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…
Counter Solutions
On Jugaad
Jugaaḍ is a non-conventional, frugal innovation, in Indian subcontinent. It also includes innovative fixes or a simple workaround, solutions that bend the rules, or resources that can be used in…
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.”…
Ancient settlements show that commoning is ‘natural’ for humans, not selfishness and competition
When I’ve had conversations about the commons with right-leaning people (and sometimes cynical people on the left too), a typical response might be something along the lines of: ‘don’t waste your time…
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…
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…
Recap and Mythology
This is the sixteenth 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…
Degrowth aims to achieve ‘frugal abundance’
Degrowth is about building societies in which everyone is rich – without much material. It is a desirable project to strive for. For critics, degrowth is not very appealing. According…
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…
A Trophic Perspective on Fossil Fuels
Like the economy of nature, the human economy has a “trophic” structure. In nature, nutrition and energy flow from plants to herbivores to carnivores, with each of these comprising a trophic…
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…
From growth fetish to post-growth
My family and I spent 25 years in Washington DC. They were good years, and every morning I began with coffee and The Washington Post. The newspaper was a wonderful companion—and reliably…
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…
The Urgent Need for Organic Farming to Save Depleted Soils Due to Unchecked Use of Chemical Fertilizers
India is an agrarian country, but today Indian agriculture is facing a significant threat. The continuous use of various types of chemical fertilizers and pesticides is leading to soil degradation,…
Bicycle And Transition Town
“Bicycle is one of the simplest solutions to some of the world’s most complex urban challenges." So what are the world’s most complex urban challenges? There are several areas where…
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…
Of Course We Need A Different World but What Exactly Does This Mean?
There can be a fair degree of consensus regarding what is most wrong with the present-day world. It is a world where war and conflict cause enormous distress, and in…
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…
Air Pollution Is Killing Millions and Rising Exponentially—A Shift in Agriculture Can Solve It
In 1958, geochemist Charles David Keeling set up the Mauna Loa Global Monitoring Laboratory in Hawaii, which measured carbon dioxide (CO2). Keeling believed that CO2 levels were rising and wanted to prove…
A Decolonisation & Degrowth Alliance- A Powerful Agenda for the Global South
Neo-colonialism and increasing Inequality in the Global South- Focus on India “The Billionaire Raj is now more unequal than the British colonial Raj,” read a tweet by the World Inequality…
Thousands of farmers participate in seed festival aimed at protecting diversity of indigenous seeds
Nearly sixty villagers are sitting on an open floor covered by a roof for shade but otherwise open on all sides. Women and men are present in equal numbers but…
Linking Ecologically Protective Farming with Consumers who Value Healthy Food
Thanks to the efforts of a voluntary organization Srijan spread over several years, Tikamgarh district (Madhya Pradesh) has emerged as an important center for the spread of natural farming practices.…
A Dalit Farmer Shows the Way Forward for Creative Livelihoods and Environment Protection on his 2 Acre Farm
At a time when many of the bigger farmers are complaining of indebtedness and non-viability while also causing ecological ruin, a dalit farmer has shown the way forward by combining…
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…
A Make-or-Break Moment in Humanity’s Perilous Journey
The polycrisis marks a historic inflection point in the story of civilization. Once we’re past a rapidly approaching moment, society won’t be able to maintain business as usual, even with…
How a Neighborhood Co-op Started by Teens Helped Communities Around the U.S. Adopt Solar Power
The nonprofit Solar United Neighbors (SUN) is one group working to help communities move away from fossil fuels toward solar power. In our time of climate crisis, there is an…
Territorialisation of Land
In the early seventh century in rural England, the process of territorialisation has played a major role in the transformation of land into private property in its institutionalised form. This…
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…
Are EVs Truly the Greenest Form of Transportation?
A friend recently told me of a new study showing that the “life cycle” of electric vehicles (EVs) causes fewer CO2 emissions than gas-powered cars. This is important since research…
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…
Important national elections in India are a good time to consider a path based on justice, peace, and environmental protection
Introduction The national election time in India has started and in June India will have a new government in place based on these election results. These are widely regarded as…
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…
A People’s Manifesto for Ecological Democracy – 2.0
This is an updated version of the “People’s Manifesto for Ecological Democracy” that Countercurrents.org published on 15th August 2020, where we set out a broad framework on how India should…
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…
Explaining the Commons Economy
The word ‘commons’ can mean different things to different people. We’ve been working with specialists to help build the commons economy, so we’d like to concisely describe what we mean,…
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…
SELCO Illuminates Dark Lives in India
Little did Harish Hande know that the trip to Dominican Republic in conjunction with his doctoral thesis at the University of Massachusetts, would dramatically change his worldview and vocation forever.…
Real Action Based on Comprehensive Plan to Resolve Survival Crisis Should be Top Priority
There is increasing concern among some of the most well-informed people and institutions of the world that the most important problems which together constitute a survival crisis are worsening. Of…
How to Make Recyclable Plastics Out of CO2 to Slow Climate Change
Chemists are manipulating carbon dioxide to make clothing, mattresses, shoes, and more. It’s morning, and you wake up on a comfortable foam mattress made partly from greenhouse gas. You pull…
People’s Manifesto for a Sustainable, Just India
21 Demands by 85 Civil Society Movements and Organisations India needs a fundamental re-orientation of the economy, society, politics, culture, and environment, in order to resolve the growing crises of…
Rejuvenation of Rivers Brings Greenery for Now and Hope for Future
Due to a number of factors like encroachments, pollution, silting and sand-mining, many small rivers and rivulets have been degraded so much and their flow during lean season has been…
Awakening Aesthetic Awareness
Revisiting the Aesthetic education in art, architecture, and design From teaching to enabling knowledge creation From conditioning to awakening My recent experience at a design institute is the basis for…
A Social Movement of People Striving to Find their Most Relevant Role and Living in Accordance with It
Social movements sincerely trying to create a better world, whether in big or in modest ways, have always been important. Their importance has increased much more in present times characterized…
Annual Subscription
Join Countercurrents Annual Fund Raising Campaign and help us
