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Human evolution presents a puzzle. Nothing seems to explain the sudden takeoff of the last 45,000 years-the conversion of just another rare predatory ape into a planet dominator with rapidly progressing technologies. Once "progress" started to produce new tools, different ways of life and burgeoning populations, it accelerated all over the world, culminating in agriculture, cities, literacy and all the rest. Yet all the ingredients of human success-tool making, big brains, culture, fire, even language-seem to have been in place half a million years before and nothing happened. Tools were made to the same monotonous design for hundreds of thousands of years and the ecological impact of people was minimal. Then suddenly-bang!-culture exploded, starting in Africa. Why then, why there?

""This is a deeply thought-provoking book about the dramatic changes we must make to save the planet from financial madness" - Naomi Klein. Opening with Oscar Wilde's observation that "nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing," Patel shows how our faith in prices as a way of valuing the world is misplaced. He reveals the hidden ecological and social costs of a hamburger (as much as $200), and asks how we came to have markets in the first place. Both the corporate capture of government and our current financial crisis, Patel argues, are a result of our democratically bankrupt political system. If part one asks how we can rebalance society and limit markets, part two answers by showing how social organizations, in America and around the globe, are finding new ways to describe the world's worth. If we don't want the market to price every aspect of our lives, we need to learn how such organizations have discovered democratic ways in which people, and not simply governments, can play a crucial role in deciding how we might share our world and its resources in common. This short, timely and inspiring book reveals that our current crisis is not simply the result of too much of the wrong kind of economics. While we need to rethink our economic model, Patel argues that the larger failure beneath the food, climate and economic crises is a political one. If economics is about choices, Patel writes, it isn't often said who gets to make them. The Value of Nothing offers a fresh and accessible way to think about economics and the choices we will all need to make in order to create a sustainable economy and society."

"The software development process has evolved from vendors owning, controlling, and selling proprietary software into a collaborative, open source model. The process of producing energy is going through a similar evolution."

"The software development process has evolved from vendors owning, controlling, and selling proprietary software into a collaborative, open source model. The process of producing energy is going through a similar evolution."

" by Charley Cameron Share on Facebook Pin Tweet+ A new report envisions a nightmare scenario in which just three climate change-driven disasters could lead to global food shock, resulting in food riots as the price of basic crops skyrockets and stock markets experience significant losses. The risk assessment, which was produced by insurer Lloyd's of London-with support from the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office and vetted by academics from a number of institutions-shows just how close humanity may be to catastrophic collapse by mid-century unless significant changes are made to slow global warming."

"But costing upwards of £4,000, it may take a while for a Powerwall to pay for itself. by Sebastian Anthony - Feb 8, 2016 12:17pm CET"

"From plastic trash and discarded fishing gear to oil spills and pesticide runoff, human beings have treated the oceans as a vast dumping ground. By Reynard Loki / AlterNet November 20, 2015 "