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Sunday, June 1
Transition Network: tackling Peak Oil & Climate Change, together
by
Ron
on June 1, 2008 02:00AM (PDT)
...The transition model emboldens communities to look peak oil and climate change squarely in the eye and unleash the collective genius of their own people to find the answers to this big question: for all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how are we going to:
* significantly rebuild resilience (in response to peak oil)
* drastically reduce carbon emissions (in response to climate change)?
Typically, self-determined solutions will involve some flavour of relocalisation. -- We're building a range of materials, training courses, events, tools & techniques, resources and a general support capability to help these communities. ... We're hoping that through this work, communities across the UK will unleash their own collective genius and embark on an imaginative and practical range of connected initiatives, leading to a way of life that is more resilient, more fulfilling and more equitable, and that has dramatically lower levels of carbon emissions. ... more »
Saturday, January 13
"Prophets Facing Backward," by Meera Nanda
by
Ron
on January 13, 2007 09:26PM (PST)
The leading voices in science studies have argued that modern science reflects dominant social interests of Western society. Following this logic, postmodern scholars have urged postcolonial societies to develop their own "alternative sciences" as a step towards "mental decolonization". These ideas have found a warm welcome among Hindu nationalists who came to power in India in the early 1990s. In this passionate and highly original study, Indian-born author Meera Nanda reveals how these well-meaning but ultimately misguided ideas are enabling Hindu ideologues to propagate religious myths in the guise of science and secularism.
At the heart of Hindu supremacist ideology, Nanda argues, lies a postmodernist assumption: that each society has its own norms of reasonableness, logic, rules of evidence, and conception of truth, and that there is no non-arbitrary, culture-independent way to choose among these alternatives. What is being celebrated as "difference" by postmodernists, however, has more often than not been the source of mental bondage and authoritarianism in non-Western cultures. The "Vedic sciences" currently endorsed in Indian schools, colleges, and the mass media promotes the same elements of orthodox Hinduism that have for centuries deprived the vast majority of Indian people of their full humanity.
By denouncing science and secularization, the left was unwittingly contributing to what Nanda calls "reactionary modernism." ... more »
Friday, October 20
Global warming study predicts wild ride
by
Ron
on October 20, 2006 01:19PM (PDT)
The world - especially the Western United States, the Mediterranean region and Brazil - will likely suffer more extended droughts, heavy rainfalls and longer heat waves over the next century because of global warming, a new study forecasts. -- But the prediction of a future of nasty extreme weather also includes fewer freezes and a longer growing season. ... more »
Wednesday, October 4
Can It Happen Here?: “Five Germanys I Have Known,” by Fritz Stern
by
Ron
on October 4, 2006 07:22PM (PDT)
In November 2005, Fritz Stern received an award for his life’s work on Germans, Jews and the roots of National Socialism, presented to him by Joschka Fischer, then the German foreign minister. With a frankness that startled some in the audience, Stern, an emeritus professor of European history at Columbia University, peppered his acceptance speech with the similarities he saw between the path taken by Germany in the years leading up to Hitler and the path being taken by the United States today. He talked about a group of 1920’s intellectuals known as the “conservative revolutionaries,” who “denounced liberalism as the greatest, most invidious threat, and attacked it for its tolerance, rationality and cosmopolitan culture,” and about how Hitler had used religion to appeal to the German public. In Hitler’s first radio address after becoming chancellor, Stern noted, he declared that the Nazis regarded “Christianity as the foundation of our national morality and the family as the basis of national life.” ... more »
Friday, September 22
Karl Grobl, Humanitarian Photojournalist
by
Ron
on September 22, 2006 12:25PM (PDT)
From an early age, my parents instilled in me, a desire to explore and learn first hand, about the world around me. Our family vacations and weekend excursions were general education courses disguised as fun. Knowingly or unknowingly they set me on course for a journey that today, I feel, is still just beginning.
The ongoing quest to document the world's people and the global events that shape our common humanity, has for me, been instrumental in breaking down stereotypes, preconceptions and prejudices. I believe that the more of the world we see and experience, the more we understand. It seems, people everywhere, share similar goals, aspirations, hopes and desires.
It is with a strong sense of obligation that I share, through photographs, the people, places and events that have profoundly shaped my vision of our world. By sharing these experiences with you, I hope to make a small, positive contribution to a heightened sense of world community.
"Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it." -Gandhi- more »
ARTI-India: Appropriate Rural Technology Institute
by
Ron
on September 22, 2006 11:57AM (PDT)
ARTI is an NGO based in Maharashtra, founded by a group of scientists and social workers in 1996. The mission of the organisation is to serve as an instrument of sustainable rural development through the application of scientific and technological knowledge.
ARTI undertakes research to study, develop, standardise, implement, commercialise and popularise innovative appropriate rural technologies with special emphasis on making traditional rural businesses more profitable and also on generating novel employment opportunities in rural areas. We have now nearly 25 standardised and field-tested technologies to offer to rural entrepreneurs through our Rural Entrepreneurship Development Centre (REDC). Our sphere of activities is no longer restricted to Maharashtra, but has spread to other states including Goa, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pardesh, Sikkim, Tripura and Kerala. Some of our technologies are also being tried out in other developing countries in Asia and Africa. ... more »
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