December 2019 - P2P-Foundation - lists.ourproject.org

Fw: Fw: Info
by Natalie Golovin 10 Mar '26

10 Mar '26

Mark: You and your compatriots on P2P view the world from revisionism. Go ahead and keep looking through your microscope-provided by your "teachers." Or take the time and read some very old documented evidence available at a library near you= but you may need to stay there awhile on microfiche. -----Original Message----- From: Mark Janssen Sent: Sunday, October 23, 2011 4:39 PM To: P2P Foundation mailing list Subject: Re: [P2P-F] Fw: Info On Sun, Oct 23, 2011 at 10:32 AM, Natalie Golovin <10natalie(a)cox.net> wrote: > The European Tribes treated the Natives no worse than they treated each > other. Whoa. You should really stop talking. You have NO idea what you're talking about. How about forced acculturation, not allowing them to speak their own language (which hold the record of their own history), confined them under threat of violent force into reservations, among other things. But, really, that's probably not even the worst of it -- the worst of it is that for reasons they couldn't ever understand is why you were doing all of these cruel things when they were willing to share it it all with you. Why, when they handed out their hand to be friends, you chopped it off. Remember, they're the ones who gave us Thanksgiving which is still "celebrated" in this nation today. Read the reports made of making first contact with the Native peoples here. You really should read up before propagating the attitudes of conquest. Sorry.... marcos _______________________________________________ P2P Foundation - Mailing list http://www.p2pfoundation.net https://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation

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Fwd: Philippe Honigman mentioned you in a post
by Michel Bauwens 30 Dec '19

30 Dec '19

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: LinkedIn <messages-noreply(a)linkedin.com> Date: Fri, Dec 27, 2019 at 8:19 PM Subject: Philippe Honigman mentioned you in a post To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004(a)gmail.com> Philippe Honigman mentioned you in a post [image: LinkedIn] <https://www.linkedin.com/comm/feed/?midToken=AQHngZYzpKhG6w&trk=eml-email_n…> Michel Bauwens [image: Michel Bauwens] <https://www.linkedin.com/comm/in/mbauwens?midToken=AQHngZYzpKhG6w&trk=eml-e…> [image: View Philippe Honigman’s profile] <https://www.linkedin.com/comm/in/honigman?midToken=AQHngZYzpKhG6w&trk=eml-e…> Philippe Honigman <https://www.linkedin.com/comm/in/honigman?midToken=AQHngZYzpKhG6w&trk=eml-e…> *mentioned you in a post* “Peeristes de tous les pays, fréquentez-vous... au Paris P2P Festival, du 8 au 12 janvier ! #p2pfestival #parisp2p...” Peeristes de tous les pays, fréquentez-vous ! <https://www.linkedin.com/comm/feed/update/urn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A66163161650…> Join the conversation <https://www.linkedin.com/comm/feed/update/urn%3Ali%3Aactivity%3A66163161650…> Get the LinkedIn app. Stay updated wherever you are Download for free <https://www.linkedin.com/e/v2?e=16n8h-k4o6nci5-w9&lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Aem…> Unsubscribe <https://www.linkedin.com/e/v2?e=16n8h-k4o6nci5-w9&t=lun&midToken=AQHngZYzpK…> | Help <https://www.linkedin.com/e/v2?e=16n8h-k4o6nci5-w9&lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Aem…> You are receiving LinkedIn notification emails. This email was intended for Michel Bauwens (Member of the P2P Cooperative). Learn why we included this. <https://www.linkedin.com/e/v2?e=16n8h-k4o6nci5-w9&lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Aem…> [image: LinkedIn] <https://www.linkedin.com/comm/feed/?midToken=AQHngZYzpKhG6w&trk=eml-email_n…> © 2019 LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company, Wilton Plaza, Wilton Place, Dublin 2. LinkedIn is a registered business name of LinkedIn Ireland Unlimited Company. LinkedIn and the LinkedIn logo are registered trademarks of LinkedIn. -- P2P Foundation: http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net <http://p2pfoundation.net> - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: ; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens Curation of news on p2p/commons developments: https://www.facebook.com/groups/p2p.open/

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Fwd: Rising to the occasion
by Michel Bauwens 30 Dec '19

