I owe John Michael Greer a beer, or maybe two. Now that he’s moved to this half of the continent, I may yet have a chance to offer him one. Over the years of writing, Greer and I have argued and allied, worked together and apart, had our books published in the same season (twice now) and never yet met in person. Having a background in lit crit, I tend to think of my relationship with Greer as having a slight taint of Harold Bloom style anxiety of influence to it, causing me to spend more time … [Read more...]
200 Urban Farms in Havana
Havana relies on 200 urban farms known as organoponicos The vegetable gardeners of Havana By Sarah Murch BBC Two’s Future of Food August 2009 Climate change, drought, population growth - they could all threaten future food supplies. But global agriculture, with its dependence on fuel and fertilisers is also highly vulnerable to an oil shortage, as Cuba found out 20 years ago. Around Cuba’s capital Havana, it is quite remarkable how often you see a neatly tended plot of land right in the heart of … [Read more...]
Camp for Climate Action
Image by Mia Overgaard The Camp for Climate Action 2009 is almost upon us - now's the time to gather ourselves and prepare to swoop. Convinced that the response to climate change needs more? Ready to share skills, knowledge and experiences? To be part of the grassroots swell of people demanding a difference? To get out there and do something? Climate Camp is for you. Be ready next Wednesday, 12th August, from noon, in London. We're going to swoop on the camp location together. The more … [Read more...]
Observations on apocalypse
Today I’m engaging in a long and occasionally heated debate with George Monbiot in the pages of the Guardian about the future of civilisation. And yes, it is a portentous as it sounds. It’s also, I think, an important first foray into territory which the Dark Mountain Project exists to occupy, and which is given little space or airtime at present. Environmentalism has always been a broad church, but in recent years its concerns have narrowed spectacularly. Today’s environmentalists are … [Read more...]
Pulling the wool from over our eyes
On August 12th at 1pm, hundreds of New Zealanders paused for five minutes with woolly hats over their eyes. We then lifted our hats together, showing that we will not have the wool pulled over our eyes about the possibilities for real action on climate change. Scientists say that an atmospheric carbon dioxide of 350 parts per million is the safe upper limit for humanity. See the NZ 350 website. … [Read more...]
Carbon Offsets: A Dangerous Distraction
Friends of the Earth explain why offsetting is a dangerous distraction from the urgent business of decarbonizing the world’s economies. CDM and related offset plans can’t be reformed: they must be scrapped. The following is the Executive Summary of Friends of the Earth’s new report, A Dangerous Distraction, which examines the record of the main offset scheme, the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The full report can be downloaded here. Tackling climate change urgently requires major cuts in … [Read more...]
Transport in Transition. A Guest Piece by Peter Lipman.
Transformation Moment: low carbon travel. How, and how far, will we travel if we make the changes we need to in order to thrive in a carbon constrained society? For a range of interlocking reasons, the conclusion of this paper is that we will be happier, healthier and more resilient if we radically change from [...] … [Read more...]
When is a problem not a problem?
News of the Dark Mountain Project has started to reach civilisation. Few institutions could be more civilised, more wedded to the myth of progress, than the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures & Commerce – yet its Arts and Ecology editor, William Shaw, is not immune to ‘Uncivilisation’, describing the manifesto as “erudite, lyrical and, most of all, apocalyptic in an almost William Blake-ish kind of way.” Meanwhile, in the pages of the Morning Star, Chris T-T (who also … [Read more...]
Lots of Transition TV
If you like a little video inspiration from time to time, here are two great sources of content from the Transition field. There are lots more, but these will keep you going for a while. The NSW Transition website has a range of well organised videos. Here are some videos focussed on the very valuable skill of seedsaving. And then there are all sorts of video on the New Zealand Transition Towns site… … [Read more...]
The Manchester Report: 20 Ideas for Solving the Climate Crisis (via feedly)
The solutions picked by the Guardian and Manchester International Festival's expert panel as the most promising for tackling global warming The Guardian and Manchester International Festival assembled an expert panel to sift through ideas for tackling climate change from all over the world. Below are the top 20 and you can vote on the what you think is the best of the top ten here. The results will be presented to policy-makers as The Manchester Report.The panel was chaired by Lord Bingham, … [Read more...]
- « Previous Page
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- …
- 6
- Next Page »