Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
There is little space for optimism in the world we are entering, but instead an urgent need to respond to its demands with a sober sense of its constrained possibilities. Our aim should not be to build utopia, but to lash together a life raft.
Driven by fossil fuels, powering new technologies, society (and the global climate) has been completely changed. But like all celebrations, that process is arguably coming to an end; and like all the best parties, those who have had a really good time don’t want it to stop!
It’s important to frame just transition as an overarching framework that can guide us through a systemic transformation to a new social, ecological society that is equitable. It’s not about superficially greening the economy.
Cairo is an example of the trend of megacities with rapid growth in size and environmental inequality, marked by a dual reality between informal areas with high congestion and pollution levels and lack of green space, and exclusive new high-end desert cities with ample spacing and private access to nature.
Stacy Mitchell is co-director of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, a national research and advocacy organization that fights corporate control and works to build thriving, equitable communities. She addresses the question of “What Could Possibly Go Right?”
Tony Annett’s new book, Cathonomics, argues that our economy has become deadly to many people, precisely because it so often defeats our efforts to work for a common good. He also offers an alternative framework, grounded in the spiritual principles of Catholic social teaching.
We can regenerate the life systems to which our future is linked. But change must be at the root. Because after every crisis, we don’t want to return to normality, we want to return to the earth.
The third annual Post-Capitalism Conference took place this past weekend — with one major shift from previous years: the conference is now titled “Decolonizing Economics,” and far from being a simple title change, the theme of decolonization was quite prominently weaved through the entirety of summit’s sessions.
No one’s talking about the UK’s hugely profitable energy distribution networks. They should be publicly owned.
The co-founders at the Nashville Black Market know it takes a community to cultivate change; that it’s less about what they alone can do and more about how they can empower the people around them.
Asking himself how deep the reconstruction of the project of Enlightenment has to go, McCarraher’s answer is an emphatically italicized “all the way down” I think he’s right.
After thirty years of ineffective climate politics, finally a new idea makes it to the top of the pile. Instead of bickering about decoupling, passively waiting for a quasi-magical greening of GDP, we can finally switch to Plan B.
