Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
We need to come together and pool our wisdom, strength and resources to build a whole new system, a world where all are privileged, to live in bounty, beauty on this wonderful Earth we’ve been given.
Today, our series host Vicki Robin answers the question herself of “What Could Possibly Go Right?” In interview with Amy Buringrud of Post Carbon Institute, Vicki shares what she’s learned from the series’ guests so far.
Is it too weird to say that, as bad as the first half of 2020 has been, it’s been a relief? A tiny virus has achieved what decades of activism could not: stop us in our self-destructive tracks. She essentially sent us to our rooms to think about our behavior.
As of right now, climate justice does not have a unified definition. Its meaning changes depending on who is using it so let me make my vision very clear. Climate justice is collective liberation by another name.
To address the complex threats and opportunities of the 21st century needs a change of mindset and daily political practice – away from the mindset of the machine and the engineer and towards the mindset of the garden and the gardener.
Archaeologist Joseph Tainter, whose book The Collapse of Complex Societies I mentioned in my previous post, uses this working definition: “A society has collapsed when it displays a rapid, significant loss of an established level of sociopolitical complexity”.
The good news is that a pioneering generation of time rebels is now emerging to challenge the myopic political presentism at the heart of representative government, where politicians can barely see past the next election or even the latest tweet.
For more than 150 years, from the rural South to northern cities, Black people have used farming to build self-determined communities and resist oppressive structures that tear them down.
My conclusion, after years of studying environmental research literature, is that some form of societal collapse is indeed highly probable this century, depending on how we define “collapse.” … Collapse needn’t imply that nearly everybody dies at once, or that the survivors become wandering cannibals. Rather, it means our current institutions will fail to one degree or another and we will have to find alternative ways to meet basic human needs—ways that are slower, smaller in scale, and more local.
In this transformative moment, how do we make sense of what’s happening? Even more importantly, what can we do to help steer change toward a more desirable future?
Rob Hopkins is an author and a Co-Founder of Transition Town Totnes and Transition Network. He approaches the question of “What could possibly go right?” with a fascination in the power of imagination for our future.
Lyla June, musician, anthropologist and activist, introduces us to the Seven Generations New Deal and how applying this has the potential to create “what could possibly go right”.
