Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
As other North American tribes have begun to experience the effects of climate change over the past decade, they too have started to adopt climate resilience and adaptation plans. According to a database maintained by the University of Oregon, at least 50 tribes across the U.S. have assessed climate risks and developed plans to tackle them.
It felt like such an honour to be part of this process, to see it unfold. It was such an affirmation for me of how these ‘What If’ tools can take us deeper, can support us to access our deeper imagination. And as more and more organisations and businesses come to the realisation of the urgency and the scale of the climate and ecological emergency, we will need the tools to support them to go deeper in this way.
As we work towards this new culture, we experience frustration, fear, anger, grief and many other dark emotions, not to mention physical exhaustion. In these uncertain circumstances, which are unlikely to end any time soon, we need spiritual and intellectual courage, as well as persistence and patience.
There are no easy solutions to the problems we are facing. Addressing climate change will take a lot of work by a lot of people all over the planet. The fight against our climate crisis is not a sprint, it’s a marathon. We will need to learn how to build resilience of our interiority as much as we engineer resilient communities and infrastructures.
A carbon footprint is a best guess about how much greenhouse gas my actions (and those taken on my behalf) cause to be put into the atmosphere. It’s an attempt to measure the harm I do, understand it and then reduce it by making different choices. If you’re wondering whether it matters, I recommend reading The Uninhabitable Earth.
In that spirit, and hoping to spark discussions and other lists, these six ideas for system change are humbly offered, because it’s all about building global networks of people seeking systemic change as our only hope for confronting the climate crisis that is worthy of the name.
Share Shed is a Library of Things in Totnes, in the southwest of England, where over 350 items are available for members of the project to borrow at a nominal fee. After watching many people coming in from nearby villages and towns to borrow equipment they didn’t require regularly, Share Shed coordinators began to think about creating a mobile version of the project.
Nonviolence is not about what not to do. It is about what you are going to do about the violence and injustice we see in our own hearts, our homes, our neighborhoods and society at large. It is about taking a proactive stand against violence and injustice. Nonviolence is about action, not inaction.
Some of our most cherished sustainable farming practices – from organic agriculture to the farm cooperative – have roots in African wisdom. Yet, Black farmers experience discrimination and marginalisation worldwide. Author, activist, farmer and founder of Soul Fire Farm in New York, Leah Penniman is committed to ending racism and injustice in our food system.
As Australians grapple with the consequences of the fires in upcoming months and embark on the necessary journey of regenerating themselves and their land, I hope they will look to nature – and farmers like Colin, Eric and others – for inspiration.
As I have learned about the social life of trees and the intimate bonds that indigenous peoples have with various lifeforms and rivers — as I pore through recent ecophilosophy that explains aliveness to the western mind — I’ve concluded: We really ought to be talking more about animism and commoning.
Two groups on the West Coast, Chico Flax in the Sacramento Valley of California and Fibrevolution in the Willamette Valley of Oregon, are now leading the revitalization of the flax textile industry in the region. Groups in other regions of North America, such as the Cleveland Flax Project in the Rust Belt Fibershed, are also doing this work.
