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An alternative to taxing fuel, the user fee would be to driving as a pay-per-item system would be to eating in the Bon. Not as fun as an all-you-can eat buffet, but perhaps more efficient. Is there still value in a gas tax?

Mainstream environmentalism is trying to modify both its image and its approach - some focuses included radicalizing actions, localizing focuses, and antagonizing political and corporate opponents. It also focuses on how information is conveyed, focusing more on quick, easy to interpret, pretty imagery and less on pessimistic facts and figures. Bill McKibben is cited as one of the acclaimed leaders of this approach, particularly given the Keystone XL Pipeline issue (discussed earlier in the year in 220). Notably, another headline sharing the papers this week is on that very pipeline - a recent payroll tax move passed by the senate requires a final decision on the project within 90 days. Given that the success was for the decision to be postponed until after the elections, that has been largely undone. It will be interesting to see how that success plays out, and if that reflects on the themes of this article. It bears the question: if you were the political adviser to the environmental movement, what advice would you give?

A succinct introduction to the idea of permaculture and why we need it. For those ENVS students who dont yet already know: There's a group of students working on putting in a permaculture garden/food forest on a plot of land right next to campus. If you're interested, read this for background and email me (jhuggins@lclark.edu) so I can tell you when and where our next meeting will be.

Well, sounds like we have a discussion going here! If you want, Julia, we can talk at length about it, but it's gonna be difficult to talk if skeptics are dismissed as not knowing what permaculture really is. If the heart of permaculture is "the idea that agriculture should harmonize with natural cycles," a Julie Guthman or a Bob Goldman or a JDP would probably say sounds good, what what sort of harmonization with what sorts of natural cycles? This is inspirational, but too vague to adequately describe the details of any agricultural technique -- a whole host of techniques far different from permaculture could make the same claim. And perhaps our difference concerns permaculture not as an agricultural technique (which Julie appeared to endorse in her brief remarks), but its e.g. class, religious, and political dimensions, so we'd probably need to broaden our discussion to include its full dimensionality. ENVS represents an inclusive approach: it's not the ecological dimension alone, nor other dimensions; it's as many dimensions as are significant. Others on this thread may or may not be interested in permaculture, but in general it's worth a broader conversation between faculty and students on proposed solutions to our ecological problems. We want to make sure that there's a healthy give and take and a healthy respect, which may lead to a broader understanding of why certain solutions don't necessarily enthrall all of us. (Anyone ready to reform the tax code, as Julie strongly recommended as one of her "ecological" solutions??)

Like Julia, my response is too long for Diigo (perhaps this a function we should write to them about changing?), but I've posted it as a Google Site (also like Julia): https://sites.google.com/site/envs220diigopermaculture/

"A global coalition of about 200 companies said yesterday (26 October) that it was ready to support the introduction of a price tag on ecosystem services, in the hope that a global biodiversity panel will lay the foundations for an offset mechanism to encourage trading of nature services." This group is called the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). The members are listed here: http://www.wbcsd.org/web/about/members.html

more on this topic here: http://www.utne.com/Wild-Green/What-the-Earth-Is-Worth.aspx?utm_content=10.27.10+Spirituality&utm_campaign=Emerging+Ideas-Every+Day&utm_source=iPost&utm_medium=email