New cool video

Here is the link for a new cool video about how economy works. In 20 minutes everybody can understand why the system is broken. Don't be fooled by the fact that the most waste comes from production. Every little thing counts so don't give up on recycling. Also, when you can make such choice, buy stuff produced locally and/or in a sustainable way (green).

Watch The Story of Stuff at http://www.storyofstuff.com/

Food for thought

Last few months I was immersed in a learning project. After I made the calculations about the Oil and Coal reserves using Dr. Barlett's formula, I realized that these figures mean something that we should worry about. I did further research on peak oil and the state of the planet.

The UN published the report 2008 State of the future. It tells how bad things are and, of course, that there are ways out of this. The headlines in the news were: ‘2008 State of the Future report --we may not be doomed’ and ‘The Future Isn't What it Used to Be! (It's Going to be Better)’.
You can check or download the summary for yourself at:
http://www.millennium-project.org/millennium/SOF2008-English.pdf
and see yourself how better it can be.

It is very clear that peak oil is happening. It is hard to believe it and the consequences are that we have to change our lifestyle. In short, consumerism is not possible anymore. We will have to get by with less and less useless stuff. Since oil and natural gas is in everything --agriculture, transportation, infrastructure, plastics, heating, etc -- we have to rethink our food supply, our transportation, and our energy resources. It won't be easy to change most of the infrastructure with less energy and troubled finances. The time factor is also against us. We should have started long time ago to adapt to the new situation. If you want to know more about it, just google 'peak oil' and you will have a wide selection.

I was reading Freakonomics and, besides the fact that I am largely unimpressed by the lack of accuracy of the studies, I found an article 'debunking' the peak oil. I expected it to be bad but it turned out to be sadly hilarious. It was written just before the soaring price of oil reassuring people that nothing is going to happen. This is why economists should listen to engineers sometimes.

http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2005/08/21/peak-oil-welcome-to-the-medias-new-version-of-shark-attacks/

A very good website that shows in and understandable way what is wrong in our world is Chris Martenson's website. His Crash Course is easy to grasp for anyone. In his lesson about money he is centered on how US financial system is, but it still help you understand why compounded interest is not a good idea.

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crash-course

Chris Martenson focuses more on money and resources. I could add that the free market mechanism works great to make money for some. Markets work best with private property and things that have a price. Its goal is to produce goods as cheap as possible, otherwise companies will disappear. When it comes to ethics or environment or future generations, it fails utterly because these things don’t have a price. Economy will chew up everything that is for free or cheap to make products that you don’t necessarily need, but you are convinced to buy. Trees, animals, fish, land, water and even human beings are only part of the game if a profit can be made. If those things disappear, oh well, we will just move onto other resources and other products?! Basically, we are trapped in an economic model whose only goal is to make more money or die. As you can see, it is a life or death situation. What if you have money but there is nothing to buy? It would be a good question for economists.

I lived through such times in communist Romania, during a period that can be compared to post oil economy. What is coming is simple: food rations, gas rations, less heating, blackouts, water on and off, other products to be found sporadically, black market, etc. Forget about traveling, or an over-abundance of products. No more painful choices to make when you buy mustard. ;-)

I warmly recommend the documentary “What a Way To Go: Life at the End of Empire”. It addresses the problems we are facing and tries to find their roots. I recommend watching it a couple of times. It is very dense information-wise. It can be shocking and most people react like they have lost something dear and go through stages of grief. It will be unpleasant but necessary.

What a way to go trailer

I’ve spent many hours reading and looking for a solution, or maybe a proof that I am wrong. With every article, book, documentary and news piece, I am more and more convinced that it is happening and there is no coherent solution out there. Every time I see an article saying that there is no reason to be worried, I hope that it will convince me. And every time I am disappointed by its shallowness. It breaks my heart when I see the hugely disproportionate coverage of political and financial issues, when the fact that a quarter of the mammal species are threatened with extinction doesn’t get any headline at all. A quarter of all species! Isn’t that some kind of unprecedented mass murder? Shouldn’t that sell newspapers?

The answer to these problems is total mobilization and cooperation at a global level. Citizens, governments and corporations all over the world have to work together toward the same goal. Hmmm. How likely is that, given the short time that we have? What chance do we have, knowing that the goal of The Market is to make more money, not to sustain life? How much can our leaders do if they only think about the next election and how to return favors to their campaign contributors? There is certainly some progress, especially at lower levels, but a few billion people have a lot of inertia. Just think about the Kyoto Protocol to realize how useless the politicians are when fast decisions have to be made.

Our only friend (and at the same time, our biggest enemy) is us. We are on our own. We can only brace ourselves and start preparing for what is coming. We can start asking questions of our leaders, spread the word, ask for better planning of the cities, downsize our consumption, start building communities, localize the production of critical goods, becoming energy and food independent, or… we can just party while we can. It is our choice to make the world a better place or to let it be transformed into a Mad Max world. The edge between these two possibilities is so thin…

Czeslaw Milosz – On the day the world ends - a beautiful and sad poem

"The only rational response to both the impending end of the oil age and the menace of global warming is to redesign our cities, our farming and our lives. But this cannot happen without massive political pressure, and our problem is that no one ever rioted for austerity." George Monbiot

There are interesting times ahead, whether we like changes or not. It can be our opportunity to build a more ethical, fair, and fulfilling world. At the same time human kind could slip into a painful dark age once again in its history. We are at an unmarked crossroad and the best path to take is not known. We have very hard problems to solve. If only everybody knew that there IS a problem. That would be the first step in solving it.

Trip to Kinsale

At the end of October, we decided that it was time to visit some of Ireland. We booked three nights at a B&B near Kinsale, a charming town on the South coast of Ireland. We chose it because it is claimed to be the food capital of Ireland, it is a transition town, and it had a jazz festival happening that week-end.

On our way, we stopped and visited the Rock of Cashel (an ancient castle) and Cahir Castle (pronounced "care", a modern 12th century castle). Saturday was a downpour all day long so we mostly played games. After sunset the rain stopped and we were able to visit Kinsale by night, eat, and listen to some "jazz" (actually it was genuine blues, and even some country and western -- it felt very strange to hear American music in such a traditional Irish environment). The food was great every evening, living up to the claims.

Next day, sunny and shiny, we did an abridged version of our rained-out itinerary. That is, some coastal driving, see Drombeg Stone Circle, visit some smaller towns, see Blarney castle, and then head to Cork. The small towns like Clonakilty and Brandon were very quaint and the people very warm and friendly. Cork looked austere industrial and the major jazz festival that weekend made it very busy. Too bad we didn't have time to visit more of it but I am sure the countryside was more worth visiting than the big cities.

The last day we saw Kinsale by day and visited the two forts that once defended the harbor. James Fort is much smaller and it is not open for visiting but you can have a nice stroll from Kinsale Marina to the top of the hill/peninsula from where you can see all of Kinsale. Charles Fort is a huge impressive star-shaped fort with layers of history and layers of vegetation fighting to conquer the ruins. The grass will prevail in the end!

Here are some photos from our trip:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/darxan/sets/72157608814703524/