Links on Sunday - 15/07/2007

The first link I have for you today is to an interesting site of social ecologist articles - Communalism - The International Journal for a Rational Society. Two articles that particularly caught my eye were the latest one from Sveinung Legard on participatory budgeting, and an older article by Peter Zegers on the Dark Side of Political Ecology. Zegers starts with a great quote from Bookchin's Ecology of Freedom -

“[I]f the word ecology is used to describe our outlook, it is preposterous to invoke deities, mystical forces to account for the evolution of first nature into second nature. Neither religion nor a spiritualistic vision of experience has any place in an ecological lexicon. Either the term ecology applies to natural phenomena by definition, or it is a chic metaphor for the disempowered consciousness that fosters mysticism or outright supernaturalism.”

Earlier this week the Greens launched their short campaign for the Ealing Southall By-Election - good luck to Sarah Edwards.

Back in blogland a big welcome back to my Urban 75 friend Bernie, who has posted three interesting pieces on his blog "Fundamentalist Druid" this week.
He imagines what situation and questions we might face fifty years on and then examines the questions raised by those raising free market economics as a panacea to the problems we face. Finally he tries to imagine what a sustainable UK might look like. I think my question would be what is the highest and most advantageous level of production we are likely to be able to sustain given the energy constraints we are likely to face? Regardless of what sacrifices need to be made, and what social/economic framework those changes are made under (though these issues are very important), I think it is also crucially important for the future of the species and the planet that technological and scientific progress continue. Energy and climate change are not the only challenges our civilisation faces, and we will need the highest level of technical and scientific effort possible to face the challenges. Also, I would suggest that whatever changes are made in lifestyles and production our aim as people in the socialist and democratic tradition should be that co-operation and co-ordination on a national and international scale are of vital importance. There can be no retreat to an insular localism, even if much more of production and exchange/distribution is locally based. Politically and socially we should be aiming for a more internationalist framework.

Over at Daily (Maybe) Jim is re-running his thing about the best UK Green bloggers that he ran last year.

Finally this week, congratulations to Paul Kingsnorth who is going to be a dad.