Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
In this short intervention, we bring a critical social science perspective to the Planetary Boundaries framework through the notion of societal boundaries and aim to provide a more nuanced understanding of the social nature of thresholds, one that it has the potential to offer guidelines for a just, social-ecological transformation.
This is one of the greatest challenges for rapid transition in our warming world: as temperatures rise, and extreme heat events become more frequent and severe, how can we keep cool without costing the Earth?
In the foothills of western North Carolina, the small town of Morganton is home to a growing co-op movement that’s reinvigorating the region’s once-struggling textile and furniture manufacturing industries, and refashioning them around egalitarianism and localism.
To blow off a few cobwebs, I decided to spend a couple of days hiking a part of the Ridgeway, which has been in use for around 5,000 years and is supposedly Britain’s oldest road.
Set in the eastern United States in the late fall of 2040, the novels chronicle five crucial weeks in the lives of migrants fleeing climate-driven hardships and political leaders doing their best to manage America’s tumble into history’s dustbin.
So even while there were beautiful reminders of our connection to nature at this conference—talks, posters, and so on—there was, and will continue to be, far more reminders of our broken relationship, which Gaians and other ecologically spiritually minded folk should, and I hope will, continue to work toward healing.
In essence, GPL, in the first instance, is based upon the fundamental necessity for an international legal order that ensures the self-preservation of nations and nature in the Anthropocene.
The 1970s surge in ecological awareness saw many books published on our relationship with the natural world. ‘Food for Free’, by Richard Mabey, was published fifty years ago in 1972.
In Bookchin’s view, freedom wasn’t about doing whatever the heck we want and letting others clean up the mess. Real freedom was the freedom to collectively determine how to satisfy our needs in a precious and finite world.
Instead of focusing so many human resources on ensuring that the well-off do not receive benefits, the universal character of UBI guarantees that no one who needs help is left out.
With fossil fuels and electrification, and thus greater mobility and instant communications, we have indeed become a human “hive.”
Headlines for the week of June 20 – June 26
