David MacLeod's Blog – May 2011 Archive (6)

It was nice to see this week's  Cascadia Weekly (5/25/11).  Three letters to the Editor, and all by TW members. 

First was TW co-initiator David Marshak's letter addressing the advertisements in local publications, and the inaccurate statements made in them by David Warren in support of…

A couple of weeks ago I came across several related articles all at once, and all telling me that post-high school education is beginning its own period of transition.  First, New York Magazine's article The University Has No Clothes, telling us that the notion that a college degree is essentially worthless has  become one of the year's most fashionable ideas.  Then there was the…

This Blog Post is in regards to the Class I will be teaching through the Whatcom Folk School, beginning June 6th.  More info about the class here.

Primary Text for class:

The Essence of Permaculture E-Book by David…

Last Saturday we were expecting a showing of the film "The Economics of Happiness" at the Pickford Cinema. Unfortunately the film didn't show up to the theater, but fortunately they had an older film on hand - "Affluenza." 



Affluenza is a 1 hour PBS documentary that was made by KCTS in Seattle about 12 to 14 years ago, exploring the high social and environmental costs of materialism and over-consumption.   From the Website, …

I'm looking forward to the film showing on Saturday, 3pm.  The Economics of Happiness . More info at the bottom of this page.   

There's a lot of thinking going on these days about what really makes us happy, and what's really important in life.  Some articles I've come across...

 …

Apologies in advance for the wonkish nature of this post.  I hope some will find it interesting...

Flashback to 5 years ago, the following comment on The Oil Drum was a bit of a revelation to me:

"The world economy was saved last year by the increasing World coal production. According to BP, World total energy production grew 2.4% in 2005, but oil only 1.0%. Coal production increased 5.0%, most of it in China (growth 10%, volume well over 30% of the…