Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Posing a defiant alternative to the Abe government and corporate sustainability, these protesters point to the only possible path forward: Japan must take responsibility for its historical emissions, and use its enormous wealth to help pull the planet back from the brink.
The stakes of course are very, very high, here, because the climate crisis and the broader ecological emergency of which it is only the most urgent part puts the whole of what we know as civilisation at risk. By ‘this civilisation’ I mean the hegemonic civilisation of globalised industrial growth capitalism— sometimes called ‘Empire’—which today governs the vast majority of human life on Earth.
Although Trump is not single-handedly responsible for today’s pejorative politics, his reliance on invectives instead of facts has set a tone that others are willing to follow to the detriment of the nation.
The odds may be diminishing with each passing year of climate inaction, but it is more necessary than ever to sustain a hope that humanity can unite to reject authoritarian false solutions to the climate crisis and social inequities, embrace the potential for an enhanced quality of life beyond fossil-fueled capitalism, and begin to realize the dream of a liberated and truly interdependent global community of communities.
How do we build resilience economically and ecologically for a rapidly changing world? How do we scale-up hopeful solutions to serious problems? How could we work together more collaboratively despite significant cultural and political differences? How were we going to confront a warming globe and slow down climate change?
There are many signs that in our use of electronic technology we’ve reached the point of damage in the physical realm. I contend that we are reaching that point in the intellectual realm, too – when to know something means to be able to type, click, skim, and forget.
Democratic socialism is, I think, at least potentially compatible with, and perhaps even capable of drawing strength from, the small towns and churches of U.S. society.
While the common tendency with ecological grief, as with most forms of pain, is to turn away in an effort to protect ourselves, if we understand grief and love as interwoven, then to turn away from grief is to turn away from love, to close and harden our hearts.
We don’t view mindfulness as a panacea that will cure the world’s ills. But socially-engaged mindfulness and mindful social action can contribute to addressing our individual and collective challenges.
The most hopeful and inspiring project of our time is rethinking civilization, reforesting the earth, and rewilding the planet. It is a single project and the most important one we can undertake.
Although Turchin’s piece is full of comparisons between the UK and the US, which he sees as fellow travellers, certainly when compared to France, there are significant differences between Trumpism and Brexit.
At the base of Mauna Kea, the world’s tallest mountain and the first point on earth where raindrops touch the earth, the largest land defense action in modern Hawaiian history is currently in taking place and the entire movement is being guided by love.
