Looking back, looking forward
I’ve long argued that the current global meta-crisis is essentially a cultural or spiritual crisis, even though I’ve never been an especially spiritual or religiously oriented person.
Chris Smaje
Lessons of Desert Oases for Eco-Resilient Transformation
To the Western mind, the presence of lush oases in the middle of deserts is a strange aberration, almost a dream. What moderns fail to appreciate is that oases are actually deliberate human creations, socio-ecological examples of commoning.
The Deluge, by Stephen Markley
The Deluge is a tome, a vast and sprawling novel with myriad narrative threads. Tracking the future of American society between 2013–2040 against the backdrop of worsening climate change, the reader is shown a nation plunging fitfully into turmoil – with hard-fought moments of recovery and sudden, devastation catastrophes.
In Defense of Fatih Birol’s Declining House Invitation to Appear
Because of the power of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and its subcommittee, Dr. Birol has to keep responding to the invitations and queries. Whatever his responses, however, he’s in for a beating at the hands of the MAGA-minded with future US contributions to the IEA on the line. It’s a fine example of Cardinal Morton’s Fork.
Sacred Sustenance
Celebrating Indigenous foodways is significant and offers profound learnings, but it also requires us to confront the barriers and threats that continue to impede us from doing the restoration work we require. Environmental degradation, loss of habitat, and the erosion of our food heritage pose daunting challenges to food access and Indigenous sovereignty.
The 20 Control Knobs for a Post-Growth Future
What if we purposefully turn the ‘control knobs’ in our own lives to shift how we approach a post-growth future by embracing reality – instead of unrealistic tech solutions – redirecting our focus towards deeper interconnection with community and local systems?
Crazy Ideas, Wise Strategies, Small Politics
At the very moment when our survival demands a deep overturning of what we have long believed to be true and proper, settling for less will look like the crazier option.
Emissions Accounting: Cooking the Books
Making consumption reduction a key part of our climate strategy would have the added benefit of addressing looming resource shortages and the many other environmental problems we face – from plastic gyres and ‘dead zones’ in the oceans to the destructive impacts of mining.
Greece | The Sisters of the Seeds
Welcome to the gardens of St John’s monastery in the village of Anatoli, Thessaly, Greece. We bring you a heartwarming story of sharing and sufficiency, in a letter from a visit to the farm by Hannes Lorenzen.
Jonathan Rowson: The Flip, the Formation, and the Fun: A Metamodern Framework for Human Futures
Today’s conversation with philosopher and social scientist Jonathan Rowson dives into the emerging ways of being that could serve us as we move toward a post-growth world, including what he has found particularly helpful in his decades of work studying the metacrisis.
Indigenous lands now reported key to mitigating climate change in Brazil
In April, Brazil’s president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva recognized an additional two Indigenous territories, including one 32,000-hectare (more than 79,000-acre) territory belonging to the Karajá peoples in Mato Grosso. According to a new study published in the journal Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation, this act alone could quite possibly be the best investment not just for Indigenous rights, but for securing the future climate stability of the state.
1.5 degrees Celsius is here and now
So is the climate system, for all practical purposes, now close to a 1.5°C trend? If CMIP6 is to be taken at face value, the answer is yes. And the data now seems consistent with those models.
