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About Erik Curren

Erik Curren is the publisher of Transition Voice. He co-founded Transition Staunton Augusta in December 2009 and serves as managing partner of the Curren Media Group.

Will Occupy Wall Street start drilling for peak oil?

By February 17, 2012
Enbridge Protest: Wedding Reception for Minister Oliver and Big Oil

Though there's been a flurry of books about the Occupy movement in the last few months, few of them have said much about energy and the environment. Predictably, writers have largely focused so far on the core issues that originally filled Zuccotti Park last fall, an unfair economy and politics corrupted by corporate lucre. Now comes a new title on Occupy that takes ecological overshoot seriously, Occupy World Street: A Global Roadmap for Radical Economic and Political Reform. Refreshingly, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books, Reviews Tagged With: ,

The house that freedom built

By February 2, 2012
yurt

Let's say you want to resign from the rat race, unplug from the Matrix and start living in harmony with nature. Where to begin? The quest for freedom can start with buying less stuff, getting out of debt or learning to meet more of your own needs yourself. But for many, the path away from consumerism is blocked by the brick wall of a mortgage. All too often making the payments is modern debt slavery that ties you to a job you may hate and a daily commute that wastes money and time while … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: , ,

If you don’t like civilization, please don’t blame it on beer

By January 30, 2012
barley for beer

I like beer. But I'm not so sure how I feel about civilization these days. When I think that humans taking control of the Earth has killed whole seas, is melting permafrost and may just end the whole thing in a mushroom cloud of thermonuclear Armageddon, it doesn't make me want to enjoy a cold tumbler of a hoppy IPA. It makes me want to swig Gordon's Gin straight from the bottle. So why, then, did the Discovery Channel have to go and try to ruin my enjoyment of beer as an innocent, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Food Tagged With: , , ,

Occupying your bookshelf

By January 26, 2012
Occupy Wall Street library

To refute critics in the mainstream media who claim that the Occupy movement has no demands, Occupy! Scenes from Occupied America, edited by a team of activist editors including Astra Taylor and Keith Gessen, begins with a list of demands from organizers in an OWS planning meeting in New York. These range from the expected -- repealing Citizens United, debt forgiveness and a "Tobin" tax on financial transactions -- to the quirky -- removing the bull sculpture from Wall Street and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: , , ,

Back in the day, urban gardens everywhere

By January 13, 2012
Village of Catskill, NY

Have you ever walked through your neighborhood, noticed a vacant lot, and wondered why nobody had bothered to plant a garden there, instead of just letting the land sit around empty? Now, of course, plant and insect people will tell you that no land is empty. Even the humblest weedlot plays a role in urban ecology. But I'd wager that few vacant lots are under the control of a wildlife manager or urban forester. Instead, it's clear that most empty lots just sit there, waiting for the the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Transition Tagged With: , , , ,

Twitter will set you free to Occupy

By January 9, 2012
Hash-Tag

I'm pretty conflicted about computers and the Internet these days. On the one hand, I run an internet magazine, build websites for small businesses and local good causes alike and even get paid to help people use Facebook and Twitter. It's fun too, since we all know that the web is the ultimate instant gratifier. Where else can you write an article or make a change to a visual design and, within minutes, hear back about it from somebody halfway around the world? It's all too easy, it's all … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

2012: Peak preparedness or plutocratic pepper spray?

By January 6, 2012
Rap News screenshot

The popularity of prophecies from the Mayan calendar and alien invasions to financial collapse, oil crash and nuclear war in the Mideast all suggest that 2012 is the year that the industrial world has picked for its own final reckoning. And if you believe Robert Foster in the latest episode of Rap News #Occupy 2012, this could be the year when humanity gets the ultimate thumbs up or down. Will the global #Occupy movement succeed in overthrowing corporate control of the economy and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Films Tagged With: , , ,

Meet the woman who makes your kids nag you for products

By January 4, 2012
Lucy Hughes

"We found the way a child nags isn't always the same," says Lucy Hughes, then-director of strategy and insight for Initiative Media. "There's one of two ways that they nag— either with persistence or with importance." Persistent nagging is "really whiny," according to Hughes. "'Mommy, I really, really want the Barbie Dream House, wah, wah, wah, wah...'" Important nagging by contrast is more reasoned: "'Mommy, I need the Barbie Dream House so barbie and Ken can live together and have … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Consumerism, Economy

As farms go, so go the cities

By December 30, 2011
What Matters? by Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry is like Howard Stern -- you either love him or you have no use for him. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground. Those who love Berry, from homesteaders and Greenhorns (that's new farmers to you and me) to community gardeners, find inspiration in the plainspoken moral indignation of this latter-day Jeffersonian who won't be budged from his conviction that the real America is farms and rural towns, not big cities and suburbs. By contrast, eco-minded folks from New York to … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Books Tagged With: , ,

Occupying science: technology for the 99 percent

By December 19, 2011
Techno-Fix

Even to save the planet from climate change or to save the economy from the end of cheap oil, you can't stop the march of technological progress, we're often told. Whether it's the personal car, industrial farming or nuclear power, once the genie's out of the bottle, you just can't squeeze him back in. And anyway, we're also told, even the most dangerous technologies are morally neutral. They can always be used for either good or evil. It just depends on who's using them and for what. Thus, … [Read more...]

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