Category: 01 Poverty

Posted on

Event: 26 Oct 2011 Assisi Italy Pope, Peace, & Prayer — 5th Inter-Faith Event Since 1986 — Terms of Reference…

01 Poverty, 02 Diplomacy, 06 Genocide, 07 Other Atrocities, 08 Wild Cards, 09 Justice, 10 Security, 11 Society, Advanced Cyber/IO, Civil Society, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics
His Holiness Benedict XVI

UPDATED 26 October 2011 (Vatican focus on global financial reform / authority, need for ethics – avoids addressing secular corruption as we suggested in below letter sent January 2011)

Penguin: Vatican Calls for World Government…Oopps

Vatican, Ethics, & Truth I (Full Text Online for Google Translate)

Vatican, Ethics, & Truth II (Full Text Online for Google Translate)

Occupy Wall Street’s Most Unlikely Ally: The Pope

Vatican Breaks Bread (Sort Of) With Occupiers

Cardinal Turkson: Beyond Wall Street

2011: Commercial Intelligence and Competitive Strategy in International Markets – Context and Challenge Inteligencia Empresarial y Estrategia Competitiva en Mercados Internacional – Contexto y Desafio

UPDATED 18 June 2011 (Turkey Rising, Truth, Convergence of Science & Religion)

Turkey Rising–21st Century an Ottoman Century?

Catholic Church Getting Serious About “Truth”

Review: God and Science–Coming Full Circle

Review: The Beginning of All Things–Science and Religion

Review: Questions of Truth–Fifty-one Responses to Questions About God, Science, and Belief

M4IS2

UPDATED 10 February 2011 (All Other Assisi Links)

Seven Answers–Robert Steele in Rome

Assisi-Rome 2nd Meeting

Egypt & Jordan: Muslim & Christian Side by Side

Revolution & Secession: The Game is ON!

Revolution Kickstarted by Facebook Generation

Assisi, Egypt, US Hypocrisy, Global Revolution

Reference: Correspondence on Assisi Intelligence

Reference: Intelligence for the Spirit of Assisi

ON INTELLIGENCE: Open Letter to the President

Continue reading “Event: 26 Oct 2011 Assisi Italy Pope, Peace, & Prayer — 5th Inter-Faith Event Since 1986 — Terms of Reference…”

Posted on

Worth a Look: Peak Soil, Food Shock, Biodynamics

01 Agriculture, 01 Poverty, 03 Environmental Degradation, 11 Society, Civil Society, Earth Intelligence, IO Deeds of Peace, Methods & Process, Worth A Look
Peak Soil

Oil is what most of us think of as a strategic resource, yet in the long run it is soil which is the more important. Even so, people’s eyes tend to glaze over when talk turns to soil conservation, maybe because it’s so much easier to see the immediate relevance of rising gas prices and climate change in these days of peak oil. So while public attitudes on climate change have shifted dramatically over the past few years, a crisis in global agriculture remains hidden: we are, and have long been, using up the supply of topsoil we rely on to grow our food.

 

Food Shock

New “Food Shock” Report Released by OffTheGridNews.net Reveals Disturbing U.S. Food Supply Trends

 

THOMSON, IL–(Marketwire – April 2, 2011) – The world's food supply is shrinking and as it does the price of food continues to climb, reaching record levels and leaving most of the global population in a state of emergency. This isn't an opinion created out of thin air; it's a strong message that has been researched and delivered by the United Nations. In an article published on Bloomberg.com on March 31, 2011 a representative from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization surmised that world food production would have to increase by 70 percent by 2050 to meet the increasing demand from an expanding global population that is expected to eclipse the 9.1 billion mark by 2050, a dramatic rise from the 6.9 billion that make up today's world population.

 

Biodynamic Agriculture

Biodynamic agriculture is a method of organic farming that treats farms as unified and individual organisms,[1] emphasizing balancing the holistic development and interrelationship of the soil, plants and animals as a self-nourishing system without external inputs[2] insofar as this is possible given the loss of nutrients due to the export of food.[3] As in other forms of organic agriculture, artificial fertilizers and toxic pesticides and herbicides are strictly avoided. There are independent certification agencies for biodynamic products, most of which are members of the international biodynamics standards group Demeter International.

