Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
A current book asks Will China Save the Plamet? The author, Barbara Finamore, served as the China representative of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Her story gives first-hand material less for answering this question than for showing how a big country can move from defensive nationalism to global leadership in starting the transition to a green economy.
In a nutshell, Modernist thinking on food exalts agricultural productionism, which frequently uses toxic technologies to overwhelm natural systems and limits, artisanal work methods and traditional home-based skills and habits.
If you want to put meaning into meaningless slogans, he said, think about an eco-civilization that means local resource sovereignty, multidiversity solidarity, and sustainable ecological safety.
1. Oil and the Global Economy
2. The Middle East & North Africa
3. China
4. Venezuela
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including: -Oil and the Global Economy -Middle East and North Africa -China -Russia -Briefs
The illusion that we can control the world financial system is just one more illusion we share in an increasingly unstable world. Once that illusion is shattered, we will have to rethink carefully our assumptions about our lives, financial and otherwise.
A weekly review: Oil and the Global Economy, The Middle East and North Africa, China, Russia/Ukraine, Greece, The Briefs.
A Mid-Week Update. It has been one of the more event-filled weeks in recent memory, but so far oil prices have changed little with New York futures continuing to trade between $51 and $53 a barrel and London between $57 and $59.
What’s happening in the Chinese stock market may be the front edge of the often delayed demise of the global credit bubble. Our daily lives have become so dependent on finance that it appears governments will do anything to keep the bubble going. Can they really succeed indefinitely?
China’s environmental problems are massive and growing, but the Chinese leadership has made significant steps toward a more sustainable development. This emphasis has emerged out of a broad socialist perspective, influenced by both Marxian analysis and China’s own distinct history, culture, and vernacular.
Invoking Yellow Peril tropes over China’s carbon footprint fails to recognise the fact its energy use is tied to our consumption, the country’s coal demand is dropping and Chinese people care more about climate than we do
Energy consumption statistics hint that China may have already begun its decent into slower growth and that that growth will be much slower than almost anyone has forecast.
