Helena Norberg-Hodge

True climate action doesn’t require vast data centers, billions of liters of water, or mineral-intensive hardware. It requires shorter distances, stronger communities, healthy soils, local food webs, and diverse, place-based economies that reduce demand at the source.

We need people to be involved, consumers to take a stand. We need a global, cross-sectoral movement for localisation.

So, yes, we need to condemn globalization loud and clear. And we need a cohesive strategy that moves us sensibly and sanely in the opposite direction.

Our food system is linked to an economic system fundamentally biased against what’s good for people and the planet.

Helena Norberg-Hodge is a linguist, author, filmmaker, the founder of the international non-profit organization, Local Futures, and the convenor of World Localization Day. She addresses the question of “What Could Possibly Go Right?”

For a better future, we ultimately need to put technology back into its place, and favor democratically determined, diverse forms of development that are shaped by human and ecological priorities—not by the gimmicky fetishes of a handful of billionaires.