30 Dec '19

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: <douglas(a)rushkoff.com> Date: Sun, Dec 29, 2019 at 9:34 PM Subject: Rising to the occasion To: <rushkoff(a)simplelists.com> Happy New Year! I just published a big essay in The Guardian <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/29/decade-technology-pri…> about the last decade in tech, and how most critique are still looking at devices, platforms, business plans or even tech CEOs instead of the digital environment in which we’re all trying to function. I’ve pasted it below, but you can see it in its art directed glory here <https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/29/decade-technology-pri…> . Also, a new talk I did in Waterloo, Canada, recorded and posted in its entirety on CBC radio here. <https://www.cbc.ca/radio/ideas/get-thee-behind-me-tech-putting-humans-befor…> They called it "Get thee behind me, tech: putting humans before social media,” which I kind of like. Meanwhile, I’ve started serializing the entirety of Team Human on Medium <http://medium.com/team-human>, one section a week for the next hundred weeks. They’re hoping to get the podcast and my Medium columns posted on that page, too. For now, you can find my Medium columns individually, like this one about Was Humanity Simply Not Ready for the Internet? <https://medium.com/team-human/was-humanity-simply-not-ready-for-the-interne…> And you can hear the podcast at http://teamhuman.fm <http://teamhuman.fm> I’m looking forward to some great projects in 2020 and beyond - a documentary series, a possible TV show, and even some theater. All hopefully aimed at promoting a positive human future. I’ll keep you posted. Take care, and please take time to engage with other people. Eye contact, skin contact, or just the occasional hug are both nourishment and gateways to the meaning of life. Conspiracy means breathing together. - D *We've spent the decade letting our tech define us. It's out of control* We may come to remember this decade as the one when human beings finally realized we are up against something. We’re just not quite sure what it is. More of us have come to understand that our digital technologies are not always bringing out our best natures. People woke up to the fact that our digital platforms are being coded by people who don’t have our best interests at heart. This is the decade when, finally, the “tech backlash” began. But it’s a little late. Shoshana Zuboff recently published her comprehensive Surveillance Capitalism to deserved acclaim, but the book is really about some decisions that Google was making twenty years ago to harvest our data and sell it to advertisers. The Center for Humane Technology has called attention to the way that the manipulative techniques of behavioral finance have been embedded in our apps – bringing us all up to speed on the science of captology and addiction, circa 1999. These are necessary critiques, but they’re too focused on the good old days, when the business plans of a few bad actors and the designs of some manipulative technologies could be identified as the “cause” of our collective woes. That’s really only half, or less than half, of the story. It’s blaming the developers, the CEOs, the shareholders, even individual apps, programs and platforms for our predicament, when most of these players have either long since left the building, or are themselves oblivious to their impact on our collective wellbeing. Just because the public is finally ready to hear about these tech industry shenanigans doesn’t mean they are still relevant. We can’t even blame capitalism, anymore. The quest for exponential returns may have fueled the development of extractive and addictive technologies, but the cultural phenomena they gave birth to now have a life of their own. What this decade’s critiques miss is that over the past 10 years, our tech has grown from some devices and platforms we use to an entire environment in which we function. We don’t “go online” by turning on a computer and dialing up through a modem; we live online 24/7, creating data as we move through our lives, accessible to everyone and everything. Our smartphones are not devices that sit in our pockets; they create new worlds with new rules about our availability, intimacies, appearance and privacy. Apple, Twitter and Google are not just technology services we use, but staples in our retirement portfolios, on whose continued success our financial futures depend. At this point, the digital environment is no more the result of a series of choices made by technology developers, as it is the underlying cause of those choices. What happened to us in the 2010s wasn’t just that we were being surveilled, but that all that data was being used to customize everything we saw and did online. We were being shaped into who the data said we were. The net you see and the one I see are different. Your Google search results are different than mine, your news feeds are different and your picture of the world is different. As the decade began and social media took over society, many people tried to call attention to digital technology’s more environmental effects. In Programmed or Be Programmed, I argued that we have to understand the platforms on which we’re working and living, or we’re more likely to be used by technology than to be the users controlling it. But those of us arguing for new media literacies may have been making our case a bit too literally‘The digital environment is no more the result of a series of choices made by technology developers, as it is the underlying cause of those choices.’ Photograph: Peter Howell/Getty Images/iStockphoto The people and organizations responding to our plea launched the “learn to code” movement. Schools initiated Stem curriculums, and kids learned code in order to prepare themselves for jobs in the digital economy. It was as if the answer to a world where the most powerful entities speak in code was to learn code, ourselves, and then look for employment servicing the machines. If you can’t beat them, join them. But that wasn’t the point. Or shouldn’t have been. What we really needed this decade was to learn code as a liberal art – not so much as software engineers, but as human beings living in a new sort of environment. It’s an environment that remembers and records everything we have done online, every data point we leave in our wake, in order to adapt itself to our individual predilections – all in order to generate whatever responses or behaviors the platforms want from us. The digital media environment uses what it knows about each of our pasts to direct each one of our futures. We can no longer come to agreement on what we’re seeing, because we’re looking at different pictures of the world. It’s not just that we have different perspectives on the same events and stories; we’re being shown fundamentally different realities, by algorithms looking to trigger our engagement by any means necessary. The more conflicting the ideas and imagery to which are exposed, the more likely we are to fight over whose is real and whose is fake. We are living in increasingly different and irreconcilable worlds. We have no chance of making sense together. The only thing we have in common is our mutual disorientation and alienation. We’ve spent the last 10 years as participants in a feedback loop between surveillance technology, predictive algorithms, behavioral manipulation and human activity. And it has spun out of anyone’s control. ‘Russian bots, meme campaigns and Cambridge Analytica’ This is a tough landscape for anyone to navigate coherently. We may be benefiting from the internet’s ability to help us find others with whom we share rare diseases, hobbies, or beliefs, but this sorting and grouping is abstract and over great distances. We are not connecting with people in the real world, but gathered by our eyeballs in disembodied virtual spaces, without the benefit of any of our painstakingly evolved social mechanisms for moderation, rapport, or empathy. The digital media environment is a space that is configuring itself in real time based on how the algorithms think we will react. They are sorting us into caricatured, machine-language oversimplifications of ourselves. This is why we saw so much extremism emerge over the past decade. We are increasingly encouraged to identify ourselves by our algorithmically determined ideological profiles alone, and to accept a platform’s arbitrary, profit-driven segmentation as a reflection of our deepest, tribal affiliations. Since 2016, we have summoned demons to embody and represent these artificially generated worldviews – Russian bots and meme campaigns and Cambridge Analytica. But though these may have amplified and accelerated the effect of the digital environment, that environment would have generated standing waves of cultural angst in primary colors no matter what. Then, all it takes is an ideologue or ideology to jump in and claim that standing wave as their own. Trump is not the originator of his demagoguery so much as the vessel. Ideologically speaking, he’s less a tweeter than a re-tweeter. Likewise, Brexit is not a policy design for an independent England so much as a projection of one group’s collective angst. And these are not even the most monstrous of the phantoms we are generating. ‘We’ve surrendered to digital platforms that look at human individuality as noise to be corrected, rather than signal to be cherished.’ Photograph: Peter Howell/Getty Images/iStockphoto Incapable of recreating a consensus reality together through digital media, we are trying to conjure a television-style hallucination. Television was a global medium, broadcasting universally shared realities to a world of spectators. The Olympics, moon landings and the felling of the Berlin Wall were all globally broadcast, collective spectacles. We all occupied the same dream space, which is why globalism characterized that age. But now we are resurrecting obsolete visions of nationalism, false memories of a glorious past, and the anything-goes values of reality TV. We are promoting a spectator democracy on digital platforms, and, in the process, we are giving life to paranoid nightmares of doom and gloom, invasion and catastrophe, replacement and extinction. And artificial intelligence hasn’t even arrived yet. There is a way out, but it will mean abandoning our fear and contempt for those we have become convinced are our enemies. No one is in charge of this, and no amount of social science or monetary policy can correct for what is ultimately a spiritual deficit. We have surrendered to digital platforms that look at human individuality and variance as “noise” to be corrected, rather than signal to be cherished. Our leading technologists increasingly see human beings as a problem, and technology as the solution – and they use our behavior on their platforms as evidence of our essentially flawed nature. But the digital media environment could be helping us reconnect to local reality and terra firma. This is one of its potential breaks from media environments of the past. In the digital environment, we have the opportunity to remember who we really are and how to take responsibility for our world. Here, we are not just passive consumers; we are active citizens and more. That’s the real power of a distributed network: it is not centrally controlled, but locally generated. The digital environment is also built, quite literally, on memory. Everything a computer does happens in one form of RAM or another – just moving things from one section of its memory to another. The digital media environment functions like a big blockchain, recording and storing everything we say or do for later retrieval. It could be helping us retrieve real facts, track real metrics and recall something about the essence of who we were and how we related before we were untethered from ourselves and alienated from one another. The next decade will determine whether we human beings have what it takes to rise to the occasion of our own, imposed obsolescence. We must stop looking to our screens and their memes for a sense of connection to something greater than ourselves. We must stop building digital technologies that optimize us for atomization and impulsiveness, and create ones aimed at promoting sense-making and recall instead. We must seize the more truly digital, distributed opportunity to remember the values that we share, and reacquaint ourselves with the local worlds in which we actually live. For there, unlike the partitioned servers of cyberspace, we have a whole lot more in common with one another than we may suspect. Happy holidays. ---- This is RushkoffList, a monthlyish update and advance look at work in progress. Feel free to forward to your friends as long as you include this footer. To subscribe, use this link: http://www.simplelists.com/subscribe/rushkoff To unsubscribe: http://www.simplelists.com/confirm.php?u=grdK4Lvi7veNxafT2DxZrw1oAyoTFsEc -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: NEWS (Announcements)
by Michel Bauwens 24 Dec '19

24 Dec '19

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Great Transition Network <gtnetwork(a)greattransition.org> Date: Tue, Dec 24, 2019 at 11:43 AM Subject: NEWS (Announcements) To: <michelsub2004(a)gmail.com> >From Paul Raskin [praskin(a)tellus.org] ---------------------------------------------------------- Dear GTN Colleagues, Thanks to all contributors for your thoughtful comments on the November exchange (archived at Corporations in the Crosshairs: From Reform to Redesign <https://greattransition.org/223-corporations-in-the-crosshairs-from-reform-…> ). A representative set is now live on the GTI homepage <https://greattransition.org/> , where you will also find a terrific interview with Kate Raworth on her “doughnut economics” and ways to challenge the neoclassical economics paradigm. Please help spread word of these publications by sharing, republishing, and blogging about them. In January, the GTN discussion—Toward a Great Ethics Transition—will consider the moral and ethical foundations for a Great Transition. Our point of departure will be a reflection on the <https://earthcharter.org/discover/the-earth-charter/> Earth Charter <https://earthcharter.org/discover/the-earth-charter/> , which turns twenty in 2020. We will hear from Earth Charter veterans, and also, *I hope*, from many of you drawing on complementary experiences and approaches. The GTN Bulletin Board <https://greattransition.org/bulletin-board/> is the place on our site to share news of publications, events, etc., with the 1000+ GT Network (submit info to jcohn(a)tellus.org) Recent entries include: • Ashish Kothari, “Earth Vikalp Sangam: Proposal for a Global Tapestry of Alternatives” • Conference announcement—The Great Transition International Conference (not formally affiliated with GTI) • Chico Whitaker, “World Social Forum – Possible Perspectives” As a grim year wanes, we can be forgiven a sense of foreboding and despair. Events are painfully confirming a fundamental premise of the Great Transition scenario: Conventional World paths lead to systemic crises and barbarized reaction. Our task and hope is to confirm another fundamental premise—that the crisis will continue to coalesce a mass movement for deep change. I wish all of you and yours the best of fortune in the year ahead. Onwards, Paul ---------------------------------------------------------- Hit reply to post a comment on the GT Network Read all comments (or reply) here <https://greattransition.org/announcements/news#3097> Note: Expect a delay between posting and receiving your comment Need help? Email jcohn(a)tellus.org -- P2P Foundation: http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net <http://p2pfoundation.net> - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: ; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens Curation of news on p2p/commons developments: https://www.facebook.com/groups/p2p.open/

