“Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, one by one.”
- Charles MacKay

"We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office"
- Aesop

Green Illusions : The Dirty Secrets of Clean Energy and the Future of Environmentalism

http://www.greenillusions.org/description/

We don’t have an energy crisis. We have a consumption crisis. And this book, which takes aim at cherished assumptions regarding energy, offers refreshingly straight talk about what’s wrong with the way we think and talk about the problem. Though we generally believe we can solve environmental problems with more energy—more solar cells, wind turbines, and biofuels—alternative technologies come with their own side effects and limitations. How, for instance, do solar cells cause harm? Why can’t engineers solve wind power’s biggest obstacle? Why won’t contraception solve the problem of overpopulation, lying at the heart of our concerns about energy, and what will?

This practical, environmentally informed, and lucid book persuasively argues for a change of perspective. If consumption is the problem, as Ozzie Zehner suggests, then we need to shift our focus away from suspect alternative energies and toward improving social and political fundamentals: walkable communities, improved consumption, enlightened governance, and, most notably, women’s rights. The dozens of first steps he offers are surprisingly straightforward. For instance, he introduces a simple sticker that promises a greater impact than all of the nation’s solar cells. He uncovers why carbon taxes won’t solve our energy challenges (and presents two taxes that could). Finally, he explores how future environmentalists will focus on similarly fresh alternatives that are affordable, clean, and can actually improve wellbeing.

"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."
- George Orwell (1946)

Dennis Gilbert : The American Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality - Eighth Edition

http://www.sagepub.com/books/Book234285

• Contents
• Reviews
• Supplements

• Description    
• Features/New to This Edition  
• Sample Materials and Chapters  
• HEOA Compliance

Why is social inequality in America increasing?

In this Eighth Edition of his acclaimed and thought-provoking text, author Dennis Gilbert explores historical and contemporary empirical studies of class inequality in America through the lens of nine key variables. Focusing on the socioeconomic core of the American class system, Gilbert describes a consistent pattern of growing inequality in the United States since the early 1970s. In his search for the answer to why class disparities continue to increase, Gilbert examines changes in the economy, family life, and politics, drawing on vivid first-person accounts to illustrate the human emotion wrapped up in class issues.

Dennis Gilbert is a professor of Sociology at Hamilton College His primary research interests are Latin American and American class system. Gilbert is the author of The American Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality (Sage, 2008), Mexico's Middle Class in the Neoliberal Era (University of Arizona Press, 2007), Sandinistas: the Party and the Revolution (Blackwell, 1988), and La Oligarquía Peruana: Historia de Tres familias (Horizonte, 1982). In 1990, he was research director to the successful congressional campaign of Bernard Sanders (Independent-VT) and later served as legislative assistant in Representative Sanders' congressional office. At Hamilton, Gilbert teaches a course on public opinion polling. In collaboration with the polling firm Zogby International, Gilbert and his students have conducted a series of widely reported national surveys, most examining the views of high school students, on such topics as gun control, gay rights, abortion, Muslims in America and patriotism.

Christian Felber : La economía del bien común

http://www.economia-del-bien-comun.org/

Nadie debe volver a decir que en la economía y en la política no hay alternativas al capitalismo y a los caminos erroneos del socialismo real. La “Economía del Bien Común” es una respuesta profunda a la crisis, en muchos aspectos, del presente: bolsas financieras, desempleo, pobreza, cambio climático, migración, globalización, desmonte de la democracia, pérdida de los valores y del sentido. La “Economía del Bien Común” de Felber se basa – como una economía de libre-mercado – en las empresas privadas y la iniciativa individual, no obstante, las empresas no se esfuerzan en competir entre ellas para el aumento financiero, sino que cooperan para alcanzar la meta del bien común mayor posible – un nuevo principio fundamental.

David Korten - The Great Turning : From Empire to Earth Community

http://www.davidkorten.org/great-turning-book

David Korten’s classic bestseller, When Corporations Rule the World, was one of the first books to articulate the destructive and oppressive nature of the global corporate economy. Now, ten years later, Korten shows that the problem runs deeper than corporate domination—with far greater consequences.

In The Great Turning, Korten argues that corporate consolidation of power is merely a contemporary manifestation of what he calls “Empire”: the organization of society by hierarchies of domination grounded in violent chauvinisms of race, gender, religion, nationality, language, and class. The result has been the same for 5,000 years, fortune for the few and misery for the many. Increasingly destructive of children, family, community, and nature, the way of Empire is leading to environmental and social collapse.

The Great Turning makes the case that we humans are a choice making species that at this defining moment faces both the opportunity and the imperative to choose our future as a conscious collective act. We can no longer deny the need nor delay our response. A mounting perfect economic storm is fast approaching. A convergence of climate change, peak oil, and the financial instability inherent in an unbalanced global trading system will bring an unraveling of the corporate-led global economy and a dramatic restructuring of every aspect of modern life.

We cannot avoid the unraveling. We can, however, turn a potentially terminal crisis into an epic opportunity to bring forth a new era of Earth Community grounded in the life-affirming cultural values shared by most all the world’s people and eloquently articulated in the Earth Charter.

