Between the sacred and the profane.
I helped train 10 professional architects here in Pretoria in building energy performance simulation modeling using DesignBuilder software. Thank yous to the University of Pretoria Department of Architecture for use of their classroom facilities, to the Pretoria Institute for Architecture for arranging attendees, and to the Fulbright Specialist Program for bringing me to South Africa to share my knowledge and experience.
I received a Fulbright Specialist Program grant back in 2017. Under the three year grant I was eligible for up to two assignments during the grant period. My first assignment was to Bolivia. South Africa was scheduled to be my second then COVID-19 struck. I was pleased to hear from Fulbright that the opportunity to go had reopened. #southafrica #pretoria #fulbright #teaching #university
| I just completed a series of four investigative reports for the UNDP Bolivia where I explored how Buen Vivir can be manifested in the face of accelerating climate chaos impacts. The investigation included reviews of official government planning documents and the work of the UNDP itself. The focus was on building disaster readiness by making communities self-reliant and self-sufficient in essentials like food, water, energy, etc. so that when supply chains fail, they'll be prepared. The series wrapped up with a list of suggested pilot projects for the UNDP. I'm certainly looking forward to see which project(s) the UNDP chooses! |  |
Once again the masters of neoliberalism, capital accumulation, and globalization meet to maintain business as usual. This year they’ll focus on 1) co-opting climate chaos; and, 2) quelling resistance from the baking/drowning/burning/starving peasantry.
Life on earth is 3.8 billion years old. Homo sapiens has only been around 200,000 years. A small fraction of that has seen non-native plants spread, yet look at the impact. We must cease the destruction emanating from our anthropocentrism. We must become as students before our teacher Nature.
Industrial food for profit has resulted in a highly vulnerable food production system. Now with climate chaos upon us, we must diversify our food crops. No more monocultures!
Energy conservation (benign) could offset production (destructive). But no. Capitalism demands production, extractivism. Nature then pays the price. What we do to nature, we do to ourselves, as we are nature. The latest report of the IPCC Working Group II (Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability), points to the importance of integrating ‘indigenous and local knowledge’ in research and adaptation. Now even scientists understand that our dominant epistemology is a failure. The sooner we listen to this truth telling, the better. We can then change our behavior, rearrange our priorities, and begin to mitigate the worst effects of climate chaos.
Attention and focus are essential for understanding anything. Are you feeling distracted? Struggling to understand something? This book reports on the latest research findings about how technology is harming these essential human faculties. Interview with the author of “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention–And How to Think Deeply Again” Interview starts in the second hour of the show.
This is sick. That sixty percent of our tax dollars go to the military industrial complex and investors make money off of it. Meanwhile the Earth systems that support life are in freefall. How much longer are people going to put up with this insanity?
Social media companies bow to capitalist demands, filtering content which clashes with their profiteering. This even if it flies in the face of the truth. I posted an article on LinkedIn published on the National Institute of Health’s website on the use of Ivermectin for the prevention and treatment of COVID-19 in poor countries, and it was removed. LinkedIn no doubt removed the post as it clashed with their corporate customer’s carefully orchestrated campaign against Ivermectin in order to further boost their obscene and unconscionable profits from their exclusive intellectual property vaccines which they refuse to share with the world.
We now live in a world of advanced capitalism which increasingly defiles the truth. Whenever mis and dis-information occurs, the old adage ‘follow the money’ will set you free to discover the truth.