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Fwd: Financially Advantageous Approaches To Sustain The Ecosystem
by Michel Bauwens 21 Dec '19

21 Dec '19

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Hazel Henderson <hazel.henderson(a)ethicalmarkets.com> Date: Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 3:19 AM Subject: Financially Advantageous Approaches To Sustain The Ecosystem To: Larae Long <larae.long(a)ethicalmarkets.com> “Ethical Markets highly recommends this article “Financially Advantageous Approaches to Sustain the Ecosystem” by NASA Chief Scientist Dennis Bushnell, which outlines the best ways forward to accelerate the shift from fossilized industrial sectors to the fully competitive, renewable, highly-efficient circular economies we have tracked in our Green Transition Scoreboard® annually since 2009, currently totaling a cumulative $10.387 trillion. Also recommended are our six programs with Bushnell in our TV series distributed globally to colleges at www.films.com and our 2010 Statement on “Transforming Finance“ <http://www.ethicalmarkets.com/transforming-finance-groups-call-recognizes-f…>, now signed by almost one hundred financial professionals. ~Hazel Henderson, Editor“ Financially Advantageous Approaches To Sustain The Ecosystem Dennis M. Bushnell, NASA Langley Research Center Introduction Humans are shorter term in their approach to problems and solution spaces. For evolutionary, gradual changes/issues with less than major impacts in the longer term, such a tactical approach is/has been successful. Abetting such a prevalent near term focus are two realisms: first, the amygdala, the part of our brain that keeps us conservative and second the power, financial and political of the current status quo/“winners”. The overall result is a reluctance/resistance to change, risk aversion, and shorter-term fixation. Although we have extensively studied climate change and ecosystem degeneration driven by human activities for decades, there has been huge inertia-to-denial until rather serious changes/impacts became readily apparent. Examples of such impacts for climate change include more prevalent and extreme floods, storms, disease, fires, ocean level rise, species extinctions, ocean acidification, ocean circulation changes, and temperature increases and are in fact evident now. In fact, during the Permian Extinction (also known as “The Great Dying”) the ocean circulation changes resulted in increased anoxic ocean conditions, leading to an overgrowth of cyanobacteria/blue-green algae. This alga produces hydrogen sulfide, which, in small percentages in the atmosphere, is a poison and attrite the ozone layer. Therefore, climate change is more than warm days and wet feet. The book “Drawdown” by Paul Hawken provides an extensive compilation of approaches to mitigate climate change. He discusses 80+ ways forward with an estimated total savings of approximately $73T over 30 years (Ref. 1). Current impacts to ecosystems include: fresh water shortages, species extinctions, pollution, deforestation, loss of topsoil, and wildlife habitat. The humans are practicing anti-terraforming, with many and rapidly increasing costs (e.g. financial, human/species lives, quality of life, etc.). Fundamentally, humans have been too successful as a species. We have pursued ever greater human numbers and an overall growth mantra as the economic basis without consideration of the finite size and capacity of available resources and the dumping ground (e.g. the major human uses of the finite ecosystem). The ecosystem provides the essentials for life including water, air, food, soil, plants, minerals, etc. and we are seriously now degrading it at our peril. Water regulation, pollution filtering, waste sink functionality, soil retention, nutrient cycling, and waste decomposition are all becoming degraded. Ever greater growth with a fixed resource is only possible via utilizing technology and approaches to alter resource utilization and/or controlling population. For many centuries, as humans depleted local resources, they have simply moved to other regions where resources were available. That is no longer an option as the present technologies and processes are degenerating the entire planet. There appears to be general agreement that we are short approximately 50% of a planet now. As world population growth continues and living standards rise, projections include a shortage of some three planets (i.e. ecosystem resource utilization and dumping will have to reduce considerably). Altering technology and approaches to adapt to such growth is termed sustainability, with various alternatives termed green growth, reusability and The Circular Economy. It also involves the valuing, protection, and strengthening of what are termed “ecosystem services” (Ref. 2). The purpose of this report is to consider the examination and application of financial gain incentives to greatly accelerate the development of sustainability as a whole. This financial approach is responsible for the now hugely successful growth of renewable energy generation and storage. During the last decades, technology has reduced the costs of renewables and storage to the point where they are below parity and still reducing in cost. Not much happened with regard to application and utilization of renewables until their costs reduced such that financially they were the best solution (Ref 17). The major determiner of their application was financial gain and not the climate downsides enumerated above. Also, inexpensive renewable, green electric generation and storage are the pivotal key or enabler for climate mitigation as electrification can be applied widely to the other major sources of CO2 besides electric generation (e.g. transportation, industrial and commercial operations, building HVAC, etc.). Many functions and processes now producing CO2 can be electrified, so the renewables growth will have a seriously major overall impact on climate. It is perhaps useful to examine the particulars regarding this financial driven renewables success story, and then to collect and ideate some similar financially overarching approaches and technologies for ecosystem rejuvenation/sustainability to hopefully greatly accelerate such. There are two obvious high-level sources of financial benefit for both the ecosystem and the portion of the ecosystem currently being seriously worked (i.e. climate). These financially beneficial approaches strive to mitigate the trillions of dollars of negative effects due to ecosystems and climate if the current negative trends continue, and to alter technology and approaches to situations with major profit potential. First, the current financial approaches for climate will be examined and then secondly, a similar overall approach will be applied to the rest of the ecosystem to enable sustainability, the circular economy, green growth, etc., obviating continued ecosystem degradation in the process. The overall bottom line of business as usual is an average loss of some 7% (or more depending upon actual temperature rise) of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by 2100 (Ref. 3). On the other hand, seriously working mitigation of the ecosystem including climate is projected to increase global GDP by some 5% by 2050. It is not possible to change things for the overall financial and ecosystem good without, in fact, changing some things. There will be winners and losers. In the case of climate, for renewable energy the winners are the public with reduced climate impacts across the board, reduced energy bills, cleaner air, and firms that successfully manufacture and sell various types of renewable energy. Losers thus far, due to availability of lower cost options, include coal and nuclear power. As renewables and storage continue to reduce in cost and become more efficient, gas and petroleum will probably be seriously affected. Investors in these previously dominant industries will be left with stranded assets even though the amounts invested in these fossil carbon industries were, are, still remain, major. Therefore, as we change our approaches to reverse the current climate and ecosystem trends, there will be financial difficulties associated with such losers that will have to be considered/worked. For example, the stock market value of the U.S. coal industry in 2011 was worth approximately $37B. As of 2019, its worth was about $2B (Ref. 4). Historically, there have been concerns regarding the costs of ecosystem/climate remediation. However, now action has shifted to concerns going forward regarding the even greater costs of not taking action/remediation (Ref. 5) along with not taking advantage of the financial opportunities associated with those remediation approaches (e.g. green growth and the circular economy). As mentioned previously, there will be some cases where specific major industry/resources will be negatively impacted. An indication of this 180 degree shift is mirrored in the increasing importance of climate/environmental performance upon the evaluation of top management. The governor of the bank of England stated that companies that fail to respond to the challenges of climate change will go bankrupt without question. The value of the rapidly growing Global Green Economy in 2015/16 was at least $7.87T (Ref. 6). A Simplex Look at The Climate Financials Story Part One – Negative Climate Change and Financial Avoidance 1. Avoidance of huge insurance*, personal, productivity, commercial/industrial losses from climate change induced/increased phenomena including: - Flooding - Storms - Fires - Sea Level Rise - Droughts - Disease - Temperature increase/heat - Landslides *Insurance is some 11% of the U.S. GDP (Ref 5). 