Articles by: Chris Smaje

Of George Monbiot, mathematical modernism and the case for agrarian localism

Of George Monbiot, mathematical modernism and the case for agrarian localism

When you read a book with which you profoundly disagree, I guess it’s usually best just to shrug, put it back on the shelf and get on with your work. The hatchet job review is a popular but ignoble genre. Having been the object of one myself I can attest the outcomes are rarely positive, apart perhaps from a warm[Read More…]

by — 10/08/2022 — Comments are Disabled — Book Review
Business-as-usual porn – or, We need to talk about collapse

Business-as-usual porn – or, We need to talk about collapse

I think we need to talk openly and calmly about the possibility of societal or civilizational collapse arising from humanity’s present predicaments. And that’s mostly what I want to pursue in this post – not so much what the likelihood or the underlying mechanisms of collapse might be, but the idea that it would be useful if, as a society,[Read More…]

by — 19/07/2020 — Comments are Disabled — Resource Crisis
Saving George Monbiot

Saving George Monbiot

Since I’m (almost) halfway through my ‘history of the world’ blog cycle, I thought I’d take a halftime break and write about something else this week. Especially since an urgent task has suddenly presented itself to me – the need to save George Monbiot from becoming an ecomodernist. Now, let me start by saying that, week in week out for[Read More…]

by — 12/10/2017 — 1 comment — Environmental Protection
The Elephant In The Room Is Capitalism. Maybe.

The Elephant In The Room Is Capitalism. Maybe.

I’d been hoping to pay another visit to the Peasant’s Republic of Wessex, but red tape has been holding me up at the border so it’ll have to wait probably for another couple of weeks. Instead, I thought I’d offer a few top-of-the-head thoughts on Felicity Lawrence’s recent article about agricultural pesticide use in The Guardian – or, more specifically,[Read More…]

by — 11/10/2016 — 6 comments — Counter Solutions