Here are a few helpful links for those who are interested in learning more about earthships and perhaps building one of their own. In the first place, there are existing earthships that can be rented as hotel rooms on a weekly or nightly basis. There is this earthship in France which one can rent or buy and these rentals in New Mexico. For those who want to learn, there are internships opportunities as well as an Biotecture Academy offering training and degrees. Here’s a website keep track of progress on an earthship being constructed in Manitoba of all places. And the following…
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Recommended Viewing
This section contains brief descriptions and links to interesting video material that is available online. The views expressed in these videos, as well as the credit and copyright, in each case belongs exclusively to the filmmaker(s) and/or producer(s).
Sustainability and freedom
Although it does snow in New Mexico, most people who watch the Garbage Warrior or witness the biotecture communities sprouting up in places like Taos probably think that earthships are fine for hot dry climates but wouldn’t really work in places like Canada. This short video clip nicely debunks that idea. The Potter’s earthship is in Bancroft Ontario which gets extremely cold in the winter, going as low as -35 Celsius. But as the Potters attest, they are perfectly comfortable in their home. And after building it, for very little money, they discovered that it not only sheltered them and…
Garbage Warrior (documentary)
Michael Reynolds is a true maverick; he sees humanity marching toward the edge of a cliff and he’s not willing to go along with the crowd. Instead he uses his skills as a trained architect to show people that there is another, better way of living, one which is sustainable, ecologically beneficial, and 100 percent self-supporting. He builds homes–even entire communities–that are completely off the energy grid, collect water from rainfall, recycle waste, and are made from mostly garbage and recycled materials. It’s called “Earthship Biotecture” and it may very well be the most profound and practical solution to the pressing environmental challenges…
Grapple in the Apple
This famous debate on the invasion of Iraq between Christopher Hitchens and George Galloway took place in New York in 2005, at the height of the war. It was an intense and highly entertaining clash of personalities, if not views. Well worth watching.
American Radical: the trials of Norman Finkelstein (documentary)
The official description of this 2009 documentary reads as follows: A devoted son of Holocaust survivors and ardent critic of Israeli foreign policy, the polarizing American political scientist and author Norman Finkelstein has been called a lunatic and self-hating Jew by some, and an inspirational revolutionary by others. Uncompromising even in the face of his denial of tenure at DePaul University, Finkelstein is revealed as a complex, politically isolated figure who puts the pursuit of justice above the security of his academic career. Exploring the difficult and deeply-felt issues at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, American Radical is the…
Sex, Lies and Julian Assange (documentary)
Julian Assange and Wikileaks continue to be popular topics for the media, although most of the media coverage is either biased or superficial. Sex, Lies and Julian Assange, reported by Andrew Fowler and presented by Kerry O’Brien, is an exception to this trend. In the brief space of 43 minutes, the investigative documentary revisits the advent of Wikileaks and the controversy surrounding its editor-in-chief, Julian Assange. Through well-selected interviews and detailed research, especially on the sexual offence allegations in Sweden, the documentary presents the story of Wikileaks and Julian Assange in a remarkably clear, unbiased way. It states what the mainstream…
Julian Assange interviews Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali
The official description of 10th episode of The World Tomorrow reads as follows: A surprise Arab drive for freedom, the West’s structural crisis and new hope coming from Latin America. That’s the modern world in the eyes of Noam Chomsky and Tariq Ali, two prominent thinkers and this week’s guests on Julian Assange’s show on RT.
Criticism of The Spirit Level
Earlier this year the RSA hosted a debate on The Spirit Level, the highly influential book by Kate Pickett and Richard Wilkinson. That book and the subsequent TED lecture by Wilkinson provided what seemed to many like an extraordinarily strong case for the idea that income inequality is the driving force in social dysfunction and that reducing income inequality will benefit virtually everyone in wealthy societies, even those at the top of the economic pyramid. The sobering RSA debate presents evidence and arguments to the contrary, from Christopher Snowdon and Peter Saunders. The main critique that Snowdon and Saunders advance, a…
Interview with Julian Assange inside the Ecuadorian Embassy
Originally aired on GamaTV, August 30, 2012, Uruguayan journalist Jorge Gestoso interviews Julian Assange from within the Ecuadorian Embassy. In this wide-ranging and fascinating interview Gestoso asks Assange if the Wikileaks’ cause is worth dying for. Assange answers yes. The interview can be seen here:
Can democracy exist without trust? (TED lecture by Ivan Krastev)
The following lecture is by Ivan Krastev, a political scientist and chair of the Centre for Liberal Strategies, in Sofia, a research and analysis NGO on democracy and trust. Here are a few interesting quotes from the talk: Democracy is the only game in town. The problem is [when] people start to believe that it is not a game worth playing. And when we talk about the internet – yes it’s true, internet connected all of us, but we also know, that the internet created these equal chambers and political ghettos, in which for all your life, you can stay…
Julian Assange interviews Nabeel Rajab & Alaa Abd El-Fattah (The World Tomorrow)
In the fourth episode of RT‘s The World Tomorrow Julian Assange speaks with two leading Arab revolutionaries in the middle of conflict, Alaa Abd El-Fattah from Egypt and Nabeel Rajab from Bahrain. Alaa Abd El-Fattah is a long time Egyptian blogger, programmer and political activist. His parents were human rights campaigners under Anwar Sadat; his sister Mona Seif became a Twitter star during the 2011 Egyptian revolution, and is a founder of the No Military Trials for Civilians group formed under the post-Mubarak military junta. El-Fattah was imprisoned for 45 days in 2006 for protesting under the Mubarak regime, and…
The plastic bottle solar light-bulb (creative responses)
From the category “Creative responses to environmental challenges“: The plastic bottle solar light-bulb. Simply cut a hole in your roof, stick in and seal a water filled plastic bottle, and you get a free, solar-powered daytime light-bulb.
