Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Regardless of the ultimate outcome, the Achuar will continue to vociferously defend their territory though all nonviolent means at their disposal. The goal of these alliances is to defend Achuar territory and their lives as forest peoples.
If we are to scale this challenge, we need the legitimacy conferred by a responsive democracy. More democracy, not less. Enter the citizens assembly.
One of the finest books I’ve read recently was ‘Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter’ by Ben Goldfarb. Ben is an American environmental journalist who has taken great interest in this remarkable creature and its ability to, as he put it when we spoke, “help tackle many of our ecological problems if we just get out of the way and let the rodent do the work”.
We can only successfully overcome the crises triggered by extractivism if the voices that have been marginalized up until now, especially those of women, claim a space in the center of the process of change.
What would it take to update what the Folk High School did for the Nordic countries and make it accessible globally to the emerging youth movement and to everyone interested in activating such a deep learning cycle?
I hate so many things about climate change: the waste, the injustice that those who have contributed least suffer the most, the lost opportunities for prevention. But, there is something that inspires me in the notion that climate change could teach us to soften.
I share Bill McKibben’s sentiments 100%. I have worked in the climate trenches for twenty years, and I have always said that if you think you understand the climate crisis and you haven’t yet had that awful sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach, you haven’t understood the climate crisis.
For too long, we have related to climate change mainly as consumers and voters. We have been responsibilised as meat eaters and airplane travellers, we have been urged to vote for the party with the most green agenda, but we have never been addressed as workers.
The U.S. Senate passed a bill last week that would form a government-industry working group to “examine ways to replace automated systems with low-tech redundancies, like manual procedures controlled by human operators.” … If we truly want long-term solutions to the problems that vex us in our increasingly high-tech society, then we will have to look elsewhere than the technologists.
Let’s put our hands in the earth and our shoulders to the wheel. Let’s live up to the standards we set for each other and forgive one another when we fail. Let’s cultivate new relationships with one another and the land that honor the dignity of both. Let’s take it easy, but take it.
In a nursing home in St. Paul, Minnesota last year, a 91-year-old Quaker named Rhoda Gilman died, and her death was barely noted — which is a shame, because she led a fascinating life. She wrote several excellent books on American history, raised a family, ran for lieutenant governor of that state in 2002, and was one of the early leaders of the Green movement in America … and lived through one of the great and unappreciated lost chances of world history
There were a few of us who said something much less popular. We predicted that the grand technological breakthroughs were not going to happen, and the grand social awakenings were not going to happen, and the grand apocalyptic catastrophes were not going to happen. .. We predicted instead that demand destruction and an assortment of temporary gimmicks would keep things rolling on ….
