Summer reading list

Bastille Day signals the start of summer in France, and, as if by magic, the weather has gone from grey and chilly to picture perfect for the national holiday. Here’s my list of books to read for the summer. What’s on yours?
“Une mer sans poissons” by Philippe Cury and Yves Miserey
“Resilience Thinking” by Brian Walker [...]

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Carbon Weevils

Brilliant and very dark. Reminds me of the wonderful children’s illustrated story by Jeanne Willis “Dr Xargle’s Book of Earthlets”.
from www.youtube.com posted with vodpod

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What needs to be done

“Weathercocks and Signposts” is such an awesome report that I had to excerpt a bit more from it. This part focuses on the complexity and challenges associated with building an authentic, values-based approach to the inevitable consumption descent. The report invokes Churchill: “It is no use saying, ‘We are doing our best.’ You have got [...]

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On values, communications and thinking for ourselves

 
 

A new report from WWF has put both “green” marketers and “post-environmentalists” on notice. Entitled “Weathercocks and Signposts: The Environment Movement at a Crossroads”, the report demonstrates that it is no longer sufficient to rely on marketing techniques to promote behaviour change for the environment. Instead, it argues that any effective strategy for tackling environmental [...]

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Saturday Nov 24 is Buy Nothing Day

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Financial turmoil and peak oil: join the dots

This month’s La Décroissance has an interesting interview with an unnamed senior official of the European Central Bank. Here are some extracts:
Interviewer: “Why did the world’s stock markets fall sharply at the end of August?”
ECB official: “Hum! Which version do you want?”
Interviewer: “Pardon?”
ECB official “Officially growth and trade are flourishing.”
Interviewer: “And your own analysis of [...]

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Doom update

The crisis narrative is widening, deepening and darkening with every day that goes by. Economic indicators, food stocks, the price of oil, the world’s financial system – there is a kind of “perfect storm” convergence for the much-dreaded disaster scenario. Read John Feeney’s opinion piece entitled “Humanity is the Greatest Challenge” at the BBC’s Green [...]

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Is the Grenelle only good for the rich?

What’s the price tag for the ambitious plan announced at the Grenelle to improve energy efficiency and insulation in all of the existing homes and office buildings in France? Three thousand euros per household per year, according to Remy Prud’homme, professor at the University of Paris Xll. “The building lobby and construction industries…the media, the [...]

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Biodiversity and environmental education short-changed at the Grenelle

The last working group at the Grenelle took place on Friday, the day after the official closure of the summit because of time overrun. Participants tackled biofuels and the “greening of democracy”. The latter has received scant media coverage but is important as it deals with improving transparency and accountability through legal reforms which would [...]

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Post-Grenelle: Sarkozy gets good press, critics focus on the way ahead

Reactions to the Grenelle have been overwhelmingly positive – even the opposition Socialist Party, despite frustration that the right-wing government has stolen their thunder on the environment, traditionally a preseve of the left, welcomed the fact that significant progress had been made on multiple fronts, and focused their questions on doubts about implementation and financing. [...]

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