Julian Assange interviews Cypherpunks (The World Tomorrow)
In the 8th and 9th episode of RT‘s The World Tomorrow, Julian Assange is joined by cypherpunks from the US, Germany, and France to discuss the future of our increasingly digitalized world. What is the ultimate purpose of Twitter, Facebook and other social media? What is the current state of online privacy and data protection? These are some the questions examined in this excellent two-part discussion with people who understand perhaps better than anyone else the challenges that cyberspace poses to human freedom. Part I: Part II:
Freedom of thought and open-source software (lecture by Eben Moglen)
Eben Moglen, professor of law and legal history at Columbia University, as well as founder, Director-Counsel and Chairman of Software Freedom Law Center and long-term supporter of organizations like the Free Software Foundation, is a lecturer and free software/open-source advocate. Though the following lecture and interview only covers so much, they do serve as a good introduction to his extensive body of work. Why Freedom of Thought Requires Free Media and Why Free Media Require Free Technology This lecture was held during the Re:publica 2012 conference in Berlin. It describes in detail why the current societal model, in which proprietary…
The recycled can solar heating panel (creative responses)
From the category “Creative responses to environmental challenges“: The recycled can solar heating panel: Newfoundlander Jim Meaney found a creative way to reuse can’s to build cheap but effective solar panels to heat homes and save energy.
Taxing the wealthy (TED lecture by Chuck Collins)
The Program on Inequality and the Common Good, run by Chuck Collins at The Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC, focuses on the dangers that growing inequality pose for U.S. democracy, economic health and civic life. In this TEDx lecture Collins gives a moving and illuminating talk on the moral justification for reducing income inequality by increasing taxes on the rich. Collins’s privileged background lends to his credibility on this subject, but what really impresses in this talk are the stories of the wealthy people across the US who are actually willing to dramatically increase their tax rates. This talk…
Children speak out on the climate crisis
Twenty years ago a 12-year-old girl named Severn Suzuki addressed delegates in Rio de Janeiro during the summit’s plenary session on behalf of the world youth. In the following segment DemocracyNow! revisits that passionate, prescient, and powerful and speech that “silenced the world for 6 minutes”. Some quotes from the speech: Coming up here today, I have no hidden agenda. I am fighting for my future. Losing my future is not like losing an election or a few points on the stock market. I am here to speak for all generations to come. I am here to speak on behalf of…
Julian Assange interviews Moazzam Begg and Asim Qureshi (The World Tomorrow)
From the website of the The World Tomorrow: [The fifth episode] of The World Tomorrow takes us to the very heart of America’s War on Terror: Guantanamo Bay. Julian Assange sat down with a former Gitmo prisoner and a rights campaigner fighting for those still trapped behind the wire. Ten years ago the war on terror prompted the opening of the facility. Now, more than three years after President Obama ordered its closure, the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, like the war in Afghanistan, remains with us. Over a year ago, Wikileaks blew the lid on Gitmo by releasing a cache of…
Julian Assange interviews Rafael Correa (The World Tomorrow)
In the sixth episode of RT‘s The World Tomorrow, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador discusses the media, government corruption, and his country’s relationship with the United States. The interview opens with the circumstances surrounding the attempted coup in Ecuador in 2010, during which the president was taken hostage. Following the attempted coup, Correa embarked on a furious and controversial counter-offensive against Ecuador’s media. In this interview he explains the media’s role in the events of 2010 in terms of the vested interests of media corporations. He claims that corporate owners of the media “disguised as journalists, are trying to do politics,…
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Online Now
The description to this video reads “Journey into the world of contemporary online social interaction” and could be seen as a short, but compelling cinematic interpretation of many issues and concerns outlined in Sherry Turkle‘s groundbreaking “Together Alone: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other“. This video will resonate with many of the so-called “digital natives”. In light this video’s targeted viewers, it is very interesting to read some of the comments made by reddit users after it was posted there. The comments vary along the entire spectrum: Even without their devices, I’ve seen coworkers ignore…
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