2. Avoidance of negative impacts on fields such as: - Agriculture - Fishing - Health services Infrastructures - Mining - Supply chains - Food systems - Asset prices (including real estate) - Land/labor productivity 3. Projections indicate that the U.S. economy could shrink on the order of 10% to 25% by 2100 depending upon the effects of positive feedbacks. 4. Recent estimates of the social monetized cost/ton of CO2 emissions on the economy is on the order of $100/ton in 2018, with 37B tons emitted, resulting in $3.7T/yr societal costs or approximately 4% of GDP (Ref. 7). Other recent estimates of the social cost of carbon range from $220 (Ref. 8) to $500+ per ton of CO2 emissions, depending upon what costs are included. 5. Given the cost of raising children, it is of interest that in terms of reducing carbon emissions at the personal level, having one fewer child saves the most by far, 58 tons of CO2 emissions/yr (Ref. 9). 6. Consumers, given the now obvious manifestations of climate change, are increasingly demanding climate friendly operations and products across the board, producing loss of business for those who do not deliver such 7. Almost a quarter of all disease is caused by adverse environmental exposure (Ref. 10). 8. Estimates indicate a two degree C temperature rise would reduce GDP by 15% and a three degree C rise would reduce it 25%. In 2100, temperature rise is slated for 4 degrees C, producing a 30% reduction in GDP (Ref. 11). 9. Yearly cost for unmitigated climate change would total at least 5% of GDP and the yearly cost could be as high as 20% of GDP (Ref. 12). 10. Warming of 6 degrees C could lead to present value loss of $43T or 30% of the global total (Ref. 13). 11. Since 1980, extreme weather has cost $1.6T (Ref. 11). 12. Over a decade the U.S. EPA Regulations cost $45B and produced $640B in benefits (Ref. 14). 13. In the U.S., $23 trillion will be lost if temperatures rise four degrees by 2100 (Ref. 15). Part Two – Prospective Financial Gains from Mitigating Climate Change 1. Due to technologies and economies of scale, renewable energy generation is now at or below cost parity with fossil carbon fuels and still plummeting. Energy storage costs are reducing rapidly, leading to cheaper electricity and electric transportation, new markets, and reduced costs of living and manufacturing costs. Indicators show large job increases in related fields, reduced health issues from fossil fuel pollution, along with much reduced cooling water requirements. 1. Less costly energy enables more profitable desalinization, aluminum production, ocean mining, etc. 1. Distributed energy, including at home energy generation, constitutes a more reliable, robust, and less expensive system. 1. Energy conservation developments enabled efficient buildings that produce energy vice constituting a sizable source of energy load, major costs. 1. There are potentially huge profits from switching from Glycophyte/fresh water agricultural approaches to halophyte/saline (Ref 16) agriculture. It allows for utilization of massive currently unexploited planet resources such as deserts/wastelands and saline/seawater. This new approach would: - Produce biomass for replacing petroleum for petrochemical feedstock - Produce massive amounts of food/free up a sizable portion of the 70% of the fresh water now used for agriculture - Produce massive amounts of biofuels - Sequester major amounts of CO2 - Address resource challenges relating to land, water, food, energy, and climate - Reduce costs of, and the need for, ever more courageous water conservation 1. This new approach would result in a wholly new agricultural industry with a huge environmental upside utilizing ultra-inexpensive land and water. 1. Battery/energy storage markets are huge, and increasing rapidly. Battery prices have fallen some 85% in a decade (Ref 17). 1. Renewable energy investments over the past decade are estimated at $2.5T, with a major growth in related employment (Ref 18). 1. Reportedly, investing $1.7T in climate change mitigation over the next 10 years would yield $7T in economic returns, due to avoidance and increased productivity of new equipment (Ref 19). A Look at the Potential Ecosystem Financials Outlook Part One - Negative Ecosystem Degradation Financial Avoidance 1. Avoidance of major personal, commercial, industrial, and agricultural losses from ecosystem degradation due to: - Loss of topsoil - Fresh water shortages - Species extinctions - Pollution including trash and industrial waste - Deforestation - Loss of fish stocks - Depletion of natural resources 1. Avoidance of some 9 million deaths/year from pollution (e.g. ozone, CO, NO2, particulates, SO2, ammonia, lead, chemicals), which is 15 times the number of deaths from wars and 16% of global deaths/year. Costs of pollution are some $4.6T on the global economy (Ref. 20). 1. Marine plastic pollution costs the world up to $2.5T a year (Ref 21). 1. Nine out of 10 people in the world breathe highly polluted air (Ref 22). 1. The world’s terrestrial ecosystem services have been valued on an annual basis to be approximately equivalent to the annual GDP (Ref. 25). 1. The cumulative loss of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services between 2000 and 2050 could be equivalent to 7% of the 2050 world GDP (Ref 24). 1. Between 1997 and 2011, estimates indicate the world lost up to $21T in ecosystem services due to land cover change and land degeneration (Ref. 23). [Note: certain references calculate ecosystem services loses differently based on certain variables.] 1. Ecosystem services vital to human well-being (e.g. crop pollination, water purification, flood protection, and carbon sequestration), are evaluated at an estimated $125-140T/ year, 1.5 times greater than the global GDP (Ref. 23). [Note: certain references calculate ecosystem services differently based on certain variables.] Part Two – Prospective Financial Gains from Approaches to Reverse Ecosystem Degradation 1. Halophytes, salt plants on wastelands, deserts using saline/seawater The immense advantages of switching to halophytes (Ref. 16) include: - Saline-tolerant plant biomass utilizing what we have a surfeit of (and what could be our last major play regarding the ecosystem): wastelands, deserts (which make up 44% of the land area), and seawater (97% of the planet's water resources). - Seawater contains 80% of the nutrients needed to grow plants, and researchers are developing new techniques to extract nitrogen from the air, thus requiring little fertilizer. - Advanced technology is not required and cultivation uses inexpensive land and water, so the economics are very favorable. The shift to halophytes could be accomplished in relatively short order. - Halophyte cultivation for food would free up 70% or more of the total freshwater used for conventional glycophyte agriculture, and which we are now running out of for direct human use, thus solving both water and food problems - Cultivation of halophyte biomass would similarly obviate the necessity of using arable land and freshwater for biofuels and provide petrochemical feedstocks for plastics and other industrial products, essentially eliminating the need for petroleum feed stocks. It is literally green energy and chemicals. - Halophytes sequester up to 18% of their carbon dioxide uptake in their deep roots (5 tons of CO2/Ha) removing CO2 from the atmosphere. - Seawater contains trace elements essential to healthy human physiology, which we have largely depleted from arable land due to overuse. 1. Ocean mineral extraction using inexpensive renewable energy instead of hard rock mining which is a major source of pollution. 1. Recycling (aka the circular economy) for nearly everything including solids, liquids, and gases. Tech companies to do this at ultra-low costs and increasingly local including printers. 