2012

I’m opening up the discussion to proposals for the 2012 election.  Who should run?  We need someone to run from Obama’s left; he’s already running to his own right, considering all the folding he’s done in preparation for a republican house.  How about Russ Feingold, departing Wisconsin Senator?

I would like to see the campaign season bring out public debate of the open secrets on this blog.  Priority one is not deficit reduction.  And if you have to talk about deficit reduction, priority one there is not freezing federal pay, but either raising taxes – yes, Raising Taxes! – or reducing the defense budget.  There, I said that, too – Cut the Defense Budget!

The top priorities are dealing with climate change and the end of cheap energy.  Everything follows from those two things.

Happy Thanksgiving

See you after the holiday. Have a tasty one.

Back to the mission

Pardon the light posting lately. The blog has turned into a repository of bad news, not my original intention for it. I want this blog to be a place to find positive ideas and to discuss plans that can be put into action. Any ideas?

Environmental Keynesianism

Susan George tackles how we can beat environmental problems within the capitalist framework.  Because we are stuck with capitalism…

George's prescription is not to lobby governments to impose sane and planet-saving reforms on corporations; that’s not likely to happen when most politicians (in the developed nations, at least) are fervently and blindly pro-laissez-faire-capitalism themselves. Nor does she have any faith that business leaders can be persuaded to abandon their global warming ways voluntarily.

Her solution is to replicate for a “war” against climate change the same large-scale political-business collaboration that was mounted to fight the war against Nazi Germany. In that historic campaign, both politicians and CEOs saw not only the urgent need to join forces to win the Second World War—but the profit to be made as well. The politicians increased their popularity with the voters, and the CEOs increased their revenues by manufacturing guns, tanks, bombers, warships, and submarines.

Fascinating read.  If anyone has access to her original article, please comment here.

What I’m also excited about is that I now have a label to use for the economic transition, Environmental Keynesianism.  Sometimes having a name is a needed step toward a transition.

Food production and the economy

George Mobus asks a good question:

Could we solve two problems at once?

Solving the Unemployment Problem and Preparing for Power Down Simultaneously

He suggests a new kind of Civilian Conservation Corps for farmland, set up for permaculture.

Thoughts?

Local food

Sharon Astyk brings up some good issues. 

What I want to argue, in fact is that the accusation that local food is elitist is actually a product of the industrial food infrastructure - that is, the requirements of an industrial food system, the presumption that the basic structure of food production should be industrialized is what makes the price of good food higher. The accusation that local food isn't "serious" because it costs more is an accusation in bad faith - the reason it costs more is because the same system makes it cost more.

Read on and stay tuned for more posts about food.

A big step?

Stu Ostro, Sr. Meteorologist at The Weather Channel, was interviewed on the channel this morning to explain that he is no longer a climate denier. He now believes global warming is man-made and that individual weather events can now be tied to global warming. This is big for The Weather Channel, which has been almost completely silent on the issue to date. I hope the new attitude seeps into their day-to-day coverage.