The Empire Crumbles: Part I—The Big Picture
Don’t cower in front of your screen. Get out and join with others in projects to make your town stronger and more socially and environmentally sustainable.
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By the Rivers of Babylon: debating agrarianism with Tom Murphy
There’s nothing much we can do about this world-as-it-might-be symbolic capacity we have, simultaneously humanity’s blessing or genius and also our curse. Writing, farming and so on were not the cause of our malaise but the result of it.
Ditching Dualism #10: Determinism
One major hangup in subscribing to a physics-based universe of material monism is that it appears to remove human agency as typically conceived in our culture. If atoms and their interactions are making everything happen, abiding by rules they (or we) cannot violate, is there any room left for human intervention or free will?
The Being Way of Degrowth
For those of us seeking post-capitalist futures: rather than burning ourselves out Doing — the energy of the capitalist system we are trying to topple — why not try Being, the energy of degrowth?
Plants and the great cognition debate
If Calvo is out at the front, all the same, he’s not there on his own. Colleagues in the field also believe that the ‘machine metaphor’ of body and brain is getting in the way of understanding—even preventing us from seeing what’s in the data we see in front of us.
After Decades of Deflection, ExxonMobil Moves to Reshape Global Climate Accounting
An ExxonMobil-backed initiative, Carbon Measures, is pushing to reshape how the world does the math on climate change. Their system, outside analysts point out, leaves consumers holding the bag.
When Water Decides: Securing National Ambitions through the Hydrological Cycle
As long as water is treated as a problem to be drained rather than an ally to be welcomed, it will abandon us when we need it most and strike when we are least prepared.
Make America Go Away…from the Deep Ocean
So, it’s time we Make America Go Away from the Deep Ocean. Yes, the MAGADO movement. I encourage you to write a public comment and register to speak.
It’s ecological breakdown that should put us on a war-footing: official
Admissions of extreme, eco-caused national security threats foreground importance of climate adaptation to bring much needed urgency and agency.
Hedging bets on catastrophe
It’s not rare for people to be left behind by profit-driven corporations, or even overlooked by underfunded and understaffed government agencies. In that case, we must learn to turn to each other. And in preparation for such times, we must bolster community resilience through initiatives like community gardens, tool libraries, and the like.
If I were the global ruler
As large systems strain and loosen, smaller systems already begin to form. People create pockets of care, work, learning and shelter that operate by different rules. These efforts remain partial, local and imperfect, yet they matter.
World oil and natural gas consumption vs discoveries: Diverging trends mean trouble
In the oil and natural gas industry it is a truism that you can’t produce what you haven’t discovered. Here’s why current trends are disturbing.
