Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
How do we live wise and virtuous lives with all of our human frailties laid bare by a pandemic? Hume, I think, would answer: with others, with humor and kindness, and with constant checks on the assumptions and certainties we hold too tightly and too often in opposition to others, be they viral or human.
By strengthening local government ownership of public services and bringing them back under public control, these initiatives offer promising pathways out of neoliberalism.
One that stands out as a particularly strong example is the local government of Recoleta, a commune in the metropolitan region of Santiago, Chile.
We need to de-prioritize yield within plant breeding. It has become an obsession and does little to help prepare our farmers for the future. As global temperatures continue to climb and the frequency of extreme weather events increases, our crops need to be bred for resilience so that they can adapt to the changing environment.
Climate change will increase the geographic range of infectious diseases and air pollution increases susceptibility to respiratory illness. The pandemic emergency teaches us valuable lessons about how to respond to the climate emergency
Are we now at just such a moment in world history? Will the coronavirus permanently transform the relationship between the state and the market?
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. The thousand words of the lead image have to do with how differently Democrats and Republicans in Congress view the relationship of the current coronavirus contagion and the other great existential threat to the nation — climate change.
As Britain went into lockdown, millions of people across the country lost their jobs and the ability to access nutritious food. With the government and other organisations struggling to meet the need, community food groups have stepped forward providing emergency resources and services where others could not.
The days ahead will be days of pushing, struggling, campaigning and fighting. The old order does not let go easily. But they must also be days of attention, care, beauty, imagination. These days may prove to have just been the calm before the storm. But oh, what a calm it was.
In this episode Asher, Rob, and Jason wonder if individualism (not to mention all those other “-isms”… capitalism, socialism, communism) is simply the product of a relatively short period of expansionism, and what of our values must be kept or discarded as we enter a new era of contraction and bureaucratic breakdown.
A film produced by white people for other well-meaning white people, which does not include voices from the most vulnerable, who bear the major brunt of climate change and ecological collapse, entirely misses the mark around why ecological concerns are a matter of humiliating injustice for many people rather than merely a lifestyle choice.
As local authorities in Scotland point out, outdoor learning could be the best means of getting children back to school, as it permits physical distancing. It lends itself to re-engagement with the living world.
When it comes to energy, what was expected to take at least two decades in the IEA’s most optimistic scenario may now occur in just a few years. It turns out that the impact of Covid-19 is reshaping the world energy equation, along with so much else, in unexpected ways.
