A California City That’s Taking Beauty Seriously
Bob Sampayan believes in the transformational power of beauty. Now in his sixties, Sampayan is the mayor of Vallejo, California, a primarily working-class city at the north end of San Francisco Bay.
Editor’s picks
Serving the Earth, Serving One Another
I believe what is emerging is a planetary nonviolence at the intersection of social justice-based, faith-based, and Earth-based activism. And that’s what makes this a wonderful historical moment to be alive in.
Defending Degrowth at Ecomodernism’s Home
In this context, degrowth is the proposal to intentionally shrink the physical size of wealthy economies, whereas decoupling is the hope that growing economies will at last break free from growing resource use and environmental damage.
A Nearly Infinitely Adaptable Recipe for Ecological Regeneration and Soil Carbon Sequestration
The central, overarching question on which all sides apparently agree is this: To avoid disastrous climate change and environmental destruction, how are we humans to manage our land such that the land regenerates, biodiversity increases, and carbon is sequestered?
Human Predators, Human Prey – Part 1
Could we use predator-prey relationships among widely divergent species in nature as a metaphor to help in understanding the behavior of people in complex human societies, in which some people gain at the expense of others?
Look and See; Listen and Hear: Wendell Berry and the Contradictions of our Climate
Although certainly embraced more frequently and ardently by liberals than by what passes for a conservative today, Wendell Berry is clearly a religious rather than Liberal thinker, praising the unified and relentless in his criticism of the fragmented.
By Rewriting our Past, We can Rewrite our Future
Our history would be simple if we could classify it neatly into dominating alpha-males versus cooperative hunter-gatherers, but the experience of agency gives us not one but two fundamental impulses. As well as the desire not to be dominated it gives us the impulse to explore our individuality
We Can’t Do It Ourselves
Individuals do make choices, but these are facilitated and constrained by the society in which they live. Therefore, it may be more useful to question the system that requires many of us to travel and consume energy as we do.
The Varieties of Hope
No single thing, and quite possibly nothing at all, can get us out of the epic mess we’ve made this time. Let’s stipulate that at the outset. It’s pretty obvious that situations like “the Anthropocene” and “climate crisis” are here to stay. Yet try we must, and try we do. Let’s stipulate that too, at least for some of us.
Flaws and Fallacies of the American Education System: Thoughts on the Dissonances and Difficulties Faced by the Modern College Student
With over a decade-and-a-half of American schooling under my belt, I feel that I can assert with absolute certainty that there are some fundamental flaws in how we have chosen to structure education.
What Can we Do?
We may benefit if we simultaneously hold two extremes of action; both the huge, universal movements for ecology and justice and the daily, personal actions that help slightly and make us better examples to others.
10-Minute Neighborhoods: The Low-Tech Solution to Almost* Everything
Health. Energy. Climate. Crime. Education. Happiness. Water. Housing. What if it were possible
to make headway on all these issues with simple changes to our neighborhoods?
