Energy Bulletin -

Water - Nov 6

kristinsponsler — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:11:44 -0800

-Scientists Reveals Secrets Of Drought Resistance
-Speaker says water limitations not recognized
-A Drought-Stricken Land Offers Help With Water
-A Victory for the 'Water Underground'
-EROWI - energy return of water invested

Climate & environment - Nov 6

kristinsponsler — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 07:03:55 -0800

-Coping With Climate Change: Which Societies Will Do Best?
-GM's Money Trees
-The Carnivore’s Dilemma
-USDA Research: Does No-Till Really Capture More Carbon?
-Why growing virgin vegetable oil to burn is crazy
-Pachauri Still Sees a Chance for Success in Copenhagen Talks
-The Inferno

Food & agriculture - Nov 6

kristinsponsler — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:05:31 -0800

-Jonathan Safran Foer's 'Eating Animals' Book Will Fundamentally Change the Way You Think About Food
-Back to the Land: The New Green Revolution
-Farm Aid
-Georgia growers filling organic niche market
-Discussing the future of urban agriculture in KC

Growing in Community

kristinsponsler — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:32:51 -0800

I think the question of land access may end up being the central political issue of the coming century. In both the rich world and the poor world, we’ve systematically deprived people of easy access to land. We have driven up the price of land in the rich world by encouraging sprawl, and thus forced out agrarian populations that previous fed cities. We have pushed people into cities in the name of globalization and industrialization, and claimed their land for speculation.

Dr. Albert Bartlett's "Laws of Sustainability"

kristinsponsler — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 03:07:03 -0800

At the Denver ASPO conference, I had the good fortune to meet Dr. Albert Bartlett. Afterward, Dr. Bartlett e-mailed me some material he had written over the years. The "Laws of Sustainability" were included in this material. They are part of Al Bartlett's contribution to the anthology The Future of Sustainability by Marco Keiner, published in 2006.

Billy Blundermacher’s Great Corn Cob Fiasco

grizzlegritz — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:20:10 -0800

Billy Blundermacher was maybe not the smartest farmer in Winsome County but contrary to what politicians, prophets, preachers and pedagogues were saying, he knew that 1 plus 1 always equaled 2. Often he wished fervently it were not so, that numbers existed only in the fantasy realm of the Federal Reserve, not the real world.

Capitalism, love, change, or leave it? - Nov 5

kristinsponsler — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 07:00:09 -0800

-John Maynard Keynes: Don't call it a comeback
-Good Capitalism, Bad Capitalism
-Economic growth has let us down. What's the alternative?
-The Iron Cheer of Empire
-Small Deposits Add Up: Savings, not just loans, factor into microfinance formula

Train, train!! - Nov 5

kristinsponsler — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 06:03:50 -0800

-The age of the train: myth or reality?
-Buffett gambles £27bn on rail to get back on track
-Buffett’s Bet on Trains
-Is Warren Buffett's Railway Buy a Billion Dollar Bet on Big Coal?
-It's Time to Rebuild Our Passenger Railroad System
-India jumps on gold bandwagon but Warren Buffett rides the growth train

Wealth is not wealth

kristinsponsler — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:33:25 -0800

Wealth is not what we are taught. Wealth is a verb, not a noun. Wealth is not stuff; it is a fiercely protected system of concentration. It is the act of the hoarding, and is a pillar of our culture.

What "Lower Consumption" Means

kristinsponsler — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 04:20:31 -0800

As a high-school teacher, I wanted to give my thoroughly-industrial, suburban-NJ students a more detailed peek at their upcoming post-industrial future. I felt the need to challenge their prevailing mindsets regarding our resource-depletion predicament: the “shorter showers & change the light-bulbs” crowd, the “engineers will surely come to our rescue” folks, and the “problem? -- what problem?” people. This essay and the before/after comparison chart that follows are part of my ongoing (unsanctioned) attempts at doing so.