Teaching powerdown
Rediscovering Production
To consume means to destroy. That’s why “consumption” was the name given to tuberculosis. – Vandana Shiva[i] Producing food. For the most part, people alive today have lost touch with this most basic of human activities. Instead, we have…
A future that is …
Low-carbon Post-petroleum Socially just More fulfilling … ??? In an article which is unfortunately no longer available online, Don Hall (at one time part of Transition Colorado) wrote that “sustainability” wasn’t exactly an enticing goal; that to him it sounded…
Hartmann’s Older Culture view
Thom Hartmann, in The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, gives us an idea of the magnitude of change that will be required. He reminds us of the Older Culture view, the tribal culture, of which Native Americans are an example.…
Resilient nonprofits
As we rethink society for a post-petroleum, economically-lean future, it’s opportunity to rethink nonprofit structures, too. As stated before, we need to set up environmental and social change organizations as entities that will endure, instead of going bankrupt. Rather than…
Possible Scenarios for the Future: James Gustave Speth
James Gustave Speth is the U.S. author of The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Crossing from Crisis to Sustainability. His book is a wide-ranging academic survey of post-capitalism ideas (including, but not limited to,…
Possible Scenarios for the Future: Tim Jackson
Tim Jackson’s Prosperity Without Growth is a book that interested Hopkins. In critiquing all these resources, I was looking for writers who acknowledged the full reality that developed countries will have to do some significant adjusting downward — both in…
Possible Scenarios for the Future: Stoneleigh
Stoneleigh (aka Nicole Foss) is – in my opinion — right on target with her understanding of the big picture, and the show isn’t over yet. Stoneleigh explains that much of what might look like solid substance in our economy…
Part II: Possible scenarios for the future
Fundamental change – indeed, radical system change – is as common as grass in world history.– Gar Alperovitz, America beyond Capitalism Part I took a hard look at the realities ahead. In this segment we’ll look at some of the…
Possible Ways off the Mountain
“Anyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.” –Kenneth E. Boulding I usually begin the economics portion of my talks with an overview: that we’re coping with…
Resilience
The idea of resilience comes from the study of ecology. It’s really about how systems, settlements, withstand shock from the outside … that they don’t just unravel, and fall to pieces. … It’s about building modularity into what we do,…