Culture Change
Search
11 October 2024
Home arrow Energy and Survival
Energy and Survival
James Hansen's Climate Blindspot
by Jan Lundberg   
01 January 2016
DRAFT
Dr. James Hansen, former head of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies,
... .. ....
 
The Next Tango in Paris
by Albert Bates   
01 November 2015
Image "Sweden has decided to decommission all its nuclear plants but has yet to propose a similar program to phase out its wind turbines."

"Carbon-neutral is so 20th century. We really need to get beyond zero. That is what ecovillages can offer."

We were just concluding a conference call for Global Ecovillage Network delegates in the run-up to the UN climate summit one month from now in Paris when we said that. The discussion had turned to what our message should be. There is a very good program initiated by ten European ecovillages, called the Fossil-Fuel Free Community Challenge. It is very ambitious, and tracks what Sweden, already carbon-neutral, has recently pledged.

 
Time to Stop Worshipping Economic Growth
by Brent Blackwelder   
30 October 2015
Publisher's note: The modus operandi of Western Civilization has been expansion at any cost. The leaders and beneficiaries have exploited and oppressed the inferiors--one of whom was Mother Nature who seemed indestructible. Intelligent people have seen the dangers of rampaging industrial development, but seldom see Western Civilization or "growth" as the root issue. Even environmental organizations and "green" leaders put the economy first in their climate protection priorities: relying almost entirely on a technofix for an eventual "clean energy economy" through financing different industries than fossil fuels. Meanwhile, immediate curtailment of energy consumption is far quicker and more effective. We must counteract the inadvertent guardians of the status quo. - J L
 
Petroleum Use Is Wrong For You And Me. What Can Be Done?
by Jan Lundberg   
10 February 2015
Conflict, Contest, and Hope
In this time of serial, overlapping wars, accelerating climate destruction, and -- the epitome of inequity -- just 85 of the world's richest people's owning as much as what 3.5 billion people own, the dominant culture has overreached. It may find itself on the run as "the system" is opposed by a swelling majority of people. For we are suffering more and more, and we sense there are fundamental problems coming to a head. The common denominator is often oil.

It is well known that oil is involved in most of the Middle Eastern, Central Asian and African armed conflicts which involve oil-dependent societies (primarily the U.S.). War itself has been for the last century a massive oil operation, and the Pentagon is decade after decade the largest oil buyer in the world.

 
"Sustainable" - How Must It Be Defined And Gauged?
by Vermonters for Sustainable Population and Jan Lundberg   
26 December 2014
Just as "sustainable growth" is ultimately an oxymoron, and just as the original 1970 Earth Day eventually became a co-opted, farcical Chamber of Commerce insult, the word "sustainable" has been nearly exhausted as a credible claim or slogan. But the concept remains and says a bit more than "green," because one then tends to reckon with population size. Sustainability is perhaps best defined as what is appropriate for a "seventh generation," the Native American philosophy. Yet, "sustainability" specialists, many of them well-meaning environmentalists, persist in reinventing sustainability criteria with nary a mention of the only record of sustainability: indigenous, traditional ways sustained for uncounted millennia. Culture Change welcomed this submission:
 
Questionable Renewable Energy Dreams: Where Do We Go from Here?
by Jan Lundberg   
24 November 2014
Image A Tale of Three Studies • Oil Grows in Instability and Danger As It Goes Away Geologically • Cars Are Renewable?
It was the summer that Al Gore had NASA's James Hansen testify in the Senate that human-caused global warming had begun: in August 1988 I founded Fossil Fuels Policy Action, a nonprofit institute, in Washington. We would be a clearing house for energy data & policy, with an eye to replacing fossil energy with renewable energy. Two all-consuming questions became our focus: why is the U.S. not conserving energy, and what can make it happen? This immediately morphed us from more passive "assessment" to more active advocacy, within our basic mission.
 
<< Start < Prev 1 . 2 . 3 . 4 . 5 . 6 . Next > End >>

Results 1 - 26 of 133

Culture Change mailing address: P.O. Box 3387, Santa Cruz, California, 95063, USA, Telephone 1-215-243-3144 (and fax).
Culture Change was founded by Sustainable Energy Institute (formerly Fossil Fuels Policy Action), a nonprofit organization.
Some articles are published under Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107. See Fair Use Notice for more information.