Trump: the Defeat of Science
Defeats are supposed to teach people how to do better; in theory. In practice, it often happens that defeats teach people how to become masters in blame-shifting.
Editor’s picks
Donald Trump and Economic Growth: A Brief Interregnum on Growthism
To the question, “What is wrong with the economy?” Trump answers: we have made bad deals…
How “Open Source” Seed Producers from the US to Indian are Changing Global Food Production
Frank Morton has been breeding lettuce since the 1980s. His company offers 114 varieties, among them Outredgeous, which last year became the first plant that NASA astronauts grew and ate in space.
A Good Day for a Walk in the Woods
Not since the Civil War has an American presidential Inauguration Day been so fraught with fear and dread (on February 23, 1861, Abraham Lincoln traveled to his inauguration under military guard, arriving in Washington, D.C., in disguise). The incoming president is the most unpopular of any to assume office since modern polling began.
The Growthist Self: Growthism Part 3
It is according to the same sort of cultural changes and thus the change in the social roles of our heroes that we might notice the way we, in American, have replaced the explorer, frontiersman, aviator and astronaut with a new hero—one with a decidedly commercial bent.
2016: The Year Magic Broke into Politics
So let’s get down to business: is the rise of Donald Trump a millenarian movement? If so, what the hell does that mean?
Forging Permaculture Hand Tools, Part 1
The magic of fire and hammer is truly transformative and I am marvelled by it every day that I work at the forge. An abandoned railroad spike is reborn as a hori hori and a truck’s leaf spring becomes a heavy duty trowel. This marvellous process has been around for millennia and it still appeals to many
The Peak Oil President?
The frequency of Internet searches for the term “peak oil” has waned dramatically in recent years; now even the number of articles announcing the “death” of peak oil has dwindled, so universal is the assumption that the concept is completely debunked. Why bother beating a dead horse? With supreme irony, it could be within the next few years when the maximum-ever rate of world oil production is actually achieved, to be followed by terminal decline.
Fake News as Official Policy
In the first part of this review, we looked at the climate and energy disruptions that have already begun in the Middle East, as well as the disruptions which we can expect in the next 20 years under a “business as usual” scenario. In this installment we’ll take a closer look at “the perpetual transmission of false and inaccurate knowledge on the origins and dynamics of global crises”.
Regenerative Agriculture: Our Best Shot at Cooling the Planet?
Soil is the second biggest reservoir of carbon on the planet, next to the oceans. It holds four times more carbon than all the plants and trees in the world.
Standing Rock and the Return of the Nonviolent Campaign
Nonviolent campaigns are often dramatic and catch the attention of millions—think of Standing Rock water protectors resolute in the face of a brutal police force. All the more puzzling that the concept of a “nonviolent campaign” is little known and often ignored when people talk about how to mobilize power, for example, to prevent Donald Trump from erasing gains made in addressing climate change.
The Case for the Power of Culture
Let’s begin by stopping our addiction to thinking in big structural terms. There is value in the scaling-up structural visions and strategies for growing our movements for co-operative/solidarity economics [2] and deep social change. However, structural strategies by themselves are like a one-armed swimmer moving upstream into a heady current.
