Every extractive capitalist economy needs a mechanism that allows corporate heavyweights to snuggle up with elected officials. In the US, there’s American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), and if you haven’t…
Is there a Baby Boomer so dim in this land of rackets and swindles who thinks that he or she will escape the wrath of the Millennials rising? The developing…
When we talk about complexity, resources and economic decline, it seems we’ve learned nothing from history. In his talk in Barcelona, Tainter gave the example of the Roman Empire during…
World population has increased from under 1-billion in 1800 to over 7-billion today–that’s just over 200 years. So that’s an extraordinary rate of population increase. If we saw that in…
Last month, while reading and reviewing Too Much Magic, I came across a line in the latter half of the book that really stung: “Not even people who are preoccupied…
I don’t want to be one of those grandpas who spoils the grandkids with a habitable planet. It’s the same reason I will not buy life insurance. I get hit…
It’s no secret that some homemaking activities–gardening, cooking and preserving food, building things from recycled materials, for example–are good for the planet. Households with at least one homemaker (or two…
While I enjoy reading the works of James Howard Kunstler, I’m always hesitant to talk or write about them. His low-tech vision of the future seems too far out there…his…
For the first blog post of the new year, I decided to keep things upbeat. Last year’s Favourites post was a big hit for some reason…maybe because we’re all secretly…
Parliament is winding down, and it’s getting close to Christmas…do you know where your politicians are? Most likely they’re boarding a plane and heading back home to sip egg nog…
Success in keeping a happy flock of laying hens invariably leads to more than just an abundance of eggs…it can lead to overconfidence. We have a tendency to say, “Well,…
