Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
All of this makes it clear who the real beneficiaries of globalization have been. And suddenly it seems a bit absurd to be touting as “progress” the pennies that have trickled down to the poorest when the overwhelming majority of new income since 1980 has been captured at the top.
These communities—South Deering, Pilsen, and Little Village—all keep fighting back. The support of groups like the Sierra Club and Pilsen Alliance, standing in solidarity with them, makes them even stronger. As Cheryl Johnson said to me, it is important to “follow what you believe is wrong to try and make it right.” And that’s just what these communities are doing.
I’m with you when you say that climate change is the most important issue facing humankind. I’ll even go so far as to say it’s the most important one ever. But, when I hear folks say—and I have heard it—that the environmental movement is the first in history to stare down an existential threat, I have to get off the train.
While the subject of this story is what we may call biocultural, eco-culinary, or reciprocal restoration, it is quite often enabled through a social process that has been called either community-based restoration, collaborative conservation, or cooperative collaboration.
I would even venture that climate change is becoming one of the topics most talked about—or like religion and politics not to be talked about—around dinner tables. I credit the rising tide of youth activism for this rather sudden reversal of fortune.
We must hold ourselves accountable for our actions before it is too late to prevent catastrophic collapse. When the water runs out we have no one to blame but ourselves.
We already have many climate protests now in Belgium. What we especially need now are some good debates and analyses about what direction the climate movement in Belgium (and other countries) should take.
In terms of money and the flow of capital through complex securities, millisecond computer trades, and financial institutions that are Too Big To Fail, trillions means mind-numbing. In terms of microbes and life in the soil, trillions means teeming.
Here are a few stories about adaptation, to give a feel for actions that flow out of this type of hope — a hope that includes a hard-won acceptance of the very real possibility of impending collapse.
“We doubled production and got $9.5 billion less in royalties,” said Hughes. “We are not getting anything for the resource, and its production is having a huge impact on our GHG [greenhouse gas] emissions.” “Obviously we have to ramp production down, and we have to ramp down personal oil consumption.”
Our obsession with economic growth is making our task much more difficult than it needs to be. It’s like we’ve chosen to fight this battle facing uphill, with one hand tied behind our back.
We’re up against the huge power of the fossil fuel industry; the extraordinary ideological opposition to the federal government doing anything important; money going into disinformation campaigns that people readily bought into. And it’s still going on.
