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The best books on peak oil, climate disruption, economic crisis, and the ways to deal with each as a society and on a personal, family, or community level.

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...]

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Seeing Berry’s Wilderness again

By February 8, 2012
Wendell-Berry

In the early '90s I made the conscious decision to drop out of college. I distinctly remember the day I withdrew from classes and made the call to my parents. I remember thinking: "Now I'm a statistic." College dropout. I watched as the debt grew and my confidence in finding a suitable career faded. I made the decision to drop out based on the reality that I could avoid debt and simply work. I resolved to be satisfied with less. I broke my social contract outright. Believe it or not, I had … [Read more...]

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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...]

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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...]

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Paying the Bills. Review: The Frugal Superpower

By January 23, 2012
Injured Piggy Bank

For some, the distinction between coolly rational foreign policy theorists and messianic interventionists out to remake the world in America's image is enticing. Lively, endless debate ensues. Did our not-fully engaged engagement in Egypt and Libya get it right, or did we allow radical elements in Islam an opening? Did we fail in Vietnam because we didn't allow ourselves to win, or…? Is red wine better than white? Too broke The Frugal Superpower: America's Global Leadership In a … [Read more...]

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Why Jane, you look lovely! Review: AUSTENtatious Crochet

By January 17, 2012
Cap and Muff

Images of the post peak-ocalypse tend toward the grim. Even when we imagine ourselves earnestly gardening our edible plots and sharing hand tools and home brews with neighbors, in the background we see the haunting specter of mutant zombie bikers. We also wonder whether there will or can be any aesthetic pleasures in a world made by hand if that world is cobbled together like a MacGyver experiment, all duct tape, bunny ears and twine. Is there not some reason to fear I may be wrong? But … [Read more...]

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From the vault: Review of Sacred Demise

By January 10, 2012
Grieving Angel

Carolyn Baker’s book, Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization’s Collapse, offers a very strong dose of reality. While Baker saves some of her most gasp-worthy assertions for the end of her book, it's safe to say that there isn’t a page that doesn’t possess qualities similar to those of cod liver oil: it’s for our own good … if only there were something about it to enjoy! Even the title doesn’t give the reader much wiggle room. For instance, the … [Read more...]

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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...]

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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...]

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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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