The Great Turning is an essential resource for those who understand this need and are prepared to engage what Thomas Berry calls the Great Work. It cuts through the complexity of our time to illuminate a simple, but elegant truth. We humans live by stories. We are held captive to the ways of Empire by a cultural trance of our own creation maintained by stories that deny the higher possibilities of our human nature—including our capacities for compassion, cooperation, responsible self-direction, and self-organizing partnership.

Changing our future begins with changing our stories. A work already underway, it ultimately calls out for the participation of every person on the planet. The Great Turning points the way to the inspiring outcome within our reach.

Table of Contents

Chapter Summaries

Prologue: In Search of the Possible

Part I: Choosing Our Future
1. The Choice
2. The Possibility
3. The Imperative
4. The Opportunity

Part II: Sorrows of Empire
5. When God Was a Woman
6. Ancient Empire
7. Modern Empire
8. Athenian Experiment

Part III: America, The Unfinished Project
9. Inauspicious Beginning
10. People Power Rebellion
11. Empire’s Victory
12. Struggle for Justice
13. Wake Up Call
14. Prisons of the Mind

Part IV: The Great Turning
15. Beyond Strict Father Vs Aging Clock
16. Creation’s Epic Journey
17. Joys of Earth Community
18. Stories for a New Era

Part V: Birthing Earth Community
19. Leading from Below (excerpt)
20. Building A Political Majority (excerpt)
21. Liberating Creative Potential
22. Change the Story, Change the Future

Enough is Enough : Ideas for a Sustainable Economy in a World of Finite Resources

http://steadystate.org/enough-is-enough/

• Do you suspect that the idea of perpetual economic growth on a finite planet is folly?
• Are you searching for ways to solve our profound social and environmental problems?
• Do you want to know how we can construct an economy that (1) meets our needs without undermining the life-support systems of the planet and (2) achieves sustainable and equitable well-being for all people?

Read Enough is Enough for answers to these questions!

The report is available in three languages:

Summary (10 pages): EN ES FR
Full Report (130 pages): EN ES –

Click here to view a collection of related videos.

Enough is Enough is the single most complete collection of policy initiatives, tools, and reforms for an economy that makes enough its goal instead of more. The report, generated from the inspirational ideas of the Steady State Economy Conference, consists of three parts:

• Part One describes why economic growth is becoming an obsolete goal and provides a crystal-clear description of the desirable alternative — a steady state economy;
• Part Two examines ten key areas where change is needed to achieve a steady state economy;
• Part Three provides a blueprint for moving boldly from ideas to action.

The suggested citation for the report is:

O’Neill, D.W., R. Dietz, and N. Jones (editors). 2010. Enough is Enough: Ideas for a Sustainable Economy in a World of Finite Resources. The Report of the Steady State Economy Conference. Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (Arlington, Virginia, USA) and Economic Justice for All (Leeds, UK).

Please read the report, discuss the ideas contained in it, and do what you can to help get us on the path to a better economy. If you are interested in engaging with others in online discussions of report topics, then please visit the SteadyStaters Google Group and request an invitation to join.

Debunking Economics - Revised and Expanded Edition : The Naked Emperor Dethroned?

http://zedbooks.co.uk/paperback/debunking-economics-revised-and-expanded-edition

Debunking Economics exposes what many non-economists may have suspected and a minority of economists have long known: that economic theory is not only unpalatable, but also plain wrong. When the original Debunking was published back in 2001, the market economy seemed invincible, and conventional 'neoclassical' economic theory basked in the limelight. Steve Keen argued that economists deserved none of the credit for the economy's performance, and that 'the false confidence it has engendered in the stability of the market economy has encouraged policy-makers to dismantle some of the institutions which initially evolved to try to keep its instability within limits'. That instability exploded with the devastating financial crisis of 2007, and now haunts the global economy with the prospect of another Depression.

In this radically updated and greatly expanded new edition, Keen builds on his scathing critique of conventional economic theory whilst explaining what mainstream economists cannot: why the crisis occurred, why it is proving to be intractable, and what needs to be done to end it.

Essential for anyone who has ever doubted the advice or reasoning of economists, Debunking Economics provides a signpost to a better future.

Reviews

'Economics still awaits its Darwin. Keynes came close, but not close enough. Keen comes closer still. Economics, like biology used to be, remains mostly faith-based. No book poses a bigger threat to that faith than the second and expanded edition of Debunking Economics.' - Edward Fullbrook, Editor, Real World Economics Review

'The new edition of 'Debunking Economics'... provide[s] a more persuasive account of the causes of the crash and of its likely evolution than anything that has yet emerged from Constitution Avenue or Threadneedle Street. This is complicated, but it's in your interests to understand it.'
George Monbiot

'It is notorious that only the most mediocre students have the stomach to stick with graduate economics degree. The assumptions become so narrow-minded and tunnel-visioned that reality-based minds drop out. But economics obviously is important ­ too much so to be left to economists. Fortunately, Steve Keen is an empirical mathematician who views the economy logically and systematically. Having made a pioneering explanatory statistical model, he looked through the literature to review the history of economic thought ­ and saw how little today's assumptions had to contribute to Reality Economics. So his book does two things. First, it explains some of the most wrong-headed logical paths that led today's 'free market' economics down its detour to rationalize the status quo. Second, it explains how to view the economy from a more realistic, cause-and-effect light.' - Michael Hudson, Distinguished Research Professor of Economics, University of Missouri

