Society

Organizing on a Sinking Ship: The Future of the Climate Justice Movement

by

As our planet rockets into a new geological epoch, we find ourselves on unfamiliar terrain. The only thing that is certain is that no one knows what will happen, and no one is in control. The rest of our lives will be defined by an exponential ecological entropy that will increasingly destabilize both the economic and political foundations upon which the modern world has been built. All bets are off. The collapse will be anything but boring.

A Powerful Economic Justice Movement Is Brewing, Even in This Dark Time

by

In this tumultuous world, one thing seems certain: today’s dire threats to our democracy did not arise out of nowhere. Every culture thrives, or not, on whether its core narrative—the causation story we tell ourselves—enhances mutual gain or spurs division. And, the narrative driving today’s unfolding catastrophe feeds the latter.

Old Age and Societal Decline

by

People grow old and die. Civilizations eventually fail. For centuries amateur philosophers have used the former as a metaphor for the latter, leading to a few useful insights and just as many misleading generalizations. The comparison becomes more immediately interesting as our own civilization stumbles blindly toward collapse.

Imagination and Will in the Anthropocene

by

This is about building, for the first time in history, a capacity for collective self-awareness, a sense of shared identity, and a political expression of our common will in pursuit of our common interest – not only as nations, tribes and social groups but as the species whose ancestors first ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge.

The Catalan Integral Cooperative – The Simpler Way Revolution is Well Underway!

by

This is a remarkable and inspiring movement in Spain, now involving hundreds of people in what I regard as an example of The Simpler Way transition strategy … which is primarily about going underneath the conventional economy to build our own new collective economy to meet community needs, turning our backs on and deliberately undermining and eventually replacing both the capitalist system and control by the state.

#LookUp

by

One of the reasons I think our imaginations are in such a poor state in 2018 is that we spend so much time looking down.  Look around you. On the bus, on the train, in the street. Our eyes are locked down to our screens, our attention elsewhere.  So I want to share with me something that I find really helps.

Defying Dystopia: Shaping the Climate Future We Want

by

In short, the climate futures they describe obscure the fact that the impact of climate change will ultimately not be determined by levels of CO2, but by structures of power. In other words, the exact impact of a climate disaster will depend on political decisions, economic wealth and social systems.

Our Schools are Doing too Much to Save the Planet

by

We may be meeting our schools’ curriculum targets, but  in many cases we are still missing the larger aims of environmental awareness, our essential inter-connectedness and inter-being with the planet we live on, and thus many teachers, and their students,  are not acting out of deep ecological understanding or deep ecological commitment. 

The Butcher’s Bill

by

When a young person talks to me about his dreams for a good life, my first instinct is to interrupt, to tell him the planet has determined that our good life is no longer viable, dreams or not. Instead, I tell him about lambs. The promise of birth and death and birth again. I believe in both narratives, and I don’t want to burst his bubble, so I tell only the one story.

Stepping Stones across a Stream

by

Spirituality came easy for me, being “normal” was hard.  As a child I was allowed to wander alone in the woods, old farm buildings, pasture, and along the creek.  We lived in the small house on my grandparent’s farm, while my grandmother and uncle lived in the big house.  I would tell my mother I was going over to Grandma’s house and head off exploring. 

Culture Gap: Towards a New World in the Yalakom Valley – Review

by

Judith Plant’s memoir Culture Gap is concerned with describing how that isolated commune of sixteen people—more or less—survived and often thrived in the Bridge River Valley. Given that there are few too few books on the counter-culture, back-to-the-land movement of B.C. in the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties, hers is a very necessary and fascinating document.

Cultural Design: The Scientific Field Needed for the 21st Century

by

The already established field of Cultural Evolution seeks to integrate the theory of evolution with the studies done by the social sciences in order to understand the change of social phenomena over time. Within this context, the field of Cultural Design presents itself as a scientific area interested in applying the findings of Cultural Evolution.