Non-permaculture themed Educational Links

At request (and hopefully under an appropriate forum heading) here are some Non-permaculture based education links for those interested in learning stuff for free.

First: Data Sources.

Here are some good places to find global statistics and run side by side comparisons (of for instance energy use per capita by country)

http://www.worldbank.org/

This is not the easiest web site to navigate and you have sometimes have to wade through some rather unsavory spin, but the raw data the world bank collects and makes available is gigantic. Here is a graph I put together comparing 8 countries Fertilizer consumption per hector. You'll need to X out Singapore to be able to read the graph (for emphasis)

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/AG.CON.FERT.ZS/countries/1W-US-CN-TR-IN-PK-SG?display=graph

Index Mundi is another information clearing house which sources much of its information from the CIAs world fact book (another decent resource for those who weren't exposed to it in Highschool)

http://www.indexmundi.com/

here I put together a 10 yr price change comparison of Corn vs Gold and a 50 year graph of Wheat production in Canada (I was curious)

http://www.indexmundi.com/commodities/?commodity=corn&months=120&commodity=gold
http://www.indexmundi.com/agriculture/?country=ca&commodity=wheat&graph=production


and some video lectures for those who enjoy sitting back in the evening and contemplating the state of the world. These are all accredited speakers lecturing at venerable institutions.

First some quick 30 min. spots from the Carnegie Council on Ethics in International Affairs

Favorites

Ian Bremmer: Every Nation for itself - Winners and losers in a G-0 world. Here Ian examines what happens when no nation takes a real leadership role. Delivering analysis at a rate only a caffeinated New Yorker is capable of. 15 min. presentation and 10 min. of Q'n'A. He also has an hour lecture at the US Naval War college



Similar theme (also @ Carnegie) Georgetown Professor

Charles Kupchan: The west, the rising rest, and the coming global turn



Steve Coll: Private Empire, ExxonMobile and American Power



Kishore Mahbubani: America in the 21st century, an Asian Perspective



Joshua Green: Moral Tribes: Emotion, Reason, and the Gap between us and them



Also here are a few 1.5 Hour Formal evening lectures at the US Naval War College

Dr. Jeremy Jackson: Ocean Apocalypses



Phd Biologist from the Smithsonian and Scripts Institute for Oceanography in his second lecture to the Naval War College. 1st question opens with 'Thank you for your lecture, it was Horrifying"

Robert Kaplan: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power



Also from the Naval War College Ambassador Richard Haass President of the Council on Foreign Relations on A New American Grand Strategy



and finally from the US Army War College

Dr. Bolan on the Arab Spring



More later if anyone is interested.

Landon, you have eclectic interests. And by all means, keep the links coming.

Yeah, it's orc slaying in misty alder woods while quaffing nettle tea meets intrepid worldly scholar obsessed with world domination for peace and prosperity.

Professor David Lobell: Food security, food prices, and climate change @ Stanford University



Lots of provocative information in this one. Thought for food. This guy is definable not coming from a Permaculture prospective and is a week speaker but its a really good concise informative lecture. Least savory line (Speaking of commodity prices after the market crash of 2008) "The demand for food has been very robust"

and another amazing collection of data conveniently organized by county with information on our currant global food systems and the role of individual nations in them

http://www.fao.org/countryprofiles/en/

Here, not quite randomly as I will be citing it later, is an expanded view of Ethiopia

http://www.fao.org/ag/AGP/AGPC/doc/Counprof/Ethiopia/Ethiopia.htm

Wow. Seeing sunlight for the first time in over a week - my system is in shock after so much twilighty limited viability gray soup fog - but it gave me a chance to go through my youtube watch history and pick out a few more lectures I thought would be interesting and perhaps relevant. Jennifer just put up an interesting link to Coursera which I don't mean to bump. In fact I'm going to check it out tonight. But while the keyboard is in front of me...

First here is really quite an informative scholarly lecture entitled "The collapse of complex societies" by anthropologist Dr. Joseph Tainter. Fair warning this guy is a 'coins and clay tablets' sort of anthropologist not a 'fantastic ruins and titties' sort of anthropologist so by half an hour in when he's talking about the deflation of Roman coins some people might begin to fall asleep while muttering curses at me under their breath. But I love how unflappably square this guy is. The audience questions are great - the first one begins with a big ol' "Permaculture" bomb. If your looking for information on societal collapse from a historic prospective with absolutely no fear mongering this lecture may very well be worth your time.



Here's a classic. Dr. Albert Bartlett Professor Emeratis of Physics at University of Colorado at bolder on population, energy, and the effects of exponential growth. Arithmetic, Population, Energy. Fair warning this grumpy old man might just be the scariest thing on youtube.



And The U-Dubs own Geomorphologist Dr. David Montgomery at UBC lecturing on his book "Dirt: The erosion of civilization" Which takes a look at how deforestation and agriculture throughout history has effected the local and global landscape and the civilizations reliant of that land base.



Finally here is a link to some NOAA maps. I was looking at temperature trends the other day with all these crazy lows in the US. On the other side of the world in Russia they're getting record highs. I tried convincing some friends 5 or 6 years ago that we should all kowtow to Putin and buy dirt cheep land on the Siberian Plateau. I was laughed at.

Here's a map (one of thousands)

http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/temp-and-precip/global-maps.php?imgs[]=map-blended-mntp&year=2013&month=11

.... and its gray again. Great.

For those still dredging through my 'stream of though much?' writing:

(and all the shiny videos)



I haven't really checked out too much of these guys analysis, but the " ...'s Geographic Challenge" video series they do makes for a really good argument that our education system is dramatically ineffective and in need of serious reform. :/

Again I use Ethiopia as an example because I'm trying to forge my thoughts into an ethics thread which may be the beginnings of some 95 odd theses* to work towards a permaculture world. Muhahaha!

Edit: *Theseses? Thesee? Thesi?

Another great FOA index for comparing food prices by specific region over time. Check out the near across the board spike in Corn prices after the 2007 Farm bill and the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 put even more emphasis on Ethanol production

http://www.fao.org/giews/pricetool/