Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Food has this unique power to connect us all, and the table is that magic field where we can look to each other, eye level, no matter our backgrounds, and allow the magic of dialogue to happen,” said Mariana Vilhena, Gastromotiva’s communication and marketing director. “Social gastronomy is all about this.”
Last week Vox published an article on the global poverty debate. The piece – by journalist Dylan Matthews – raises a few issues that I think are worth addressing. I set out nine brief points here, responding to specific quotes from the article.
Over 40% of insect species are at risk of extinction over the next few decades and 75% to 98% of insect biomass has already been lost, according to this review of the current state of knowledge about insect declines, with habitat loss through conversion to intensive agriculture being the main driver. Agro-chemical pollutants, invasive species and climate change are also driving insect declines.
This is one of the signal lessons of the inspiring work of Tosepan: that a culture of solidarity — fortified by cooperative(s) providing for material and cultural needs — deepens democracy, and that this in turn makes it very hard for predatory capital to enter.
Cosmopolitanism rests on the notion that there are many ways of leading a decent human life. Societies can put together different arrangements for leading a good life provided they respect basic human rights and entitle people to construct families, towns, cities, nations, and larger communities like the European Union or the African Union.
Under ordinary circumstances, a prudent president—one loyal to the rule of law and accepting of science—would not likely want to find himself challenged in court. Trump, of course, is no ordinary president and values chaos and delay almost as much as he does himself.
Storytelling is a powerful political tool. Becoming better storytellers has been shown to make a huge difference to the impact and efficacy of activist groups and campaigns.
The fossil fuel industry and the tobacco industry are funding disinformation campaigns so societies and countries can’t take action in ways that would generally benefit everyone except the fossil fuel and tobacco industries.
We need stop focusing on what we eat, and start focusing on how the food we eat is produced. Then we can move towards a sustainable, healthy farming system that provides for all people and doesn’t destroy the planet and its inhabitants in the process.
Science is a multicultural enterprise that benefits from and indeed requires competing views. Indigenous observations, perspectives and values enrich, not threaten, our collective knowledge of the world.
The challenge lies in organizing against the growth of far-right and authoritarian politics while simultaneously highlighting the continuities they share with the political center — the overlap between the “exception” and the “norm.”
This one has to succeed. It is not just that the youth climate strike, now building worldwide with tremendous speed, is our best (and possibly our last) hope of avoiding catastrophe.
