A few days ago a trusted colleague, John Steiner, sent me an email thread that told the story of an interesting Japanese invention - a machine that converts plastic into oil. You can see a video for yourself if you click here. This machine answers a question I have harboured for years, and that is: if plastic [...]
How is a masterfully crafted and portrayed story like Downton Abbey (currently being aired on PBS Masterpiece Theatre) an analog for today's down town world scene? Set in an English stately home just before WWI, the story is about the shifting of worldviews from traditional to modern. It uses cracks in the system of land/estate ownership, class and gender [...]
Detroit in ruins: The Photographs of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre In downtown Detroit, the streets are lined with abandoned hotels and swimming pools, ruined movie houses and schools, all evidence of the motor city's painful decline. The photographs of Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre capture what remains of a once-great city – and [...]
Several Integral Citi-zens have alerted me to the social media activist campaign by AVAAZ currently underway. They are alerting activists that the honey bee is in peril from the effects of a toxic insecticide. This may be the cause of colony collapse disorder (CCD) (along with other contributing factors.) I have been tracking CCD for several years and have [...]
Globe Forum Dublin ...cities are very much social-ecological systems. Cities represent the hopes and dreams of the people that live in them and they also represent perhaps the best hope for reversing large-scale ecological decline, social breakdowns and economic stagnation. Each session though had its own flavour.... The final speaker was the blue-sky thinker, Dr [...]
I have been watching the outcome (or not?) of the recent Australian election with some interest. I have been thinking about swarming (as in what can we learn from the bees when they swarm?). My bee sources (books, articles, movies) tell me that the swarming process is a kind of hive decision. That when it [...]
In the last decade the concept of the city as a human habitat that is mapped in terms of bricks and mortar, managed by fiat from city hall and developed by entrepreneurs for corporate profit has given faint signals of change. This has happened because we have witnessed the city collapse underneath the weight of [...]
This artcle in Vancouver gives updated information about the role of honey bees in human systems -- particularly the food system. It points out the disrespect we (the most evolved species of vertebrates) pay the species that is the most evolved species of invertabrates. You can learn more about the lessons bees have for humans in [...]
This first news from a deal at Copenhagen tells us that at least there is some political will amongst the key power brokers and deal breakers. The devil will be in the details -- but it offers us a gleam of hope. Human Hives aka Mayors of key cities around the world will no doubt need [...]
I just finished a final edit on the last Imagine Abbotsford Dialogue -- to be reported in The Abbotsford News May 14, 2009. This dialogue was on the Health and Community of Abbotsford. One Policy Maker from the Fraser Valley Health Authority remarked that the community gains greater health benefits by investing in kids than [...]