Earthaven

November 20, 2006 at 11:50 pm
Contributed by:

I loved this recent story from the Washington Post, about an intentional community in North Carolina called Earthaven. It’s a next-generation approach to some of the same ideals that drove the communes of the 60s, only with a peak oil motivation, more professionals and retirees, and a more entrepreneurial, business-savvy approach. As these folks attest, it’s an ongoing challenge to make it work, and they haven’t achieved true sustainability yet. But you gotta love the effort. I believe that groups such as these will serve as very useful models for other communities as they prepare to powerdown and relocalize.


Another Way

By Joel Achenbach

The Washington Post, Sunday, November 19, 2006

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/14/AR2006111400979.html

Arundhati Roy – We (Video)

October 25, 2006 at 10:50 pm
Contributed by:


It’s not easy to get your head around all that’s happening in the world today, but Indian novelist and activist Arundhati Roy does a very effective job of rounding it up without sacrificing the truth. I think she has a fearless, fair, and balanced view of what’s happening in the world, but it might hurt a little. As she says at the outset of this video, she has a critique of nationalism, and it is also indeed a critique of American foreign policy, particularly toward Israel, but it’s not anti-national, or anti-American, while still remaining sympathetic to the Palestinians. She has her detractors, as dutifully listed in her Wiki, but every revolutionary does, and besides, having a ballyhooed economist call your critique of globalization “shallow” is sort of self-reinforcing, isn’t it? I think she’s got a great message with lots of good food for thought.

Her most recent book is An Ordinary Person’s Guide To Empire. Among her many other books are two that she co-authored with our champion of justice, Noam Chomsky!


I found this video in another blog, While the Earth Burns by Jeremy Kirouac, a hip Canadian cat with a blog that feels like one of GRL’s Canadian brethren. Check it out, there’s a lot of interesting video material there. He says:


This is a ‘must see’ 64 minute documentary film.


In 1997 Arundhati Roy won the Booker Prize for her novel The God of Small Things. In 2004 she was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize.


The film examines the widely unregarded worlds of Anthropology and Geopolitics in a very dynamic manner, and is probably stylistically quite unlike any documentary that you have previously seen.


It covers the world politics of power, war, corporations, deception and exploitation. It is particularly hard hitting when it comes to the United States and western powers in general.


Its unconventional style has proven to be very successful in engaging younger viewers – many of whom find more traditional content dealing with these subjects quite dry and uninteresting. It is almost in the style of a music video, featuring contemporary music (lush, curve, love & rockets, boards of canada, nine inch nails, dead can dance, amon tobin, massive attack, totoise, telepop, placebo and faith less) overlaid with the words of Arundhati Roy, and images of humanity and the world we live in today

–CArundhati
Roy – We (Video)




Home page for this video: http://www.weroy.org/index.shtml


About The Film


“We” is a free documentary produced by an anonymous student in New Zealand. He (or She) goes by the name “anon”. It was released for free on the Internet and first appeared at an Australian web site called resist.com.au. ”


“This is an unusual kind of underground production. An anonymous sympathiser has edited a video recording of Roy’s speech over 64 minutes, interspersing an impressive array of archival footage to illustrate themes and specific historical events. Contemporary music overlaid throughout the piece shifts the mood and quickens the pace. The result is a visual essay rather than a traditional documentary, perfectly suited to its creator’s intentions, which is to spread the anti-imperialist, social justice politics of Arundhati Roy everywhere.”

Feeling the Heat

August 28, 2006 at 3:39 pm
Contributed by: Chris

Here’s another rare, good piece of journalism about peak oil, global warming, and redesigning communities. This is an excellent primer for those who are still getting up to speed on those topics. Highly recommended.
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Welcome (back) to the new GetRealList!

August 4, 2006 at 2:21 am
Contributed by: Chris
Howdy folks,
Well it’s been nearly two years since I last blogged regularly, and it’s high time I got back on my high horse for some high times in the blogosphere. GRL is now sporting a new face (thanks to poddesigns for the new header logo!), on a new version of GeekLog, on a new server, under its own domain name (www.getreallist.com). And along with its new face, it’s got a new mission: educating as many people as possible about the coming energy crunch, and what they can do about it. Never mind the politics, we’ve got a lot of urgent work to do.

