Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
2016 saw the emergence of a powerful movement against the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline, or DAPL, through land vital to Native communities, especially the Standing Rock Sioux. For non-Native people who have not been paying attention to indigenous rights struggles over the past several decades, the #NoDAPL movement may have served as a wake-up call to some of the injustices still confronting these communities.
The ability to cooperate brought us to where we are today, and it’s what will help us change the world. Without cooperation, the Circular Economy will not be possible. So how will this work, practically? And what are the key principles of cooperation that we can start applying everywhere we go?
Good health means more than good medical care. Many other things affect how long we live and how healthy we feel—conditions in our housing and neighborhoods, the social and physical environment of our communities, economic opportunities and the levels of stress in our lives.
It’s been pointed out countless times that humankind’s current ecological crisis stems from our conviction that we’re apart from nature. Scott Brown’s book Active Peace takes a closer look at what lies beneath this mistaken belief, which he contends has deeply wounded all of us psychologically.
More and more Greeks move away from the cities and start over as farmers. A beekeeper, an olive farmer and a mushroom grower tell us their stories. The seminars offered at the Syngrou Ranch – home of the Athens Institute of Agricultural Sciences – are in high demand, proving that agriculture is trending in Greece.
The difficult work of organizing builds solidarity based not on some received story that reinforces given identities and friend-enemy distinctions but on shared action that, in taking on oppressive power, forces that power to reveal itself beyond the identities and stories that mask it. It is a radical and risky option that won’t work without transforming organizers who leave the coastal urban enclaves as well as the rural people they encounter. It is a transformation of politics by way of spiritual practice.
For ecosocialists, capitalism and the Anthropocene are the global signifiers upon which all worker and environmental movements must focus with urgency. The fate of humanity in the short term literally rests upon this universalist pursuit.
Transition Towns founder Rob Hopkins describes the late historian and green economist David Fleming as “one of the most original, brilliant, urgently-needed, under-rated and ahead-of-his-time thinkers of the last 50 years.”
Can you feel capitalism dying around you? There is a mental disease of late-stage capitalism causing deep worry and anxiety, prompting feelings of severe isolation and humiliation, combined with a profound sense of powerlessness for millions of people around the world. The question I ask today is What are YOU going to do about it?
Founded as a resource to prevent food waste, the CropMobster network has grown into an online platform for farmers, food activists, and pantries to exchange resources. Designed to “ignite food system crowdsourcing,” CropMobster empowers local leaders to connect communities interested in sharing or trading goods, labor, excess food, events, and news to help end hunger and reduce food waste.
I started to write a brief review of David W. Orr’s 2016 book Dangerous Years: Climate Change, the Long Emergency, and the Way Forward. I found, however, that a longer “essay” was what I felt called to write. Orr’s book is the best thing I have read on the overall social-change challenges of this century.
In this episode we spoke with Rob Hopkins, the founder and figurehead of the Transition Movement, which is a grassroots community project aiming to increase self-sufficiency and address the ecological and economic crises currently faced by humanity.
