Some Thoughts On My SilenceFebruary is almost gone and I have yet to write my first post this year. I have been wondering why. Looking back, starting October, this blog has seen 15 posts in 2008, 77 in 2009, 44 in 2010, and 14 in 2011. What happened between 2008 and 2012? Am I running out of topics to write about? February 21st, 2012 |
Ecological Limits And Global PovertyAccording to Tim Jackson [1], and others, beyond a certain income rising GDP per capita is no reasonable proxy for rising prosperity, because once basic needs such as for food, shelter, security, education, health are met, prosperity correlates with the “ability to flourish” as human beings — i.e. the strength of our relationships, trust in the community, satisfaction at work, shared sense of purpose, participation in society — rather than with income. Obviously, we assume, correctly, that income does not correlate with, for instance, the strength of our relationships. Indeed, meaningful relationships are not marketable: we cannot buy them. This argument is used to demand by the conventional view of ‘indefinite economic growth’ — held by many economists and politicians — to face two realities: (1) the ecological limits of a finite planet and (2) the drift of global wealth towards the few… November 17th, 2011 |
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The Time Of The Year That ...Together with spring, fall is the time of the year that sees a spectacular natural phenomenon unfolding here in Kuopio, Finland. The city has a total area of 2,317.24 square kilometre and water area of 719.85 square kilometre. Thus, about a third of the total area is water. That is a fair amount of water. In comparison, water area in Washington, D.C. is just about 10% of the total area… October 26th, 2011 |
ConnectionBritish novelist Samuel Butler wrote in Life and Habit (1878) that “[I]t has, I believe, been often remarked, that a hen is only an egg’s way of making another egg”… September 2nd, 2011 |