1. The University of Nottingham is attempting to utilize atmospheric nitrogen for agriculture, incurring far less fertilizer costs, runoff, and reducing ocean O2 loss. 1. On less than a half-acre and with help from developing technologies, going forward we could: - Grow own food - Print what we want/need - Recycle on site - Use distributed energy generation - Conduct tele-education and tele-medicine - Utilize five senses virtual reality (VR)/tele-travel This could all be done with far less physical travel needed. Many in the gig economy (based on flexible, temporary or freelance jobs connecting to customers through an online platform) and those tele-working/commuting can live just about anywhere. Going forward some may not need a job since these opportunities could result in huge personal financial independence and minimal impacts upon the ecosystem. 1. The ongoing major shift in wealth generation from exploiting natural resources to inventing things has a far smaller ecosystem impact in general. 1. Various adaptations/resilience approaches to ecosystem and climate changes have overall benefits estimated at $7T (Ref 26). 1. Mckinsey estimates business opportunities on the order of $60B/yr for new approaches to plastics recycling (Ref. 27). 1. 3-D printing will transform manufacturing by allowing the manufacturing of products to be accomplished at the individual level. This would reduce waste, enable use of new/different materials and much more complex/optimized designs/functionalities, while using 90% less material and at greatly reduced costs. 3-D printing is set to be an emerging, ecosystem friendly evolving market. (Ref. 28). 1. U.S. green economy estimated at $1.3T/yr, 6.8% of our $19T/yr economy. There are greater returns in the green economy than in the stock market. Estimated GDP climate losses/yr are some 4% of GDP. Therefore, the total effect of mitigating the losses and the green economy is 4 plus 6.8 or some 11% of GDP, which is nearly 2T (Ref. 29). The global green economy is approximately $8T. 1. There has been $10.4T in private investment during 2009-2019 in the Global Green Economy (Ref 30). Concluding Remarks Favorable financials and increased profits are, due to massive reductions in the costs of renewables and storage, currently on a path to mitigate/fix climate in a few decades. It is more than conceivable, given the huge economic value of the ecosystem and the major financial upsides of various mitigation approaches/alternatives, that the financials could also fix the rest of the ecosystem issues. These considerations, options, and experiences refute the long held conventional wisdom that fixing the ecosystem issues, including climate, would be extremely costly and anti-growth. In fact, considering both the avoidance of financial downsides and evolving markets for mitigation approaches and their offshoots, fixing the ecosystem and climate is the way forward to excellent financial growth and success. It will require changes, which are either already underway or available for financial exploitation. So, yes, decarbonization and a circular economy/green growth are both achievable in the midterm, and are very financially advantageous. In the case of climate, there was minimal progress until the financials became advantageous. That same power of the financials can, and should be successful in regards to greatly improving the outlook for the rest of the ecosystem. References 1. Hawken, Paul, Ed., “Drawdown”, Penguin Books, 2017. 2. Newcome, Jodi, et al, “The Economic, Social and Ecological Value of Ecosystem Services”, EFTEC, Economics for the Environment Consultancy, London, January, 2005. 3. Kahn, Matthew E. et al “Long -Term Macroeconomic Effects of Climate Change: a Cross Country Analysis”, NBER working paper, No. 26167, 2019, Univ. of Cambridge. 4. Cho, Renee, “How Climate Change Impacts the Economy”, June 20, 2019, State of the Planet, Earth Institute, Colombia University. 5. Makower, Joel, “Capitolisms’ Change of Climate”, Greenbiz, 6 August, 2019, https://www.greenbiz.com/article/capitalisms-change-climate. 6. Georgeson, L. and Maslin, M, “U.S. Green Economy Worth $1.3 T Per Year, But New Policies Needed to Maintain Growth”, Phys. Org., Oct. 15, 2019, University College London, https://phys.org/news/2019-10-green-economy-worth-trillion-year.html. 7. Daniel, Kent D. et al, “Declining CO2 Price Paths”, PNAS, Oct. 15, 2019, https://www.pnas.org/content/116/42/20886. 8. Than, Ker, “The Economic Damage From Climate Change May Be More Than You Think”, Stanford Engineering Research and Ideas, 26 Feb. 2016, https://engineering.stanford.edu/magazine/article/economic-damage-climate-c… . 9. Mcdonald, Fiona, “Here Are 10 Not-So-Obvious Things You Can Do To Help The Planet Today”, 22 Sept. 2019, Science Alert, https://www.sciencealert.com/here-are-10-not-so-obvious-things-you-can-do-t… . 10. World Health Organization, 2006, “Almost a quarter of all disease caused by environmental exposure,” https://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2006/pr32/en/. 11. Amadeo, Kimberly, “Climate Change Facts and Effects on the Economy”, The Balance, June 25, 2019, https://www.thebalance.com/economic-impact-of-climate-change-3305682. 12. Sandberg, Maria et al, “Green Growth or Degrowth, Assessing The Normative Justifications For Environmental Sustainability And Economic Growth Through Critical Social Theory”, J. of Cleaner Production, v. 206, Jan. 2019, ppgs. 133-141. 13. Intelligence Unit of The Economist “The Cost of Inaction: Recognizing the Value at Risk From Climate Change”, 2015, https://eiuperspectives.economist.com/sites/default/files/The%20cost%20of%2… . 14. Liu, Hannah, “Why Environmental Regulation is Good For the Economy”, Sept. 24, 2016, Wharton School of The University of Penn., Public Policy Initiative, https://publicpolicy.wharton.upenn.edu/live/news/1380-why-environmental-reg… . 15. Kompas, Tom, “U.S. $23T Will Be Lost If Temperatures Rise By 4 Degrees C by 2100” Phys. Org., August 15, 2018, https://phys.org/news/2018-08-trillion-lost-temperatures-degrees.html. 16. Glenn, Edward P. et al, “Irrigating Crops With Seawater”, Scientific American, August 1998, ppgs. 76-81. 17. Doan, Lynn et al, “What’s Behind the World’s Biggest Climate Victory? Capitolism”, Bloomberg.com, Sept. 15, 2019. https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-can-renewable-energy-power-the-worl… . 18. Beinkowski, Brian, “Global Renewable Energy Has Quadrupled Over Past Decade”, Environmental Health News, 6 Sept., 2019, https://www.ehn.org/renewable-energy-growing-2640193068.html. 19. MIT Technology Review, “If We Spend $ 1.7 T On Climate Adaptation We Could Make Four Times That Much Back”, Sept. 10, 2019, https://www.technologyreview.com/f/614291/if-we-spend-trillions-on-climate-… . 20. Roy, Ananya, “Pollution is Responsible for 9 Million Deaths Globally: Two-Thirds Are Due To Air Pollution”, Environmental Defense Fund, Oct. 20, 1917, http://blogs.edf.org/health/2017/10/20/pollution-is-responsible-for-9-milli… . 21. Hodal, Kate, “Marine Plastic Pollution Costs the World up to $ 2.5T in a Year Researchers Find”, The Guardian, April 4, 2019, https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/apr/04/marine-plastic-p… . 22. Amadeo, Kimberly, “How Air, Water and Plastic Pollution Affect the Economy”, The Balance, August 3, 2019, https://www.thebalance.com/pollution-facts-economic-effect-4161042. 23. OECD, “Biodiversity: Finance and the Economic Business Case For Action”, (2019), Report Prepared for the G7 Environmental Ministers Meeting, 5-6 May, 2019, http://www.oecd.org/env/resources/biodiversity/biodiversity-finance-and-the… . 24. “The global cost of biodiversity loss: 14 trillion Euros?”, Science for Environmental Policy, 4 Sept. 2008, https://ec.europa.eu/environment/integration/research/newsalert/pdf/119na1_… . 25. Areth, Armut et al, “Climate Change and Land, IPCC Summary for Policy Makers,” 2019, https://www.ipcc.ch/report/srccl/. 26. “Climate Change is now Inevitable and the World Must Adapt, Warns The Global Commission on Adaptation in a New Report”, Technology.org, 9/10/19, https://www.technology.org/2019/09/10/climate-change-is-now-inevitable-and-… . 27. McKinsey and Co, “The Shortlist”, Sept. 20, 2019. 28. Diamandis, Peter and Steven Kitler, “The Future is Faster Than You Think”, Book, Jan. 28, 2020. 29. Georgeson, Lucien and Mark Maslin, “Estimating the Scale of the US Green Economy Within the Global Context”, Palgrave Communications, 5, Article number 121, 2019, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-019-0329-3. 30. Henderson, Hazel “2019-2020 Green Transition Scoreboard Report”, 2019, http://www.ethicalmarkets.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/2019-2020-GTS-Full… . Online Version: Financially Advantageous Approaches To Sustain The Ecosystem <http://www.ethicalmarkets.com/62237-2/> Warmly, Hazel -- P2P Foundation: http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net <http://p2pfoundation.net> - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: ; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens Curation of news on p2p/commons developments: https://www.facebook.com/groups/p2p.open/

