The chemical element bismuth as a synthetic made crystal. The iridescent surface is a very thin layer of oxidation. Beside it is a high purity (99.99 %) 1 cm3 bismuth cube for comparison. By Alchemist-hp

The return of resource nationalism

By Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights

It wasn't supposed to be this way. The fall of the Berlin Wall was to bring about one, integrated world market where goods and services freely traversed borders without the interference of meddling ideologues—where the agricultural, mineral and man-made treasures of one country would be available to anyone, anywhere who was willing to pay for them: oil, gold, diamonds, soybeans, palm oil, wheat, computers, software and myriad other products of the earth and of human endeavor.

  • February 16, 2020

LATEST ARTICLES

Citizen's Assemblies

XR: The Case for Deliberative Democracy

By Alex Bradbury, Red Pepper

This remark, made by a member of the Extinction Rebellion (XR) Citizens’ Assembly Working Group, is met by a spontaneous flurry of jazz hands from everyone in the small Kings College London meeting room. No, we’re not all frustrated musical theatre performers; waving ‘jazz hands’ are used in XR, and other activist groups, to express agreement during a group discussion. I can’t resist pointing out the irony of our reaction – we’re all agreeing we need to be less cult-like by raising our hands in unison and waving them about. Everyone laughs, but it strikes me that this points to a deeper challenge in our work.

  • February 14, 2020
deep-sea-mining-machine

Blue Acceleration: Capitalism’s Growing Assault on the Oceans

By Ian Angus, Climate and Capitalism

“The Blue Acceleration: The Trajectory of Human Expansion into the Ocean,” published in January in the journal One Earth, describes and graphs capital’s growing drive to industrialize the oceans and sea beds. Commercial activity in the oceans is expanding rapidly, and “considerable investments … are driving growth in existing industries and the emergence of new ones, spanning an increasingly diverse range of activities.”

  • February 14, 2020
psychopath

Charming Psychopaths: The Modern Corporation

By Joel Bakan, Transnational Institute

We need to see ourselves as political actors, citizens, obliged to take part in and contribute to creating good and just societies. We need to accept that democratic governance is messy and uncertain, that it’s as much about the process of participation as it is about the resulting policies, and that it can only flourish in social conditions that nurture empathy and solidarity among citizens.

  • February 14, 2020
Dairy cows

Two Stories

By Courtney White, Resilience.org

I don’t know about you, but I’ve found the news headlines over the past month to be difficult to bear. I don’t know why we’re at each others’ throats politically and culturally in this nation. At one point, not so long ago, it felt like we were making progress on important issues, including food, water, and climate challenges. In the spirit of reflection, I’d like to share two stories of regeneration and hope – one about a milking cow who had to learn how to eat grass and one about a moment of human connection during a march in downtown Manhattan.

  • February 14, 2020
Kenya wind power

A Different Wind of Change – Harnessing Africa’s Largest Wind Project for Climate Action

By Staff, Africa Sustainability Hub, Rapid Transition Alliance

After commencing only in 2015, the Lake Turkana Wind Power Project (LTWP) in Kenya has rapidly become the largest such initiative in Africa, and Kenya’s single largest investment in the country’s history. It began generating electricity in 2018 and was fully inaugurated in 2019. For that reason, its lessons are being scrutinised for the technology’s wider regional potential.

  • February 13, 2020
permafrost

The Irreversible Emissions of a Permafrost ‘Tipping Point’

By Christina Schädel, Carbon Brief

Abrupt permafrost thaw is one of the most frequently discussed “tipping points” that could be crossed in a warming world. However, research suggests that, while this thawing is already underway, it can be slowed with climate change mitigation.

  • February 13, 2020
Angry man

Power, Friendship, and some Democratic “Rules”

By Russell Arben Fox, In media res

For those tired of the fake news and play hate, who are convinced by Austin and their own better natures that accomplishing something better is actually still possible within the American system, Hersh provides a new, detailed, 21st-century appropriate set of adaptable "rules" for us all, radicals or otherwise.

  • February 13, 2020
Farmed Fish

Why Sustainable Fish Farming Might be an Impossible Dream

By Monica Evans, Global Landscapes Forum

Consider this: almost a fifth of the annual amount of fish caught in the wild is minced and pressed into fishmeal and fish oil, the majority of which is used in fish farming for carnivorous species such as salmon and prawns.

  • February 13, 2020
ownership

Reimagining Democratic Public Ownership for the Twenty-First Century

By Thomas M. Hanna, Mathew Lawrence

The coming decade is arguably the most important in human history, especially as relates to climate and the environment. The status quo – of a planetary emergency and deep inequalities – is unsustainable and insupportable. Strategies for extending democratic public ownership over the commanding heights of the twenty-first century economy can open up a more innovative, sustainable, and inclusive futur

  • February 13, 2020
reindeer

Who Owns the Green New Deal?

By Geoff Garver, Uneven Earth

So, what about this Green New Deal (GND)? Is it merely the old wine of capitalist growth-driven development in a new bottle, or is it a recipe for socio-political and socio-ecological transformation that will right past wrongs and reshuffle political power in favor of historically disempowered people? Any Green New Deal (GND) framed as a “just transition” has to address problems of remote ownership and empower place-based governance.

