cruxcatalyst

New Crux

2011-08-31T21:37:00.005+09:30

Dear Crux Followers You may have noticed the absence of Crux in your In Box for a couple of months. I've decided, for several reasons, to move from Blogger to a self-hosted Wordpress site, www.cruxcatalyst.com and to cease posting stories to this blog. This will be a different kind of Crux - rather than reposting others' stories on a wide range of sustainability issues, I'll be focusing more on

Cohousing Up Close in Colorado

2011-06-05T01:25:00.000+09:30

Reposted in full from the Urban Ecology Australia newsletter, May/June 2011'Cohousing communities exist in northern Europe, Canada, Australia, the UK and elsewhere. There are more than 100 in the US and nearly another hundred being planned. While not officially a cohousing development, Christie Walk follows similar principles and would certainly qualify as one. Recycling, resource sharing,

No Vacation Nation

2011-06-04T00:57:00.003+09:30

This must have hit a nerve - nearly four thousand comments on this post!Reposted in full from CNN, 23 May 2011'Let's be blunt: If you like to take lots of vacation, the United States is not the place to work. Besides a handful of national holidays, the typical American worker bee gets two or three precious weeks off out of a whole year to relax and see the world - much less

Advertising Overload

2011-06-02T22:44:00.002+09:30

This clip is an amazing piece of work, it screens out all else but advertising to show how prevalent it is.Sourced from Dangerous Intersection, 1 June 2011'A Netherlands arts group, Studio Smack, put together this video which provides a stark look at all the logos and advertising one is exposed to throughout a normal daily routine.' KAPITAAL from STUDIO SMACK on Vimeo.

SOLOPEC Nations Warn Sun's Output May Fall Short Of Demand

2011-06-02T19:58:00.002+09:30

Seriously funny stuff!Excerpt from The Onion, 22 June 2005'RIYADH, MUHAMMAD ARABIA—The governing board of the Solar Output Power Exporting Countries announced Monday that, in spite of attempts to raise production levels, increased global-power consumption may begin to outstrip the sun's output by early next year. "Our solar-accumulation arrays in Muhammad Arabia, Iraq, Jordan, and Mexico are

7 Ways to Stop Wall Street's Con Game

2011-05-30T23:34:00.000+09:30

Reposted in full from YES! Magazine, 25 May 2011'Wikipedia defines a “confidence trick” as “an attempt to defraud a person or group by gaining their confidence. The victim is known as the mark, the trickster is called a confidence man, con man, confidence trickster, or con artist, and any accomplices are known as shills. Confidence men exploit human characteristics such as greed and dishonesty.”<

The Peasant Revolt

2011-05-30T16:56:00.003+09:30

Image: http://eavoss.files.wordpress.comReposted in full from Transition Voice, 24 May 2011'Has our society become so obsessed with economic growth that people have become a commodity? Two items in my morning newspaper strongly suggest the answer to be an emphatic, shameful YES. The first is a national story about how smuggling people across the Mexico

Stairs or Slide?

2011-05-27T19:34:00.001+09:30

There should be more of this! I've always said multi-storey buildings should have internal spiral slides, a la The Magic Faraway Tree!This is also a very clever piece of social media - viewed 2.2 million times, its an ad for Volkswagen, but people will share it because it makes them smile and is unexpected.Sourced from YouTube, 11 June 2010

One-Third of World's Food Goes to Waste - UN

2011-05-26T14:34:00.000+09:30

Reposted in full from The Guardian, 12 May 2011'One-third of the world's food produced for human consumption is lost or wasted each year, according to a study (pdf) released on Wednesday by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO). Roughly 1.3bn tonnes of food is either lost or wasted globally due to inefficiencies throughout the food supply chain, says the report, based on research by the

Masters in Economics for Transition

2011-05-26T11:50:00.000+09:30

Sourced from the new economics foundation, May 2011 'From September 2011, Schumacher College, Dartington will be offer a new MA degree course in "The Economics for Transition: Achieving low carbon, high well-being, resilient economies". This pioneering postgraduate programme has been developed by nef, Schumacher College and the Transition Network, and is offered through the

How ‘Homo-Economicus’ Destabilises Our Food Web

2011-05-26T02:15:00.002+09:30

Reposted in full from Smart Planet, 25 April 2011'Jennifer Dunne, professor at the Santa Fe Institute, is working on the first-ever effort to quantify where humans fit into the food webs in our ecosystem. Dunne, co-director for Pacific Ecoinformatics and Computational Ecology (PEaCE) Lab, says our over-fishing of blue fin tuna is a good example of how humans are changing the natural cycles of our

Enterprises Should Focus on Wellbeing Rather than Growth

2011-05-26T02:06:00.002+09:30

Reposted in full from The Guardian'When I run sessions with business executives on growth, wellbeing, and innovation, I say that people don't have to buy my analysis of the problem to buy my ideas on the solution. That's because I think we are now living in an era of "uneconomic growth" and we therefore have no choice but to redefine prosperity as being about wellbeing not growth.