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Fwd: Help write the story of us
by Michel Bauwens 21 Dec '19

21 Dec '19

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Neal from Shareable <neal(a)shareable.net> Date: Fri, Dec 20, 2019 at 9:01 PM Subject: Help write the story of us To: Michel Bauwens <michel(a)p2pfoundation.net> If you’re a believer in people power like we are, if you want to change the story with us. View this email in your browser <https://mailchi.mp/shareable/weekly-newsletter-11-20-2284939?e=785614fc16> Dear Michel, By the end of 2019, Shareable will have published four, yes four, e-books of up to 170 pages each. Each topic was chosen carefully for the opportunity it presented to challenge the dominant narratives that are guiding society down the wrong paths. With climate change and extreme wealth inequality shaking our world, it’s critical that we create a new story together that puts sharing and cooperation at the center of our imaginations and lives. <https://shareable.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9a850b8fb9f84ddaf1fc2f8…> For instance, we started off the year with an e-book on the loneliness epidemic, arguing that it’s not just a public health problem, it’s a threat to the integrity of society. Sharing can help re-weave the social fabric. Next we focused on community response to disaster. We pointed out that those affected aren’t just victims, but are often part of a heroic shared effort to recover and rebuild on a new, more resilient basis. Another highlight was our in-depth exploration of U.S. land use and housing policy where we explored how racism shaped the housing crisis and how that history should inform solutions to it. We’re topping off the year with an e-book on waste reduction reframing it as a challenge that communities can and must tackle too, not just industry. What I hope you see in our work is a fierce commitment to the idea that ordinary people are powerful. That you can change your circumstances for the better with neighbors starting today. This is social change that’s one door knock away. This is Shareable’s story of us. Shareable challenges the idea that change only comes from powerful individuals, organizations, and governments. We show with our solutions journalism that people-powered solutions not only work, but their impacts add up mightily. If you’re a believer in people power like we are, if you want to change the story with us, if you want more of what we did this year in 2020, then please support our work with a donation. <https://shareable.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9a850b8fb9f84ddaf1fc2f8…> If you need a tiny nudge to donate, we have a special offer right this way. If you begin a recurring donation of any amount or give a one-time donation of $50 or more by the end of the year, we’ll send you five books! Yes, FIVE books. We’ll email you a link where you can download all four of Shareable’s 2019 ebooks. AND, we’ll snail mail you a hardback copy of “Team Human” by acclaimed media theorist Douglas Rushkoff, a long-time ally who donated 250 books for Shareable donors. DONATE TO SHAREABLE TODAY <https://shareable.us7.list-manage.com/track/click?u=9a850b8fb9f84ddaf1fc2f8…> Please come along with us in 2020. To the story of us, Neal Gorenflo Executive Director Shareable This email was sent to michel(a)p2pfoundation.net *why did I get this?* <https://shareable.us7.list-manage.com/about?u=9a850b8fb9f84ddaf1fc2f8dd&id=…> unsubscribe from this list <https://shareable.us7.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=9a850b8fb9f84ddaf1fc2f8…> update subscription preferences <https://shareable.us7.list-manage.com/profile?u=9a850b8fb9f84ddaf1fc2f8dd&i…> Shareable · 487 Central Ave · Mountain View, CA 94043-4859 · USA -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Christian Fuchs - Marxism: Karl Marx’s Fifteen Key Concepts for Cultural & Communication Studies
by Christian Fuchs 16 Dec '19

16 Dec '19

Christian Fuchs. 2020. Marxism: Karl Marx’s Fifteen Key Concepts for Cultural & Communication Studies. New York: Routledge. 296 pages. http://fuchs.uti.at/books/marxism-karl-marxs-fifteen-key-concepts-for-cultu… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5dsG-Na7FY This book is a critical theory toolkit on how to how to make use of Karl Marx’s ideas in media, communication, and cultural studies. Karl Marx’s ideas remain of crucial relevance, and in this book, Christian Fuchs introduces Marx to the reader by discussing 15 of his key concepts and showing how they matter for understanding the digital and communicative capitalism that shapes human life in twenty-first century society. Key concepts covered include: the dialectic, materialism, commodities, capital, capitalism, labour, surplus-value, the working class, alienation, means of communication, the general intellect, ideology, socialism, communism, and class struggles. Table of Contents: 1 Introduction 1 2 The Dialectic 4 3 Materialism: The Base/Superstructure Problem 19 4 Commodities, Capital, Capitalism 38 5 Labour and Surplus-Value 77 6 The Working Class 105 7 Alienation 127 8 Means of Communication and the General Intellect 147 9 Ideology 178 10 Socialism and Communism 205 11 Class Struggles 247 Index 280

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Fwd: Sallie Calhoun and Greg Watson Videos Available for Viewing
by Michel Bauwens 14 Dec '19

