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.…
Counter Solutions
Pacific Islanders’ Food-Sharing Customs Ensure Resiliency in Face of Disaster
by Stacy Jupiter, Teri Tuxson, Caroline Ferguson & Sangeeta Mangubhai Strong social networks foster resilience to food system shocks, both within and between Pacific Island communities. Pacific Islanders are no…
Resisting End-Time
In a recent report, the United Nations set out some top priorities everyone can practice in helping to counter climate change and keep Earth (humanly) habitable. Here is the short…
We Can Have A Livable World Or Capitalism, But Not Both
Humanity is facing a choice it never had to face before: either radically change how people relate to nature and to one another or face ecological ruination and general social…
Farmers, Women, Innovators Give Hope for Meeting Climate Challenge in Rural India
At a time of increasing concern over climate change, contributions of several women, farmers and innovators have given reason for increasing hope in mitigation as well as adaptation work in…
How Small Farms Are Reclaiming Culture in Palestine
Palestinians are organizing CSA programs and small farms to become food sovereign and protect their culture against colonialism. Food sovereignty is an urgent issue in communities around the world, especially since the…
Jeremy Corbyn: It’s Not Enough to Resist—We Have to Build, Too
In April, the UN’s climate scientists warned it’s “now or never” to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. You can almost hear them screaming at their keyboards, desperate…
Why ‘Bolivia Is the Center of the World’ for People’s Movements
Humanity finds itself at a crucial moment. It’s not only war and climate change that threaten life on our planet. Ideologies and some people do too. We know that money…
How People Can Change the World—JEPESD Path of Social Movements
Many thoughtful people of world are now concerned deeply about aggravation of several serious problems led by life-threatening environmental problems and accumulation of weapons of mass destruction. At the same…
We Cannot Adequately Resist Without Reimagining the World We Want
We need change-making—both big and small—around the world, that challenges the structural causes of militarism, corrupt capitalism, and climate catastrophe, while at the same time, concretely creating an alternative system…
Localization and Local Futures: The Alternative to the Authoritarian New Normal
‘World Localization Day’ will be celebrated on 20 June. Organised by the non-profit Local Futures, this annual coming together of people from across the world began in 2020 and…
Pandemic Blues
During an extermination event - the first and only ever such event in the universe's life - it is difficult to contemplate the relations between humans and the rest of…
A solution for climate change which does not even mention the ff words!
Is it possible to suggest a solution for climate change which does not mention the words fossil fuels even once? Before you dismiss this suggestion, kindly spare just two minutes…
An Alternative Path for India
A Program Based on Justice, Equality, Peace, Harmony and Environment Protection Introduction In the middle of unprecedented world problems and many-sided internal distress, India must find a firm path based…
Movement Generation Works to Usher in a Sustainable Just Transition
Movement Generation educates activists on the dynamics of social and environmental justice. In the mid-2000s, when the documentary featuring former Vice President Al Gore, “An Inconvenient Truth,” first alerted viewers…
Sustainability Is Not as New an Idea as You Might Think—It’s More Than 300 Years Old
Modern sustainability evolved from forest management of the 18th century, and its ancient roots go back even further. Could it help with today’s climate crisis and lumber shortage? The proverb…
Putting technology in its place
The most recent topic explored by the thinkers and activists who make up the Great Transition Network was “Technology and the Future”. As writer after writer posted their thoughts, it…
Debunking the Eternal Economic Growth Model
Can those who advocate hitting the brakes on economic growth get their message across before it's too late? Over the last three decades, a growing number of scientists and ecologists have…
Kurosawa’s Ikiru and the current spate of resignation among professionals
Akira Kurosawa (1910 - 1998), was a Japanese filmmaker and painter who directed 30 films in a career spanning 57 years. He is regarded as one of the most important…
This path of development is toxic
There are many discussions going on regarding pollution. But the one aspect that is being overlooked in all these debates is our development model. It has a major contribution in…
World Soil Day
Today December 5, is celebrated as the world soil day (WSD). The proposal for a global day to celebrate soil was first recommended in the year 2002 by the International…
The ‘Dharitri Youth Conclave 2021’: In search of ecological citizenship
The progressive Odia daily newspaper 'Dharitri’ has organised ‘Odisha Youth Conclave on Climate Change’ while celebrating its 48th birthday on 24th of November 2021. In a profit driven mass media…
What do we really need to change?
