The amount of investment in renewable energy has passed that in fossil fuels for the first time. Electricity from the wind, sun, waves and biomass drew $187 billion last year compared with $157 billion for natural gas, oil and coal, according to calculations by Bloomberg. Source, LA Times: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-renewables-20111125,0,2421278.story This related story has a nice graphic …
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Oil remains volatile, with prices falling despite low US stocks. UK-based banks are swapping their liquid assets for the illiquid assets of European lenders — but does the resulting mix have a lower or higher risk of contagion? Use of the renminbi to settle cross-border trades fell.
The Earth is full and over the past ten years increasing demand from emerging markets has erased all the resource-price declines of the last century. A new report from McKinsey says three key trends look set to make this situation more difficult and more volatile: people in developing nations are looking to increase their standards of living, …
A BBC Panorama programme recently put out some figures on the UK’s up-coming energy crisis and the need to build new capacity. This short film explains how the programme got its figures wrong, and how within a few years (by 2020) renewable energy is expected to be cheaper, and more reliable, than fossil-fuel alternatives. If …
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The solution to the financial crisis is straightforward. As Richard Douthwaite and others have pointed out, the problem we face is not a lack of money. Rather it is the fact that our money has been lent into existence. As we are now discovering, this creates an inherently unstable system of debt, in which default …
This movie tells the story of dirt. It is relevant to your business because it shows how current farming practices are destroying topsoil, increasing the likelihood that your employees, your suppliers, and your customers, will not have enough food to eat. And as one participant puts it, “here’s this 120 year window in which we …
A sustainable way forward needs to reconnect our economy back into the ecology of the planet. This excellent five minute video explores some of the issues: One thing jumps out from the very beginning: the origin of the word economics means ‘household management‘ the origin of the word ecology means ‘household organisation‘ What if you could …
Charles Eisenstein talks about the system we live in. Anything that can be articulated can only be articulated within the language of the current political discourse. And the underlying message of our culture is, “We don’t really need each other.” Because if we have money then we don’t really need people — if I alienate someone who …
Continue reading “Live according to what you are here to give”
Paul Hawken’s speech in 2007 talks about a growing change in the world, arising spontaneously from different cultures and economic sectors, growing and spreading worldwide. It is a movement for civil rights, human rights, social and environmental justice. And more.
New US unemployment figures are at a seven month low, adding to the view that the American economy is strengthening. But in Europe the crisis is deepening.