14 Dec '19

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Schumacher Center for a New Economics < schumacher(a)centerforneweconomics.org> Date: Fri, Dec 13, 2019 at 4:34 AM Subject: Sallie Calhoun and Greg Watson Videos Available for Viewing To: <michelsub2004(a)gmail.com> view this email in your browser <https://mailchi.mp/5941c1d7ecf8/calhoun-watson-vidoes-available?e=ad2b992b93> <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> Greg Watson addresses the crowd at the 39th Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures on Sunday, October 27, 2019 at Saint James Place in Great Barrington, MA. Christina Lane Photography <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> Dear Michel Bauwens, Steve Dubb was in the audience for the 39th Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures. His fine report <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> on the event appeared in Nonprofit Quarterly online on December 4, 2019. It is reposted here with permission. You can watch the videos of Sallie Calhoun and Greg Watson's talks by clicking on the images below. *Unearthing Effective Responses to Our Climate-Emergency and Economy* by Steve Dubb This past October, hundreds gathered in the small town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, for the 39th annual E.F. Schumacher lectures, an event organized by the nonprofit Schumacher Center for New Economics <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…>. Over the years, a number of high-profile speakers have headlined the annual event, including Wendell Berry, Jane Jacobs, Van Jones, and Winona LaDuke, to name just a few. This year’s theme—actionable responses to climate change—was nothing if not timely. Speaking on this topic were Sallie Calhoun <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…>—co-owner with her husband Matt Christiano <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> of Paicines Ranch <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…>, a 7,600-acre (11.875 square miles) farm near Monterrey, California, and founder of an impact investing fund, Cienaga Capital <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…>—and Greg Watson <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…>, former Massachusetts Commissioner of Agriculture and a student of Buckminster Fuller <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…>, whose work centered on holistic approaches. A central theme that emerged from both speakers was the need to take action, even as the path to ultimately achieving climate stabilization remains uncertain. As both speakers made clear, there are plenty of approaches that can be taken to address the global climate emergency. At the same time, given the complexity of human social systems, there are no easy, ready-made solutions that will guarantee success. Creativity and flexibility, in short, will be required. As Watson cautions, the goal cannot be to avoid climate change, because already “we are in the midst of climate change.” Instead, Watson contends, the goal is “to avoid the worst-case scenario.” How does one do that? Calhoun and Watson addressed this question from two directions. For her part, Calhoun addresses the question from what a single practitioner (albeit one with considerable philanthropic resources) can do. Calhoun does not attempt to develop a systemic approach, but instead talks about the approach she has taken as a philanthropist and investor. By contrast, Watson attempts to address the question of climate change at the level of the global system. <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> Sallie Calhoun at the 39th Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures on Sunday, October 27, 2019 at Saint James Place in Great Barrington, MA. Video by Richard Sands. *Addressing Climate Change amidst Uncertainty* Calhoun was born in the 1950s in Knoxville, Tennessee. She went to Rice University to study engineering and moved to Silicon Valley, where she was one of a small number of women engineers, and made her fortune as chief operating officer of Globetrotter Software, a company she co-owned with her husband. Selling the company in 2000 gave Calhoun and her husband the cash that enabled them to purchase the 7,600-acre Paicines Ranch a year later, where they have sought to implement principles of regenerative agriculture. In 2014, Calhoun became a cofounder of an investment company called Cienaga Capital, which makes loans and grants in regenerative agriculture. As Calhoun describes her work, her goal “is to regenerate soils in America.” Calhoun adds that she calls the whole initiative the “No Regrets <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…>” initiative, since she wants to be able to look back at her own actions with regard to climate change without regret. In general, the initiative invests in carbon sequestration and negative emissions technologies that promise to “take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.” Calhoun emphasizes the need to act now. Calhoun noted that she and her husband decided that a perpetual foundation did not make sense given the severity of the climate emergency. “How can anyone talk about perpetuity?” Calhoun asks. “We need to have a world that future charitable funds can operate in.” “We picked 10 years,” Calhoun adds. “In 10 years, I’ll turn 70.” Her hope is that within 10 years, soil health, rather than “being a little room to the side” in climate crisis discussions, “will be in the center.” Calhoun concedes that increasing soil absorption of atmospheric carbon is just one tool of many to address the climate emergency. Still, she contends, it is an important one. As *NPQ*’s Marian Conway noted earlier this year <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…>, a single application of natural compost on half of California’s rangeland could “increase the capacity for carbon sequestration by 42 million metric tons,” a nontrivial contribution of about 0.7 percent of total annual US emissions <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> . Soils, if properly maintained, can remove a considerable amount of carbon out of the atmosphere. “In a lot of cases, we know what to do, but we don’t know how to pay for it,” Calhoun explains. Changing the crop insurance system to promote restorative soil practices by farmers would be one lever that could greatly accelerate progress. As Calhoun points out, restorative soil practices, even though they are officially promoted by the US Department of Agriculture <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…>, are hardly the norm. Most vineyards, for example, “are tilled to death.” This kills native grasses that can help absorb carbon. On Paicines Ranch, Calhoun’s family is having some success at getting native grasses to come back, though a lot of the work involves “trying to come up with systems that are financially viable and build soil health.” The fund Calhoun supports has invested $47 million to date, with $23 million currently outstanding in 58 loans. Calhoun adds, “On the philanthropic side, we do operating grants and a few loan guarantees.” All told, Calhoun estimates that there have been 80 grants. which total about $2 million. The goal, as Calhoun explains it, is to focus on making a lot of “small bets,” with the hope that by doing so an ecosystem of small organizations develops. This stands in contrast to the current philanthropic fashion of making “big bets.” “It is all about seeing differently and connecting people into a vibrant network of people trying to change the world. Every bit of our work informs every other bit,” Calhoun explains. Or, as Calhoun puts it, the vision is about “scaling across rather than scaling up.” Part of the reason for these small bets is the opacity of future development. Calhoun quips, “As my son says, ‘I can predict the future. I’m just usually wrong.’” Still, there is more intentionality behind Calhoun’s approach than simply making a bunch of small bets and hoping some pay off. Fostering communication within emerging networks is one critical strategy for helping connect the disparate efforts. Calhoun notes that she and her husband are founding members of a number of collaboratives for this reason. Calhoun emphasizes that responding to climate emergency requires a willingness to act with a high degree of uncertainty. “How does this scale in the time that we have?” Calhoun asks. The challenge, Calhoun notes, is not small: “Last fall, we were asking the question of, ‘Can we live in the face of smoke and destruction?’ This year, we have intermittent electricity for three months. It is grim.” Calhoun concedes, “Any plan that I can give you that was hopeful and might effect change is totally unrealistic.” What is the way out? For Calhoun, the only reasonable path is to hope that many different efforts, approaching the question of climate change mitigation from different directions, might in combination succeed at capping runaway global heating. Calhoun adds, “I think it will look like magic.” Still, she contends that, by supporting a wide range of community-based climate change mitigation strategies, “the conditions for magic” can be created. Climate Change Viewed from a Systemic Perspective As noted above, if Calhoun approaches the question of climate change mitigation from the perspective of a single philanthropist, Watson attempts to apply whole-systems thinking to the challenge of the global climate emergency. Yet, even so, Watson agrees with Calhoun that, “what we need is a diversity of perspectives.” Watson highlights a few areas where he feels coordinated effort at the global level might help boost the kind of local efforts Calhoun champions. One of these vectors is policy. <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> Greg Watson at the 39th Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures on Sunday, October 27, 2019 at Saint James Place in Great Barrington, MA. Video by Richard Sands. “Policy is a powerful tool if it is used correctly and it is an inclusive policy,” Watson explains. “Humanity has a once-in-century chance: to fix an economic system that is failing on multiple fronts.” In particular, Watson lifts up attention to proposals for a Green New Deal <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…>, noting that the matter of a “green new deal” is not simply a matter of policy, but of creating “a new worldview.” Watson says he is optimistic that in that some fields, such as sustainable agriculture, society has a “head start” on new worldviews that he views as necessary for addressing the global climate emergency. Watson contends that applying biomimicry—that is, the conscious design of technology in such a way that it works with and boosts natural systems, instead of trying to “overcome” nature—is one promising strategy. The restorative soils approach Calhoun is working on, of course, is one example of a strategy that seeks to accentuate natural processes that can remove carbon from the atmosphere. Watson, drawing on the work of his late mentor Fuller, also advocates using simulations as a tool to spur both new thinking and technological development. Watson observes that “war games” are frequently used by military planners. Instead, Watson suggests, we could apply what he calls “world games” that use the “same information, the same data, and…instead of developing weapons, put that to the use of solving human needs for everyone on Spaceship Earth.” A lot of our technology, Watson points out, comes from military research—supercomputers, software, fiber optics, artificial intelligence, satellite technology, broadband internet, and transistors. Watson suggests that with a concentrated focus on the climate emergency, the focus could shift from designing technology for weaponry to designing technology for sustaining life. Watson also warns against magical thinking that might imply that green technology—unlike all forms of technology that have preceded it—will have solely beneficial consequences. A “reality we have to face,” Watson says, “is that some renewable energy technologies themselves depend on extractive industry.” Watson emphasizes, “We have to be honest about that. You still have to go into the mines to get rare earth minerals.” The challenge is that even if a new model based on renewable energy succeeds in making the old fossil fuel industries obsolete, the result is highly unlikely to be a utopia. Success, Watson observes, “creates new problems.” Closing Thoughts Not surprisingly given the global dimensions of the climate challenge, thinking about the climate emergency has often focused on big centralized initiatives. Certainly, both Watson and Calhoun strongly favor policy frameworks like the Green New Deal that can amass resources on the scale required to meet the challenges we face. At the same time, both Calhoun and Watson emphasize the importance of experimentation and local action. It is a point that has been made before. The late Elinor Ostrom, who won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2009 <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…>, argued in a background paper produced for the 2010 World Development Report on Climate Change <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> that a “polycentric approach <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…>,” rather than a centralized, global approach is to be preferred. One reason, she offered, is that “waiting for effective policies to be established at the global level is unreasonable.” But, Ostrom added, there is a positive reason too—namely, to “encourage experimentation and learning from diverse policies adopted at multiple scales.” Ostrom, who won her Nobel Prize based on her studies of the conditions for effective collective action, drawing on over 5,000 case study examples <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…>, also observed that it is far easier to build the trust and commitment necessary to achieve behavioral change if larger scale problems are broken down and made meaningful at the local level. In short, if we take the observations of Calhoun, Watson, and Ostrom to heart, the real work of addressing the climate emergency will occur not just in the halls of government, but in the actions of our own local communities. It is a message that emphasizes the very real role—and responsibility—that organizations in civil society will have to play. <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> Sallie Calhoun and Greg Watson answer audience questions at the 39th Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures on Sunday, October 27, 2019 at Saint James Place in Great Barrington, MA. Video by Richard Sands. <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> [image: Facebook] <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> Facebook <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> [image: Instagram] <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> Instagram <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> [image: Twitter] <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> Twitter <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> [image: LinkedIn] <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> LinkedIn <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> [image: Website] <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> Website <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> [image: YouTube] <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> YouTube <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> [image: Email] <schumacher(a)centerforneweconomics.org> Email <schumacher(a)centerforneweconomics.org> [image: Podcast] <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> Podcast <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d1130…> You are receiving this email because you are a friend of the Schumacher Center for a New Economics. update your preferences <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/profile?u=69d509d113032e3…> unsubscribe from this list <https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=69d509d1130…> *Schumacher Center for a New Economics 140 Jug End Road, Great Barrington, MA 01230 | (413) 528-1737* -- P2P Foundation: http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net <http://p2pfoundation.net> - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: ; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens Curation of news on p2p/commons developments: https://www.facebook.com/groups/p2p.open/

