Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Just around a year ago, business sustainability consultant and climate organizer Eduardo Sasso published A Climate of Desire ー a book reconsidering the original roots of Christianity to more fully enable us to respond to the challenges of climate change.
But much of the book is philosophical and applicable almost anywhere, as when they question the war against invasive species, or detail the value of leaving some areas wild, even if the neighbors think it’s unkempt. This allows the native ecology to flourish and work harmoniously, controlling pests, pollinating crops, and preventing erosion. Thus, I recommend this book to anyone looking for ideas on how best to steward their land in the most responsible ways.
Ultimately, the voting system at the WB/IMF contributes to the perpetuation of global inequality. The system ensures that the very countries that became rich by plundering the global South during the colonial period are now, by dint of their plunder, empowered to determine the rules of the global economy in their own interests, indefinitely. Inequality begets inequality.
On the day Greta Thunberg gave her emotion-filled speech at the United Nation’s (UN) Climate Summit, another historic event involving the Swedish activist and 15 other youthful climate hawks—representing 12 countries–took place. The filing of the first-ever legal complaint about climate change to the UN’s Committee on the Rights of the Child. The communication is titled Sacchi et al. vs. Argentina, et al.
Despite the furor over the Green New Deal (GND), many of its supporters have no idea of the wide variety of views on it, especially within the Green Party (GP), where it originated in the US. From June through August, 2019 Missouri Greens held public discussions contrasting at least three distinct GP views to those from the Democratic Party (DP).
The University of California’s investment strategy takes stakeholder views into account – such as student protesters at Berkeley, above, in 2014 – but its divestment program is primarily based on the belief that fossil fuel investments present a financial risk.
Therefore, to anyone who’s contemplating planting trees on a piece of land because they have specific goals for it, as we did – wind protection, privacy, nitrogen fixation, firewood and timber, amenity value, fruit and nuts, even wildlife habitat or carbon sequestration at a stretch – I say don’t be put off by the permaculture purists who insist on natural regeneration. Go for it.
The world cannot live without Saudi oil. While media focus is on oil prices and how quickly full production can be brought back Saudi Arabia’s underlying peak oil problem has not been discovered yet. Together with the permanent threat of further attacks there is a double vulnerability now.
Obviously, successfully preserving the remaining Amazon will take multiple solutions, both small scale and local and large scale and international. But if you are feeling hopeless about what’s happening, consider joining up to Amazon Uprising and protect some trees, while getting informed about what’s going on in the bigger picture.
Impeachment has been the big dog on the political porch this week. It promises to be there for quite some time–possibly through the end of the year. Stonewalling by the White House and the arrest of two colleagues of the president’s lawyer, Rudi Giuliani, suggests there’s a lot of information around that needs to be gathered and gone through.
While the EPA made some headway during the Clinton and Obama administrations, those achievements were undone under George W. Bush and Donald Trump. Throughout the Bush and Trump administrations, the EPA has supported the right of Exxon and other fossil fuel companies to pump greenhouse gases (GHGs) into our atmosphere with no legal or financial constraints and no consideration of the consequences.
What is the best-case scenario for solar geoengineering? For author Holly Jean Buck and the scientists she interviews, the best-case scenario is that we manage to keep global warming below catastrophic levels, and the idea of geoengineering quietly fades away.