'You would be hard-pressed to find an individual whose pre-crisis analyses of both the world financial system and the economics profession were more dead on than Steve Keen's. The original edition of this book not only demonstrated the irrelevance of modern theory, but it predicted the major economic and social crisis that occurred. This second edition updates earlier chapters and adds new ones that directly address the causes of the collapse and the reasons why standard solutions have been useless. This book is an absolute must read for anyone wondering what caused this catastrophe and how we can truly put it behind us.' - Prof. John T. Harvey, author of 'Currencies, Capital Flows, and Crises: A Post Keynesian Analysis of Exchange Rate Determination'

'Redemption is this book's greatest gift to a world that grew dependent on the thinly disguised forms of mathematised superstition which, over the past thirty years, managed to dominate economic theory and policy. Keen's book is a tour de force that grants its reader the chance of immunity from these, still dominant, economic superstitions.' - Yanis Varoufakis, Professor of Economics, Athens University

'Professor Keen has written a book that will shake the economics community to its core, and for good reason. It could not have been written at a better time.' - Andrew Leeming, author of The Super Analysts

'Much more than simply explaining the causes of the crisis, Keen takes us through a thorough dissection of mainstream neoclassical economics, and the result does not leave the discipline looking in good shape.' - Tanweer Ali, Empire State College, State University of New York, in Heterodox Economics Newsletter

Table of Contents

Preface to the first edition
1. Predicting the 'unpredictable2
2. No more Mr. Nice guy
Part 1: Foundations
The logical flaws in the key concepts of conventional economics
3. The calculations of hedonism
4. Size does matter
5. The price of everything
6. To each according to his contribution
Part 2: Complexities
Issues that should form part of an education in economics, but which are omitted from standard courses
7. The holy war over capital
8. There is madness in their method
9. Let’s do the Time Warp again
10. Why they didn’t see it coming
11. The price is not right
12. Misunderstanding the Great Depression and the Great Recession
Part 3: Alternatives
Different ways to think about economics
13. Why I did see ‘It’ coming
14. A Monetary Model of Capitalism
15. Why stock markets crash
16. Don’t shoot me, I’m only the piano
17. Nothing to lose but their minds
18. There are alternatives
References

About the Author:

Steve Keen is Associate Professor of Economics & Finance at the University of Western Sydney. Steve predicted the financial crisis as long ago as December 2005, and warned that back in 1995 that a period of apparent stability could merely be 'the calm before the storm'. His leading role as one of the tiny minority of economists to both foresee the crisis and warn of it was recognised by his peers when he received the Revere Award from the Real World Economics Review for being the economist who most cogently warned of the crisis, and whose work is most likely to prevent future crises.

Le sol, la terre et les champs : Pour retrouver une agriculture saine

http://www.sangdelaterre.fr/index.php?art=21&th=135

 Auteur : Claude et Lydia Bourguignon

L'agriculture aujourd'hui est dans une impasse. L'intensification n'a pas été capable d'arrêter la famine mais elle a épuisé des millions d'hectares de sol et dégradé la qualité nutritive des aliments.

Fondée sur une conception très réductrice du sol considéré comme un support inerte l'agronomie n'a pas su développer une agriculture durable, elle s'enlise dans les OGM qui rendent les agriculteurs prisonniers des semenciers ainsi que dans les agro-carburants qui provoquent une hausse brutale du prix des denrées agricoles.

S'appuyant sur les expériences réussies d'autre forme d'agriculture dite biologique et sur les dernières recherches en microbiologie du sol, Claude et Lydia Bourguignon proposent dans ce livre une nouvelle voie pour l'agriculture du XXIe siècle.

Dans cette nouvelle édition revue et augmentée de cet ouvrage de référence, les auteurs, remettant en cause le labour, exposent une nouvelle évolution verte, qui par l'application des lois de la biologie des sols, permet de restaurer une fertilité durable grâce à des techniques comme le semis direct sous couvert, le BRF, le compost, etc.

Carlos Taibo : Por la autogestión y la desmercantilización

Dentro del movimiento del 15 de mayo -y dentro de otras muchas iniciativas- hay, si así se quiere, dos grandes posiciones. La primera entiende que el cometido principal del movimiento estriba en elaborar propuestas que se espera sean escuchadas, en un grado u otro, por nuestros gobernantes. La segunda, muy diferente de la anterior, aspira, antes bien, a crear espacios de autonomía en los cuales procedamos a aplicar reglas del juego diferentes de las que nos impone el sistema que padecemos. Y a hacerlo, por añadidura, sin aguardar nada de esos gobernantes que acabo de mencionar.

Mi impresión es que la segunda de las posiciones ha ido ganando terreno en el 15-M. No se olvide al respecto que el panorama general en lo que hace a ganancias de la mano de la primera de las perspectivas enunciadas es manifiestamente desalentador. Claro que no sólo se trata de eso: hora es ésta de recordar que en una de sus matrices principales el movimiento del 15 de mayo nació, un año atrás, al amparo de un propósito expreso de cuestionar un sistema seudodemocrático en el que al cabo, y de siempre, son los grandes poderes económicos los que dictan las reglas del juego. Sobre esa base estaba servida la conclusión de que, aun siendo comprensibles las demandas de reforma de ese sistema que formulaban muchos sectores del 15-M, la inercia del movimiento conducía muy a menudo a lo que cabía entender que era una apuesta por la construcción de un orden distinto y plenamente autónomo.