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Fwd: [bgcon] "Criminalization of Climate Activism"
by Michel Bauwens 14 Dec '19

14 Dec '19

---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Krystian Woznicki <kw(a)berlinergazette.de> Date: Fri, Dec 13, 2019 at 6:54 PM Subject: [bgcon] "Criminalization of Climate Activism" To: <digi-yards(a)berlinergazette.de> Hi, we would like to draw your attention to the ongoing criminalization of climate activism. Of course, this is not a new story. Environmental activism has been considered as causing 'terror' for many decades already. However, nowadays we are facing a new movement of movements – an almost unprecedented mobilization of civil society. And the function of criminalization gains a particular relevance in this context, last but not least as a way to destroy solidarity among climate activists. At the MORE WORLD conference, one workshop group dedicated itself to a project on the causes of #HambiBleibt – a protest movement against coal mining in Germany whose members are facing criminal charges. The MORE WORLD workshop group in question produced a solidarity video with Sudesh Mishra from Fiji: https://projekte.berlinergazette.de/workshops/2019/11/01/climate-action-we-… You can donate to the #HambiBleibt initiative here: https://hambachforest.org/?noredirect=en_US Yesterday an email by a distant friend and neighbor of the Berliner Gazette came in: artist and activist Oliver Ressler, who is one of 90 people who participated at a blockade of Bílina coal mine in Northern Bohemia in the Czech Republic in June 2018, against who the company Severočeské doly ("North Bohemian Coal Mines") filed a lawsuit at the City Court in Chomutov. There is a fundraising campaign running to cover the cost of the court case and attorneys, so please feel free to share and donate: https://www.darujme.cz/projekt/1201737?locale=en This is Oliver's statement that has been published in Czech translation on social media as part of the defense campaign: "In times of climate breakdown, when the Amazonas is on fire and Venice under water, when the Arctic ice is melting and ecosystems collapsing, the ongoing extraction from the Earth of coal and gas must be seen for what it is: a crime against humanity. The blockading of coal mines and other fossil infrastructure is therefore an entirely legitimate form of self-defense: an attempt to protect humanity, ecosystems and all forms of life on planet from even greater damage. Whatever particular reasons led people to join the blockade, they are sure to have been good reasons. Speaking personally, my reason is that as an artist and film-maker I have followed the climate justice movement for the last couple of years, documenting the ever-evolving forms of mass civil disobedience and amplifying the voices of climate activists in films and other artworks. To be among such committed people is constantly inspiring. I hope my work can help at least in some small way to share these shining moments of climate action with people who are not yet part of it. My involvement in the blockade of the Bílina coal mine in 2018 resulted in the film “Everything's coming together while everything's falling apart: Limity jsme my” (4K, 10 min., 2019), which is the fifth film in a cycle of films on climate action. It can be watched in exhibitions, biennials and screenings, or through following this link: https://vimeo.com/293150164 (password: Northern Bohemia)" Oliver Ressler (oliver(a)ressler.at) Stay tuned, Krystian (for the BG team) -- -------------------------------------------------------------- BG – Berliner Gazette | since 1999 | http://berlinergazette.de -------------------------------------------------------------- MORE WORLD – How can we cooperate across borders to tackle climate change? BG’s 20th anniversary conference – October 10-12, 2019 – ZK/U https://more-world.berlinergazette.de -------------------------------------------------------------- _______________________________________________ digi-yards(a)berlinergazette.de mailing list %(list_address)s https://ml-cgn05.ispgateway.de/mailman/listinfo/digi-yards_berlinergazette.… -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: P2P Accounting for Planetary Survival | , please help us promote this as of Monday, as our xmas present!
by Michel Bauwens 14 Dec '19

14 Dec '19

Dear friends, Last summer, we published a very important report, describing a global infrastructure of cooperation and coordination, to produce for human needs within planetary boundaries. This will be a very important part of the solution mix (along with other more difficult changes in our forms of consciousness and relations with each other and nature), to maximimze human survival in the coming trying times of adapting to the chaotic transition and climate change. So we would like to ask for a particular effort in promoting this report, in alliance with a special campaign from the POST-Growth Institute, which provides for facebook and twitter messages and buttons, see below, Dear all, if you value our work, this is the time to make this little extra effort, THANKS A LOT, Michel Bauwens ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Stacco Troncoso <staccotroncoso(a)p2pfoundation.net> Date: Fri, Dec 13, 2019 at 5:58 PM Subject: Fwd: P2P Accounting for Planetary Survival | 📢 PGA Amplifier To: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004(a)gmail.com>, Alex Pazaitis < alex.pazaitis(a)gmail.com> Well, it took them ages (Donnie MacLurcan told me they've had a lot of problems this year) but here it is, just in time for Christmas. As it's Friday we'll wait until next week to repost on our channels. Cheers ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Post Growth Alliance <alliance(a)postgrowth.org> Date: Thu, Dec 12, 2019 at 9:43 PM Subject: P2P Accounting for Planetary Survival | 📢 PGA Amplifier To: Stacco <Staccotroncoso(a)p2pfoundation.net> “Dive into this report and discover the possibilities of Ostrom contracts, platform cooperativism and economies of scope.” - Kate Raworth Ph.D. <https://postgrowthalliance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=dcc08996cc57fb…> *Amplifying post-growth content by harnessing our collective social media reach* <https://postgrowthalliance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=dcc08996cc57fb…> Dear Stacco, Thank you! By being on this mailing list *you are helping to amplify work that's *s*hifting the worldview*. To assist the P2P Foundation <https://postgrowthalliance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=dcc08996cc57fb…> in promoting their new report P2P Accounting for Planetary Survival, please: Like and Share this Twitter post <https://postgrowthalliance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=dcc08996cc57fb…> Love and Share this Facebook post <https://postgrowthalliance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=dcc08996cc57fb…> Alternatively, use the text below and the image above to craft your own post. Remember: to tag people/groups, put the '@' symbol before their name. *Twitter Copy:* Peer2Peer Accounting for Planetary Survival: http://commonstransition.org/p2p-accounting-for-planetary-survival/ h/t @P2P_Foundation cc @postgrowth #postgrowth #platformcoop #Holochain #blockchain #holo #degrowth #coops #DAOs #cooperatives #wellbeing @shareable @NewEconomics @envienta #PlsRT *Facebook Copy: * Ready to have your economic mind ɟן!ddǝd (flipped)? “Dive into this report and discover the possibilities of Ostrom contracts, platform cooperativism and economies of scope.” - Kate Raworth, Author of Doughnut Economics If you’re into cutting-edge #postgrowth thinking, check out the P2P Foundation's latest report: ‘P2P Accounting for Planetary Survival’. It takes two minutes to read the mindblowing table of contents, five minutes to read the executive summary, or you can download the full report for free! #PostGrowthAlliance submission by: P2P Foundation Cc. Shareable, Economic Space Agency, Reporting 3.0, Holochain. Active PGA Members: submit your content creation request here <https://postgrowthalliance.us2.list-manage.com/track/click?u=dcc08996cc57fb…> . This email was sent to Staccotroncoso(a)p2pfoundation.net *why did I get this?* <https://postgrowthalliance.us2.list-manage.com/about?u=dcc08996cc57fb1c3f5a…> unsubscribe from this list <https://postgrowthalliance.us2.list-manage.com/unsubscribe?u=dcc08996cc57fb…> update subscription preferences <https://postgrowthalliance.us2.list-manage.com/profile?u=dcc08996cc57fb1c3f…> Post Growth Institute · 156A Union St · Ashland, OR 97520 · USA -- Advocacy coordinator P2P Foundation <http://p2pfoundation.net/>. Project lead commonstransition.org Co-founder guerrillatranslation.org -- P2P Foundation: http://wiki.p2pfoundation.net <http://p2pfoundation.net> - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: ; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens Curation of news on p2p/commons developments: https://www.facebook.com/groups/p2p.open/

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