What keeps me going?
Permaculture Magazine recently asked me to write something about how I maintain momentum and energy over time in dark and difficult times. The piece appears in the latest edition, available here, alongside another article about what a truly local...
Think Resilience Chapter 4: Depletion
Post Carbon Institute Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg sat down to deliver a 22-chapter lecture series entitled “Think Resilience: Preparing Communities for the Rest of the 21st Century,” which explores how communities can build resilience in the face of our...
Juggling Live Hand Grenades
Recent Papers and Articles Here are a few useful recent contributions to the global sustainability conversation, with relevant comments interspersed. Toward the end of this essay I offer some general thoughts about converging challenges to the civilizational system. “Oil...
Reclaiming Conversation – the Power of Talk in a Digital Age: Review
This is one of the best books I have read in a very long time. Essential reading for any parent, for anyone who interacts with digital technologies, social media, smartphones, indeed for anyone living in the complex world of...
Building a National Community Resilience Corps
In the dark days of May 1934, U.S. First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt expressed deep concern about the lasting impact of the Great Depression on young people, who had no previous experience of rewarding work or prosperous times to recall....
Why We Need The Yellow House More than Ever
Place Lamartine is a busy place these days. Traffic thunders through it, and a major roundabout now sits at its heart. When I arrived there yesterday, a big fair was setting up, with roundabouts, bumper cars, and other rides....
Think Resilience Chapter 3: Population and Consumption
Post Carbon Institute Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg sat down to deliver a 22-chapter lecture series entitled “Think Resilience: Preparing Communities for the Rest of the 21st Century,” which explores how communities can build resilience in the face of our...
Surviving S-Town
Spoiler alert: If you haven’t yet listened to S-Town podcast you might want to do so before reading the following essay, which discusses key facts revealed during the course of the story. I admit, it was strange to hear...
Goodbye Administrative State, Hello Community Resilience
White House strategist Steve Bannon’s project for the “deconstruction of the administrative state” appears to be out of the starting blocks and well on its way toward a glorious victory lap. Using executive orders and other directives, President Trump...
The Question I Get Asked the Most
The questions come after talks, on Twitter, in the days’ incoming tide of email—sometimes even in old-fashioned letters that arrive in envelopes. The most common one by far is also the simplest: What can I do? I bet I’ve...