Stories archived in Sunday, August 22, 2010

To suggest that we start reducing our dependence on air-conditioning is to invite dire forecasts of malaise, poor health, social turmoil, and economic collapse. But that need not be the case. Several lines of research indicate that reducing our dependence on chilled air could improve our quality of life.

- Plastic Bag = the movie
- Permaculture co-originator David Holmgren on Money vs fossil energy: the battle for control of the world
- Why the Irish will find it easier to endure the hard times ahead
- Pakistan: a question of water
- How to make a pile of dough with the traditional city
- Austin's energy conservation gem: interview with Paul Robbins

Thirty-five years from now, America's official century of being top dog (1945-2045) will have come to an end; its time may, in fact, be running out right now. We are likely to begin to look ever more like a giant version of England at the end of its imperial run, as we come face-to-face with, if not necessarily to terms with, our aging infrastructure, declining international clout, and sagging economy.

If, however, we were to dismantle our empire of military bases and redirect our economy toward productive, instead of destructive, industries; if we maintained our volunteer armed forces primarily to defend our own shores (and perhaps to be used at the behest of the United Nations); if we began to invest in our infrastructure, education, health care, and savings, then we might have a chance to reinvent ourselves as a productive, normal nation. Unfortunately, I don't see that happening.

Every society attempts to determine which risks will be borne by the individual and which will be borne by the community. My task is to convince you that the idea of individual risk is flawed, and that to the extent we organize our society around it we are being hoodwinked by a false libertarian ideology, one that tells us there are choices available to the individual the consequences of which will fall only to that individual.

- Peak oil alarm revealed by secret official talks
- What if there’s much less coal than we think?
- Peak Everything - a libertarian view
- Go solar before it's too late!
- Think OPEC exports won't decline? You're living in a dreamworld

The model is simple and has been done before. From 1933 to 1942 the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) provided jobs for younger workers conserving natural resources (e.g. our national parks) in the US. The program was part of a general jobs creation program proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression to provide a stimulus to the economy and, so to speak, kill two birds with one stone. There was a great deal of resource management work that needed to be done, things like building access roads in national parks, and there were millions of unemployed young men who, without meaningful work, would have likely run amuck. It was, in fact, a brilliant idea.