Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws. - Plato
Last year, I wrote about Ireland’s sectoral agreements around its ambitious Climate Action plan (2021-2030).
Last week (28 July), the Irish government reached an agreement on targets for carbon reduction across multiple sectors.
The background: legislation has already been passed stating that Ireland must reduce its carbon emissions by 51% by 2030. Think of the passing of this legislation as phase 1.
Related to Idomdrottning’s post:
Tug of war on the brink will lead to both falling over.
There are already many examples where capitalist institutions utilise environmentalist arguments in order to maintain hegemony. A common tactic seems to be creating some kind of division between ‘reckless populists’ who advocate for things like abolishing carbon taxes that adversely affect working people and the ‘sensible middle-class/elite’ who accept the need for ‘sacrifices’ to save the planet. Of course, those who are in favour of these economic sacrifices also tend to be the ones that can afford it.
Permacomputing is an offshoot of permaculture . There is already a dedicated wiki to the topic that is definitely worth checking out.
One angle to permacomputing which hasn’t been explored yet is perhaps in relation to the work of Gilbert Simondon.
Observe & Interact (the forces present on a site)
Catch & Store Energy
Obtain a Yield (promotes self-reliance - choose location that provides greater/diverse yield over ornamental plant, for example)
Disclaimer - I am not really a practicing Christian, but I have always been interested in all kinds of religions. If I were to classify my beliefs, it might be as something like ‘anatheistic’ - a term used by the philosopher Richard Kearney to describe a point between theism and atheism.
A book by the Salvage Collective.
Found/available on gemini: gemini://beyondneolithic.life/salvage_collective/tragedy_of_the_worker/index.gmi
As Andreas Malm has fiercely and beautifully argued, capitalism did not settle for fossil fuels as a solution to energy scarcity. The common assumption that fossil energy is an intrinsically valuable energy resource worth competing over, and fighting wars for is, as geographer Matthew Huber argues, an example of fetishism. At the onset of steam power, water was abundant, and, even with its fixed costs, cheaper to use than coal. The hydraulic mammoths powered by water wheels required far less human labour to convert to energy, and were more energy-efficient. Even today, only a third of the energy in coal is actually converted in the industrial processes dedicated thereto: the only thing that is efficiently produced is carbon dioxide. On such basis, the striving for competitive advantage by capitalists seeking maximum market control ‘should’ have favoured renewable energy.
I currently live in what you could maybe call a ‘suburb’ of Seoul. I guess when you think of suburbs you think of sprawling streets with houses and lawns. So, in that sense, my town is not a suburb. But, if you imagine stacking all those houses on top of each other - stretching between fifteen and thirty stories - and imagine all the green lawns as ‘communal’ gardens, then, yes, it is a suburb.