Society

The Blood of the Earth, or Pulp Nonfiction

by

Our ability to imagine the future is shaped, and too often limited, by the habitual narratives of our culture. These days the two narratives about the future that have dominated our thinking for centuries–the narratives of progress and apocalypse–do a very poor job of relating to what’s happening around us. There are more useful alternatives, some of them from a very unexpected source. Blowing the dust off an old paperback, the Archdruid explains.

Whither environmentalism?

by

There’s room in the movement for everyone who cares, whether their bent is for deadly serious de-industrialization, “fun and sexy” protests, technological innovation, or even, yes, going out walking.

Don’t stand there asking what to do! Look around, roll up your sleeves and get busy! Offer your talents to the task. If you can write, start writing and share your thoughts with ever wider circles of readers. If you can farm, start an organic CSA. If you are an engineer, you should be focusing on renewable energy.

Why “But We Walked On the Moon!” doesn’t mean what they think it does

by

If you have followed energy issues from anywhere other than a cave on a mountain peak, you’ve probably heard technoutopians utter some variation on the following sentence two or three hundred times “We walked on the moon – of course we can do whatever it takes to shift from fossil fuels to some other source of energy.” The moon shot is perceived as the ultimate example of “put in a quarter and get out the technological outcome you want” in our history. If we could set out to put a man on the moon and do it in less than decade, can’t we do anything we want to, with just enough ingenuity?

How resilient are we? A New Zealand immigrant’s perspective

by

When the time came to pull up stakes, our desire to pursue self-sufficiency meant that a destination with a temperate climate and reliable rainfall was a prerequisite. A job opportunity came, we did our research, weighed the pros and cons, and trusted intuition that this place offered better-than-average odds of weathering the gamut of changes that seemed to be imminent.

Understanding the Occupy movement: creating social power

by

Where the rubber hits the road for the Occupy Movement, I believe, is whether they can turn this incredible mobilization, and with all of its symbolic importance, into a force of social power.

Occupy needs to pull people together, but then to encourage people to organize themselves into affinity groups, of between, say, 5-12 people. This sized group is small enough where people can build personal connections and make decisions that all can abide by, and yet be big enough for folks to engage in collective activities.