No está de más que proponga dos ejemplos que permiten perfilar el escenario de la discusión. El primero remite a la muy extendida petición, que algunos asimilan sin más con el 15-M como si una y otra realidad se solapasen, de reforma de la ley electoral. Supongamos, que es mucho suponer, que los dos grandes partidos aceptan la reforma en cuestión y que ésta tiene un perfil saludable. ¿Qué cambios profundos cabe augurar que se derivarían de ello? La posibilidad de que PP y PSOE perdiesen una parte, sin duda menor, de los escaños de los que hoy disfrutan en el parlamento, ¿modificaría sustancialmente la realidad que palpamos en estas horas? ¿No es lamentablemente ingenuo suponer que una reforma de la ley electoral va a resolver alguno de nuestros problemas principales?

El segundo ejemplo que me interesa rescatar es el de la propuesta de creación de una banca pública. No se trata ahora de discutir el buen o mal sentido de tal propuesta. Se trata de preguntarse, antes que nada, cuánto tiempo podemos aguardar para que se perfile esa fórmula de banca. Lo diré con un punto de ironía: ¿cuánto tiempo habrá de transcurrir para que Izquierda Unida cuente con 150 representantes en el Congreso de Diputados? ¿Podemos permitirnos esperar hasta entonces o, como me temo, los deberes son La gestación de una banca pública exige el beneplácito de fuerzas políticas y de grupos de presión que apuestan con descaro, apoyados en las mayorías, por otros horizontes.mucho más acuciantes e imperativos? Mal haríamos en olvidar que la gestación de una banca pública reclama inexorablemente del concurso de partidos, parlamentos y leyes, o, lo que es lo mismo, exige el beneplácito de fuerzas políticas y de grupos de presión que apuestan con descaro, apoyados en las mayorías, por otros horizontes. Y ojo que no cabe en modo alguno descartar que populares y socialistas acaben por perfilar una banca pública con cometidos bien diferentes de los que, cargados de respetables buenas intenciones, pretenden asignar a aquélla nuestros economistas socialdemócratas de bandera.

Ante el panorama que acabo de mal retratar de la mano de los dos ejemplos propuestos, ¿no es mucho más hacedero y realista el proyecto que nos invita a construir desde abajo un mundo -unas relaciones económicas y sociales- nuevo y desmercantilizado? No estoy hablando, por lo demás, de un proyecto etéreo. Las realidades correspondientes ya están ahí. Pienso en los grupos de consumo que han proliferado en tantos lugares, en las perspectivas que surgen de las cooperativas integrales, en las ecoaldeas e instancias similares, en los bancos sociales que rehuyen el lucro y el beneficio o, por cerrar aquí una lista que bien podría ser más larga, en el incipiente movimiento que plantea el horizonte de la autogestión por los trabajadores en el caso de muchas empresas amenazadas de cierre. En todas estas iniciativas lo que despunta es un esfuerzo encaminado por igual a rechazar la delegación del poder en otros y a alentar la práctica de la socialización sin jerarquías, las más de las veces sobre la base de postulados antipatriarcales, antiproductivistas e internacionalistas. ¿No empiezan a acumularse los argumentos para sostener que el viejo proyecto libertario de la autogestión generalizada es, no sin paradoja, mucho más realista que aquel otro que, al amparo de la vulgata socialdemócrata de siempre, todo lo hace depender de partidos, leyes y parlamentos?

A menudo me encuentro a personas que, con argumentos respetables, subrayan que las dos opciones a las que me refiero en este texto no son incompatibles. Lo aceptaré de buen grado: no tengo por qué concluir, en particular, que quien legítimamente pelea por reformar la ley electoral es hostil a la gestación de espacios de autonomía no mercantilizados (y viceversa). Creo, sin embargo, que lo suyo es subrayar que esas dos opciones no sólo remiten a objetivos y métodos diferentes: se materializan también en proyectos organizativos distintos. Mientras en el primer caso el movimiento en que se concretan no es sino un instrumento al servicio de un proceso que debe discurrir fuera de él, en el segundo -el de los espacios de autonomía- ese movimiento se convierte, de la mano de la asamblea, de la democracia directa y de la autogestión, en objeto con vida propia que, cabal y autosuficiente, no precisa de representaciones externas. De cara al futuro, y por su dimensión de demostración de que es posible hacer las cosas de forma diferente, parece que esta última es una apuesta más inteligente.

Carlos Taibo (www.carlostaibo.com) es profesor de Ciencia Política en la Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.

Fuente : http://www.decrecimiento.info/2012/10/por-la-autogestion-y-la.html

People Money : The Promise of Regional Currencies

http://www.triarchypress.com/pages/Regional-Currencies-People-Money.htm

by Margrit Kennedy, Bernard Lietaer and John Rogers

People Money is a comprehensive guide to the principles and practice of regional currencies.

It shows how regional currencies can transform the lives and well-being of local communities, how they can sustain businesses, how local authorities can participate in their success and, consequently, why supporting regional currencies is of vital importance to the future of your community, region or country.

It is also a comprehensive guide to the development process and implementation of a regional currency.

