[ Monday, August 24, 2009; 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. ] Monday, August 24th,

6:oo pm  to 8:00 pm,

Quincie Douglas Library,

Kino Blvd and 36th St. (Campbell Ave becomes Kino just south of Broadway Blvd.)

A discussion and brainstorming session will be held on Thomas H. Greco’s new book and money reform.  We will explore how his ideas for “direct credit clearing” can be used to promote monetary resilience [...]

[ Sunday, August 16, 2009; 1:45 am to 4:30 am. ] What: Sustainable Tucson Special Film Showing
When: Sunday, August 16th, 2009,    2-4:30pm   (Doors open at 1:45pm)
Where: Joel D. Valdez Main Library Downtown, 101 N. Stone Ave (free lower level parking off Alameda St.)

Sustainable Tucson is pleased to present two special films as part of our focus in August on examing some of the fundamental tools [...]

The CEO of Siemens AG, Peter Löscher, believes Europe is on the brink of anew era in energy production. The aim of the €400 billion ($560 billion) project is to provide carbon-free energy that could supply up to 20 percent of European energy needs by 2050.
The biggest solar energy project in the world is about [...]

ooo
The following article just published on AlterNet is already drawing wide interest and appearing in many new places on the Internet. Having recently released what will probably be considered his most important book to date, our Sustainable Tucson colleague Tom Greco is now speaking directly to communities about both present economic challenges and emerging opportunities [...]

[ Wednesday, August 12, 2009; 5:45 pm to 8:00 pm. ] What: Sustainable Tucson August General Meeting
When: Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 5:45pm- 8:00pm
Where: Joel D. Valdez Main Library Downtown, 101 N. Stone Ave (free lower level parking off Alameda St.)
Sustainable Tucson is pleased to present a Special General Meeting featuring one of ST’s original founders. Thomas H. Greco, Jr. will give an illustrated presentation”The Global Financial [...]

Q: Why should I care about the Citizens united v. FEC ruling?
A: In this landmark case, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that it is unconstitutional to limit how much money corporations can spend to influence elections. Why? They said limits would violate the First Amendment guarantee of free speech. Since the 2010 ruling, corporations have [...]

by Rob Hopkins
Published on Energy Bulletin (http://energybulletin.net), 05/28/2009
At the Transition Network conference, Richard Heinberg gave an online presentation looking at the concept of Emergency Planning for Communities, something he initially unveiled at Findhorn last year. You can see his presentation here. For a while now, Richard and I have been discussing the tension between longer [...]

[ Wednesday, June 17, 2009 to Sunday, June 21, 2009. ] 13th International IONS Conference
June 17 – 21, 2009
Marriott Star Pass Resort

Join mind-body pioneer Larry Dossey, MD; Bruce Lipton, author of Biology of Belief, and other inspiring, thoughtful, and visionary people to explore insights in science, social innovation, and the world’s wisdom traditions.

Early Registration Discount extended: $369 for members, seniors and students [...]

From Bubble to Depression?
by Steven Gjerstad and Vernon L. Smith
Published in The Wall Street Journal on April 6, 2009.
Dr. Vernon Smith is a Nobel Laureate economist who taught and conducted research in experimental economics at the U of A.  Sustainable Tucson Core Team member, Bob Cook, took his UA course in 1979.
______________________________________
Bubbles have been frequent [...]

[ Wednesday, April 22, 2009; ] Sustainability Actions Everyone Can Do

We in Tucson face an unprecedented sustainability crisis including economic meltdown, climate change, resource depletion, and unraveling of the social fabric.——- Every level of our community is important in the effort to mitigate and adapt to these inter-related crises – household, neighborhood, small business, education, social service agencies, government, non-profits, and [...]

[ Wednesday, April 22, 2009; 8:00 am; ] Spotlight Conversation on Climate Action
Be a part of the Conversation!

