Tutorial Activity Week 3

Activity 1

• Write down everything you NEED.
  • Examine each item. Ask yourself whether you want the item for itself, or in order to get something else you need.  
  • If you only want the item to get something else, then it is a MEANS not an ENDS.
  • Eliminate the MEANS from your list, so that you are left with a list of ENDS.
• List the activities you spend your time on.
  • How much of your time is spent directly on ENDS and how much on MEANS?
  • How much of your time is spent getting money?
  • Is this a MEANS or an ENDS?
  • What sort of things would you do if you were spending most of your time on ENDS?
  • Taking on board Douthwaites discussion of community economies, what other options are there for meeting our needs than selling our labour in an activity which we value only as a means to an end?
  • What sort of changes would have to happen for this to be possible?

Activity 2

Watch this presentation  the difference between the 'Economic given priority' and the 'Ecosystem perspective' for selection of 'View of the environment' in your Newschart.

Activity 3

Do Chris Martenson's Crash Course based on his "End of Money" seminar. Go to http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

The first 6 cover issues we've looked at in this course for modules 1b & 1c and provide a simple introduction for you.

The Crash Course seeks to provide you with a baseline understanding of how the economy works so that you can better appreciate the risks that we all face.

It shows how dangerous trends in the economy, energy, and the environment are converging which alone could prove disruptive to our way of life, but together they portend both unprecedented crisis and significant opportunity.

Activity 4

• Read the 'Contraction & Convergence' briefing at http://www.gci.org.uk/briefings/ICE.pdf
  • on page 3 it says that: 'One third of [the world's] population have 94% of global purchasing power and cause 90% of GHG pollution. [They call these ‘debitors’]. The other two thirds, who live on less than 40% of the average global per capita income,
    collectively have 6% of global purchasing power and a 10% share of GHG pollution. [They call these ‘creditors’].
  • this means that in rich countries (like Australia) each of us is responsible for 18 x times the greenhouse emissions of poor countries.

Contraction means that over time global greenhouse emissions are reduced to 20-30% of current global emissions

Convergence means that consumption of fossil fuels declines in rich countries and increases in poor countries until an equitable share of the declining global level of emissions is reached.

The allocation of equal per capita shares of available emissions globally would allow people in poor countries to sell some of their shares whilst improving their living standards.

·        Given that global emissions need to be halfed to 2 tonnes/person/yr

·        That current average global emissions are 4 tonnes/person/yr

·        That Australian emissions are 28tonnes/person/yr

·        But that higher income Australians have higher emissions than low income Australians

·        That China’s emissions are at the current global average of 4 tonnes/person/yr so they need to half their emissions

·        That China currently has in the order of 8-10% economic growth with about a 1:.9 correlation between growth & energy consumption in China

• What changes would result in rich countries if fossil fuel users had to buy their right to emit greenhouse gases on the global market?

• See the annotated demonstration at http://www.gci.org.uk/  for more details and animated illustrations

Activity 5

Read the account of LETs systems in the extract from Watkins in the Study Book 1C.29, along with selected reading 19.

• Go to the following site and see if you can find some friends to do the activity described there http://earth.path.net/mitra/lets-pretend.htm
• Download the Cooperation Game from http://hourmoney.org/coopgame.htm and try playing it.