Teaching (or Cultivating) Sustainability (or Inhabitance), Ten Years On
Teaching (or Cultivating) Sustainability (or Inhabitance), Ten Years On For ten years now, I’ve been teaching one version or another of a class on personal simplicity and economic and environmental sustainability here at Friends University, a formerly Quaker, non-denominational Christian, small liberal arts college in Wichita, KS. Though I teach at a religious university, I don’t teach religion […]
Four Reasons Why You Should Stash the Cash!
Four Reasons Why You Should Stash the Cash! With inflation and gas and food shortages on the rise, it is an excellent idea to have some cash stashed for emergencies. I know we live in a world that believes that there is an ATM around the corner and keeping cash in your wallet or in […]
Don’t expect the world economy to resume its prior growth pattern after COVID-19
Don’t expect the world economy to resume its prior growth pattern after COVID-19 Most people seem to think that the world economy is going through a temporary disruption, caused by a novel coronavirus. As soon as COVID-19 goes away, they expect the economy will be back to normal. I think that this assessment is overly […]
Stop Trusting the Experts!
Stop Trusting the Experts! Every now and then, I’m lucky enough to meet someone who “follows the science.” I count on such folks to teach me some science that I do not yet know. Being scientifically literate, I like to start by asking them some basic questions: How are key data terms defined? How are […]
Community-County Collaboration for Neighborhood Preparedness
Community-County Collaboration for Neighborhood Preparedness Port Townsend’s unique county-community neighborhood preparedness project, NPREP, grew from a big-hearted sister-city project that took volunteers from a coastal town in Washington State to Bay St. Louis, Mississippi (pop 9,260). That isolated community had been hard hit by Hurricane Katrina. Federal aid dollars poured into nearby New Orleans, while […]
Not Just Energy, but Everything.
Not Just Energy, but Everything. The criticality of the global energy situation is emphasised by the release, on schedule (18-5-21), of the eagerly awaited “Net Zero by 2050” roadmap (NZE) from the International Energy Agency (IEA). Not only does this document delineate the gargantuan quantities of energy currently used by humans on Earth, mainly from the fossil […]
Not just another drought: The American West moves from dry to bone dry
Not just another drought: The American West moves from dry to bone dry The American West is having a drought. So, what else is new? And, that’s just the point. The American West has been in an extended drought since 2000, so far the second worst in the last 1200 years. Here is the key […]
The idea of ‘green growth’ is flawed. We must find ways of using and wasting less energy
The idea of ‘green growth’ is flawed. We must find ways of using and wasting less energy As countries explore ways of decarbonising their economies, the mantra of “green growth” risks trapping us in a spiral of failures. Green growth is an oxymoron. Growth requires more material extraction, which in turn requires more energy. The fundamental […]
Fed Drains $485 Billion in Liquidity from Market via Reverse Repos, Undoing 4 Months of QE, Even as QE Continues, Total Assets Near $8 Trillion
Fed Drains $485 Billion in Liquidity from Market via Reverse Repos, Undoing 4 Months of QE, Even as QE Continues, Total Assets Near $8 Trillion It’s a crazy situation the Fed backed into as tsunami of liquidity goes haywire, banking system strains under $4 trillion in reserves, and General Treasury Account gets drawn down. This […]
Systemic Risks Abound
Systemic Risks Abound If you wanted to design a system guaranteed to collapse in a putrid heap, you’d make moral hazard ubiquitous and you’d make the system 100% dependent on a hubris-soaked faux savior. For the past 22 years, every time the stock market whimpered, wheezed or whined, the Federal Reserve rushed to soothe the […]
Reindigenizing the Anthropocene
Reindigenizing the Anthropocene This essay is a response to “Redefining the Anthropocene,” by Erik Molvar, which was published on Counterpunch on May 13, 2021. I recommend that it be read first. First let me first stress that I am not calling out Molvar personally or even specifically here. As a staunch opponent of livestock grazing […]
Early humans used fire to permanently change the landscape tens of thousands of years ago in Stone Age Africa
Early humans used fire to permanently change the landscape tens of thousands of years ago in Stone Age Africa Fields of rust-colored soil, spindly cassava, small farms and villages dot the landscape. Dust and smoke blur the mountains visible beyond massive Lake Malawi. Here in tropical Africa, you can’t escape the signs of human presence. […]
Why BigTech are State Actors & Violate our Civil Rights
Why BigTech are State Actors & Violate our Civil Rights As many know, I lived in London years ago. At the upper end of Hyde Park by Marble Arch, there is Speakers’ Corner. That is where anyone could stand up and talk about anything that they wanted. You were free to listen or just walk away. […]
US Experts to Trudeau: Your Nuclear Dream May Turn Nightmare
US Experts to Trudeau: Your Nuclear Dream May Turn Nightmare Rethink backing the Moltex reactor, urge nine non-proliferation heavyweights. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau at the 2016 Nuclear Security Summit in Washington, DC. His government is backing a new generation of reactors US experts now warn could fuel nuclear weapons proliferation. Photo by Sean Kilpatrick, the Canadian […]