The Present Currency System

"Centralised national money destroys community. It makes us deal with human beings like we deal with dented cans – we throw them away when we can’t make a profit from them ..."
Bob Fishman, Equal Dollars Community Currency

In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, vast numbers of people have had their livelihoods stripped away and, for many, the future looks bleak. There is a growing gap between the haves and have-nots and the disagreements between policy makers (economists and governments) about how to ‘rebalance the economy’ increasingly suggest that nobody has control or knows what to do.

The growth vs. austerity options under consideration will do little to help the financial sector stabilise. According to the IMF, there have been at least 145 banking crises, 208 monetary crashes and 72 sovereign-debt crises in the last 40 years and these are bound to continue if we stay with the present approach.

It is not just another downturn in the business cycle but a deep systemic crisis caused by the rift between a casino economics based on monetary speculation and the social and ecological realities of our time. The only way to bridge this chasm between money and planet, between money and people is to reinvent money.

The Change and Benefits of Regional Currencies

Communities are full of underused resources: individuals with time and talents; businesses with spare capacity in the form of restaurant tables, hire cars, printing services, theatre seats; voluntary associations with underused vehicles and rooms; local authorities with underused community and leisure centres.

Regional Currencies reinvent money to mobilize these resources without burdening taxpayers either at the national or regional level. Regional Currencies:

• value talents and skills
• rebuild communities and strengthen local economies
• help protect local environments share inventory, labour and skills that could serve the community 
• harness volunteers more effectively 
• support learning, training and skills-sharing
• sustain local businesses with spare capacity
• meet the demand for the care and support of the elderly.

Furthermore, they are not subject to the risk of a meltdown in the financial sector. Like the Brixton or Lewes pound (and there are many thousands of them worldwide, in Germany, France, Belgium, Switzerland, Brazil, Venezuela, South Africa, New Zealand, ...) regional currencies behave and do what national currencies don’t do.

Who should read People Money? See here

Soil to Sky : of agroecology versus industrial agriculture' by The Christiansen Fund

http://www.campaignforrealfarming.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Soil-to-Sky-infographic-1.pdf

The Mad Farmer, Flying the Flag of Rough Branch, Secedes from the Union

Here is Wendell Berry's fine poem, which speaks about money, science, community, home - all the things embraced by the precautionary principle.

From the union of power and money,
from the union of power and secrecy,
from the union of government and science,
from the union of government and art,
from the union of science and money,
from the union of ambition and ignorance,
from the union of genius and war,
from the union of outer space and inner vacuity,
the Mad Farmer walks quietly away.

There is only one of him, but he goes.
He returns to the small country he calls home,
his own nation small enough to walk across.
He goes shadowy into the local woods,
and brightly into the local meadows and croplands.
He goes to the care of neighbors,
he goes into the care of neighbors.
He goes to the potluck supper, a dish from each house
for the hunger of every house.
He goes into the quiet of early mornings
of days when he is not going anywhere.

Calling his neighbours together into the sanctity of their lives
separate and together
in the one life of their commonwealth and home,
in their own nation small enough for a story
or song to travel across in an hour, he cries:

Come all ye conservatives and liberals
who want to conserve the good things and be free,
come away from the merchants of big answers,
whose hands are metalled with power;
from the union of anywhere and everywhere
by the purchase of everything from everybody at the lowest price
and the sale of anything to anybody at the highest price;
from the union of work and debt, work and despair;
from the wage-slavery of the helplessly well-employed.
From the union of self-gratification and self-annihilation,
secede into care for one another and for the good gifts of Heaven and Earth.

Come into the life of the body, the one body
granted to you in all the history of time.
Come into the body’s economy, its daily work,
and its replenishment at mealtimes and at night.
Come into the body’s thanksgiving, when it knows
and acknowledges itself a living soul.
Come into the dance of the community, joined
in a circle, hand in hand, the dance of the eternal
love of women and men for one another
and of neighbors and friends for one another.

Always disappearing, always returning,
calling his neighbors to return, to think again
of the care of flocks and herds, of gardens
and fields, of woodlots and forests and the uncut groves,
calling them separately and together, calling and calling,
he goes forever toward the long restful evening
and the croak of the night heron over the river at dark.

Source : http://www.sehn.org/iowa.html

Michael S. Gazzaniga : The Cognitive Neurosciences, 4th Edition

http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11998

 

Table of Contents and Sample Chapters

Each edition of this classic reference has proved to be a benchmark in the developing field of cognitive neuroscience. The fourth edition of The Cognitive Neurosciences continues to chart new directions in the study of the biologic underpinnings of complex cognition—the relationship between the structural and physiological mechanisms of the nervous system and the psychological reality of the mind. The material in this edition is entirely new, with all chapters written specifically for it.

Since the publication of the third edition, the field of cognitive neuroscience has made rapid and dramatic advances; fundamental stances are changing and new ideas are emerging. This edition reflects the vibrancy of the field, with research in development and evolution that finds a dynamic growth pattern becoming specific and fixed, and research in plasticity that sees the neuronal systems always changing; exciting new empirical evidence on attention that also verifies many central tenets of longstanding theories; work that shows the boundaries of the motor system pushed further into cognition; memory research that, paradoxically, provides insight into how humans imagine future events; pioneering theoretical and methodological work in vision; new findings on how genes and experience shape the language faculty; new ideas about how the emotional brain develops and operates; and research on consciousness that ranges from a novel mechanism for how the brain generates the baseline activity necessary to sustain conscious experience to a bold theoretical attempt to make the problem of qualia more tractable.

