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CURATED ECOLOGICAL NEWS Taxman
“Let me tell you how it will be. There’s one for you, nineteen for me. ‘Cause I’m the taxman.” Hear it at: Living Energy Farm – an off-grid community example
“The path from our industrialized lifestyles to ones that respect planetary boundaries can often feel unclear and overwhelming. However, there are already individuals and communities who have transformed their way of life to do just that. In today’s Great Simplification, Nate Hagens is joined by Alexis Zeigler, a founding member of the cooperative community, Living Energy Farm, to take a peek into the Farm’s unique daily life and explore their innovative systems for using electricity and technology in ways that are far less consumptive than the average American. “Because the U.S. has an abundant energy supply, everything gets designed either ignoring energy or giving it token consideration. It enables, encourages, empowers bad design across the board. Alexis is a self-taught activist, builder, mechanic, writer, and orchardist. He’s currently working to grow Living Energy Farm in Virginia, a zero fossil fuel, mostly self-sufficient farm that prioritizes collective living principles. “The interesting overlap between environmental concerns and intentional community is the shared use of resources – both on the investment side and on the using it after it’s built side – strongly favors community. If you just look at something very simple, for instance solar hot water, that’s a fairly low tech technology, yet it’s kinda expensive. But with a little tweaking, that renewable energy scales at 10 people minimum. For things like food, water, power for domestic energy use, we are 100% off grid. We’re already using biogas to cook with. Te computer itself as well as the internet uplink is all solar powered off nickel iron batteries.” More at: Self-sufficient co-housing community model
“This spring my husband and I are moving. We will still be part of the experiment we have participated in for almost thirty years: Cobb Hill Cohousing, a multi-generational community. The house we are moving to will still share 280 acres of farm and forest and participate in community celebrations and decision making. We’ll still have maple syrup, eggs, flowers, herbs, vegetables, milk, and cheese all produced by our neighbors on our shared land. “Here are six reasons that came to mind when we paused to ask ourselves, why community? People — As disasters become more frequent and politics destabilizes, it feels more important than ever to live connected to other people. Land — There’s the pleasure of coming to know a piece of land deeply. There’s also the work and joys of stewardship. Learning — No one knows how to live sustainably and equitably in our current society or how to prepare for coming climate shocks. So we need to learn. And learning is faster with more minds in the mix. Food — There’s the taste of a fresh strawberry or an ear of corn moving from field to plate in five minutes. Then there’s the satisfaction of growing some of what you eat and knowing the people who grew more of it. Resilience — From the connections between good people, it’s the capacity to cope. It is, hopefully, the capacity to help each other and offer support to wider circles. A link to the future — Maybe in the end that’s the main reward of trying to do things differently — the encouragement to others that they can create the possibilities they see.” More at: Transition Town urban resilient communities
“Reading (UK) is typically seen as a commuter hub, seemly unexceptional, even bland, with not much going on there. But, on looking a little closer, Reading has real community, a group of local people who are coming together to create real change. While many of our problems are global, there is much we can do at the local level to make things better. This is what the Transition Town movement is about: a group of local communities that are reimagining our world at the local level. “Transition Town communities foster grassroots projects that focus on increased self-sufficiency, especially in terms of local food growing and energy use, minimising unnecessary consumption and waste, where neighbours know each other and act together to make things happen. The first Transition Town was founded in Totnes, in 2006, and became an inspiration for other groups to be created. The movement has become global, with thousands of communities now involved in Transition initiatives in over 50 different countries. “Transition Town Reading (TTR) began in May 2009. TTR grew by people in gravitating toward the central idea of Transition. TTR screened the film ‘In Transition 1.0’ in 2010, and by that stage its numbers had grown to about 25-30 active members. Many projects have spun out from the original TTR group – a microhydro electricity generating station, a Reading Repair Cafe, a Community Solar Society, and local food growing.” More at: Wishful thinking and suspended disbelief
“Language is one of humanity’s most unique and powerful tools. But how might this extraordinary ability backfire? In this episode of Frankly, Nate Hagens explores the limitations of using our imaginations to shape our understanding of what’s possible through the use of three categories: what can’t happen, what won’t happen, and what might happen. “How are today’s societal goals shaped by unrealistic expectations of what’s possible under our current biophysical reality? Unfortunately, most of the things in our public discourse about the future are in the what can’t happen and what won’t happen category, when we need to be focusing on the what might happen category, and that’s what I’d like to discuss today. “There are two subcategories of what can’t happen. One is the physical laws of the universe. The second category of ‘cannot happen’ is path dependence, which is those historical things that have happened that don’t allow other things in the future. For instance, if tree frogs go extinct, there will be no tree frogs, in the future. “What won’t happen is a stringing together of aggregate probabilities of unlikely things — meaning effectively it’s not going to happen. For today, I’m gonna start with one, which is still heavily funded and believed, that we will reduce emissions to zero by the year 2050 by getting rid of all fossil fuels in our energy system and by reducing and pulling CO2 out of the air and sequestering it. “So let’s for the moment assume that we have the technology to have a 100% renewable energy economy. I don’t think this is possible, for many reasons, but let’s for the moment assume that we have the technology to have a 100% renewable energy economy. We have to stack all of the hurdles together and multiply the aggregate probability of the true odds of something manifesting in a decade or three from now. “So right now we have carbon CCS, which is around 10,000 tons of CO2 removal per year, versus the 40 billion tons that we emit. We are growing, fossil fuel use twice as fast globally, in aggregate scale, as we’re growing renewables. We are not replacing fossil fuels with renewables, we are adding. In fact, there has been no green revolution, only a green addition. “So those are a couple hurdles, but now let’s get into the more serious ones. When Trump pulled out of support for Ukraine, Germany decided to boost their spending on defense. But the markets precluded large spending amounts because German tenure note yields were hitting multiple year highs. So we are at a place right now where debt is becoming a huge load stone for physical and biophysical plans in the world. “Now with tariffs and everything else, to re-industrialize the United States, which is a laudable goal, only works with a weak dollar. And if we have a weak dollar, the entire petrodollar debt-based system in the world collapses. Then there’s some new hurdles that I didn’t think about, but we need to have governance and open society and democracy in order to get to something like net zero. It’s the, ‘For want of a nail, a horse was lost. For want of a horse, the kingdom was lost’. Then there’s a complexity risk from incompetence.” More at: State of degrowth from the United Kingdom