We need to change our ways! Unless you’ve been living in a cave in the last 40 years or so, you’d be getting a pretty strong message about that pretty…
A Common Justice-Based Program for Entire World to Check Climate Change
While the need for checking climate change is being re-emphasized with a great sense of urgency, at the same time the inadequacy of the existing response and efforts to check…
Indigenous Leaders Call for Landback Reforms and Climate Justice in “Required Reading”
As the world watches what transpires at COP26, the United Nations climate summit taking place this week in Glasgow, the U.N. has blasted governments and businesses for utterly failing to meet their climate obligations. There’s a…
Trying to Solve One Problem by Increasing Another Will Not Protect Environment
The increasing emphasis on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and fossil fuels should be very widely welcomed, but the entire environmental issue cannot be reduced to just this. It is much…
A World Without Money
And climate change begins . . . “Three or four thousand years ago the gods began a migration from the lakes, forests, rivers, and mountains into the sky, becoming the…
A 2 Per cent Tax on Billionaires Can Provide 260 Billion Dollars to Climate Fund
In 2009 a commitment was made by rich countries to create an annual fund of 100 billion dollars to help the Global South in climate change mitigation and adaptation by…
Bicycle In Jamshedpur
In the twentieth century nothing represented the working class culture more than the bicycle did. That is why the film ‘Bicycle Thief’ (1948, Italy, Director: Vittorio De Sica) remained the…
The Ecological Crisis is the Climax of Patriarchy and Religious Patriarchy – What’s Next?
Ecological wisdom emanates from a deep awareness that, while humans are unique among all animals, they remain utterly dependent on their biophysical environment to sustain human life, and therefore must strive to live…
As Climate Change Threats Increase, Solutions Offered by Farmers and Workers Should Get More Attention
There is deepening concern worldwide at the increasing threats from climate change and the ongoing Climate Summit at Glasgow is in the middle of examining these serious issues. Scientists…
Democratic Eco-Socialism in Australia
by Thomas Klikauer and Meg Young Bushfire smoke over the Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Bridge on 29 December. Photograph Source: Nick-D – CC BY-SA 4.0 Perhaps democratic eco-socialism starts with a…
The Socialist Cooperative Commonwealth
Since its origin in the early 19th century by followers of Robert Owen, the term “socialism” has evolved to mean many different things to many different people and has been…
Our Future vs. Neoliberalism
by Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies In country after country around the world, people are rising up to challenge entrenched, failing neoliberal political and economic systems, with mixed…
An Indigenous peoples’ approach to climate justice
Climate change has been identified as the “defining issue of our time” by many of the world’s leading experts and the diagnosis of planetary health is dire. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform…
What Youth-Led Movements Teach Us About Democracy
Youth-led mass mobilisations in recent years have challenged the argument that young people have no interest in politics or democratic processes. Young people displayed a commitment to change and modelled…
How to Raise Climate-Resilient Kids
In the face of climate change, children need positive stress as well as compassion to maintain mental health and inform their responses. Climate-related disasters are on the rise, and carbon emissions…
How 9/11 Set Progressive Causes Back—and How We Rebounded
As the 20th anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center approached, I wasn’t paying much attention. But then I received an email from my longtime colleague John Cavanagh,…
What Might an Ecosocialist Society Look Like?
