Aboriginal protest, rattled security and a dragged Prime Minister – Australia exposed

[We happened to witness a demonstration last Thurday, "Australia Day", which commemorates the arrival of the First Fleet, with convicts, and so of course also marks the beginning of the dispossession of Aboriginal people.  I gather pictures of our Prime Minister being dragged by a security man have gone around the world.  I have sent this account to media, we'll see if it gets a run.]

[Posted on The Drum, 30 Jan.]

The bias, hysteria and divisiveness of our public political conversation is never far from view, but this week I encountered it first hand.  I watched the Aboriginal protest unfold at The Lobby restaurant.  The event reported in the media and reacted to by many commentators is a lurid parody of what actually happened.  Perspective and balance are hard to find.

Lessons From a Radical Industrialist

[My previous post, and many before, featured the example of Interface Carpet Inc.  The founder and guiding spirit of that exemplary new-paradigm company, Ray C. Anderson, died in 2011.  The world is much the richer from his bold and inspiring presence.  Here, from a free download, is the foreword from his recent book  Business Lessons from a Radical Industrialist.]

In memory, Ray C. Anderson

As I sit down to write this foreword, I have a lot on my mind. My company, Interface, Inc., has just marked an important milestone—ten years until our target year for Mission Zero, for zero environmental footprint, a goal for which we have set 2020 as our deadline. I’m immensely proud of Interface, and encouraged about our future. At the same time, I have spent the last year dealing with cancer, thankfully holding my own—barely.

How Thriving Industries Can Save the Planet

Recently we broke the glass carafe on our drip coffee maker.  Yes I know it’s very last-century, but I still like drip coffee.  A search on line revealed that that model was no longer manufactured, even though the basic design has been stable for decades.  The carafe of a related (read “different-shaped”) model cost about $35, excluding the hassle of ordering and delivery.  The local shop had a whole new coffee maker for about $40.  So of course we threw away the perfectly good old model, sans carafe, and got the new one.

The Tao of economics

[See this article at philosophers.posterous, adapted from the first chapter of The Nature of the Beast]

… Taoism arose from the close observation of nature and people.  It distills a higher wisdom than either of the crude world views that dominated the twentieth century.  We can aspire to create economies that transcend the crude and unhealthy economic systems that arose from those twentieth century world views, and that provide for and nurture a healthy balance in the lives of people and societies. …

What if it’s a big hoax?

Thanks to Joel Pett (source not yet found)

From Greatest Greenhouse Polluter to Least?

[This is the first of an occasional series on what we can do to make our presence on Earth tolerable to the rest of the biosphere, and mostly should do anyway, regardless of one's view of the dangers or possible means of salvation.  It will be filed under 'Solutions'.]

Australia is one of the largest emitters per capita of greenhouse gases.  We are also the world’s largest exporter of coal, which is the dirtiest fuel in terms of greenhouse gas emissions.  We must therefore be the world’s worst citizens regarding global warming.  However we could be rapidly cleaning up our act, and diversifying and improving our economy in the process.