“Capitalist economies generate economic growth because nearly all countries rely on continued economic growth for stability and to fund government expenditure. But for now, the stagnation of most rich country economies has become a problem for them. The stagnation has multiple causes. “From the increasing scarcity of energy and mineral resources, extraction becomes ever more expensive, causing reduction of the both the energy and the money returned by investment. The environment also offers increasing shocks from climate and ecological destruction which have their impacts on the accumulation cycle. Capitalism’s growth motor is broken, and while there will be temporary repairs, nobody knows how to fix it long term. “What might be the entry points, the nodes for resistance, prefiguration and organisation for the degrowth movement? We have to recognise that there is no longer a reasonably unified single ‘midwife of history’. The multiple set of issues to be confronted means that the opposition to the dominant order consists of diverse groupings who might make common cause on some issues but not on others, particularly in the absence of a unifying ideology: class struggle is not enough. “Degrowth activism will involve different (often overlapping) modes of struggle in different places and times. Sections of the left and centre-left are recognising that the productivist capitalist model both fails to deliver the anticipated benefits to the population, while threatening the environmental substrate that society and economy rely on. Some trade unions are aligned with degrowth aims8 but some not, particularly where jobs in the ‘dirty’ economic sectors are concerned.” More at: Local economics: best defense against tariffs
“Our Canadian neighbors are pulling Kentucky bourbon and other US goods from the shelves and liberating themselves from the tariff-obsessed lunatic in the Oval Office. The same story is playing out across the globe. I’ve already written about why tariffs are a form of dumb localization. Today, I want to focus on how communities can inoculate themselves from the increasing unpredictability of the global economy by becoming as local as possible, as fast as possible. The more you can produce your own goods and services from your own resource base, the less vulnerable you’ll be. “About 90% of what we spend is on services and nondurable goods and can easily be produced locally (or regionally, if you live in a small town). If your community is not 90% self-reliant now, tariffs are your invitation to get started. The only things that are really hard to produce locally are durable goods, like cars, phones, and refrigerators. For now, let’s just concede that these items still must be imported. “Here are ten distinct strategies your community can and should deploy to achieve this self-reliance goal: - Leakage Analysis: Look systematically at where money is leaving your economy right now.
- Asset Analysis: Your community should make a thorough inventory of all underused assets.
- Circular Economies: A very specific kind of asset overlooked by most economic developers is what we mistakenly call waste: garbage, pollution, excess heat, and so forth. These waste products are potentially valuable inputs for new industries.
- Vertical Integration: Leakage analysis should be performed not only by the community but also by its local companies.
- Anchor Institutions: Vertical integration is particularly powerful if it is deployed by publicly owned anchor institutions.
- Business Partnerships.
- Local Credit Networks.
- Local Investment.
- Innovation Centers.
- Global Partnerships.” More at:
State groups pushing for lower emissions transportation
“More than 100 transportation reform organizations in the country recently announced that they’re joining forces as the Clean RIDES Network to challenge state DOTs across America to adopt better policies. The initiative will start with seven states — California, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, and Pennsylvania — that the group believes are best positioned to make big changes. “The campaigns all will focus on the same core principles: getting decision-makers to halt road-widening projects, focus on maintaining the roads they already have, and invest heavily in walking, bicycling, transit, and targeted electric vehicle investments instead. The national groups will offer technical and strategic knowledge to which grassroots organizers don’t often have access. “‘Even though transportation is now the largest source of greenhouse gasses, it does not get the same amount of attention as other areas, like housing or electricity provision’, said Connor Descheemaker, statewide campaign manager for Transit for All Pennsylvania.” More at: Colombia moving to non-fossil fueled economy
“Colombian president Gustavo Petro intends to stop exporting fossil fuels to the global market. The country’s first left-wing government has prioritized the interests of local workers and indigenous communities in its vision for a socially just ecological transformation. “In this interview, former energy minister, Irene Vélez-Torres, discusses why she advocates for a phaseout of fossil fuels, how she envisions a socially just transition, and what role countries in the Global North should play. President Petro wanted someone for the position who would turn away from an orientation of profit and traditional extractivism, so he appointed her to the post. “Many of our problems lie at the intersection of extractivism and the impoverishment of local communities, where the deterioration of conditions has become almost institutionalized. They mostly occur in areas inhabited by ethnic and rural communities. “The government is trying to replace the income from the export of raw materials with ecological tourism, and with the enhancement of biodiversity. Another factor is the strengthening and development of agrarian culture — that is, traditional peasant agriculture as opposed to industrial agriculture. Another point is green or renewable energies, which involves promoting solar and wind energy sources. But we have also considered geothermal energy and green hydrogen.” More at: | 
