Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Hannes Lorenzen Organic breeding techniques have a different relationship to time and place than genetic engineering methods; other aspects of being in a market economy and of using specialised machinery have their own relationships to time too.
The Southern Company has an official target of achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 — but its regional affiliates disclaim any responsibility toward achieving that goal, leaving open the question of how the company as a whole can decarbonize while its subsidiaries are building new fossil infrastructure and delaying the retirement of existing coal plants.
What takes place in the 1980s and 1990s is a concerted class offensive that attempts to execute a controlled demolition of civil society.
Rich countries have exported climate breakdown through extractive industries, creating a “carbon colonialism.”
Understanding how the root causes of our existential crisis lie in our behaviors, our individual and social behaviors, we can move to address the all-important role of culture in the creation and maintenance of sustainable communities.
The only effective way currently available for emissions reductions from aviation to align with the 2015 Paris Agreement limits, is through a dramatic reduction in the number flights — an action not seriously addressed in the government’s transport emissions reduction roadmap.
Looking back can teach us how to move forward. That’s why, to close with Krenak’s words, our future is ancestral.
The historic act, which recognized a river as a legal entity, deliberately moves away from litigation and places community decision-making at its center.
History also teaches us that times of uncertainty and instability are fertile conditions for populists and those with dark agendas, as people under stress often seek simple answers to complex problems, which often dredges up an instinct to blame and see ‘us and them’ divisions. This looks to be bubbling to the surface as unrest in many parts of the world, of which the UK is now exemplary.
The economy, aka capitalism, is governed by growth and competition. Therefore, the currently popular notion that businesses or the private sector will drive sustainability is delusional.
For the US to have any chance of transitioning to a low-carbon economy in anything approximating the next 25 years, it will need to be lifted from the trenches of the culture wars. The US cannot continue to spend equal time at the extremes, believing it will all balance out in the end. It doesn’t.
Degrowth is about building societies in which everyone is rich – without much material. It is a desirable project to strive for.
