Putting Nature at the Center
Life may be unique to Earth. Even if single-celled organisms can readily evolve in conditions that exist on millions or billions of other planets, we have no actual evidence that complex, multi-cellular…
Counter Solutions
An Economics of Love
In early 2024, I offered an online 12-week course called “An Economics of Love” under the auspices of Biodiversity for a Livable Climate. I hosted an introductory session to describe…
Simplicity and Complexity
It seems to me that when people talk about voluntary simplicity, they are talking about refusing to engage with wasteful lifestyle patterns. Which is well and good at face value.…
To confront the oligarchy, we need to build power at the community level
Wrong way world A consistent theme through my life has been to understand our world, to assemble a comprehensive picture the best I can, respecting the world’s boggling complexity and…
A Dialogue That Spreads Message of Swaraj and Links this to New Concerns
A recently organized national dialogue in Delhi called Swaraj Samvad linked the concept of Swaraj to current concerns particularly climate change. In the course of the dialogue several important messages…
Can the Swaraj Path be India’s Answer to Climate Change?
As climate change intensifies and the inadequacy of the west-driven climate response becomes clearer by the day, it is helpful for the entire effort if countries of the global south…
Towards Comprehensive Food and Farming Policy
There is increasing realization that while various countries have varying levels of success in their food and farming policies, on the whole, at world level, the existing farming and food…
Protective Agenda for World Must Emphasize Resolving the Survival Crisis in Time
Most thoughtful people are likely to agree that what the world needs most is a protective agenda—protective towards vulnerable and poorest people as well as protective towards environment. However in…
Beyond Growth: The promise of a wellbeing economy
In this article, econometrician and sustainability researcher Gaya Herrington considers whether a transition to a Wellbeing Economy is possible and what that would mean for our society and how we…
Food: from commodity to commons
Below I republish an article I wrote almost ten years ago. It can give new readers a summary of my perspective on the food system. For those interested in even…
Odyssey: Hopes and dreams
Societies around the globe face multiple crises. In this context, is marshaling hope and dreaming up beautiful futures—imagining a world that could be—a useful response, or is it escapism? Our…
Some thoughts on Richard Heinberg’s ”Envisioning a Livable Future”
Few in recent years have made a more significant contribution to our ecological salvation than Richard, and in my dogmatic opinion his most recent essay is stating many of the lessons we…
Farmers Unite in Groups to Increase Income, Yield and Innovation
Several small farmers of an OBC community in Mahuari village have formed a group called Pragtisheel (translated as progressive). In the course of just three years or so they have…
Doubling Down on Regeneration
If you’re anything like me, over the past few weeks since Donald Trump’s sweeping election victory, you’ve been engaged in deep and prolonged reflection about what it means that such…
Small farming, urbanisation and climate migration: beyond the stereotypes in Bangladesh
Bangladesh is a small country that sits within the Northeast of South Asia with India wrapped around it, and Myanmar to the South. Despite its small size and relatively recent…
Why amidst many difficulties, most farmers of Rawatpura village are smiling
Visiting several villages of Karauli district (Rajasthan, India) recently, it was generally not difficult to reach them. However the situation changed dramatically when going to Rawatpura village located in Sapotra…
Model of Facilitating Cultivation of Abandoned and Neglected Land in Eco-Friendly Ways Evolving in Karauli
Efforts to increase food production generally emphasize intensively developed areas which already have high levels of production. On the one hand many areas recording much lower levels of food production…
Human Progress in the Trump Era
by Tawakkol Karman, Saul Perlmutter, and Brian Schmidt SYDNEY – Having just been elected president of the United States for a second time, Donald Trump is poised to reshape international…
An Emerging Third Option: Reclaiming Democracy from Dark Money & Dark Tech
Seven Observations On 2024 and What’s Next In 2024, over 2 billion of us voted in national elections. So what have we learned so far this year, in general and…
Decoupling ‘The Good Life’ from Capitalism
Rethinking abundance, wellbeing, and security in a post-growth world. To offer a meaningful alternative economic system, I believe it is essential that we engage with what we dream of as…
Envisioning a Livable Future
