Author and international security analyst Dr Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed on The Crisis of Civilization. Dr Ahmed is author of A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save It, and co-producer of The Crisis of Civilization.
http://legalise-freedom.com/radio/nafeez-ahmed-the-crisis-of-civilization/
An inspiring example of children learning to grow food in the city.
http://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_ritz_a_teacher_growing_green_in_the_south_bronx.html
Tagged with food education entrepreneurship video sustainability
Has environmentalism lost its way? What does sustainability really have to do with a healthy planet?
Paul Kingsnorth’s essay from the first Dark Mountain book ‘Confessions of a Recovering Environmentalist’ caused quite a stir, and has helped stimulate, or egg on, a wider discussion about the future of green politics, and if it has one. This audio discussion, organised by Orion magazine, sees Paul discussing the essay and what flows from it with American writers David Abram and Lierre Keith, in January 2012.
The Dark Mountain Project is a network of writers, artists and thinkers who have stopped believing the stories our civilisation tells itself.
http://dark-mountain.net/other-media/audio/confessions-of-a-recovering-environmentalist%E2%80%A8/
Orion is a bimonthly, advertising-free magazine devoted to creating a stronger bond between people and nature.
Tagged with environment sustainability economics society future green politics
When we think of cultural artifacts, we often think of objects – a painting, a book, or a Clock. But perhaps not all artifacts take tangible form: can the ideas that inspired such objects be considered cultural artifacts, too? And if so, how can we save these for future generations?
Hans Ulrich Obrist answers that first question with a resounding ‘yes’ – and offers an answer to that second one, as well. The swiss-born curator and art historian has been working on a project of cultural preservation – but rather than collect objects, he is capturing ideas as they materialize in conversation. Part art project, part oral history, and part exercise in the workings of memory, the Interview Project is an effort “to preserve the voices of the world’s artists and innovative thinkers of the last 50 years in a digital archive.”
Through a series of “sustained conversations” with influential figures from the worlds of art, science, and culture, Obrist seeks to do more than just document the important ideas that drive today’s culture: he hopes to capture their dynamic and transformative nature. Focusing on how ideas are born and recreated through dialogue, the Interview Project explores the role of time, evolution, and global connections in shaping human culture and innovation.
As part of this project, Obrist recently interviewed Danny Hillis, co-chair of the Long Now Foundation’s board of directors. In a public event organized in conjunction with the Institute for the 21st Century, a Los Angeles-based initiative that works to archive Obrist’s interviews, he and Hillis spoke about the ideas that inspired Long Now’s 10,000-year clock, and the cultural evolution it hopes to encourage.
Discussing the convergence of science, technology, and art, their conversation (which you can listen to here) illustrates that no cultural artifact emerges in a vacuum. New ideas are born from those that came before, and go on to inspire others in return. Culture is carried by, and created through, the dynamic exchange of conversation. “Knowing something is so 20th century,” says Hillis in the interview, speaking about the pre-internet age, in which a person’s knowledge was the sum of what his memory could hold. Today more than ever, in a world where billions of bits of digital information can be accessed at the tap of a finger, human knowledge and culture reside in our global network of exchange. And just as Hillis’ Connection Machine proved that linking processors together can transform the capability of computers, so can the connection of ideas produce unprecedented opportunities for new cultural creation. The Clock of the Long Now grew from the convergence of ideas that inspired its creators, and will hopefully contribute to the development of many new ideas and directions in the future.
Tagged with interview preservation sustainability culture long now danny hillis future
Cheap milk is driving a hard bargain between the dairy farmers and the milk processors. Facing big cuts in milk sales to supermarkets and stiff competition in the marketplace generally, dairy processor Lion is cutting contracts back and paying less for the milk they buy from farmers. But consumers are loving the low prices and sales of supermarket brands continues to increase.
Tagged with milk sustainability food agriculture
Speaker(s): Professor Lord Robert Skidelsky, Dr Maurice Glasman
Chair: Dr Jonathan Leape
Recorded on 4 July 2012 in Old Theatre, Old Building.
Why do we work almost as hard as we did 40 years ago, despite being on average twice as rich? Robert Skidelsky suggests an escape from the work and consumption treadmill.
This event marks the publication of Robert and Edward Skidelsky’s new book How Much is Enough? The Economics of the Good Life.
Dr Maurice Glasman is a reader in political theory at London Metropolitan University, author of Unnecessary Suffering and a Labour Peer.
Robert Skidelsky is Emeritus Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick. His three-volume biography of the economist John Maynard Keynes (1983, 1992, 2000) received numerous prizes, and he recently published Keynes: The Return of the Master.
Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard has written a new book he hopes will be a blueprint for companies to do better… by doing good.
Tagged with sustainability patagonia yvon chouinar
High density living is great for the environment, right? But what does it do to our heads and hearts? The Australian psyche was moulded by the myth of the ‘wide brown land’, so what might life packed like sardines look and feel like? With the world’s seven billionth person about to be born, can we learn from the Asian megacity experience? And will we still be sharing a cup of sugar with our neighbours? As the population debate gets mental, we’re going in search of the soul in urban sprawl. A forum featuring Bernard Salt, Kim Dovey, Helen Killmier, and Sein-Way Tan, hosted by ABC Radio National’s Natasha Mitchell at The Wheeler Centre in Melbourne.
An Audioboo interview by Documentally
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