Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
I want to propose that we the people agree to change the meaning of the GND acronym to Green New Directions and start to consider seriously the crop of ideas—some old, many new—now being presented by Democratic presidential candidates and Republican and Democratic members of Congress as a starting point to reach a national consensus.
In this episode, Will talks to us about his work over the past eleven years, organizing micro-entrepreneurs in poor areas of Kenya. Central to his work has been the creation of community currencies that have enabled a greater amount of trading and utilization of capacity in those communities.
Despite the U.S. fracking industry’s history of “capital destruction,” one of the top investors in the world has bet big that Occidental holds the secret to Permian profits. But perhaps this time really will be different, or perhaps Occidental will follow in the footsteps of Halcón and others who bet it all on the Permian and lost.
I can already see a growing recognition that connection, inclusion, creativity and celebration are the keys to a genuinely better future.
As a parish priest and Christian Climate Action member put it to me, the ecological crisis is also a “spiritual crisis.” Certainly it seems to be a crisis that requires and justifies spiritual responses and resources – a coalition of religion, ritual and rebellion.
Soils are, after all, the structural foundation for any food production system. So when we first undertake an agroecological approach to farming, we are literally building a sustainable food system from the ground up.
A National Imagination Act could have a key role to play in making that a reality. What would you do? How would you enable the imagination to flourish where you live, work, study? What if…
The rapid uptake of electric buses is occurring in cities around the world, with Bloomberg predicting that by 2030, 84% of global municipal bus sales will be electric.
While we recognize the powerful forces of social reproduction that stymie progressive change and make addressing climate change in time highly unlikely, a trajectory for social transformation has begun and we must stand up together to demand change.
So try something new and get uncivilized. Banish plastic words from your vocabulary, just as you might eliminate plastic from your household.
The way forward is to channel popular support for action on climate change into an organised movement. The power of that movement—marshalled to support a left government—is our best shot at doing something meaningful while we still can.
Dobson’s work is an early step toward finding a way to grow food that restores, rather than exhausts, the earth. “We’re not all the way there yet,” he said. “Humanity has yet to discover 98 percent of what’s under our feet.”