Sir David King, former chief scientific advisor to the UK government, recently wrote that, “On our present path, civilization as we know it will disappear.” More than a century’s worth…
Resolving Environmental Crisis Needs AWAIG–Avoiding Wars, Inequalities and Greed
The environmental crisis is a many-sided crisis which has many important and inter-related aspects including air pollution, space pollution, freshwater shortages and pollution, climate change and increasing disasters, pollution and…
Education that Helps to Create and Maintain a World Based on Justice, Peace and Protection of Environment
Education reform has been discussed a lot but has been seldom taken forward in the true spirit. All too often, this has been discussed in very narrow contexts with a…
Why any further delay in the utilization of Mangal Turbine will be a great loss to farmers and to environment
Mangal Turbine is a highly praised innovation by a farmer scientist of India which makes it possible to lift water without diesel and electricity from small rivers, streams and canals.…
Ask (Not) What You Can Do for Your Planet
No one wants a nuclear reactor in their backyard. It’s an eyesore and a health hazard, not to mention the hit to your property values. And don’t forget the existential…
How Increasing Self-Reliance of Villages Can be a Very Useful Part of Climate Response
Climate change mitigation and adaptation are two very important challenges of our times, important for all countries, regions and people. However the response must be in tune with the livelihood…
Certainty
I struggle to strike a balance between certainty and circumspection. Our culture has a tendency to favor certainty, while one of my favorite and frequent fall-backs—seldom wrong—is: “we don’t know.”…
On Composting Space
Oh! Shit! Yes, let us talk some shit! All animals shit, including human beings. What happens to the shit? It gets composted and goes back to soil. That is until…
Money is a Social Agreement—Let’s Start Treating It That Way
Like most people, I usually mute and ignore advertisements; however, one caught my attention. It was the new Barclays advert—have you seen it? Well, whether you have or you haven’t…
“Post Growth”—Why and How?
People against destroying our planetary home often favor “No Growth”—“steady as she goes”—or even the rhetorically catchier “DeGrowth”—“shrink baby shrink.” Their pro-growth opponents sometimes say, “grow baby grow,” or more…
Climate Change Response Should Never Get Dominated by Big Business Interests
Climate change is one of the most significant issues of our times. It must get very high priority. Both climate change mitigation and adaptation are highly important issues. On the…
Will science and technology save us?
This is the third article in a series discussing the “curse of the straight line”, which is shorthand for the polycrisis of modernity and the industrial civilization. In the previous article, I…
Criminalisation of Alternative Politics
The working masses are now seeking alternative political, cultural, social, and economic systems that work for all, irrespective of any form of discrimination on the grounds of gender, class, race,…
Being Human
This is the seventeenth of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life…
What Would a Real Renewable Energy Transition Look Like?
Humanity’s transition from relying overwhelmingly on fossil fuels to instead using alternative low-carbon energy sources is sometimes said to be unstoppable and exponential. A boosterish attitude on the part of many…
Cancer Diagnosis
This is the fourteenth of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life…
Need for Climate-Resilient Crops to Address the Climate Change Crisis
Since ancient times, farmers have selected crops based on local climatic conditions. However, with climate change, maintaining traditional crops has become increasingly difficult. Some crops may adapt to changing climatic…
Identifying the Most Significant Indicators of Progress
Identification of most significant indicators of progress is essential for any country or society, and this should be seen as only a first step towards having the willingness and the…
Jal Sahelis–Women Volunteers of Bundelkhand Region Who Mobilize Villagers for Water Conservation and Sanitation
Bundelkhand region in central India is spread over 14 districts of two states-- Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh. It has frequently been in the news due to water scarcity but…
India’s 2024 Election Results Should Spur a Renewed Movement Towards Justice, Equity, and Sustainability
The results of India’s 2024 national elections have been widely commented on. From the perspective of the members of the Vikalp Sangam General Assembly (listed below), which represent a wide…
Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Banking or Monetisation of Interpersonal Relationships
The Sumerian civilisation, one of the earliest known societies, had sophisticated systems of lending, borrowing, credit, and debt. These systems were based on mutual trust and social currency, allowing individuals…
