This week Madagascar Oil was floated on London’s Alernative Investment Market (AIM), raising £50 million. It had to happen eventually. When my family first moved to Madagascar in 1987, American oil company AMOCO was active in the country. They were exploring, and their staff drove distinctive brown Mercedes 4x4s around the capital city. A small [...]
Archive | November, 2010
The importance of money
The guys at Positive Money have summarised their argument in a series of videos. Here’s the first: Positive Money is the campaign to end fractional reserve banking.
What we learned this week
The population of Africa has reached a billion, according to the UN. A Texan company has turned to Biblical prophesy to help it find oil in Israel. Why is there a scale model landscape out in the desert in China, complete with mountains and lakes? Foreign Policy magazine explore the geopolitics of Google Earth.
Get Cosy
Get Cosy is an event that is happening on my street next week. It’s been one of my projects for the autumn, working with the partners, doing the promotion, and this week walking the neighbourhood with the resident’s association delivering flyers through all the doors. The idea is quite simple – it’s to encourage people [...]
CO2 concentrations at 386.8ppm
The WMO Global Atmosphere Watch Programme released its 2010 bulletin this week, showing that 2009 reached another new high in greenhouse gas emissions. CO2 parts per million hit 386.8ppm, which is 38% higher than pre-industrial times. The report also shows an increase in methane emissions. These had stabilised, but have grown in the past three [...]
Schumacher College offers new MA in Economics for Transition
I often wonder if I should pursue an MA at some point and actually study some economics properly. I never get very far, mainly because it costs a fortune and partly because I haven’t seen a course that really catches my eye. (Human Ecology at Strathclyde being an exception) However, after making some enquiries recently [...]
BP oil spill increases chance of oil supply crunch
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill has increased the chance of an oil supply crunch in the near future, the Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security (ITPOES) has warned. The loss of the Macondo oil field where the accident took place will not significantly reduce the amount of oil available. However, the six month [...]
We’ve never had it so good, probably
I had to laugh at the Japanese minister who was forced to resign last week. “Being justice minister is easy” he told constituents in the joke that would cost him his job, “as I only have to remember two phrases, either of which I can use in parliament whenever I’m stuck for an answer”. The [...]
What we learned this week
The gap between rich and poor is widening faster than even in Britain. “Aid is always a complicated business of asserting moral prestige, soft power, self-interest and genuinely trying to reduce poverty.” Madeleine Bunting on Britain’s new aid directions. Serge Latouch asks, how do we learn to want less?
Books
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