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July 3, 2008 :: Joseph Eugene :: No Comment Yet
Every participant in any system, is dependent upon the quality of information behind the major forces at play, just as any player in any system is beholden to the quality or jeopardy posed by the system’s prevailing methods. Free flow of information is the best hope of achieving the optimum level of functionality for the broadest array of stakeholders.
June 24, 2008 :: Joseph Eugene :: One Comment
Corn-ethanol, long a fascination for US politicians and for the farm lobby that courts their support for ethanol subsidies, may play some role in remediating the economic fallout of soaring gasoline prices, though it seems unlikely, for a number of reasons. First and foremost is the fact that the numbers work against us: in order to produce more corn-ethanol, we must divert cropland destined for food production to fuel production, and that has a severely negative impact on the availability and affordability of corn for human consumption.
June 23, 2008 :: jr3o :: No Comment Yet
A fast-unfolding food shortage is engulfing the entire world, driving food prices to record highs. Over the past half-century grain prices have spiked from time to time because of weather-related events, such as the 1972 Soviet crop failure that led to a doubling of world wheat, rice, and corn prices. The situation today is entirely different, however. The current doubling of grain prices is trend-driven, the cumulative effect of some trends that are accelerating growth in demand and other trends that are slowing the growth in supply.
May 10, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Food riots from Haiti to west Africa, Egypt and the Philippines, in recent weeks, have sparked concern among policy-makers, diplomats and economists, that the current state of the global food supply is so precarious that such violence will spread and political and economic instability could follow. Concerns about the American economy, home to most productive grain-producing region in the world, and a shift to biofuels there, could mean added difficulty in bringing food prices down.
April 11, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
In the heart of Madrid, the dollar’s woes have reached fevered extremes. The euro at its worst, shortly after its introduction, could buy only $0.69; it is now worth $1.57, an appreciation of 127.5%, or 2.275 times its lowest value against the dollar. What’s worse, money changers advertising “no commission” do not adhere even loosely to the official rate of exchange…
April 9, 2008 :: admin :: One Comment
In a period of roughly 18 months, the price of corn across central American markets has doubled, making staple foodstuffs too expensive for many in the region. Today, what is described as an “angry mob” of protesters suffering food scarcity attacked the government palace in Port-au-Prince; UN peacekeepers responded by firing teargas, while food markets remained closed throughout.
March 29, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Rice is a basic food staple for nearly half the world’s population. The world’s two most populous nations, China and India, depend heavily on the grain for basic sustenance, and for economic stability. The price of rice has doulbed in the last 3 months, causing concern about potential for conflict along Asian border regions.
March 17, 2008 :: jr3o :: No Comment Yet
We are on the verge of a major communications and global economic revolution, in which major media, technological advances, cloud computing and dispersed optimization, adapt to and take over new models for living and producing in human society. The New Scientist magazine reports in its March 15-21, 2008 edition that “web 3.0 will be about making information less free”.
March 17, 2008 :: admin :: 2 Comments
On Thursday of last week, we found on the same day reports that mortgage foreclosures were at an all-time high in the US, the US dollar had fallen to an all-time low against the euro ($1.56 to 1€), the Federal Reserve joined with other central banks to infuse $200 billion into capital markets, oil hit an all-time record of $111/barrel, gold hit an all-time record of $1,001/ounce, Asian and European markets plummeted on news that Carlyle Capital —one of the world’s largest capital management funds— was in collapse, and Chrysler would shut down its entire corporation for 2 weeks in July, with no pay, to “increase productivity”.
March 13, 2008 :: jr3o :: No Comment Yet
The ongoing transition to an environmentally sustainable economy, focusing on energy and agricultural resources, is already opening the door to a range of new industrial and engineering services related to resource and ecosystem resilience (now understood to be vital to the stability of the natural environment whose own services underpin every element of our civilization).
February 8, 2008 :: jr3o :: No Comment Yet
Ecologist and researcher Lester Brown, founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute, has issued the 3rd installment of his ‘Plan B’ books —Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (2008)—, which lay out the most vital research underlying and the most optimal means of meeting the need to transition to a sustainable economy that not only works in harmony with natural system, but also helps to reverse the excesses of the existing industrial model.
February 4, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
The ‘Davos Conversation’ is a multimedia effort to bring online public together with major policy-makers, activists and economists, to broaden the scope of debate at the World Economic Forum. The question which was used as a platform for the online forum was “what one thing would make the world a better place?”
