Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
We won’t be able to really assert food sovereignty until we acknowledge and recognise caste oppression in India. Anti-caste is at the very core of building food sovereignty.
Central to the idea of the Restanza, as proposed by the Italian anthropologist, Vito Teti, is that places sometimes characterised as “left behind,” inferior to the metropolitan hubs of the modern world, can be brought back to vitality, that being left behind can be reimagined as the positive act of purposively staying behind.
For many of us a very challenging component of eco-grief is knowing that we too are part of the problem. We inflict harm on what we love.
The education of older generations, including my own, has not prepared most faculty to hold these harsh truths and process these heavy emotions in generative ways, and thus, the education we offer our students is not preparing them to do so either.
Diverse movements such as the environmental, racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, and women’s empowerment movements require a unifying framework: a comprehensive partnership approach, recognizing our interconnection with one another and the natural world.
This is what the Great Unraveling will look like as it continues to emerge, unrelated phenomena synchronising to exacerbate each other.
As the Great Unraveling continues apace, the need for radical change will become more apparent, causing more and more people to seek out alternatives. At that point, the winds of change will be blowing at our backs.
But as each climate disaster brings our current system closer to collapse, we have an overriding obligation to future generations, and to life itself, to shine a directional beacon through the darkness of our times to a potentially brighter future—and to help lay down a trail toward it.
As we navigate the path ahead of us, there’s a long list of goals and tasks on our list to strengthen our community, support our friends and neighbors, and create a thriving space where our crops and the people around us can flourish and benefit from the resilience we are contributing.
There is an end to this culture of self-harm. It will not be comfortable, I’m sure. But it will not be an end of the world.
Where discussion of climate often centres on carbon emissions, a focus on overshoot highlights the materials usage, waste output and growth of human society, all of which affect the Earth’s biosphere.
I celebrate the fact that I am no more than “stuff,” as I’m not just any pile of atoms, but a unique one capable of experiencing emotion, enjoyment, love, awe, and all the rest. I get to revel in a marvelous world of other unique creatures.