Wednesday, April 22, 2009      8 a.m.-12 p.m.
The University of Arizona Student Union Grand Ballroom
1303 E. University Blvd.     FREE Registration
www.tucsonaz.gov/ocsd/climateaction

Contact Nicole Urban-Lopez for more information about this event.
nicole.urban-lopez@tucsonaz.gov
520-837-6934

Tucson will host a “Spotlight Conversation on Climate Action” as part of an elite group of 10 communities that were [...]

No, we can’t?
by Dave Cohen
Published on Energy Bulletin (http://www.energybulletin.net) March 5, 2009
What is the biggest impediment in 2009 to mitigating the harmful effects of energy problems in the 21st century? The answer may surprise you-it is insolvent zombie banks and our entrenched FIRE economy (Finance, Insurance, Real Estate). Allow me to explain.
Another Tragic Misallocation of [...]

Urban Food Growing in Havana Cuba: >>See Video
How Cuba Survived Peak Oil: >> See Video
The whole movie:

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Cuba’s economy went into a tailspin. With imports of oil cut by more than half – and food by 80 percent – people were desperate. This film tells of the hardships [...]

By Tony Davis, February 18, 2009, Arizona Daily Star
The state’s best-known climate-change expert presented harrowing forecasts for sharply higher temperatures and drier rivers and reservoirs before a legislative committee in Phoenix on Tuesday.
Jonathan Overpeck told the House Environment Committee that:

Temperatures could regularly hit the 130s in Phoenix by the second half of this century [...]

Tucson’s problems are increasing. After two years, we continue to have a glut of approximately 8,000 to 10,000 empty, unsold houses. Home prices are plummeting. Families are abandoning their foreclosed houses, especially in the suburbs. Builders are going bankrupt. Skilled workers are losing their jobs and leaving the state. Net population growth in Tucson has [...]

[ Monday, February 23, 2009; 6:00 pm to 7:00 pm. ] Event Name:    Artists Organize to Help Solve the Economic Crisis
Description:    We will hold our second organizing meeting and potluck. Our goal is to build political capital and demonstrate the value of the arts in the economic recovery process. 1) How does the economic recession impact you and/or your organization? 2) What are you doing in [...]

[ Wednesday, February 25, 2009; 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm. ] 2009 Economic Forum: Creative Strategies for Economic Recovery
In an effort to put our minds together, share and gather information, enhance our collective capacities, and meet the challenges we all face in economic revitalization, the Tucson Pima Arts Council will host the Economic Forum: Creative Strategies for Economic Recovery. Facilitated by, Hildy Gottlieb, Community Driven Institute [...]

Sharon Astyk, a New England family farmer and sustainability writer, is scheduled to speak at Pima Association of Government’s Sustainability and Energy Expo on March 7th. Here is a recent article from her blog. She bemoans, “investing is saving” is the lie we believed. More can be read at Casubon’s Book: http://sharonastyk.com/
Down the [...]

[ Saturday, February 28, 2009; ] YWCA’s Annual Women & Money Conference .  The conference will be held at the Westin La Paloma Resort on Saturday  February  28, 2009.

This year\’s conference will feature a workshop on \”Socially Responsible Investing and Living\” to learn how to invest in companies that support your values and beliefs. The workshop will discuss integrating personal values [...]

February 10, 2009
Honorable Tucson Mayor and Council Members,
Sustainable Tucson acknowledges the dire economic conditions facing the City of Tucson as well as the people and organizations in our community.
While we hope for the best, we also recognize that this emerging situation is unprecedented and may be worse and more long-lasting than we think.
Our core intention [...]

The Crash Course seeks to provide a baseline understanding of the economy so that everyone can better appreciate the risks that we all face. Created by Chris Martenson, PhD scientist and MBA professional, this set of video tutorials and related articles present a clear, accessible explanation of the complex factors which are converging to create [...]

One response to the global crisis that is gaining enthusiastic momentum in Tucson and around the world is the Transition Towns movement. Sustainable Tucson is taking advantage of many Transition Resources to support our Sustainability Planning Initiative.
Jennifer Gray, a pioneer in the Transition Initiative in the UK and cofounder of Transition US, describes it as [...]

