August 2011
2 posts
A story missing from our media: Iceland's on-going... →
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July 2011
6 posts
WatchThis is a bloody brilliant idea. Energy neutral lighting! via @jenneke
June 2011
6 posts
“http://youtu.be/yJTVF_dya7E”
– YouTube - 1960: “Harvest of Shame”
WatchIf even an 11 year old can get it…
(via Birke Baehr: What’s wrong with our food system | Video on TED.com)
1 tag
Congratulations, world, we've never been this rich...
When the Wall Street Journal opens an article with the words ‘Last year was another good year for millionaires’, I pay attention. This magazine usually tries to argue why taxes some things are bad for millionaires, or why taxcuts other things could actually further strengthen improve the distorted reality field sorry plight of the uber-rich. Why isn’t it a bad year? Well,...
May 2011
10 posts
3 tags
The Guardian rips into the IMF →
“Could someone please arrest the head of the IMF for screwing the poor for 60 years?”
“During this transition period, forces like the IMF will seek to lock in and enlarge the neoliberal project before there is an accountable government to complain about it.”
“Once more, local elites could collaborate with the institutions at the helm of global capitalism to screw...
4 tags
Lord, make me sustainable, but not quite yet.
A very interesting article by Ethical Corp on sustainability reports.
On how they’re primarily full of lip service, and very short on what these companies are actually really doing.
What is scary about this, is that they did their research among the frontrunners. Imagine what the laggards are like…
Am I repeating myself? That’s because we haven’t actually seen...
The Global Compact of the United Nations...
The UN Global Compact, arguably the world’s biggest greenwashing initiative, has come under scrutiny from an unexpected corner; the UN itself.
Which is a little bit uncomfortable and painful, to say the least.
Some quotes:
“absence of adequate entry criteria and an effective monitoring system”
a “highly unusual” governance structure that is “costly, cumbersome and...
3 tags
WatchBreathtaking short talk by economist Paul Collier on how markets have become destructive. But also on some quite straightforward solutions. This is posted as part of my thinking process on the role of markets, government and society. More to follow!
But what *will* work?
The fact is, the current world systems are making it possible for people to be exploited on a massive scale. But what are the solutions?
Do we want the government to actually control everything we do, just to protect everybody? Sounds pretty bloody 1984/Brave New World to me.
But can we just let the market dictate everything it feels like doing. Deregulation and the Invisible Hand of the...
Creeper Death
First, you don’t post on your blog for a few days.
Then the pressure builds to come up with something that’ll actually be pretty good. The longer you wait, the higher the expectations.
Then comes the guilt when your Things task manager reminds you it’s time to blog again.
Then comes the blunted conscience when you just start deleting the repeating task reminder every time it...
3 tags
Articles like these make me lose all faith in the... →
September 2010
5 posts
Procter & Gamble announce 100% sustainable...
Okay, so I was happy to see this piece of news. Procter & Gamble, maker of many many consumer products, yesterday announced they were going to transition to just about near-perfect sustainable packaging.
This includes:
• Uses renewable energy for 100 percent of its factories, • Uses 100 percent renewable or recycled materials for all products and packages, and • Sends zero consumer or...
Sometimes it's very good to disobey orders →
Shockingly ignorant, shockingly destructive. A...
Had she really just said that? I sat there, shocked. Had she really just said that? I checked my notes, conferred with the guy sitting next to me, and we both reckoned she had. I decided to remain shocked. What I had just heard was probably one of the most thoroughly ignorant things I had heard in a long time.
Surefire plan In short, her point was that in order to create more sustainable supply...
5 tags
Why Milton Friedman could have been the...
It might be because I broke my toe this morning (actually, it’s just a hair fracture, but it is seriously bruised, and hurts like hell), but I feel like a bit of a rant.
A while ago, I posted a tweet, saying that Milton Friedman could quite possibly have been the Anti-Christ. True, a bit melodramatic. But actually, I *might* not be that far off.
So why would I name a Nobel Prize winner in...
August 2010
6 posts
The Generation M Manifesto - Umair Haque - Harvard... →
This pretty much sums up a whole lot of stuff I’ve been thinking lately.
“The way of the buffalo
1. Going extinct, or slowly ceasing to exist/function....”
– http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=The%20way%20of%20the%20buffalo
Sometimes, businessmen and very rich people decide... →
July 2010
1 post
1 tag
Giving it another spin
Inspired by my friend Ernst-Jan, I’m thinking of picking up this blog again. Not as a personal read-all-my-emotions blog, but to put forward an idea. Nobody ever expected the American buffalo to become (almost) extinct, but it took less than a century to decimate this proud beast that once roamed a continent in herds of millions. The Way Of The Buffalo is based on an idea that we are fast...
April 2010
2 posts
March 2010
2 posts
February 2010
1 post
November 2009
12 posts
To Write Love On Her Arms
Maybe I am a bit sentimental because of the wonderful Karmeliet Tripel I just finished. Perhaps it’s because my wife is out of town for the night, I have the house to myself, and our beautiful daughter is sleeping in the room next door.
Whatever the reason, this story about To Write Love On Her Arms that I bumped into through a tweet by PostSecret, just cut through all my defenses this...
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”...”
– http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Edmund_Burke (via schapie)
9 tags
Walls
My friend @paulabpsoel challenged his Twitter followers to use the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall to talk about other walls we would like to see come down. So that’s what I’m going to do. And I’m going to write about something that, much like the Wall, is currently seen as a fact of life, as a part of the fabric of society. But it is something that is inherently Evil,...
My old blog (The Way Of The Buffalo)
A while ago, I started a blog, called The Way of the Buffalo. This blog was supposed to focus on the various threats to the sustainability of this planet. I was planning to post most weeks on issues such as human trafficking and other human rights abuses, on the environment and global warming, on depletion of natural resources etc.
However, as I’ve stated earlier on this tumblr blog, I...
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