China grains over the last five years China’s grain harvest has dropped from 390 Mt/a to 340 Mt/a a drop equal to the harvest of Canada. In the meantime, China’s cement production is increasing annually by 60 Mt or 5 times the production of Canada.
• source: Plan B • See also XlnkS608
Monthly Archives: April 2005
Earth Day
Earth Day, which began in 1970, is now celebrated by millions of people worldwide, hundreds of thousands of nongovernmental organizations, governments, teachers, and faith-based groups. This worldwide movement aims at protecting our planet, our children, and our future.
weblink: Earth Day Net • in detail XlnkS6D9
Rabble News
rabble.ca is a new kind of publication, one built on the efforts of progressive journalists, writers, artists and activists across Canada. The site was launched just before the protests against the Summit of the Americas in Quebec City, and leapt onto the Net with the kind of coverage you could only get from the point of view of the rabble. They covered events and issues that cannot be found anywhere else.
weblink: Rable News • from: Rable • in detail XlnkS6D8 XlnkC193C
New Urbanism
NEW URBANISM promotes the creation and restoration of diverse, walkable, compact, vibrant, mixed-use communities composed of the same components as conventional development, but assembled in a more integrated fashion, in the form of complete communities. These contain housing, work places, shops, entertainment, schools, parks, and civic facilities essential to the daily lives of the residents, all within easy walking distance of each other. New Urbanism promotes the increased use of trains and light rail, instead of more highways and roads. Urban living is rapidly becoming the new hip and modern way to live for people of all ages. Currently, there are over 500 New Urbanist projects planned or under construction in the United States alone, half of which are in historic urban centers
weblink: New urbanism web site • in detail XlnkS6D7
Aside
Mother nature always comes to the rescue of a society stricken with overpopulation and her ministrations are never gentle.– Alfred Crosby
Aside
Clever human nature, victim of your inventions, disastrously creative, why cordon cities with towered walls? Why arm for war? — Ovid
A Short History of Progress
Each time history repeats itself, so it’s said, the price goes up. The twentieth century was a time of runaway growth in human numbers, consumption, and technology, placing a colossal load on all natural systems, especially earth, air, and water – the very elements of life. The great question of the twenty-first century is how, or whether, this can go on. In “A Short History of Progress” Ronald Wright shows how our modern predicament is as old as civilization, a 10,OOO-year experiment we unleashed but have seldom controlled. Only by understanding the patterns of progress and disaster that humanity has repeated around the world since the Stone Age can we rec_ognize the experiment’s inherent dangers, and, with luck and wisdom, shape its outcome. If you must read only one book, – or plan to be lost in a remote island – take this one!
• from: Ronald Wright • in detail XlnkS6D6 XlnkC193B