Before describing possible features of a future ecosocialism, it is worthwhile to consider why such a system is even needed. Why can’t the problems that ecosocialism would solve also be…
Reclaiming Our Common Home
The path to an ecological civilization is paved by reclaiming the commons—our common home, the Earth, and the commons of the Earth family, of which we are a part. Through…
Passing the Torch
The baby-boom generation is ending its lap in the human race, and the Fridays-for-future generation is beginning its run. Generational shifts of power are symbolized by the image of passing…
Pandemic And The City
Density is desirable in the modern world. Flourishing Cities and their thriving suburbs being living examples of the lure of density. The density which seemed alluring in the past…
Agriculture, technology, and addiction
Even for the smallest ailment, people, these days, resort to medicine. They trust that medicines can ‘cure’ the root cause of the disease. Some people take refuge in medicines even…
Energy needed to eradicate poverty ‘compatible with climate goals’
From the houses we live in to the food we eat and the education we receive, living a good life requires materials and energy. For many, this means an increase…
The Only Long-Range Solution to Climate Change
This article is adapted from POWER: Limits and Prospects for Human Survival (New Society Publishers, September 2021) by Richard Heinberg Climate change is often incorrectly described as an isolated pollution issue. In…
Enough for Everyone
Given the current climate emergency and the broader ecological breakdown that looms, there are few issues more pressing than that expressed by the single word: enough. Yet, it is possible…
As Our Bodies and Planetary Systems Become “Inflamed,” How Do We Heal?
In their new book, authors Rupa Marya and Raj Patel explore how capitalism and colonialism have caused sickness and how Indigenous knowledge can offer healing. Multiple planetary crises are breaking out…
Restless and Relentless Minds: Thinking as a “Species out of Context”
Abstract The stability of the Earth’s ecosystems, and hence the future of the human species, depends on people recognizing and responding to multiple, cascading social and ecological crises that can…
Barefoot College Lights the Path of Decentralized Solar
While the importance of increasing renewable energy particularly solar energy is now widely recognized, there is need also for giving more importance to its decentralized spread. There has been…
A Viable Human Future Depends on Living With Less
We cannot eat money and there are no winners on a dead Earth. Science tells us that we now have fewer than 10 years to reduce the human burden on Earth…
The Inspiring Legacy of Global Movements
With a harrowing new IPCC report, a global pandemic with no signs of abetting, and the ongoing humanitarian disasters left in the wake of war and conflict, it is easy…
Capitalist Crisis, Radical Opportunity
In the wake of interlocking global crises, we must remember that capitalist crises (of profitability or legitimacy or both) have led to collective action (revolutions, social movements), which in turn…
From Soil to Society: A Systems Approach to Change
To build a different system—one that values healthy soils, biodiversity, clean water, and human capital over exploitation and profit at all costs—we must invest in the knowledge that supports it.…
It Is Possible to Satisfy Humanity’s Universal Needs Fairly and Keep the World Livable?
Given the current climate emergency and the broader ecological breakdown that looms, there are few issues more pressing than that expressed by the single word: enough. What is enough? Put that…
Questions to Richard Heinberg from a 15-Year-Old Student
Callum Alexander from Scotland recently contacted me with a few queries about renewable energy. I thought they were interesting questions that might occur to others, so I asked his permission…
Nature Is Not a Machine—We Treat It So at Our Peril
From genetic engineering to geoengineering, we treat nature as though it’s a machine. This view of nature is deeply embedded in Western thought, but it’s a fundamental misconception with potentially…
Our Dark Wicked Side
We have a dark wicked side. It controls many of our thoughts and actions. It ensnares the smart and the dumb, the privileged and the non privileged, the healthy and the…
How to manage urbanization
Urban areas are generally perceived to be expanding at the cost of displacing villagers and destroying villages. Even if their houses can be retained, villagers still lose their farms, farming…
The Crofting System
A land tenure system that has existed for hundreds of years and remains relevant even in the twenty-first century is the Crofting system. Crofting is a traditional form of land…
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