Power lines against a glowing sunset sky

California wildfires, electricity shutoffs and our troubled energy future

By Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights

Most of the news surrounding the electricity shutoffs in California—done to avert the ignition of additional wildfires by aging electrical infrastructure—has focused on two things: climate change and the greedy, incompetent management of Pacific Gas & Electric. Missing in this discussion is the broad neglect of the complex infrastructure of the United States and possibly other wealthy nations.

  • October 13, 2019

LATEST ARTICLES

Greta Thunberg and Tokata Iron Eyes

Greta and Tokata at the Front Lines

By Talli Nauman, Tatyana Novikova, Esperanza Project

On a world tour for climate justice, Swedish teen activist Greta Thunberg visited Native America Oct. 6-8, attracting a gymnasium full of enthusiasts at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, leading a march on Rapid City Hall alongside youth climate leader Tokata Iron Eyes, and speeding off to the Standing Rock Sioux Indian Reservation.

  • October 9, 2019
Susanne Moser

Despairing about the Climate Crisis? Read This.

By Laurie Mazur, Susanne Moser, Earth Island Journal

So we’re having to deal with completely new environmental conditions, and we will be changed by that. Can we imagine that? No. Can we try to imagine that we’re not just clobbering each other over the head or blowing each other up? I can imagine something different.

  • October 3, 2019
Jet plane

Questions as Big as the Atmosphere

By Bart Hawkins Kreps, An Outside Chance

What is the best-case scenario for solar geoengineering? For author Holly Jean Buck and the scientists she interviews, the best-case scenario is that we manage to keep global warming below catastrophic levels, and the idea of geoengineering quietly fades away.

  • October 2, 2019
Lets_Talk

A Chat Leads to a Change of View on Climate

By Karin Kirk, Yale Climate Connections

In the March for Science Facebook page, someone asked how group members might engage in productive conversation with a family member who holds opposite ideologies. The query immediately prompted hundreds of comments and suggestions, with the tally increasing by the minute.

  • September 30, 2019
CRISPR plus DNA fragment of e.coli

Oops! Gene editing not as precise as advertised

By Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights

Sometimes a headline gives you practically the entire story. Take this one: "Gene-Editing Unintentionally Adds Bovine DNA, Goat DNA, and Bacterial DNA, Mouse Researchers Find."

  • September 29, 2019
degrowth

Growing Pain: The Delusion of Boundless Economic Growth

By Ian Christie, Ben Gallant, Simon Mair, Open Democracy

Degrowth’ is a good bet. There is sound empirical and theoretical evidence that our economies are dependent on material and energy resources and embedded in the delicate balance of the Earth’s life systems. And if we pull it off, the payout is huge.

  • September 26, 2019
The Response podcast

Transitioning from Competition to Collective Resilience

By Tom Llewellyn, Shareable

Paris has been on the cutting edge of a worldwide municipal movement dedicated to making cities more resilient to the physical, social and economic challenges that are a growing part of the 21st century.

  • September 26, 2019
earth

Brexit: Systemic Risk and a Warning

By David Korowicz, Geneva Global Initiative

But the reality of our lives, irrespective of wealth or position, is that we are thoroughly interdependent with each other, the socio-economic networks that bind us, and the planet and its living system that holds us all. When we tear at the fabric of our relationships, we undermine the welfare of all, and our capacities to face the dire challenges ahead.

  • September 26, 2019
fresh fruit

Eating the Earth – Food Miles

By Darius Ghadiali, Bristol Pound blog

If we want to reduce our environmental and social impacts, we need to know the distances, methods and alternatives to our food choices. By using local businesses, it is easier to begin choosing food that doesn’t rely on polluting shipping methods, poor working conditions and unfair pay in the different parts of the supply chain.

  • September 25, 2019
Maplin closing FAQS

Ripping Off the Plaster

By Andrew Curry, thenextwave

They say that your syntax always finds you out. Metaphors can be just as revealing. As George Lakoff observes, metaphors are the devices we use to frame the way we think about the world. In politics, according to Lakoff, it the competition for the frames--effectively, competition between the metaphors--that resolves electoral and political competition.

  • September 25, 2019

EDITOR’S PICKS

Extinction Rebellion

As Society Unravels, the Future Is Up for Grabs

By Jeremy Lent, Patterns Of Meaning blog

As civilization faces an existential crisis, our leaders demonstrate their inability to respond. Theory of change shows that now is the time for radically new ideas to transform society before it’s too late.

  • September 16, 2019

THINK RESILIENCE

FEATURED RESOURCES

Eating Tomorrow cover

Eating Tomorrow

By Timothy A. Wise, The New Press

A major new book that shows the world already has the tools to feed itself, without expanding industrial agriculture or adopting genetically modified seeds, from the Small Planet Institute expert

    • September 10, 2019

    The Agroforestry Handbook

    By Ben Raskin, The Soil Association

    Written for farmers and advisors this book will help you assess the potential business benefits of agroforestry for your farm or client and to understand the possible benefits to the wider environment.

    • August 16, 2019

    MORE ARTICLES

    Chino_copper_mine

    The Climate Strikes are About so Much More than Green Colonialism

    By Asad Rehman, Open Democracy

    It will require imagination and political will, it means listening to and being guided by those on the frontlines of extractive projects and climate impacts. Solutions to these crises won’t come in the shape of a battery - they come in the shape of justice, reparations and equity.

    • September 24, 2019
    degrowth graffiti

    Why Degrowth is the Only Responsible Way Forward

    By Joël Foramitti, Marula Tsagkari, Christos Zografos, Open Democracy

    To sustain the natural basis of our life, we must slow down. We have to reduce the amount of extraction, pollution, and waste throughout our economy. This implies less production, less consumption, and probably also less work.

    • September 23, 2019
    Detroit protest

    Why Detroit Could Be the Engine for the Green New Deal

    By Eleanore Catolico, YES! magazine

    This resilience and continued drive of Detroiters makes the city the prime location to implement Green New Deal reforms. A national dialogue about the Green New Deal cannot ignore its application on the local level, Onwenu says, especially around reframing how outsiders have touted the city’s revitalization.

    • September 23, 2019
    wealth

    For the Sake of Life on Earth, We Must Put a Limit on Wealth

    By George Monbiot, The Guardian blog

    A meaningful strike in defence of the living world is, in part, a strike against the desire to raise our incomes and accumulate wealth: a desire shaped, more than we are probably aware, by dominant social and economic narratives. I see myself as striking in support of a radical and disturbing concept: enough.

    • September 19, 2019
    Naomi Klein

    Naomi Klein: “The Moral Crisis is Inextricable from the Ecological Crisis”

    By Naomi Klein, Aaron White, Open Democracy

    Klein’s forthcoming book, 'On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal', takes the reader through a journey of essays and lectures spanning the last decade, exploring how our contemporary crises, from the ecological to the moral, reinforce each other.

    • September 18, 2019
    ×Close