The problems of the world are underpinned by an excesisve population of humans. The exponential growth in human population has been driven by the oil age which has fuelled food and healthcare. The consequence is that the footprint of humanity is too great for the biosphere. The carrying capacity of the earth has been exceeded. …
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Category:Living
World Economic Situation and Prospects 2009
The United Nations released part of their World Economic Situation and Prospects 2009 today. The chapter Global Outlook is available here (pdf) and the slide show summarising the Outlook is available here (pdf). I strongly recommend reading the slide show which should take about 5 minutes, and then continue to the chapter if you like. …
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Yoga and the Economic Crisis
Read Pam’s essay Yoga in the Economic Crisis – Maintaining Emotional Health in Hard Times. In it she talks about how yoga help, why it works and mentions some alternatives too. Maybe it’s worth getting a bit of yoga in your life.
Morals and the Meltdown
A good perspective from Robert Skidelsky. He writes well. His language is a bit religious for me, but the analysis is all too accurate. Here’s the link to his website and the article is copied below. In our view, we are now confronting the limit to the growth of humanity he concludes with. Morals and …
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The sad economics of growing vegetables
I came across an article on intensive commercial horticulture in Organic Matters. It reflects much of what we’ve learned over the past decade of organic production in Ireland (a developed economy, with subsidised industrial farming and a consumer market generally interested in cheapness and uninterested in quality or source). Two main ideas which are relevant …
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LOHAS mind maps and videos
LOHAS 12, the twelfth annual gathering focussed on sustainable an healthy living, has recently put presentation videos and summaries online here. Particularly good are the graphic mind maps of about a dozen presentations which are linked here. Here is one of them entitled LOHAS Market Trends prepared by idea360.com:
Japan murders 2 more murderers …
Japan has hanged two convicted murderers, bringing the total number of death penalties implemented this year to 15, thought to be the highest total in many years. It is a strange anomaly that a country with such wealth, such a high standard of living and having suffered itself as a victim has not yet removed …
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World Food Day 2008
World Food Day 2008 provides an occasion to once again highlight the plight of 923 million undernourished people in the world. Most of them live in rural areas where their main source of income is the agricultural sector. Global warming and the biofuel boom are now threatening to push the number of hungry even higher …
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Biomimicry wins Nobel prize
Biomimicry involves emulating nature in technology. A clever trick borrowed from jellyfish has earned two Americans and one Japanese scientist a share of the chemistry Nobel Prize. Read the report here.
Evolution is over and we’re living in Utopia.
An interesting perspective on how evolution of humans has ended: genetic mutations have declined, natural selection has been extinguished (by medicine and philanthropy) and may be being reversed, and biological differentiation has diminidhed by the density of humanity on the planet. Read Evolution is complete: so where do we go from here? from yesterday’s Telegraph.