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by Jan Lundberg
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Editor's note:
A testimony to the failure of the environmental movement to offer an alternative to ecocide is the continued, widespread support of the automobile industry for "clean cars." This pseudo-environmental stance is almost identical to the Obama administration's myopia about continuing industrial pollution at full tilt for the sake of "jobs" and stability for its friends on Wall Street. However, the state of affairs -- driving off the ecological cliff for maximum petrocollapse -- is also the failure of grassroots activism and the pro-bicycle/pro walking movements.
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by Karen Brooks
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Editor's note: "Moving Around the World: the Sail Transport Network" is a new article in the relatively new magazine Bicycle Times. The publishing team also puts out the mountain biking magazine Dirt Rag. Seeing sail transport as an extension of biking is a smart way to anticipate the future. People imagine life without the internal combustion engine and cars, but do they also see ways around trucking and ocean-going freight relying on polluting, dwindling oil? |
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by Jan Lundberg
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On Mar. 27, Portland Community Media produced and televised another edition of the 19-year running public affairs show, TV Set. The one-hour program had oil analyst/environmentalist Jan Lundberg as the guest to discuss the ramifications of the world's having reached peak oil extraction. |
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by Jan Lundberg
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"Mister America walk on by your supermarket dream
Mister America walk on by your liquor store supreme"
- The Mothers, 1966 album Freak Out
For many thousands of years, any tribe knew not to overfish the local brook. For if the people did so, fish would not be forthcoming from distant places. There was always some trade, but not of staples (nor paperclips!). |
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by Dmitry Orlov
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We are heading toward economic, political and social collapse, and every day that passes brings it closer. But we just don't know when to stop, do we? Which part of "the harder we try, the harder we fail" can't we understand? Why can't we understand that each additional dollar of debt will drive us into national bankruptcy faster, harder and deeper? Why can't we grasp the concept that each additional dollar of military spending further undermines our security? Is there some sort of cognitive impairment that prevents us from understanding that each additional dollar sunk into the medical industry will only make us sicker? |
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by Jan Lundberg
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The direction of the U.S. has been questioned, analyzed, feared and condemned with increasing intensity since the 1960s. Things got a little quiet and complacent in the 1980s, as cheaper oil and no major war enabled the U.S. to get on with the business of making money at the expense of the poor and Mother Nature. Income disparity and official cruelty were not outrageous enough for open revolt. Cheerleaders exercised their right to support the status quo or press for more corporate supremacy. But all the while, critical observers have anticipated or foreseen the rise of U.S. police-state totalitarianism, |
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by Jan Lundberg
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Margot McDowell is a sail maker and seamstress in Anacortes, Washington. She has a counterpart here and there in the region, such as a woman in Port Townsend and a woman in Bellingham. Considering the number of sailboats and ongoing demand for more sails and sail repair, these sail makers barely comprise a local industry. This is because the great majority of sails are made in Taiwan -- made out of Dacron, a petroleum product. |
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by Ray Jason
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In this, Part Two, of the Lotsageddon report:
Self-reliance at sea
Learning to sail
Buying a sailboat
Outfitting your boat
Specific Lotsageddon preparations
Quite a few of you were intrigued by the concept I presented in my recent essay, “Sailing Away from Lotsageddon.” |
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by Jan Lundberg
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Join us! To help the Sail Transport Network to make more strides, along the lines of this newsletter, please support our work by donating at culturechange.org/donate.html. 
Several bits of good news:
• B9 Shipping, part of B9 Energy that is the biggest maker of wind power units for UK's renewable energy sector, has a plan to build sail transport vessels of a major capacity. They are linking to our STN website |
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by Peter Crabb
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"If every age has its own characteristic doctrine, there are a thousand signs which point to Fascism as the characteristic doctrine of our time.” Benito Mussolini, Italian Encyclopedia (1932)
I sat down at my kitchen table a few days ago to pay my monthly bills. It was that time of year when several insurance bills were due. While writing the checks I fumed about the large proportion of my income that is sucked up by the insurance industry and the other corporate puppet masters. |
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by Tracy Barnett
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Solastalgia – 1. A feeling of loss at demise of Earth; mourning for Gaia; profound ennui.
2. Lost connection to nature; an eco-psychological imbalance.
Antidotes: Ecological restoration
Permaculture
So begins Albert Bates in his introduction to permaculture – a design system whose name originated from the idea of “permanent agriculture” and evolved into a system promoting permanence in the human culture itself. |
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by Jan Lundberg
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 "Coming after You" means both your legacy of non-biodegradable plastics and that they are out to kill you. Now that the hilarious double entendre is out of the way, we can go on to our patient heroines. The nurturing, brave journalists about to be presented are patient as heroines and they succor untold numbers of unknown patients suffering from plastic-caused diseases. For you hardy men who may not care about this girly-men stuff, and pride yourselves in being out to have a good time, keep in mind that erectile dysfunction is on the rise thanks to plastics. |
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