Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
Once the largest hippie commune in the US, the Farm persists as an intentional community in rural Tennessee, based on principles of nonviolence and respect for the Earth. It now advocates permaculture, sustainable and renewable energy, a vegetarian diet, and midwifery.
Texas Governor Rick Perry (R) said that his wife, Anita Perry, misspoke recently when she said abortion “could be” a woman’s right. “From time to time we’ll stick the wrong word in the wrong place, and you pounce upon it,” Perry said to reporters while appearing at a campaign event for Republican New Jersey Senate candidate Steve Lonegan in Smithville, N.J., according to Bloomberg.
Imagine a future in which airliners run on cornstalks and Navy ships ply the oceans on tanks of switchgrass. That day may be in sight but challenges remain to scale up production, reduce costs and political opposition, and ensure a sustainably produced feedstock.
The health of the world’s oceans is deteriorating even faster than had previously been thought, a report warns. “We are entering an unknown territory of marine ecosystem change. The next mass extinction may have already begun.”
The idea of the “utopian” community began in 1516 with Sir Thomas More’s fictional perfected society to present-day attempts to build the most sustainable urban ecosystem. With the case of Songdo International Business District, South Korea, we begin a series of case studies in the success and failure of utopian experiments in living sustainably.