Green Myths Canada’s LNG Sales Force Tells the World
Representatives of the British Columbia, Alberta and federal governments are making the global rounds these days to sell the notion that liquefied natural gas exports can help the climate crisis.
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Ten Years After Howard Zinn’s Death — Lessons from the People’s Historian
It’s always worth dipping into the vast archive of Zinn scholarship, but as the United States flirts with another war in the Middle East, as the presidential campaign raises fundamental questions about the kind of country we will become, and as the world confronts a potentially catastrophic environmental crisis, now is an especially good time to remember some of Howard Zinn’s wisdom.
Courting Solutions to the Climate Crisis — In All the Wrong Places?
Twenty years of gridlock have squandered the time that would have been better used for steady—dare I say progressive—enactment of federal policies and programs to effectuate the transition to a just, low-carbon, and sustainable economy.
Our Ancestors Managed Fire Country for Millennia. We Yearn to Burn Once More
We live in fire country as taught through fire lore, this is how I understand what is happening across country. These times are hard for us first peoples, so often we are ignored.
Chickens in Our Small-Scale Food Production System
Chickens in a small-scale food production system, whether that’s a suburban backyard or a bit of acreage, are valuable first for the services they provide. In nature, scavenging omnivorous birds form a symbiosis with large mammals.
After a Decade of Fracking, Billions of Dollars Lost and a Climate in Crisis
Over the past decade, as the climate crisis worsened, hundreds of drilling rigs dotted both the Permian Basin’s desert expanses in Texas and the Marcellus Shale’s Appalachian hills, grinding through rock to reach oil and gas trapped in brittle shale deep underground. In that time, the U.S. smashed global records for the production of oil and gas — two of the three fossil fuels most responsible for the ongoing climate crisis.
Radical Trust, Deep Democracy and the Health of the Commons
We want to break down the barriers that prevent us from working together for causes that are bigger than all of us. We want to build a new narrative of solidarity, kindness and care. And we want to reset political boundaries – to say with courage that the increasing tendency towards inequality, racism and sexism that we are witnessing in this and other countries cannot continue.
The Right-Wing Steamroller: First Trump in the US, then Bolsonaro in Brazil, now Salvini in Italy….. No, wait! Salvini was Defeated!!
Even if you don’t follow Italian politics, the recent upset in the elections is significant. Italy’s Berlusconi was the first of the right populists to win power, and now Italy seems to have developed an immunity toward their propaganda strategy: “The idea is to target the lowest cultural level of the population. Use scare tactics, find enemies of all sorts, demonize them, then promise safety in the hands of a right-wing government.”
For-Profit Investments Are not ‘Development’
The British government is ramping up its policy to divert taxpayers’ money into private hands – and away from the world’s poorest people, warns Labour’s Dan Carden.
The UK-Africa Investment Summit will send a clear signal. The UK government’s aid policy will not be driven by evidence about how to best fight global poverty, but instead by naked free market ideology and the interests of British business.
Climate Politics/Capitol Light (41)
The Trump administration has gone to great pains to purge Obama-era science advisers from federal advisory boards and replace them with their own. Trump’s scientists seem to have the integrity many of his administrative appointees, e.g., EPA Administrator Wheeler lack.
Apocalypse Fatigue, Selective Inattention, and Fatalism: The Psychology of Climate Change
Connie Barlow, a climate activist, writer, and film maker, dislikes the word “apathy” used to describe people’s response to climate change. She says, “I now bristle at that word. In my view, what looks like apathy, especially when it comes to climate disruption, is actually a variety of psychological protections.”
Carbon Gardening: A Natural Climate Solution that Can Help Reduce CO2 Emissions While Restoring Biodiversity
Gardeners new to the concept of carbon gardening often ask these two questions: What good soil management strategies will help maximize carbon sequestration? And, what would be a good plant palette to help accomplish this? Good questions both, to which I wish I could give detailed, specific answers.
