usa

Transition US Newsletters

James Samuel — Tue, 30 Nov 2010 19:42:16 +0000

Rally 4 Sanity

James Samuel — Sun, 31 Oct 2010 05:58:20 +0000

Kim spotted it this morning, and before the day was out the first videos were up on YouTube. John Stewart had this (and more) to say...

AIG bonus bemusement

Rimu — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 02:16:29 +0000

I'm a bit confused by all the loud noises and expressions of outrage being made by AIG giving it's workers bonuses.

Handing out food & supplies in a tent city

Rimu — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 20:21:48 +0000

Near Sacramento in California there's a large tent city of about 1,200 people.

Social collapse best practices

Rimu — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 23:27:20 +0000

This talk is a but US-centric and assumes a worst-case scenario, but I found it interesting anyway.

The following talk was given on February 13, 2009, at Cowell Theatre in Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, to an audience of 550 people. Audio and video of the talk will be available on the Long Now Foundation web site.

Transition US on CBS

James Samuel — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 09:19:04 +0000

It's a short video clip (2.5 mins), but shows how much Transition is gaining ground...

Kennedy on an Energy Revolution

James Samuel — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 01:45:24 +0000

Greenpeace put this video on their site recently.
Here is the transcript:

US in a mess. Setting the oil Price.

Daryl — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 02:56:12 +0000

From Dan Denning in Colorado:

--While the financial empire burns, OPEC decides whether or not it's going to cut production today. Lower energy prices are about the only good news to come out of falling commodity and stock prices. But OPEC producers like Venezuela and Iran want the world's big oil cartel to cut production and put a floor under prices.

I am not 100% sure what these graphs mean but it does not look good

Rimu — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 01:29:53 +0000

Now. In the chart above, I think it means the banks have been borrowing like crazy from the "big bank that is supposed to save everyone if they run out of money"...

.... and that all banks are about $125 billion overdrawn.

Industrial agriculture in action

Rimu — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 09:14:45 +0000

In the USA, it's cheaper to grow corn and feed it to cattle than to use that land to just directly graze cattle on. But where are you going to put the cattle while being fed?? Why, jam them into a pen! They call em 'feedlots'

In the feedlot the cattle eat corn mixed with hormones, antibiotics, etc etc so that they get larger quicker. This improves the company's bottom line.

It's not a pretty scene. Here is one from above (click to go to google maps and zoom in, etc)

Mortgage meltdown

Rimu — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 05:13:28 +0000

People lose their houses when the special low interest rate they were paying gets reset to the real rate. The scam that's been running in the US lately is that people would would hope to on-sell the houses before the rate reset, and reap the capital gains. It all goes to custard when they can't on-sell (for more than they paid), as is happening now. They're left paying a mortgage that they used to be able to afford, but when the rate resets they cannot.