About the Editor

Michael S. Gazzaniga is Professor of Psychology and Director for the SAGE Center for the Study of Mind at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In addition, he is the Director of the Summer Institute in Cognitive Neuroscience, President of the Cognitive Neuroscience Institute, and a member of the President's Council on Bioethetics.

Kjell Aleklett - Peeking at Peak Oil

http://www.springer.com/environment/Peeking at Peak Oil

• Exposes the facts and implications of the most  “inconvenient truth” in science
• Highlights the major social and economic impacts of the Peak of the Oil Age
• Provides an authoritative introduction in easy-to-understand language
• Features original illustrations by one of Sweden’s leading graphic artists, Olle Qvennerstedt

The term “Peak Oil” was born in January 2001 when Colin Campbell formed the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas (ASPO). Now, Peak Oil is used thousands of times a  day by journalists, politicians, industry leaders, economists, scientists and countless others around the globe. Peak Oil is not the end of oil but it tells us the end is in sight. Anyone interested in food production, economic growth, climate change or global security needs to understand this new reality.

In Peeking at Peak Oil Professor Kjell Aleklett, President of ASPO International and head of the world’s leading research group on Peak Oil, describes the decade-long journey of Peak Oil from extremist fringe theory to today’s accepted fact: Global oil production is entering terminal decline. He explains everything you need to know about Peak Oil and its world-changing consequences from an insider’s perspective. In simple steps, Kjell tells us how oil is formed, discovered and produced. He uses science to reveal the errors and deceit of national and international oil authorities, companies and governments  too terrified to admit the truth. He describes his personal involvement in the intrigues of the past decade.

What happens when a handful of giant oil fields containing two thirds of our planet’s oil become depleted? Will major oil consumers such as the EU and US face rationing within a decade? Will oil producing nations conserve their own oil when they realize that no one can export oil to them in the future? Does Peak Oil mean Peak Economic Growth? If you want to know the real story about energy today and what the future has in store, then you need to be Peeking at Peak Oil.

Exposes the facts and implications of the most  “inconvenient truth” in science

Highlights the major social and economic impacts of the Peak of the Oil Age
Provides an authoritative introduction in easy-to-understand language
Features original illustrations by one of Sweden’s leading graphic artists, Olle Qvennerstedt

ASPO Conference 2012 – Presentation of the book Peeking at Peak Oil by Kjell Aleklett

ASPO was formed 10 years ago in 2002 during the world’s first Peak Oil conference in Uppsala. During the autumn of the year 2000 a number of people had encouraged Colin Campbell to take the initiative to form an organization that would study Peak Oil and inform the world that it faced a great challenge – within 10 years the world’s oil production would reach its maximum level. Together with Jean Leherrere, Colin had described this fact in an article in Scientific American in March 1998. This year’s conference was our tenth and, at the same time, a 10 year jubilee for ASPO. My opening presentation can be downloaded for viewing. You can look at it as I refer to it in the text below. The presentation also shows some of the information and images from my book “Peeking at Peak Oil” that summarises 10 years with ASPO and the work that my research group at Uppsala University has done during the past decade.

(Download the presentation)

(Slides 3-6) In the article The End of Cheap Oil it was shown that conventional crude oil production would reach a maximum in around 2006 at a production rate of 72 million barrels per day (Mb/d). The IEA has now recognized that the world had maximal conventional crude oil production in 2006 but that the production level only reached 70 Mb/d. The fact that the oil industry could not produce 72 Mb/d means that the world can now experience a longer production plateau at 70 Mb/d. The decline that Colin and Jean showed is based on the knowledge on oil reservoirs that existed in 1998 and with assumptions of future discoveries made at that time. The IEA shows as we have that the decline in production from currently producing conventional crude oil fields is about 4 Mb/d per year. In the future prognoses published by the IEA they show that they believe that fields that have already been found (but are not yet in production) and fields yet to be found will compensate for the decline in currently producing fields. The IEA believes the yet to be discovered fields should give 19 Mb/d of production in 2035. In reality, this would mean a rate of production three times greater than was achieved in the North Sea when its production was maximal. Time will tell but we do not believe such a rate of production is possible. Therefore, we can state that Colin and Jean’s prediction made in 1998 was correct.

(Slides 8-13) In October 2001 I visited Colin in Balydehob, Ireland and we decided to organise an international workshop at Uppsala University. The collage of images taken by the University’s photographer shows some of the 60 people that participated in the workshop (ASPO 1). Two of the main speakers were Roy Leonard, who was then the head of exploration for the Russian oil company Yukos and Matt Simmons, who in the photo is being interviewed by the well-known Swedish TV journalist Bo Holmström. At the far left in the second row is Bert Bolin, who formed the IPCC and was its first president (but retired in 2002). During that year’s conference the viewpoint was presented that we should work together with the IPCC and that was something that I had hoped for from the beginning. However, the IPCC did not wish to collaborate with us. It was very important that Bruce Stanley, who worked for AP in London, came to Uppsala and wrote about our workshop. His article was read around the world and when Matt Simmons opened his morning newspaper in Houston that Saturday he could read that he had been in Uppsala and he could also read, for the first time, the expression “Peak Oil” in the international press. Today, a Google search for “Peak Oil” gives 6 million hits. The following images define Peak Oil, show which nations of the world have ASPO associations and where we have held our conferences.




