We're all subsidising environmental destruction (online)

Two stumbling blocks on the road to regeneration: externalities and subsidies

 The prevailing opinion among today’s political and economic elites is that economic globalisation is in some sense inevitable. Rather than being inevitable, economic globalisation is, in fact, the result of a number of carefully chosen policies. Paradoxically many of these directly contradict the basic tenets of classical free market economic theory, from which the proponents of economic globalisation draw inspiration and authority. By understanding the key reasons why the global economy behaves as it does today, we will be in a better position to discern the core patterns underlying economic behaviour and to change them. Two key drivers of today’s global economy are externalities and subsidies.

Microgreen/mushroom permaculture (journal)

Expanding Herbal Microgreen-Mushroom Permaculture Can Be an Efficient Way toRecycle Agricultural Waste While Treating and Feeding the World

A sustainable cycle of substrate utilization is beginning to manifest with plant waste being used as mushroom substrate, and spent (used) mushroom substrate being used in place of traditional soil, for herbal microgreen growth. This approach to efficiency and conservation an example of permaculture, or the development of agricultural ecosystems intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient.

 

A vision for eco settlements (online)

A vision for Ecological Settlement Design (by Declan & Margrit Kennedy)

Margrit and Declan Kennedy spend their lives as activists, architects, academics and pioneers in the permaculture, ecovillage and alternative currency movements. This qualifies them as exemplary trans-disciplinary whole systems thinkers, designers, and doers. They are co-founders of the ecovillage Lebengarten in Germany, while working as professors of architecture and urban planning in Berlin, they also taught the first permaculture courses in Europe. Here is their whole systems vision of ecological design for sustainable communities.

The urgency of climate action (online)

Three Things We Don’t Understand About Climate Change

Thinking about climate change is not something that comes natural to humans — or ‘consumers’ as we have been called for decades. It is not only emotionally unpleasant, but analytically extremely challenging. Most of us do not grasp how immediate this situation has become, how fast it is progressing and what the scale of change needed is. After individuals, nations and corporations understand the urgency and the rate, they should be honest about the scale of action needed in order to avoid collapse of the biosphere and thus civilisation.