, more nuanced approaches are required for them to want to embrace some of the ideas surrounding permaculture. Those ideas include ethical decision making, applied science, sustainable living, and systems thinking. One strategy is to use permaculture design as the process for engaging teachers and students, not as a desired outcome. This presentation reports on two projects in which holistic, multi-layered approaches to permaculture were used to engage teachers and students in New Zealand Schools.
Comments (4)A PDC as a Journey
Courses/Workshops, Society — by Jon Foote
When a PDC turns from a certificate course into a journey of change.
When I first registered for my PDC there was a sense of excitement in what I would potentially learn and the new skills I would gain and be able to apply. As time got closer, the focus then turned to the final details of getting there and getting home afterwards. For me the trip there consisted of:
Comments (5)Divine Injustice
Alternatives to Political Systems, Society — by George Monbiot
Drone warfare can be used to thwart democratic movements, anywhere.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom.
The ancient Greeks, unlike the Jews or the Christians, invested their gods with human failings. Divine judgement, they believed, was neither flawless nor dispassionate; it was warped by lust, vengeance and self-interest. In the hands of Zeus, the thunderbolt was both an instrument of justice and a weapon of jealousy and revenge(1).
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