Technology that “empowers the individual” can threaten all of us
By Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights
"Empowerment" is a buzzword for our age. But when does empowerment mean catastrophic societal risk?
LATEST ARTICLES
Review of “Plastic: An Autobiography” by Allison Cobb
By Frank Kaminski, Mud City Press
"Plastic" is a beautifully written, intricate mosaic that weaves memoir, poetry, cultural and scientific history, chemistry, biography, etymology, journalistic reportage and self-reflection into a penetrating rumination on humanity’s relationship with plastic.
Around the world in a shopping cart
By Bart Hawkins Kreps, An Outside Chance
In that paradise of capitalist productivity, who besides Jeff Bezos will still have enough income to fill their shopping carts?
Blah, blah, blah, yay: Another epic fail for the COP, but seeds of growth for our movements
By John Foran, Resilience.org
The winners of COP 26 were the indefatigable voices of civil society, whose actions were loud and clear: on the final Friday, many, many organizations walked out of the COP in protest, reminded me of the walkout I witnessed and took part in at COP 19 in Warsaw in 2013.
What Could Possibly Go Right?: Episode 62 Susan Campbell
By Vicki Robin, Susan Campbell, Resilience.org
Since 1967, Dr. Susan Campbell has been a couple’s therapist, relationship coach, speaker, workshop leader, trainer of professional coaches, college professor, certified Radical Honesty trainer, and founding teacher of the Getting Real work. She addresses the question of “What Could Possibly Go Right?”
What’s Next for Biden’s Build Back Better Act?
By Joel Stronberg, illuminem
Well, it finally happened. An infrastructure bill has found its way onto a president’s desk for signing. Affectionately called the BIF in the halls of Congress and along the K Street corridor where the cognoscenti congregate, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework was truly that—bipartisan.
The Energy Bulletin Weekly 29 November 2021
By Tom Whipple, Steve Andrews, The Energy Bulletin
The discovery of a new coronavirus variant named Omicron triggered global alarm on Friday as countries rushed to suspend travel from southern Africa, and the equity and commodity markets on both sides of the Atlantic suffered their most significant drop in more than a year.
Critical minerals problem: Supply chain issues come to the fore
By Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights
Some familiar metals just moved to a critical minerals lists in the United States as supply chain difficulties made even nickel and zinc supplies problematic. Will bringing manufacturing "back home" really solve the problem?
The Energy Bulletin Weekly 23 November 2021
By Tom Whipple, Steve Andrews, The Energy Bulletin
Crude futures moved sharply lower on Friday as the markets weighed the impacts of new pandemic lockdowns in Europe and a stronger US dollar. WTI settled down $2.91 at $76.10, and Brent moved $2.35 lower to settle at $78.89.
To keep fossil carbon out of the air, just stop pulling it out of the Earth
By Stan Cox, Seattle Times
Ending the extraction of fossil fuels from the Earth while achieving material sufficiency, equity and justice would move us a long way toward the more livable future that the people who gathered outside COP26 — along with billions of others around the world — are demanding and are standing ready to create.
Can the Green New Deal save us? No it can’t.
By Ted Trainer
Advocates for a Green New Deal are for a collection of admirable goals which it is usually taken for granted can be achieved within a capitalist economy and while the pursuit of economic growth continues. Here is an indication of the main reasons why these assumptions are totally mistaken.
COP26 – Caught in a Net: Agriculture, Climate Change, and the Decarbonisation Agenda
By Chris Maughan, Agroecology Now!
As COP26 draws to a close, this blog offers some reflections on the fraught relationship between the mainstream process and the social movements, and what this means for the fight for a just and agroecological transition.
Campaign to shut down New England’s last coal plant is doing ‘what must be done’ for the planet
By Arnie Alpert, Waging Nonviolence
“This is what the state, this is what the fossil fuel industry will do to protect this big, outdated, ancient asset — instead of protecting us, the people, and taking action against the climate crisis.” Without missing a beat, Shapiro-Weiss boldly stated, “This is why we’re doing this.”
EDITOR’S PICKS
Reflections on tsunamis, determination and a week in Glasgow
By Rob Hopkins, Rob Hopkins blog
And so I leave Glasgow not optimistic or pessimistic, but infinitely more determined. And feeling like the power, the flow, the surge of Friday and Saturday’s tsunamis will carry us forward. I feel it at my back, I feel it in my stomach, and I will feel it forever.
Property ownership in a small farm future
By Chris Smaje, Small Farm Future
And so we come to the thorny issue of landownership and property rights in a small farm future, which I discuss in Chapter 13 of my book.
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The Dawn of Everything
By David Graeber, David Wengrow, Farrar, Straus and Giroux
The Dawn of Everything fundamentally transforms our understanding of the human past and offers a path toward imagining new forms of freedom, new ways of organizing society. This is a monumental book of formidable intellectual range, animated by curiosity, moral vision, and a faith in the power of direct action.
The New Possible: Visions of Our World beyond Crisis
By Philip Clayton, Kelli M Archie, Jonah Sachs, Evan Steiner, One Project
The New Possible offers twenty-eight unique visions of what can be, if instead of choosing to go back to normal, we choose to go forward to something far better.
MORE ARTICLES
Inflationary pressure in the US
By Jody Tishmack, Anima/Soul
We cannot continue consuming cheap goods imported from countries and then criticize them for burning fossil fuels. It’s time to wake up and recognize that living on renewable energy will require a totally different lifestyle from the one we’ve been living.
The elites can’t stop climate change, but democratic cities can
By Yavor Tarinski, Resilience.org
It is time for the radical democratization of cities, in order for a meaningful and resourceful plan for action from the grassroots to be initiated. Anything less than this is simply a waste of time.
In Praise of Laziness
By Eliza Daley, By my solitary hearth
I firmly believe in the virtues of laziness. I would see a return to economic un-productivity. Happily, I also doubt wage-work will survive as we are forced to focus on meeting our own needs using less transport and fewer resources.
How Wealth Inequality Fuels the Climate Emergency: George Monbiot & Scientist Kevin Anderson on COP26
By Amy Goodman, Nermeen Shaikh, George Monbiot, Kevin Anderson, Democracy Now
Let's just stop producing this great tidal wave of consumer goods. And let’s find other ways of measuring quality of life...
‘Sense of Place’ Discourses in Anti-fracking Struggles and Lessons for Degrowth
By Adam Marshall, Javier Lloveras, Degrowth.de
What is the role of ‘sense of place’ discourses in anti-fracking struggles and can the degrowth movement learn anything from them?
The era of cheap living is over
By Jody Tishmack, Anima/Soul
We’ve lived this way for decades, but if we are going to address climate change it’s time for us to recognize that the era of plentiful, cheap goods is over. We will pay more for everything.