The world certainly has changed a lot in the last two years. Peak oil has been covered by many of the mainstream media,
documentaries about global warming and energy and alternative vehicles are out, books about energy are being published at a breakneck pace, and there’s even a peak oil caucus in the House (thanks to Rep. Roscoe Bartlett and Rep. Mark Udall). Many regular folks are starting to wake up and pay attention to where their energy is coming from, and what that means for geopolitics and American foreign policy. The drumbeat has begun!

On the other hand, most of the reportage I’ve seen is either wrong or politically twisted or just badly done (did anybody see that horrible abortion of a production called “We Were Warned: The Coming Oil Crisis” that CNN did back in March?), and full of misinformation and unreasonable projections. Meanwhile, the White House and Congress are still without any plan to wean us off of oil and natural gas and start making serious tracks to a renewable energy future. In fact, right now their biggest objective is to do more offshore drilling on the continental shelf and in ANWR, with renewable energy investment still a pittance. Apparently they still haven’t gotten the message that we can’t drill our way out of this mess.

I hope I don’t need to tell you that time’s a-wastin’. The ASPO (Association for the Study of Peak Oil and
Gas
) is projecting that we’ll reach the global production peak of all oil (including the “unconventional oil” category which
includes tar sands, oil shale, polar oil, and ultra-deepwater oil) around 2010-2011, and it looks as though the peak of “conventional oil” (light sweet and heavy sour crude from on-shore, and offshore drilling in shallow to deep water) was last year.
Meanwhile, at the ASPO Conference in Pisa two weeks ago, Robert Hirsch, co-author the now-famous ‘Hirsch Report‘ on mitigation scenarios for the next 50 years, doubts that the world can keep increasing oil flows for much longer. “CERA sees a long plateau ahead,” he said. “But I can’t find a plateau in the data I’m looking at.” The downturn, when it comes,  would take the world by surprise. “Peaking could come with little warning and sharp declines,” he said. His latest projection? We’ll need to spend a trillion dollars a year for the next 20 years, globally, to come up with adequate substitutes and mitigation plans.
Also at the conference, Chris Skrebowski said we have 1500 days to prepare for the peak..er, make that 1486 days, give or take. Hm, that’s not much time to muster the political and popular support for spending a trillion a year, certainly not at our current rate. So there is still plenty of work for me to do, getting the story straight and educating as many
people as possible about energy. 
This is where you come in.
Please invite your friends and associates to join the GRL mailing list and help me rebuild the readership! Your help will
enable me to start producing some revenue from the blog and establish a basis for some much more ambitious public education projects I am contemplating.
I hope you enjoy the new GRL and its new focus on all things energy. I love to hear from you, so don’t be shy, drop me an email or a headsup on anything you think might be relevant!

Stay tuned, much more to come!

Cheers,

–Chris

Living on the Banks of Denial

July 28, 2005 at 8:47 pm
Contributed by: Chris

It’s been a long time since my last, pre-election blog. I made several false starts at resuming it since then, but the words just weren’t coming. But my reading and learning has continued unabated, and now it’s time to share some thoughts.

But before I get into that, I have to let you know that the time has also come to say goodbye to betterworld.com. It’s a sad development for me personally, but the offer and the timing was right. (It will be sold to a fine and altruistic organization called Better World Books.) I will be moving Better World to a new domain. This blog will be located at http://www.getreallist.com. So they will be offline for a while as I make the transition, and this will probably be my last blog at the current site.

GetRealList will also be taking a few turns. First, it will focus almost exclusively on energy, because my conviction has been steeled that energy is all that matters going forward. Politics, at least in the US, is all but a lost endeavor at this point. The corruption of our leadership and media, and the revolving door between politics and big business, has effectively nullified any real hope for working within the system for change and for the welfare of the common man. This era belongs to the captains of industry, and there’s really no time left to turn the ship around, even if populists did manage to gain some control over it again.

Second, it will be less oriented to disseminating information, and more focused on my opinions. I have learned that those who are willing to do their own research can find the information themselves, and those who aren’t, didn’t read the articles I was sending around anyway.

And finally, it will be a lot less concerned with building consensus, and a lot more about cutting straight to the truth, as I see it.
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