Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Resistance to changing the culture we now possess (or possesses us?), a culture that is arguably fatally destructive to the biosphere, includes the argument that we can’t go back to the way we used to live 100 years ago or some other harsher time where we tied our shoes, cleaned floors with mops, and (God forbid) churned butter.
College senior Nick Leonard discovered a new way of life through a summer internship with the Greening of Detroit urban gardening program. The fast-food addict changed his relationship to food and began eating and cooking fresh produce.
An iCrew Audio Presentation of: Energy Resources and Our Future – A speech by Rear Admiral Hyman G. Rickover delivered to the Minnesota State Medical Association on May 14, 1957. The transcript of the speech was originally posted in 2006. This audio presentation was read and produced on July 24, 2009 by Rick Lakin.
To say that our collective human fate lies somewhere between complete destruction and an endless cornucopian future is yet another narrative. Even so, such a narrative requires something the other two do not, creative engagement with the still unfathomable universe. That may be the one thing that emphatically recommends it above the alternatives.
Authenticity comes when your thoughts, your words, and your deeds have some relation to each other. It comes when there’s a real organic relationship between the way you think, the way you talk, and the way you act. You have to fight for authenticity all the time in this world, and if you don’t fight for it you will get derailed. But when you have it, when you feel that surge of recognition—that I’m saying exactly what I’m thinking, and I’m ready to do something about it—well, that’s an intellectual and emotional orgasm that makes sex look like nothing.
Diana Leafe Christian, author of Finding Community: How to join an Ecovillage or Intentional Community, zeros in on how to find an ecovillage. Bob Banner, publisher of Hopedance magazine, shares insights from Andrew Harvey’s Sacred Activism workshop: “What breaks your heart, what you really love, is the thing that will sustain you…
Last week one of the three main French trotskist group – Worker’s Struggle – published an editorial denouncing “degrowth” as “reactionary”. I am no fan of French style degrowth. Most of the time, it is hardly more than a revolutionary mythology repackaged as ecology…Yet the red hard-liners’ reaction is interesting because it highlights one of the industrial world’s most pervasive delusion : the faith in science as an all-powerful mean to manipulate reality.
The future is abundant, asserts permaculture designer Larry Santoyo. His vision of living in the present provides a wonderful antidote to fear about uncertain futures. People need to rediscover that we’re part of the ecosystem, and apply permaculture design principles to the many problems we face.
John Weber’s Boise, Idaho house with south-facing windows rarely needs heat and never air conditioning. Meet a man who has built a passive-solar house with solar electric power and solar hot water; plus a solar-powered electric car — and who rides a bike!
Matthew Stein, author of When Technology Fails: A Manual for Self-Reliance, Sustainability, and Surviving the Long Emergency is the guest on The Reality Report. Learn about the “Survivor Personality” and “What are the best bugs to eat,” as drawn from Mat’s encyclopedic work.
Trathen Heckman takes us on a step-by-step tour of how to make a safe, ecological and legal suburban home graywater system. Follow the water as it drains from the bathroom tub (and sink and laundry) through a unique valve leading into the backyard garden.
What if you could make a call at any time on your cell phone and have a vehicle come to you within minutes, take you to your local destination, and cost about as much as a bus ride? Allen Hancock’s notion of demand-responsive transit fills the gap between the private automobile and public transit.