(Slides 14-18) In connection with the conference in Uppsala we sent out a press release showing how we then, ten years ago, estimated that there would be a production plateau in around 2010 of 85 Mb/d (oil production as defined by BP, i.e. without “processing gains” and ethanol). The average value for oil production given by BP for the years 2002-2010 is 81.5 Mb/d which means that the prognosis ASPO showed in 2002 was too optimistic. However, in 2002 our prognosis was regarded as unrealistically low. The various prognoses that Fredrik Robelius gave in his thesis had, as a condition for reaching the highest production levels, that there would be large investments in oil production in Iraq. That did not occur.
(Slides 19, 20, 21) An important part of our research addresses the “Depletion rate of remaining recoverable resources, DRRR”. In simple terms we have shown that, in any year, one can only produce a certain percentage of the resources that remain in an oilfield or region. For the North Sea the maximal DRRR was 6%.



Slides 22, 23, 24) There are many different opinions about how much more crude oil can be discovered. We must first note that, initially, approximately 1% of the world’s oil fields possessed 65% of all the world’s oil. If we study how many oilfields are found with every passing year and how much oil exists in those fields then we can state that the greatest number of oilfields was found during the 1980s – 360 fields per year. We can also state that, with time, the fields discovered are becoming smaller and smaller. Up to 2035 I estimate we will find approximately 250 fields per year with an average size of 30,000 barrels of oil per field. This means that we will find less than 200 billion barrels of oil by 2035.



(Slides 25 & 26) Oil that is discovered can then be produced and the fact is that we cannot produce more oil than has been discovered. Oil production is limited by the laws of physics and the particular physical law that will limit our future is named “Darcy’s Law”. The law states that the rate of flow of a fluid (i.e. “the size of the tap”) is determined by k, the size of the pores in the rock; A, the contact surface between the well and the oilfield; the Greek letter  that represents how viscous the oil is and the last term, dP/dL which is the pressure difference between where the oil exists and the actual well. Horizontal wells mean that A is increased and the production rate can be greater. One can increase the pressure difference by pumping water into the oil-bearing rock but if the pressure is too high then the water will force its way past the oil to the well. Thus, we see a future in which the laws of physics ultimately determine the rate of oil flow and production.



(Slides 27-30) Now we have come to deepwater oil production. “Deepwater” means production at depths of over 500 metres. First I show the technological development that has occurred over recent years. The most developed area of deepwater production is the Gulf of Mexico where the production rate has already plateaued.
(Slide 31, 32) There is particular terminology used by the oil industry and this can be confusing especially when one discusses reserves. Economists often spend their time discussing P1 reserves while oil engineers discuss 2P reserves. “Recovery Factor” means that fraction of the oil resource that can be produced. Over time, technology can increase recovery factors somewhat.



(Slides 33-36) If one had conventional and unconventional oil reserves of the same size one would find it much more difficult to obtain a flow rate from the unconventional reserve equaling that from the conventional reserve. Canada’s oil sands are a good example. In Peeking at Peak Oil I have calculated how much greater a level of oil production we can expect from Canada’s oil sands compared to today. This calculation should be regarded as optimistic. In the article “Peak of the Oil Age” three scenarios are presented where a rapid expansion of oil sand and other production activities can give increasing world oil production up until 2014. Naturally, we might also see a prolonged plateau of production from the oil sands resource. Closer to 2030 we see a world oil production rate of between 70 and 75 Mb/d for the three scenarios.



(Slides 37-39) The world can be divided up into nations that export oil and those that import it. The largest flow of exported oil comes from the Middle East. In Figure 39 we see that the volume of world oil exports was greatest in 2005 and it has since declined while, simultaneously, India, China and other nations in south-east Asia have increased their oil imports. In future, the OECD nations will have difficulty since their access to the world’s exported oil will decrease.
(Slides 40-51) These slides discuss the IPCC’s carbon dioxide emissions scenarios from 2000. We see that Peak Oil & Gas together with Peak Coal mean that most of the scenarios for emissions from fossil fuels are not possible. Therefore, it is time to change our focus from carbon dioxide emissions to future energy shortages.



(Slide 52) If one takes all the fossil fuel reserves reported in the BP Statistical Review of World Energy and converts these reserves into carbon dioxide one can see which nations of the world have the greatest potential to release CO2. If we add together the emissions from the 15 largest emitters then this equals 85% of all possible future emissions. One realizes immediately that the greatest issue for future emissions of CO2 is coal production. Coal is used mainly as a fuel in electricity generation for so-called “baseload” power.



(Slide 53) Here the possible futures are summarised as seen from various viewpoints. Economists see increased energy consumption providing for continued economic growth. Environmental concerns mean that fossil energy will decrease by half or disappear. However, around 30% of fossil fuel production is used to produce food for the world’s population that is growing. The renewable’s share of world energy production (including hydroelectric power) is currently quite small. It is unrealistic to imagine growth of renewable energy by more than 7% per year. The future is complex.


(Slide 54) The time for taking action on Peak Oil is running out.
(Slides 55, 56, 57) Thanks to Olle, Michael and my students.

