Archived material from historical editions of The Generator
Global corporations now wield power greater than most nations.
This book explains how US corporations stacked the high court, subverted the American Constitution and set the agenda for the US in the last century to achieve this position of power. As well as providing a historical analysis it discusses the means whereby we can reclaim this power back from the forces of globalisation.
Palm oil prices jumped in
September and are predicted to rise 20 per cent next year while
global demand for biofuels is now rising at 25 per cent a year.
Environmentalists are calling for sustainable cropping
Roger Higman of Friends of the
Earth UK, which backs biofuels, says: “We need to ensure that the crops
used to make the fuel have been grown in a sustainable way or we will
have rainforests cleared for palm oil plantations to make bio-diesel.”
New Scientist, 19/11/2005, p. 19
This
picture presents a schematic of the Ceramic Fuel Cell Micro CHP SOFC
Unit. During 2005 testing of this unit will take place in a number of
locations, including New Zealand.
Feature Story: Local Money
Our current economic system, with its paradoxical idea of permanent
growth based on limited resources, is approaching difficult times. Yet
we can take some steps to prepare ourselves, and one of them is to
become familiar with different kinds of money.
The first thing we need to do is to shake off the idea that only
governments can create money. Not true. Anybody can create money. Money
is just a promise to redeem something, to give the person holding the
banknote something of value.
In the past, money was backed by something solid like gold, cowry
shells, or even tobacco. But the introduction – and extraordinary
spread – of compound interest, debt-based, fractional reserve banking,
and the disconnection from the Gold Exchange Standard in 1971, has
allowed an explosion in the growth of money supply.
Yet this money is neither stable nor available. It clearly cannot
continue to grow forever and when confidence collapses in a major
currency, a cascade of defaulting will likely result (called ‘systemic
risk’ in banking circles). The lack of available money to most of the
world’s people is disputed by almost no-one. In a world where more and
more people live in cities, being without money means being without
food, shelter, health, and finally life itself.
What if things were different? What if the piece of paper – or data
embedded on a smart card – was a local currency used to buy locally
made things from local people?
Such currencies already exist. Some 9,000 alternative currencies are
currently in circulation all over the world. One of the oldest is the Swiss Wir,
introduced in 1934 to fund small businesses through bartering. The Wir
has run parallel to its much older sister, the Swiss franc, ever since.
Used by architects, undertakers, chimney sweeps and many others, the
Wir illustrates one of the great advantages of local currencies: they
confine economic activity to a limited area, and help protect people
against some of the worst effects of the global market. The Wir has
spawned imitators in rural Scotland and Ireland, as well as in Madrid
and Amsterdam.
In the Comox Valley of British Columbia, the Local Exchange and Trading System (LETS)
has flourished and become the model for similar systems in Europe,
Australasia, Africa and the Far East. LETS currency is number money –
it is entered in a ledger (either electronic or paper). It is created
when members of the system go into debt to one another, and deleted
when they go back into the black by providing goods or services.
In some systems, particularly those that focus on caring, money is backed by time. Time banks
are now a major way of reviving social capital–the glue that holds
social relationships together–in depressed neighborhoods in China,
Japan and the United States. Edgar Cahn’s Time Dollars are used in many
countries. In another example, time put in by working for the community
becomes credit toward education. Boulder, Colorado lets people pay
certain legal fines with time credits. The London Time Bank has evolved a sophisticated version of this principle.
If this all seems a bit unreal, you can get a sense of how local currencies work by playing this online game.
That’s the beginning of a concept called “peak oil” and hundreds of
people in Portland, USA, believe it’s coming soon, if it’s not here already.
The days of cheap
transportation, cheap food, and our relatively easy way of life here in
the 21st century will soon end.
As oil sources dry up, the cost of food will rise
dramatically because many fertilizers and pesticides are made from oil,
and the cost of transporting food from farms to factories to retail
outlets will increase. For example, food on an American families table
at dinnertime has travelled an averge of 1,500 miles to get to them.
That’s why initiates such as learning how to grow your own fruits
and veggies or subscribing to co-op farms are on the agenda in
Portland. City commissioner Dan Saltzman passed out a resolution to
determine what areas could be used to grow crops. The city is
interested in creating a network of self
suffiency inside the city.
There are countless estimates on when peak oil might happen. A
report by the French government says 2013, another report from the US.
Geological Survey says 2037.
Even Chevron says oil production has already declined in nearly two thirds of the largest oil producing countries.
Source: http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/articles/563
The value of Australian mountain rainforests, in terms of supplying
water via cloud stripping, has been estimated at $120 million a year.
However, if rising temperatures lift the cloud base 100 metres for
every one degree, as suggested by an international study, cloud forests
will be less able to harvest water directly from the clouds and North
Queensland’s water budget will be affected, according to The Australian, (16/11/2005, p. 17)
North Queensland towns rely on rainforest streams: Many towns
such as Port Douglas and Cairns rely on rainforest streams, not dams,
for their water supply. Peter Hairsine, principal research scientist at
CSIRO’s Land and Water Hairsine said a 40 per cent drop in run-off
would have serious consequences, especially in the dry season when,
despite the lack of rain, the mountains still produce water.
Fisheries and hydro power also affected: Hydro power and
fisheries, which rely on flushing flows through estuaries to move
juvenile fish into the ocean, could also feel the loss if the clouds
miss the mountains, Hairsine said. The value of ecotourism in the
mountains which earns $400 million a year, 10 times what logging
earned, may also be affected.
The Age, 16/11/2005, p. 17
Source: http://www.erisk.net