Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Processing these simultaneous truths — inspiration on the one hand, and systemic injustice on the other — feels like a microcosm for our wider dilemma. As we co-create a new/old system, a pluriverse of alternatives, what do we want to keep — and what will we leave behind? What might a post-growth Olympic Games look like?
It’s time for something better. To me, that something better is post-growth, where society focuses major policy interventions on growing the activities that benefit people, place, and planet and on shrinking those things that do the opposite and, all the while, not pausing to worry about GDP.
Living machines are essentially intensive, indoor artificial wetlands. Technical names for living machines include “advanced ecologically engineered systems” and “fixed-film ecology wastewater treatment systems.” What they entail is mimicking natural processes of biological decomposition in a constructed aquatic environment.
There’s nothing wrong with propounding for renewables. What’s problematic is propounding for a like-for-like transition of the existing fossil-based global growth economy to a future renewables-based one. A renewables-based transition to a lower-energy, more equitable, local and agrarian economy could be a wonderful thing.
This is not a heroic tale. There are no handsome protagonists bringing salvation at the end of the flood. There are only fleeting rainbows. And the miraculous thing is that this is enough.
Fueled by grit, aloha ‘aina, and a quest for sovereignty, Molokaʻi’s path to energy independence stands as an illuminating model of community-driven change, especially for other remote and rural locales.
In this Frankly, Nate offers preliminary guidelines for what might be termed ‘Goldilocks Technology’ – not too hot (dopaminergic gadgets) and not too cold (stone age tech) inventions for the future.
If evidence collected in timely fashion by an independent agency stands up in court, legal routes to compensation become a viable option for customers. This in turn should provide a considerable motivation for water providers – private or otherwise – to finally start cleaning up their shit.
On August 9th, we honor the world’s Indigenous peoples. Let’s move beyond stereotypes and recognize the ideas, movements, and rights of all peoples formerly and still subject to the violence of fossil colonialism.
The problem isn’t being an exceptional product of evolution. The problem is thinking we’re the pinnacle of evolution: that we’re better than the rest; somehow transcendent so that we are not mere animals. Ironically, it is in distancing ourselves from animals that we become monsters.
The discovery of oxygen production in the deep ocean without light (and therefore without photosynthesis) is upending ideas about the evolution of life and origins of oxygen in the atmosphere.
Global freedom of movement entails the right to move, but also the right to remain – that is, the assurance that one’s livelihood is not endangered by the advance of the capitalist system and the economic growth of rich countries.