January 2, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
2008 will be a year in which the integrity of election processes, the quality and resilience of cultivated soils, the availability of credit to consumers, the affordability of homes and rentals, and access to affordable vital staples like food and water, as well as the cost of transportation, will affect economies the world over. Some economic analysts have said the combination of these factors, resulting instability or environmental degradation, and migration of affected populations, could mean the world is facing an unprecedented level of economic precariousness.
December 14, 2007 :: admin :: One Comment
If you think you are spending more each week at the supermarket, you may be right. The escalating share of the U.S. grain harvest going to ethanol distilleries is driving up food prices worldwide. Corn prices have doubled over the last year, wheat futures are trading at their highest level in 10 years, and rice prices are rising too. In addition, soybean futures have risen by half.
December 3, 2007 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Between the years 2008 and 2020, we are likely to see a still unimaginably sweeping shift away from fossil fuels and high-contamination modes of powering our economy. The transition will have a political component, but will be driven mostly by cost concerns, resource scarcity, and public demand for cleaner air and responsible climate policy, a demand which is not ideological in nature.
November 20, 2007 :: admin :: 2 Comments
As the crisis stemming from high-risk sub-prime mortgage lenders’ collapse in the US spreads, the real estate market beyond US borders is being hit by what observers are calling the ‘credit crunch’, taking for granted this will affect all international financial endeavors, such is the situation. The governor of the Bank of England has now warned that the United Kindom is facing what should be its tightest economic year in a decade, warning that the slowdown could last into 2009.
November 11, 2007 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Ecological advancement and retro-fitting will be the new boom economy. Let’s make sure we do everything possible to fund not only research, but implementation. What will it cost to produce an environmentally-oriented overhaul of the US economy, by way of the private sector, with government incentives, and to the ever-growing benefit of private sector interests? These are key questions being asked by scientists, activists, economists and politicians, not to mention energy industry executives and those whose core business involves fossil fuels.
October 24, 2007 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Americans living overseas see the front edge of the dollar collapse. Life in Europe seems to be twice as expensive as just a few years ago, as Euro-driven price-inflation meets the rapid drop in the value of the dollar against major currencies, like the Euro and the British Pound Sterling. Americans at home are facing higher food prices, higher fuel costs, and an overall slowdown in home-buying.
October 15, 2007 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
The global consumption of bottled water reached 154 billion liters (41 billion gallons) in 2004, up 57 percent from the 98 billion liters consumed five years earlier. Even in areas where tap water is safe to drink, demand for bottled water is increasing—producing unnecessary garbage and consuming vast quantities of energy. Although in the industrial world bottled water is often no healthier than tap water, it can cost up to 10,000 times more. At as much as $2.50 per liter ($10 per gallon), bottled water costs more than gasoline.
October 13, 2007 :: admin :: One Comment
Peak oil is described as the point where oil production stops rising and begins its inevitable long-term decline. In the face of fast-growing demand, this means rising oil prices. But even if oil production growth simply slows or plateaus, the resulting tightening in supplies will still drive the price of oil upward, albeit less rapidly.
Few countries are planning a reduction in their use of oil. Even though peak oil may be imminent, most countries are counting on much higher oil consumption in the decades ahead, building automobile assembly plants, roads, highways, parking lots, and suburban housing developments as though cheap oil will last forever.
October 8, 2007 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Examining the manner in which financial news is reported in the popular media, HotSpring proposes to create a system whereby live-update, rss-technology, and financial and editorial expertise, come together to produce a reliable up-to-the-minute resource for evaluating broad economic trends and engagements, without limiting analysis to single-parameter references like GDP or individual stock indices.
It is often thought that in order to organize ideas or to put some kind of order to any analysis, one needs uniformity, a limited number of generic categories and a single system of uncomplicated parameters by which to categorize each subject under review. But the truth is, this uniformity is not and will not be the rule of any part of lived reality.
September 26, 2007 :: admin :: One Comment
As land and water become scarce and as competition for these vital resources intensifies, we can expect mounting social tensions within societies, particularly between those who are poor and dispossessed and those who are wealthy, as well as among ethnic and religious groups. Population growth brings with it a steady shrinkage of life-supporting resources per person. That decline, which is threatening to drop the living standards of more and more people below survival level, could lead to unmanageable social tensions that will translate into broad-based conflicts.
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