Ethiopia

Sudan

From Madrid to Pirineos

Solar calendar

If anyone is interested in getting the twilight and dawn hours in any of the book locations, you can find them in this calendar.

+calendario solar

Somalia

Lunar calendar

When you loose the time reference, when you live surronded by nature, the best way to count the days, are the moons. In the book some of the characters are governed by the lunar calendar. If you want to know the exact days for the full and the new moons...

+calendario

Zanzibar - Kismaayo (Somalia)

Arab countries

Países de habla árabe, +info

Kōan

A kōan is, in the Zen Buddhism, a question that a teacher might ask to their disciples to test their progress.  To solve them the pupil must avoid rational thinking and grasp the state of mind needed for each specific kōan, getting somehow enlighted.

The purpose of kōans for a Zen practitioner is to become aware of the difference between themselves, their mind, and their beliefs, which influence how they see the world; and, ultimately, to help them realise their true nature.

In Western culture they could be assimilated to oxymoron, antithesis or paradox.

Si alguno quiere profundizar y leer más kōan, hay varias páginas, la más completa y que tiene parte de ellos traducidos al español es la del enlace.

+info

Canada (outskirts of Vancouver)

Spain

Japan

Tokyo

Homeschooling

There are some countries where teaching your kids from your own house, without daily attendance to a school is legal. There are some others were it is not.

In those countries where it is legal, parents can decide which values will they teach their kids, which information is important for them, which will help them in the future. Teaching the kids from you house is usually called homeschooling. It is a practice proven to develop the creativity and initiative of the kids, agains the traditional systems that are designed to obtain blind obedience and mechanique knowledge.

+info

Earthship

An earthship is a type of passive solar house made of natural and recycled materials. The homes are primarily constructed to work autonomously and are generally made of earth-filled tires, using thermal massconstruction to naturally regulate indoor temperature. They also usually have their own special natural ventilation system. Earthships are generally Off-the-grid homes, minimizing their reliance on public utilities and fossil fuels.

+info

World population 2010

Wikipedia data, +info.

Eating fossil fuels

An article from the geologist and writter Dale Allen Pfeiffer about the dependence on fossil fuels of the 21st century agriculture. I reccommend the reading.

+info

Oil and gas are responsible for the demographic explosion in the last century. They have fed a  nonstop growing population and have created and hold the consumption society. When we don't have any more oil and gas left, what will happen to our world?

The limits to growth

Short time before the first oil crisis, the Roman club, commissioned the MIT to prepare a report about the limits of growth. This report has been updated along the years. It analizes the incapacity of the Earth to support a continuous growing  we have experienced during the last fifty years. It talks about the insustainability of the growing system which rules our planet and our economy. 

+ info
+ download energetic limits to growth

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

The book written by Jared Diamon, 'Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed' deals with societal collapses involving an environmental component, and in some cases also contributions of climate change, hostile neighbors, and trade partners, plus questions of societal responses.

In writing the book Diamond intended that its readers should learn from history

+info wiki

Societal collapse

Along the ages many cultures, people and societies have dissaparead. They collapsed. Joseph Tainter analize in his book "Collapse of Complex Societies" how societies becomes more complex trying to solve their problems. How they tend to develop layers of bureaucracy, infrastructure, or social class to address the challenge. Tainter, who first (ch. 1) identifies seventeen examples of rapid collapse of societies, applies his model to three case studies: The Western Roman Empire, the Maya civilization, and the Chaco culture.

+ info

Toynbee Theory

A Study of History is the 12-volume magnum opus of British historian Arnold J. Toynbee, finished in 1961, in which the author traces the development and decay of all of the major world civilizations in the historical record. Toynbee applies his model to each of these civilizations, detailing the stages through which they all pass: genesis, growth, time of troubles, universal state, and disintegration.

He argues that the breakdown of civilizations is not caused by loss of control over the environment, over the human environment, or attacks from outside. Rather, it comes from the deterioration of the "Creative Minority," which eventually ceases to be creative and degenerates into merely a "Dominant Minority" (who forces the majority to obey without meriting obedience). He argues that creative minorities deteriorate due to a worship of their "former self," by which they become prideful, and fail to adequately address the next challenge they face.

+ info wiki

Olduvai Theory

The Olduvai theory states that industrial civilization (as defined by per capita energy production) will have a lifetime of less than or equal to 100 years (1930-2030). The theory provides a quantitative basis of the transient-pulse theory of modern civilization. From 2030 on, Humanity would return step by step to previous levels of civilization, ending in one thousand years (3.000 a.C.) with a hunting-culture based as the one that existed in the Earth three millions years ago.

This theory was stated by Richard C. Duncan based upon his experience in energy sources and his passion over archeology.

Industrial Civilization is defined in Duncan's paper as the time approximately from when energy production per capita rises from 37% of the peak value to when it falls to below 37% of its peak value (1930-2030) i.e. the peak in energy production per capita is in between these two endpoints and these two endpoints have values of 37% of the peak value.

+info wiki
+ from capitalism to democracy

Media blackout

Another way to refer to the media censorship. Usually this term is used when the censorship relates to a certain topic that has been blocked by the media or relates to some Government censorship over specific information, as it happend during the droppings of atomic bombs in Hiroshima, or in the UK during the Second World War.

+info