The Irish Government’s Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources published its Energy Green Paper, a discussion document on the country’s future energy supplies, on October 1st, and invited anyone interested to comment by December 1st. The Green Paper can be downloaded here in pdf format. The 98 comments the Department received have been posted on its website, here. Amazingly, the Green Paper ignored the near-certainty that global oil production will peak within the next 25 years. The only submissions which criticised the Department for this came from Feasta and from people associated with it or influenced by it. …
News
Feasta’s response to the European Commission’s proposal concerning emissions of greenhouse gases from aircraft
Feasta has issued a press release (pdf format, 76K) in response to today’s proposal by the European Commission concerning emissions of greenhouse gases from aircraft. We believe that the Commission’s proposal would distort competition between all forms of transport, hand windfall profits to airlines rather than citizens, and would fail to provide a model for the overall reform of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. We suggest an alternative approach which would involve placing a limit on emissions and other environmental damage from the entire transport sector. You can read about this in more detail in a background briefing (pdf format, …
Living in the Cracks by Nadia Johanisova
A Look at Rural Social Enterprises in Britain and the Czech Republic
Living-and often thriving-in the cracks between the business world and the state system is an amazing variety of organisations which, according to some economists, theoretically shouldn’t exist. That’s because their goal is not to make profits but to meet social needs which both the market and government either can’t meet nearly as well or have totally ignored.
There’s not even a good collective name for these organisations, although Third Sector is often used and causes most people’s eyes to glaze over. Yet, as this book shows, all human …
The ENLIVEN report
Energy Networks Linking Innovation in Villages in Europe Now
The ENLIVEN project is a cross sector partnership led by Irish Rural Link. Partners are: Offaly County Council; Feasta, the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability; Dundalk Institute of Technology; Methanogen; EOS Architects; Martin Langton, Developer; Pauric Davis and Associates, Engineers; Michael Layden, Community Energy Consultant; Sean Riordan, Developer.
Executive Summary
Historically, communities developed in places where resources were available. Today however, many rural communities are in decline because the use of fossil fuels has devalued their renewable energy sources, made the growing of many non-food crops irrelevant, and exposed their food products to price competition from places where land is more abundant.
This project is based on the premise that the tide may be about to turn. Restrictions on the use of fossil fuel in response to the threat of climate change and because of oil and gas depletion are about to make energy supplies scarcer and more costly. Handled correctly, this could create the circumstances in which rural communities will again be able to grow by developing their local resources, particularly those of energy.
Review of the Second Feasta Review by James Robertson
from James Robertson’s December 2004 newsletter.
This fine collection of high-quality items (207 double-column pages), edited by Richard Douthwaite and John Jopling, and published in November 2004 by the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability in Dublin, is something special. […] It can be read online at www.feasta.org/documents/review2/index.htm.
On that page, there’s also an option to order it for £9.95 from Green Books.
Unlike Feasta Review No.1 (2001), this one has a title – “GROWTH: THE CELTIC CANCER: Why the global economy damages our health and society”. But potential readers should not be misled into supposing the Review …