Source : http://www.peakoil.net/headline-news/aspo-conference-2012-10-years-of-aspo-1

Fundamental Neuroscience, 4th Edition

http://store.elsevier.com/Fundamental-Neuroscience/isbn-9780123858702/

Editor(s) : Squire & Berg & Bloom & du Lac & Ghosh & Spitzer

The ideal textbook for graduate and advanced undergraduate students in neuroscience and neurobiology, edited and authored by the foremost leaders in the field, with comprehensive coverage of systems neuroscience.

Key Features
30% new material including new chapters on Dendritic Development and Spine Morphogenesis, Chemical Senses, Cerebellum, Eye Movements, Circadian Timing, Sleep and Dreaming, and Consciousness
Accompanying website for students and instructors at www.elsevierdirect.com/companions/9780123858702
Additional text boxes describing key experiments, disorders, methods, and concepts
More than 650 four-color illustrations, micrographs, and neuroimages
Multiple model system coverage beyond rats, mice, and monkeys
Extensively expanded index for easier referencing

Description
The fourth edition of Fundamental Neuroscience reinvents itself as an engrossing and comprehensive presentation of the discipline of neuroscience, from molecules to cognition. Thorough but succinct, and lavishly illustrated, the book builds from an introductory section that includes fundamental neuroanatomy and goes on to cover cellular and molecular neuroscience, development, sensory systems, motor systems, regulatory systems, and behavioral and cognitive neuroscience. The book has been retooled to better serve its audience in the neuroscience and medical communities.
The chapters include more than 100 boxes describing clinical conditions, techniques, and other special topics. Each chapter went through a thorough review process, giving the book an evenness of tone. The chapters are authored by outstanding working scientists who are experts on the topics they cover.

Readership
Graduate students in neuroscience, neuroanatomy and neurophysiology, and neurobiology. The secondary market for this book is researchers in neuroscience primarily, but also in the related fields of psychology, cell biology, molecular biology, genetics and any other areas of science with cross over into neuroscience research.

Democracy Incorporated : Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism

Democracy Incorporated : Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism

http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8606.html

Democracy is struggling in America--by now this statement is almost cliché. But what if the country is no longer a democracy at all? In Democracy Incorporated, Sheldon Wolin considers the unthinkable: has America unwittingly morphed into a new and strange kind of political hybrid, one where economic and state powers are conjoined and virtually unbridled? Can the nation check its descent into what the author terms "inverted totalitarianism"?

Wolin portrays a country where citizens are politically uninterested and submissive--and where elites are eager to keep them that way. At best the nation has become a "managed democracy" where the public is shepherded, not sovereign. At worst it is a place where corporate power no longer answers to state controls. Wolin makes clear that today's America is in no way morally or politically comparable to totalitarian states like Nazi Germany, yet he warns that unchecked economic power risks verging on total power and has its own unnerving pathologies. Wolin examines the myths and mythmaking that justify today's politics, the quest for an ever-expanding economy, and the perverse attractions of an endless war on terror. He argues passionately that democracy's best hope lies in citizens themselves learning anew to exercise power at the local level.

Democracy Incorporated is one of the most worrying diagnoses of America's political ills to emerge in decades. It is sure to be a lightning rod for political debate for years to come.

Sheldon S. Wolin, born in 1922, is Emeritus Professor of Politics at Princeton University. He taught political theory for 40 years at Oberlin College, the Universities of California, Berkeley, Santa Cruz, and Los Angeles, Princeton University, Cornell University, and Oxford University.

He was the founding editor of the Journal of Democracy and a former regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. His books include Politics and Vision: Continuity and Innovation in Western Thought [1960] and Tocqueville between Two Worlds [2001]. Wolin’s propheticism about U.S. political life seeks to recognize the fugitive character of democracy in order to retain its reformative power, encouraging local and particular modes of political participation which can resist the totalizing tendencies of statist power.

His newest book, Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism, is a devastating critique of the contemporary government of the United States—including what has happened to it in recent years and what must be done if it is not to disappear into history along with its classic totalitarian predecessors: Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany and Bolshevik Russia. “With his fundamental grasp of political theory and restless spirit to get at the essence of what threatens modern democracy,” Rakesh Khurana writes, “Wolin demonstrates that the threats to our democratic traditions and institutions are not always from outside, but may come from within.”

The Wealth of the Commons - A world beyond market & state

http://www.wealthofthecommons.org/

A new collection of 73 essays that describe the enormous potential of the commons in conceptualizing and building a better future, edited by David Bollier and Silke Helfrich.

We are poised between an old world that no longer works and a new one struggling to be born. Surrounded by centralized hierarchies on the one hand and predatory markets on the other, people around the world are searching for alternatives. The Wealth of the Commons explains how millions of commoners have organized to defend their forests and fisheries, reinvent local food systems, organize productive online communities, reclaim public spaces, improve environmental stewardship and re-imagine the very meaning of “progress” and governance. In short: how they’ve built their commons.

In 73 timely essays by a remarkable international roster of activists, academics and project leaders, this book chronicles ongoing struggles against the private commoditization of shared resources – often known as “market enclosures” – while documenting the immense generative power of the commons.  The Wealth of the Commons is about history, political change, public policy and cultural transformation on a global scale – but most of all, it’s about commoners taking charge of their lives and their endangered resources. It’s about common people doing uncommon things.