 

Posted on

Concrete Canvas–Add Water–Lots of Potential

01 Poverty, 06 Family, 11 Society, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Government, Non-Governmental, Peace Intelligence
Click on Image to Enlarge

‘Concrete Canvas' Makes Erecting Permanent Buildings As Easy as Pitching a Tent

Drapeable fabric turns into solid concrete when it gets wet

popsi.com, Clay Dillow, 18 May 2011

When disaster strikes and permanent structures are leveled, as they were recently by earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand (and more distantly in Haiti), they are usually replaced in the short term by tent cities. Two engineering students thought they could do better and invented Concrete Canvas, a fabric impregnated with concrete that can turn a tent into a hardy, permanent structure in 24 hours. Just add water.

Read full article (includes link to very impressive video)

Phi Beta Iota: This has even more potential if combined with the use of cement from carbon, and non-potable water.

Posted on

Worth a Look: Community Land Trusts — Coming Home with E. F. Schumacher & the Reinvention of the Local Economy (A Video Gift, 37 Minutes, from Christopher B. Bedford)

01 Poverty, 07 Other Atrocities, Civil Society, Counter-Oppression/Counter-Dictatorship Practices, Cultural Intelligence, Ethics, Methods & Process, Money, Banks & Concentrated Wealth, Policies, Strategy, True Cost, Videos/Movies/Documentaries
Home Page

Phi Beta Iota:  Kudos to Christopher B. Bedford for his many contributions, this one in particular is most timely now as a global movement for redirecting the manner in which land (and water) are “owned.”  As with our native forebearers, land can no longer be owned by individuals–community land trusts are the essential way forward.  This is the practice in many countries.  This 37 minute DVD is revolutionary.

Amazon Page

See Also:

E. F. Schumacher Society

Small Is Beautiful, 25th Anniversary Edition: Economics As If People Mattered: 25 Years Later . . . With Commentaries

Posted on

The Age of De-Leveraging is Just Beginning

01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, Civil Society, Collective Intelligence, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Government, IO Sense-Making
Chuck Spinney Recommends...

Phi Beta Iota: 10 more years of pain.

– – – – – – –

While the political elite obsesses over the rise in public debt, the US is on the cusp of an era of deleveraging — or more bluntly, a massive liquidation of private debt — the ramifications of which, in the best of times would be colossal, but could well be disastrous the irrational obsessions of our political elites work their magic.

The real policy question that will determine the future well-being of the vast majority of Americans is how liquidation of their private debts unfold — rapidly via rising waves of bankruptcies, foreclosures, and repudiations, as happened in the 1930s, or more gradually, which will require some kind of active intervention by government, and for which there is no real precedent, and clearly no acumen among the elites in Versailles on the Potomac.

Either evolutionary pathway will be painful, because the liquidation of private debt will require cutbacks that reduce aggregate demand and investment, thereby slowing growth and pushing the economy into a period of sluggish growth over the long term or into a depression (some economist argue we are already in a depression).

Continue reading “The Age of De-Leveraging is Just Beginning”

Posted on

Understanding Rising Food Prices

01 Agriculture, 01 Poverty, 03 Economy, 03 Environmental Degradation, 04 Education, 05 Energy, 06 Family, 07 Other Atrocities, 11 Society, 12 Water, Commerce, Commercial Intelligence, Corruption, Cultural Intelligence, Earth Intelligence, Government
Cheery Waves Recommends....

Bottom line:  ignorant government policies, and particularly the mandating of corn's use to make ethanol, have driven the price of corn up for real people who want to each corn and products containing corn (which turns out to be just about everything).

It's Getting Harder to Bring Home the Bacon

By MARY KISSEL, April 30, 2011

Wall Street Journal

C. Larry Pope, CEO of the world's largest pork producer, explains why food prices are rising and why they are likely to stay high for a long time.

It's also a business under enormous strain. Some “60 to 70% of the cost of raising a hog is tied up in the grains,” Mr. Pope explains. “The major ingredient is corn, and the secondary ingredient is soybean meal.” Over the last several years, “the cost of corn has gone from a base of $2.40 a bushel to today at $7.40 a bushel, nearly triple what it was just a few years ago.” Which means every product that uses corn has risen, too—including everything from “cereal to soft drinks” and more.

What triggered the upswing? In part: ethanol. President George W. Bush “came forward with—what do you call?—the edict that we were going to mandate 36 billion gallons of alternative fuels” by 2022, of which corn-based ethanol is “a substantial part.” Companies that blend ethanol into fuel get a $5 billion annual tax credit, and there's a tariff to keep foreign producers out of the U.S. market. Now 40% of the corn crop is “directed to ethanol, which equals the amount that's going into livestock food,” Mr. Pope calculates.

Continue reading “Understanding Rising Food Prices”