Culture and Coexistence into the Great Unknown
Ecuador abandons a plan to preserve the most biodiverse region on Earth from oil exploitation, putting Yasuni national park at the frontline of a global battle between living systems and fossil fuels. Unable to raise sufficient financing, President Correa plans to move forward with oil drilling in this wild Amazonian region, putting wildlife and willfully uncontacted tribes at risk.
Detroit Future City, the long-term planning vision for the long-rusting Motor City, embraces the urban farming, permaculture, and ecological urbanism movements seen in cities across the United States, to chart the way to more a prosperous and sustainable future.
We must view the fragility of the planet, the disaster of our resource addiction, the warming of the earth’s atmosphere as an immune response to our daily environmental mis-stepping, a call for a re-conceptualization of our cities. We must demand a retrofitting of our urban environments to live together more efficiently, giving credence to community, allowing space for the open wild in us and them.
The Obama Administration will continue to face the decision whether a leak-prone dirty tar sands oil pipeline, associated with destruction of ecosystems and indigenous communities as well as global climate destabilization, is in the US national interest.
Reducing oil dependence. Strengthening energy security. Creating jobs. Tackling global warming. Addressing air pollution. Improving our health. The Union of Concerned Scientists has outlined a US national blueprint for a clean energy economy.
Keystone XL, touted to bring jobs and energy security, will do neither. Even if the pipeline never spilled, even if the tar sands weren’t an environmental atrocity, this would still be a bad deal for the US public.
Permaculture is an integrative approach to re-creating sustainable cities, towns and villages, emulating ecologic relationships from wild nature. The practice encompasses architecture, horticulture, energy, waste management, and urban planning.