Legal Rights for Nature

2011-05-26T00:22:00.000+09:30

Excerpt from Today's Zaman, 22 May 2011Two small countries of Latin America have been taking Mother Earth, or 'Pachamama', quite seriously so they have passed a series of laws to protect it, and their worries reached some concerned citizens in Turkey where there has been a vigorous debate going on for making a new, citizen-centered constitution. “We are just starting a campaign

The New Geopolitics of Food

2011-05-25T00:17:00.000+09:30

Reposted in full from Foreign Policy, May/June 2011'In the United States, when world wheat prices rise by 75 percent, as they have over the last year, it means the difference between a $2 loaf of bread and a loaf costing maybe $2.10. If, however, you live in New Delhi, those skyrocketing costs really matter: A doubling in the world price of wheat actually means that the wheat you carry home from

The Three-Day Weekend - A Dream Deferred

2011-05-24T23:15:00.000+09:30

Reposted in full from The Globe and Mail, 20 May 2011'Is there anything nicer than a weekend in spring? Actually, there is – a three-day weekend in spring. Seventy-two precious hours of freedom. Finish that book on the bedside table. Stroll the park, scour the barbecue, plant the garden. Or, if you're really ambitious, tackle the clutter in the basement. Canadians enjoy

International Energy Agency - Crude Oil Peaked in 2006

2011-05-24T00:59:00.004+09:30

From the horse's mouth of the International Energy Agency's Chief Economist, Dr Fatih Birol - crude oil peaked in 2006.' The time is running out, the oil is today our lifeline, it is everywhere in the economy, if the prices go up or if there's a supply disruption this will be definitely very bad news. .. I think it would have been better if the governments have started to work on it at least ten

Light Criticism

2011-05-23T20:50:00.000+09:30

Sourced from Anti-Advertising Agency, 23 January 2007'Advertising is the vandalism of the Fortune 500....years into NYC’s crackdown on graffiti writers and protesters, after we’ve watched our friends be detained, arrested, beat, fined, tried, and given real jail sentences, not a single corporate toy from any ad firm has had to do any time.'

Jamie Oliver - Why I Was Banned From Los Angeles Schools

2011-05-23T12:01:00.000+09:30

Sourced from The Daily Show, 7 April 2011Jamie's last point: 'They don't want me washing their dirty laundry in public...but when its public money and your taxes pay for it, then maybe transparency is quite a good thing in a democracy...' cue huge cheers of support from the audience.

Can the Market Really Provide Food Security?

2011-05-23T11:10:00.000+09:30

Reposted in full from Online Opinion, 20 May 2011'Victoria now has a Minister for Food Security – part of the portfolio of Nationals MP Peter Walsh – and the Federal coalition too has rebranded its shadow minister Minister for Agriculture and Food Security. The conservative side of Australian politics thinks there's something compelling and politically useful in this notion of food security, and

Anxiety Keeps the Super-Rich Safe from Middle-Class Rage

2011-05-22T20:31:00.002+09:30

‎'Looking in the wrong direction' is what gets us fighting over what is left and how it allocated among a range of real needs - from disability services, to people seeking asylum/refuge, to ensuring pensioners do not live hand-to-mouth, to having enough doctors and nurses - instead of collectively working on demanding a less extreme pooling of society's wealth at the top.Reposted in full from The

Top 5 Myths About Subsidies to Oil Companies

2011-05-22T14:32:00.000+09:30

Excerpt from Transition Voice, 2 May 2011'...Myth #1: Drivers will lose cheap gas Claim: “What will the oil companies – what does any company – do when its taxes go up?” asks conservative commentator Keith Koffler, echoing the industry’s Orwellian line that cutting subsidies is actually a form of raising taxes. “PASS THE COSTS ALONG TO THE CONSUMER. That is, higher gas

We're Not Broke, Just Twisted: Extreme Wealth Inequality in America

2011-05-22T01:13:00.002+09:30

SHARE. You bastards.Sourced from YouTube, 18 May 2011

Yarn Bombing: Creating Graffiti with Yarn

2011-05-21T18:58:00.003+09:30

I like it! Woolly Bully indeed!Reposted in full from New York Times, 18 May 2011'The bronze statue of Rocky near the Philadelphia Museum of Art irked Jessie Hemmons. She found the statue too big, too macho and too touristy, so last month Ms. Hemmons, a 24-year-old artist, bombed him. With pinkish yarn. Using a stepladder and a needle, Ms. Hemmons stitched a fuchsia-colored hooded vest on the

Growing Consumption a Bane for India: Chandran Nair

2011-05-19T22:24:00.001+09:30

Excerpt from The Economic Times, 16 May 2011'Author and think-tank founder Chandran Nair is a second-generation Indian-origin Malaysian based out of Hong Kong. He made news in India a few years ago at a conference in New Delhi, where he took on American political scientist Francis Fukayama over what he calls the latter's "odd view of the world based on an inherent belief in American

World Economics Association Launched

2011-05-18T16:42:00.003+09:30

Sourced from World Economics Association, 18 May 2011'The World Economic Association (WEA) was launched on May 16, 2011. It fills a gap in the international community of economists - the absence of a truly international, inclusive, pluralist, professional association. The American Economic Association and UK's Royal Economic Society provide broad associations mainly for their country's economists