Organizing Questions:
Language of business
How can our economy become more localized, so local needs are met through local jobs, networks, resources (sunshine) and community?
What is keeping the Sustainability advocates in Tucson from being able to reach out to the business community who could be such a forceful partner in community sustainability as it is in so [...]

By Paul Krugman
Published in Arizona Daily Star, December 23, 2008
America. Whatever the new administration does, we’re in for months, perhaps even a year, of economic hell. After that, things should get better, as President Obama’s stimulus plan – OK, I’m told that the politically correct term is now “economic recovery plan” – begins to gain [...]

by Richard Heinberg
December 4, 2008
Executive Summary
Our continued national dependence on fossil fuels is creating a crippling vulnerability to both long-term fuel scarcity and catastrophic climate change.
The current economic crisis requires substantial national policy shifts and enormous new government injections of capital into the economy. This provides an opportunity for a project whose scope would otherwise [...]

An important message by an average citizen from Michigan
Friends,
I drive an American car. It’s a Chrysler. That’s not an endorsement. It’s more like a cry for pity. And now for a decades-old story, retold ad infinitum by tens of millions of Americans, a third of whom have had to desert their country to simply find [...]

On October 30th, Dr. David Suzuki, reknowned Canadian scientist and educator, gave “one of the great speeches in history”  to the 20th Anniversary Roundtable on the Economy and the Environment.
Click on the following to watch a video of that speech:
http://www.cpac.ca/forms/index.asp?dsp=template&act=view3&pagetype=vod&lang=e&clipID=2099

The Peak Oil Crisis: Memorandum for the President-Elect
by Tom Whipple, retired CIA analyst, columnist for the Falls Church (VA) News-Press, and editor of Peak Oil Review. Published November 6, 2008
The way things are shaping up, in less than three months you will be in charge of solving the direst set of crises since the ones [...]

[ Tuesday, December 9, 2008; 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm. ] Sustainable Tucson’s next General Meeting
“Sustainability and the Economy: Three new options”
Sustainable Tucson is beginning a six-month series of general meeting programs on the current economic crisis and how we can respond.

Date: Tuesday December 9th
Time: 6:00 – 8:00pm
Place: Downtown Library – lower level meeting room

Joel Valdez Main Downtown Library, 101 N Stone Ave
Free Basement Parking

December’s general [...]

Tucson is ideal locale for a ‘Green New Deal’
By David Schaller, published November 6, 2008
SPECIAL TO THE ARIZONA DAILY STAR
Tucson has not been immune to the great economic turmoil of the past year. In recent weeks, the crisis hit home as retail and home sales plunged, financial institutions were shaken, budgets cut and jobs lost.
The [...]

By Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist, professor at Columbia University
Showing how ideology, special-interest pressure, and sheer incompetence have left the U.S. economy on life support, the author puts forth a clear, commonsense plan to reverse the Bush-era follies and regain America’s economic sanity.
published by Vanity Fair, November 2008
When the American economy enters [...]

In this Sustainable Business Alliance speaker series,leading peak oil educator, Julian Darley talks with Bay Area business owners about the impact Peak Oil is having on their business and community, October 9, 2008. Click hear for this timely 83-minute discussion on video.
http://globalpublicmedia.com/fireside_chat_with_julian_darley

[ Monday, October 20, 2008; 6:00 pm to 7:30 pm. ] The Economy Group will meet Monday, Oct. 20, at 6 p.m. at Lotus Massage & Wellness Center, 2850 E. Grant Rd.

We’ll continue discuss of possible uses of a GIS mapping system, pick up the discussion that got started online about Walmart going in at El Con, and … in light of what’s happening in the [...]

[ Friday, April 25, 2008; 12:00 am; Saturday, April 26, 2008; 12:00 am; Sunday, April 27, 2008; 12:00 am; ] Democracy School is a strategic advance in the struggle for real community self-governance.
Team up with people like you who want to rethink their options.

Democracy Schools take place over a weekend, late fri. through Sunday.

Visit www.celdf.org for more info.

