END OF 2011 SUMMARY. This has been a defining year, where the “Time” magazine Person of the Year is “The Protestor”, where a Global Agreement was achieved at Durban to act as one. We now have to be MORE ACTIVE at local level to make sure emissions reduction targets are “brave” enough to be effective.

OCTOBER 2011 – This blog is an attempt to chronical the change that is underway to the natural world that we have relied upon physically for 10,000 years, the social environment post world war 2, and the dramatic changes that economic prosperity has brought. It will also seek to explore solutions to the dire future warned of in recent scientific findings.

My name is Richard and I was involved in the climate/environment movement in Frankston and Melbourne for 10 years before moving to Barcelona, where I now live.    Arriving here 2 days before the May 15th protest in Spain was an eye-opener, and the protests here in the form of “occupation” of public space have now become a model throughout the world for expressing opposition to the current system, and debate for what should take its place.

It is becoming apparent to more and more people that the physical constraints of a finite world cannot sustain the exponential growth on which the current free market system depends. Fundamental change is needed, this was stated over 20 years ago by the Union of Concerned Scientists and re-iterated globally on October 15th.

Starting again can be brought about by many things, change being the primary agent, and this was the message that was common to all who took to the streets. Change has the least impact when it is brought about by ourselves, and it is refreshing to see a “real” democracy evolving in the new inclusive format of assemblies.

Starting again requires patience and thoroughness, and a “realistic” vision of what existing systems have produced, what limits will determine the future and what place society will take in that future.

So it is in today’s world of environmental, economic and social uncertainty, to the point where the only certainty is that there will be fundamental change.  To avoid the massive personal, environmental and economic disruptions that are happening now, it is necessary for us to be part of this change, to guide it where it needs to go, not delegate it to those who can be bought. In many ways, we have to start again, not destroy everything, but take the best of what humanity has achieved, redeem what is redeemable, and start again.

If we look beyond our immediate environment, that which we feel is our home, there is a bigger place that the collective species know as home, there is no place like it, this Earth. There is no place like home and it is the perfect place to start again.

As a basis, this blog accepts the evidence for global warming as produced by the I.P.C.C. and accepts the absolute urgency to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. It also accepts the findings of “Limits to Growth” produced in 1972 and thoroughly revised and confirmed in 2002. The finite nature of the Earth and it’s resources is a basis for the requirement to live within those limits in a Steady State Economy. The ideas and proposals of SSE will be explored in the “Solutions” section of the blog which will be added to progressively.