Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Amending Biden’s climate plan with elements of the GND, e.g., banning fracking, could gain the active support of progressive environmentalists. As oil drops below $30 a barrel, a fracking ban may no longer be of much consequence to companies otherwise going bankrupt.
Let’s listen to the voices of the original, indigenous caretakers of the lands we now inhabit. This body of wisdom and practical, replicable models is readily available for us to learn and activate in our own communities. Let’s take this time to see how we can do that.
I invite each of you to share your own sources of inspiration, solutions and hands-on practical knowledge that we can use as we forge ahead with a new way of being.
The bottom line is, that despite the current urgency of the global pandemic, the climate crisis that brought us all together continues unabated. Indeed, scientists warn that the kind of global disruption we are now experiencing so keenly, will become increasingly common in the years to come unless we act now to sharply curb our CO2 emissions.
But we aren’t hopeless bystanders in this fight; we can’t stick our heads in the sand like cartoon ostriches and pretend this isn’t happening. As luck would have it, there is a successful strategy we can use – and we must – to flatten the curve and slow the spread of coronavirus: altruism.
I don’t know about you, but the never-ending stream of worrying news about the coronavirus and social distancing are taking a toll on my psyche. So I reached out to the delightful Leslie Davenport—a licensed psychotherapist who I got to know because of her work on climate psychology—to get her advice about how we can practice self-care, and care for our loved ones and neighbors, while trying to navigate this pandemic.
A wave of student-led actions swept across the campuses of around 60 U.S. and Canadian schools last month, as students turned to sit-ins, walkouts and banner drops to pressure universities into divesting their endowments from fossil fuel companies. Called “Divestment Day” by activists, the Feb. 13 series of actions was just the latest escalation for a movement that’s been undergoing a serious revival.
The point to make in this article is of the need to self isolate and/or practice social distancing, at the same time as maintaining economic activity as best we can. There will be no one size fits all ways of doing it and each person will have to improvise during this crisis.
Public Health. What is that, really? It’s not just the services of research institutions, public education, medical professionals, hospitals, equipment, medicines, emergency rooms, insurance and such. It’s a healthy public. The question arising now is: What can we do, as a society, to support a healthy public?
At Post Carbon Institute we have been closely monitoring the global COVID-19 pandemic and encouraging our staff, volunteers, and broader community to take great caution and practice social distancing. But that doesn’t mean we should disengage.
If we really care about the health of people and planet, we should think twice before we decide to spend money on accelerating this destructive trajectory. While it is essential that jobs are maintained and undue hardship is avoided, propping up the status quo is not the only option available.
Artists are enlisted to help ‘deliver the message’ and ‘raise awareness’, as though art were a sophisticated extension of the PR department or a cheap alternative to an advertising agency. This is not only a misconception of what art is and what it’s good at, it’s also a misconception of the knowledge work that remains, when the scientists reach the end of their road.
There are many proposals for radical economies from progressive economists, activists and think tanks. Artists are increasingly joining these debates with speculative proposals and unconventional methodologies.