[ Friday, March 14, 2008; 3:00 pm; ] LOCAL FIRST ARIZONA GOES TO TUCSON
Old Pueblo merchants emulate Austin, Portland, Boulder “Buy Local” movements

Community Meeting: Friday, March 14 at 3 PM
Hosted by Councilwoman Karin Ulich

Ward III Office, 1510 East Grant Road(TUCSON, Ariz.) – Local First Arizona representatives travel to Tucson on Friday, March 14 to celebrate the grand opening of their new Tucson office. [...]

[ Wednesday, March 12, 2008; 6:00 pm; Wednesday, April 16, 2008; 6:00 pm; ] Corporatism has power & control over war & peace, Earth & space. What can we do as individuals and as groups?

Meetings 6pm, Wednesday March 12, and again April 16th.

Martha Cooper Library – 1377 N. Catalina Ave
(1 block east of Columbus 2 blocks north os Speedway)

An issue of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom [...]

by James Howard Kunstler, American Social Commentator
Out in the public arena, people frequently twang on me for being “Mister Gloom’n’doom,” or for “not offering any solutions” to our looming energy crisis. So, for those of you who are tired of wringing your hands, who would like to do something useful, or focus your attention in [...]

Are you bored or anxious that much vital news is not being presented and discussed in the broadcast and print media? Here are four recent video reports on two of the most important topics of our current times: The future of oil and the future of the American dollar. These YouTube programs from the People [...]

[ Wednesday, April 9, 2008; 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm. ] Turning Point: The Next Two Generations
Public Lecture and Conversation with Prescott College President

Dr. Daniel Garvey
Sponsored by Sustainable Tucson and Tucson Association of Realtors
7 p.m.
Wednesday, April 9

Tucson Association of Realtors Conference Center
2445 N. Tucson Blvd.
What challenges face the next two generations?
What is the responsibility of those who have come before?
How can [...]

Creating a sustainable culture of peace based on progressive values starts with
facing what’s really going on, both internally and externally.
WHAT TO DO? WHAT TO DO? Taking Action In The Face Of Collapse
Tuesday, 10 July 2007
By Carolyn Baker
Every time I write an article on collapse such as my most recent one “Happy
Independence Day; You Have [...]

Independence from the Corporate Global Economy
by Ethan Miller
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1545
The old story says we have to depend on big corporations. The new story tells us we can earn a livelihood, gain freedom, and build community through cooperation.
Call it “globalization,” or the “free market,” or “capitalism.” Whatever its name, people across the United States and throughout the world [...]

Howard Odum’s following paper, published in 1974, was considered one of the most concise—yet most sweeping—examinations made of the real problems of the world up to that time. His groundbreaking book Environment, Power and Society (John Wiley, 1972) also introduced us to his paradigm-changing energetic analysis of economics and ecology. This paper should be included [...]

Vision
The SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS INSTITUTE (SBI) is the premier catalyst for the business community and public to take the lead in implementing equitable worldwide sustainability practices.
Mission
To benefit the public through outreach initiatives that encourage business leaders to identify, create, implement and communicate economically viable sustainability practices.
How does SBI accomplish its mission?
SBI educates business leaders and the [...]

Excerpt from Rachel’s: Is It Time for A New Economics?
It is now time — long past time — for a Copernican/Darwinian
revolution in economics in which humans cease to be seen as the
privileged species, homo economicus — at the center of everything and
exempt from the limits of the biosphere. Instead, humans need to be
placed within the [...]

From the highly recommended website: transitionculture.org
Plant trees, disband the army, work together: the Tuscan way of surviving collapse by Ugo Bardi.
Rob writes: Ugo Bardi is a Professor at the Dipartimento di Chimica at Università di Firenze in Italy, and is also President of ASPO Italy, who so ably hosted ASPO5 in Pisa earlier [...]

Working together to heal the West
www.ecoresults.org
Norm Lowe, Gail Lowe, Dan Dagget
Though EcoResults! is a startup enterprise, the people responsible for it have served as pioneers in creating collaborative, results-based solutions to Western environmental challenges.
Dan Dagget, environmentalist and author, literally wrote the book on the subject of applying collaborative solutions to Western ecosystems, Dagget’s book, Beyond [...]