  • February 13, 2020
Ecological economics

Re-Focussing the Economy in Times of Climate Emergency and Economic Exclusion

By Mark H. Burton, Steady-State Manchester

The key problem is economic growth on a finite planet – with critical limits at both the resources and the sinks end of the chain – in addition to the internal contradictions of the (can I say “capitalist”?) economy. Adding aspirational adjectives to growth, “inclusive”, “green”, “smart” …. doesn’t change the basic reality.

  • February 12, 2020
fracking

Report Attacks Industry Campaign to Fix Natural Gas’s Climate PR Problem

By Dana Drugmand, DeSmog Blog

A new report from advocacy group Food and Water Watch argues that fracking and continued reliance on natural gas is detrimental to addressing climate change. The report, which calls out the fossil fuel industry’s misleading narratives around natural gas, comes at a time when progressive members of Congress like Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez are introducing a bill to ban fracking and when the industry is ramping up its public relations push around gas.

  • February 12, 2020

EDITOR’S PICKS

climatemarch

Climate Change is Scary: Here are 7 Tools to Help You Keep Your Cool on a Warming Planet

By Sarah Jaquette Ray, Resilience.org

There are no easy solutions to the problems we are facing. Addressing climate change will take a lot of work by a lot of people all over the planet. The fight against our climate crisis is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. We will need to learn how to build resilience of our interiority as much as we engineer resilient communities and infrastructures.

  • February 5, 2020
School Strike

Manifesto for the Future

By Sam J. Knights, Monkey Wrench

I do not look forward to the future like I used to. I do not sit and dream about the life I will lead or the things I will do. In fact, these days, I have to force myself to think about it. Dreaming is effort. Imagination is work. Hope is complicated.

  • January 23, 2020

THINK RESILIENCE

FEATURED RESOURCES

book cover

Grassroots Rising

By Ronnie Cummins, Chelsea Green

Grassroots Rising is a passionate call to action for the global body politic, providing practical solutions for how to survive—and thrive—in catastrophic times. Author Ronnie Cummins aims to educate and inspire citizens worldwide to organize and become active participants in preventing ecological collapse.

    • February 12, 2020
    Overload graphic

    Overload

    Bullfrog Films

    OVERLOAD reveals the increasing toxic burden on human health from chemicals in our environment. Before starting a family, Soozie Eastman, daughter of an industrial chemical distributor, embarks on a journey to find out the levels of toxins in her body and explores if there is anything she or anyone else can do to change them.

    • January 28, 2020

    MORE ARTICLES

    German coal power plant

    The EU’s Green Deal is a Colossal Exercise in Greenwashing

    By Yanis Varoufakis, David Adler, The Guardian blog

    Emergencies tend to reveal our true priorities. When our house is burning down or the storm waters are flooding in, we hold on to what we value most, and leave the rest behind.

    • February 11, 2020
    magic trick

    Pulling Out the Tablecloth

    By Dougald Hine, Bella Caledonia

    The need for economic growth is a social construct, not a law of nature, but this construct is the tablecloth on which our current society has been arranged. The question we face, as the 2020s come around, is whether we can pull the tablecloth out fast enough without smashing all the plates and glasses?

    • February 11, 2020
    industrial hemp

    North Carolina Field Notes: 2019 Hemp Grow and Harvest

    By Tyler Jenkins, Fibershed

    Three sites were selected for continued field research into growing industrial hemp in North Carolina for 2019. Set in the rolling hills of Anson County, near Charlotte, hemp is a potential boon to a place where commodity crops and forestry are four of the top five industries. Certified hemp seed was drilled onto plots of seven acres, four acres, and nine acres, at a rate of 100 pounds per acre.

    • February 10, 2020
    Mountain View

    How We can Avert our Society’s Drift toward Disaster by Charting a Different Course

    By Neal Gorenflo, Shareable

    It’s time to swim perpendicular to the tide, time to become a real citizen, and time to practice democracy like my life depends on it, because it does. And start off in this new direction through a one year life experiment I’m calling The Year of Living Locally, which I’ll blog here on Shareable.net.

    • February 7, 2020
    Darfur refugee camp

    Migrants Welcome – How International Hospitality in a Warming World Benefits Everyone

    By Rapid Transition Alliance Staff, Rapid Transition Alliance

    People also flee from war, civil unrest and personal trauma, and they will increasingly run from natural and unnatural disasters, increasingly caused by climate change: unbearable heat, drought, flooding and crop failures. People also move for education and to join family members who have gone before them. The likelihood that they will be well received depends on how well they can fit in to the places where they land, and whether they are perceived to be adding to or taking from the existing community.

    • February 7, 2020
    Silicon chip

    Surveillance Capitalism at the Limits to Economic Growth: Part 2

    By Brian Davey, Credo Economics

    Zuboff appears to be almost entirely oblivious to the fact that the context of the surveillance capitalism drama is being played out just as the global economy has reached and overshot the bio-physical limits of the carrying capacity of the planet.

    • February 7, 2020
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