Richard Heinberg is one of the best-known peak oil writers and speakers around the place. Over the weekend, I listened to a "bad news, good news" pair of talks here (click on "Writings") by Heinberg and the owner of the site, permaculture pioneer David...

Looking back on this blog, I'm aware that nearly everything I've written since July has been on an environmental theme, and mostly pretty gloomy in tone. Yet the heading of this blog still promises "a trialogue between ... mainstream Christianity,...

I'm nearing the end of Jared Diamond's excellent book "Collapse: How societies choose to fail or survive". Diamond surveys many civilizations through history that have either collapsed (Easter Island, the Greenland Norse, the Maya) or managed to avoid...

I spent half an hour yesterday afternoon outside Flatchester Guildhall with a group of Buddhists, chanting ‘sabbe satta sukhi hontu’ ("may all beings be well" in Pali) 350 times. The event was one of 5,200 worldwide co-ordinated by 350.org to try...

Dora, The Bean and I spent last weekend in the Peak District in Derbyshire (England), a mostly desolate and in places quite stunning region of hills, moors and valleys. I enjoyed some superlative beer produced by Peak Brewery, while The Bean was...