Restoring Nature Is Our Only Climate Solution
Why there is no viable techno-fix to climate change, and why trees, soil, and biodiversity are our real lifelines. Climate change is a huge, complicated problem. Therefore, many people have an…
Facing a Surge in Wildfires, the U.S. Government Turned to Native Wisdom and Advanced Archaeology
Collaborative efforts between forest agencies and Indigenous communities are improving wildfire management by combining oral histories with long-term archaeological datasets, demonstrating the value of integrating an understanding of the past…
The 31 Commandments Of Gaia
Deus sive Natura 1) Gaia is both a complex planetary ecological system and a Goddess. This may seem paradoxical even contradictory but it is not. It depends how you approach…
Increasing Equality and Social Harmony Provide the Most Firm Base for Progress in India
In the middle of several attempts to create confusions and uncertainties, India must hold its faith firm in equality and justice on the one hand and social harmony including inter-faith…
Design Thinking Fosters Social Innovation
Design Thinking could be variedly conceived as a methodology, strategy, idea or a worldview, that is essentially customer-centric in its scope and applications. On a granular level, it is borrowing…
Set up High-Priority, People-Based International Organization for Protecting Life-Nurturing Conditions of Earth
By far the most important issue of our times is that the life-nurturing conditions of earth are threatened very seriously for the first time by human-made factors. Very devastating changes…
We Must Reject Ego-Nomics to Prevent Human Extinction
To secure the well-being of all of Earth’s people and the many other members of Earth’s household, we will need a new economics, an “eco-nomics” that guides us on a…
We Need a Plan for the Transition to Renewable Energy
by David Fridley and Richard Heinberg Radical societal transformation is inevitable; a plan could make a difference between catastrophe and progress. The transition to renewable energy is inevitable given the…
Co-Evolution
Evolutionary theory or the Darwinian theory of Natural Selection explains how biological life has developed and evolved to its present state on our planet. Darwin’s theory proposes that Individuals of…
Debt Forgiveness in the Bronze Age
Whether in the realms of trade or agriculture, the operative principle was that debtors should not lose their economic liberty by being held liable for “acts of God.” When interest-bearing…
The Inspiring Movement to Build for Climate Resiliency
Architects and everyday people are teaching each other to build spaces for community and climate resilience using local, natural materials. The way we build our structures and organize our cities…
Outdated Narratives Have Humanity in a Downward Spiral—It’s Time to Tell ‘Stories for Life’
A short film and narratives project “Stories for Life” seeks to bring about the shift in culture that humanity needs to survive. The stories we do and don’t tell about…
Social Sciences Must Change to be Able to Contribute to Real Progress
If asked to compare a community of forest produce gathering people about 7000 years ago with a most modernized group of people in New York City today, most people would…
How Media Companies Can Meet Their Climate Commitments—and How Readers Can Help
A few simple strategies for recipe curation can help newsgroups achieve their own climate goals. The global shift toward plant-forward diets, particularly in wealthy countries, is consistently recognized as one of the…
Why Small Farming Is Essential for Creating a Sustainable Future
With more farmers today than at almost any point in history, humanity’s future will likely be agrarian. We must imagine that world into being. Let me start this journey with…
Can the Kids Change Our World?
“All Americans owe them a debt for — if nothing else — releasing the idealism locked so long inside a nation that has not recently tasted the drama of a…
A manifesto for justice: Solutions to contemporary crises in India
Like much of the rest of the world, India is facing multiple crises: the rise of authoritarian political forces, religious and ethnic repression and strife, ecological collapse, serious unemployment and…
Carbon Farming: A Sustainable Agriculture Technique That Keeps Soil Healthy and Combats Climate Change
How one North Dakota farmer saved his farm and livelihood using carbon-friendly farming methods. What if there were a way to safely pull billions of tons of carbon out of…
How California’s Farmers and Ranchers Could Lead the Way to Climate Resilience
A platform of California Climate and Agriculture Network would move billions of dollars into the hands of farmers and ranchers willing to adopt regenerative food and farming systems. When it…
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