Window Farms
May 28, 2009
“155: Ethical Capitalism for the Earbud Generation”
May 27, 2009
C-Realm Podcast Episode 155
After finishing up the interview with James Howard Kunstler recorded at the Kunstler Kave, KMO welcomes Duncan Crary, the talent behind the talent on the Kunstlercast, to the C-Realm to talk about pod casting, appropriate technology, the relationship between the old and the new media, finding the sweet spot between opinionated reporting and delusions of objectivity, and creating a niche for “ethical capitalists” in the new economy.
http://c-realmpodcast.podomatic.com/entry/2009-05-27T12_23_12-07_00
JHKunstler’s weekly blog
May 25, 2009
Wishes, Hopes, Fantasies
Something like a week remains before General Motors is reduced to lunch meat on industrial-capital’s All-You-Can-Eat buffet spread. The wish is that its deconstructed pieces will re-organize into a “lean, mean machine” for producing “cars that Americans want to buy,” and that, by extension, the American Dream of a Happy Motoring economy may be extended a while longer.
This fantasy rests on some assumptions that just don’t “pencil out.” One is that the broad American car-owning public can continue to buy their cars the usual way, on credit. The biggest emerging new class in America is the “former middle class.” Credit kept the remnants of the middle class going for decades after their incomes stopped growing in the 1970s. Now, their incomes have stopped coming in altogether and they are sinking into swamp of entropy already occupied by the tattoo-for-lunch-bunch. Of course, this has plenty of dire sociopolitical implications.
Latest Radio Ecoshock show
May 22, 2009
LATEST SHOW
DEAD MALLS, GLOBESITY & SIMPLICITY 1. Interview: retail expert Howard Davidowitz says American consumerism is never coming back. 200,000 stores will close. 2. Interview: Michelle Holdsworth is co-author of new book “Globesity, A Planet Out of Control?” Overweight humans add to greenhouse gases. 3. Speech: Cecile Andrews on the new Simplicity Movement (perfect for tough times). 4. Alex’s “Beginning Canning” Eat better and cheaper by storing the harvest. Radio Ecoshock Show 090522 1 hour 14 MB
Over the next several years we will have to make do with less oil. The high prices of oil last year are thought to be the peak production of oil. Raymond James a investment firm has put out a report which was wrote about in the Wall Street Journal last week, “Peak oil represents a paradigm shift of historic proportions. Unfortunately, mankind better get ready to live in a peak oil world because we believe the ‘peak’ is now behind us.” When the investment firm that bears the name of the Bucaneer’s Stadium says we are in for a paradigm shift, it gives credit to all those people who have been thinking about peak oil for over a year now since oil prices hit their maximum. If we are looking at a future with more expensive oil rather than cheap oil where do we begin?
We have to take into consideration that our food system is the second leading user of oil in our nation. A nation that resorts to having to import food to survive will not be sustainable for very long. Lets discuss ideas on how to create a food system based upon the sunlight we receive as well as potential alternative energy sources. Lets dream design a suburban agriculture system together. We have a clear and present danger that we can overcome if we put our creative forces together. How we rebuild ourselves out of this recession will impact us for years to come, lets rebuild in a sustainable minded way thinking only of the next generations that must inhabit this world. Let us no longer put the future in debt to live in the present. The money to pay for that oil must come from an economy, lets get this economy rolling and off of oil so we can save our money for more important things such as investments into our future as well as rehealing the planet from the damage we have caused collectively. We could put millions of people to work, end hunger, provide people with lives worth living all with just a simple choice to go in that direction instead of having it be forced upon us.
http://www.codegreencommunity.org/profiles/blogs/transitioning-our-food-system
“As you go out into the world…”
May 17, 2009
It is, I believe, conventional at college graduations to begin from the premise that those graduating are about to embark upon life in the “real” world – a venture that is supposed to be radically different than their carefree college years. The assumption is that the institution in question has given you what you need to embark upon a meaningful and productive future – you are wiser than when you came in, and perhaps more ethical, certainly fitted to the world of work. Now, I have been chosen to give you your very last bit of wisdom, something to carry with you into the future. So here is the sum total of that wisdom
“Everything you have been taught to expect is wrong.”
Unfortunately, that isn’t a joke. You have been taken in by a host of assumptions that are not true, and if you walk out of here believing what you have been told and taught over the last four years, you will leave woefully unprepared for you. The consolation, I can offer you, however, is that while what you have been taught to expect is wrong, the things you have actually learned may be of more use than you think.
“The new new money”
May 14, 2009
It’s official: The government in Beijing has announced that the Yuan can now be used in international trade. Their mouthpiece for this occasion was the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, a private entity, which made the announcement on their behalf. By the end of this year, it is expected that fully 50% of all transactions with Hong Kong will be denominated in the Yuan. In turn, Hong Kong re-exports 90% of its Chinese imports. Importer #1 is the European Union; importer #2 is the United States. Some of these countries may soon find themselves hard-pressed to earn enough Yuan to continue importing Chinese-made products.
“Flying Pigs, Tamiflu and Factory Farms”
May 1, 2009
In October 2005 the Pentagon ordered vaccination of all US military personnel worldwide against what it called Avian Flu, H5N1. Scare stories filled world media. Then, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced he had budgeted more than $1 billion to stockpile the drug Oseltamivir, sold under the name Tamiflu. President Bush called on Congress to appropriate another $2 billion for Tamiflu stocks.
What Rumsfeld neglected to report at the time was a colossal conflict of interest. Prior to coming to Washington in January 2001, Rumsfeld had been chairman of a California pharmaceutical company, Gilead Sciences. Gilead Sciences held exclusive world patent rights to Tamiflu, a drug it had developed and whose world marketing rights were sold to the Swiss pharma giant, Roche. Rumsfeld was reportedly the largest stock holder in Gilead which got 10% of every Tamiflu dose Roche sold. 14 When it leaked out, the Pentagon issued a curt statement to the effect that Secretary Rumsfeld had decided not to sell but to retain his stock in Gilead, claiming that to sell would have indicated something to hide.’ That agonizing decision won him reported added millions as the Gilead share price soared more than 700% in weeks.
