Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
We all have to consume; it’s a necessary reality of existence. However, in the ‘consumer society’ the most radical thing you can do is not to consume ‘as directed’ – by finding alternative options that meets your needs while enacting a set of principles in opposition to that overbearing and exploitative economic paradigm.
Local is the obverse of global. It’s not just a good soundbite to say that we cannot have both a dominant global economy and a thriving local economy. For one is the master and the other the servant.
Our global civilization is facing the threat of its own Big One in the form of climate change, resource depletion, and species extinction. If our worldview is built on shaky foundations, we need to know about it: we need to find the cracks and repair them before it’s too late.
For the past five years, ProSpecieRara, in collaboration with the cities of Geneva, Lausanne and Zurich, has been producing tomato starter kits – seeds and a tutorial –, which can be ordered on their website and via social media.
There is no insurance policy that will protect us against catastrophic climate change. We cannot get our habitable climate back on any time scale that matters to humans once it’s gone. The insurance policy is us, that is, changes in our behavior and our technology done quickly enough to matter. There is no other hedge that will help us.
For me, resilience is much more complicated than the capacity to ‘bounce back’ from or respond to changes or ‘disturbances’ or other similar definitions. To be useful, resilience must be about what people are doing with the idea, how they know it and apply it, and what happens when they do.
If social movements are to continue to be a “means for ordinary people to act on their deepest values,” as Moyer thought they did, then we need to ask questions about our current culture and the dynamics that are creating more walls than ever before. Are there, in fact, universal values that are widely held today?
‘What on earth is a supper club?’ I hear you cry! Think of it as a cross between a restaurant and a dinner party. The venue is usually someone’s home, or a pop-up location, and you’re often seated at big tables with the other diners. The feel and set up varies, but expect multiple courses of delicious food and a BYO booze policy.
Black carbon is a product of incomplete combustion from forest fires and the burning of both wood and fossil fuels, and its influence on the Arctic is like the proverbial death by a thousand cuts.
If we ever thought we had secure access to things like education or health care, housing or income support, that sense of security is seeping away. In the US and across Europe, the rise of populism signals new depths of anger among people who feel betrayed by the powerful and out of control of their lives.
Herbal medicines are, and always have been, a rhizomatic source of the equitable and lateral distribution of basic needs that seeks not to hoard, commercialise, and capitalise on healthcare or to dole it out only to those with access to the necessary currency.
Playing in the street, the “really good thing” Jo and her neighbours stumbled across, has many benefits. Children need to play, it’s vital for their physical and emotional development.
