Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Tom Athanasiou The COP28 text does not simply call for transitioning away from fossil fuels but rather stipulates that this transition must be “just, orderly, and equitable,” a much more challenging prospect.
You might think that an apparently harmless public good like a library would have no enemies. But in the age of Trump and his movement to Make America Grotesque Again, there turn out to be many.
There’s a sign on the door of the Capitol that says Congress Doesn’t Work Here Anymore. I think that’s a bit harsh. A more accurate description might be Congress barely works here anymore. After all, they are managing to keep the government open—at least until March.
That in this blighted landscape there are still places of settled beauty is a comfort: a chance to glimpse what went before and could be again.
The fight against borders and for freedom of movement needs to be part of a deeper social-ecological transformation that places global justice at its core.
One of them contends that there is no hope for the survival of civilization, regardless what we do; while the other thinks that humanity can get through this century of crises more or less intact, if it pulls together and behaves itself.
The main pushback of substance I’ve had to my book Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future is that this era of clean energy abundance indeed is upon us, making manufactured food feasible and confining my arguments for agrarian localism and a small farm future to the dustbin of history. I doubt that, and in this post I’ll try to elucidate some of those doubts.
If the grounded sense of beauty Momaday derived from Kiowa cultural expressions is to play a role in shaping our response to social and ecological collapse, it will need a territory that can sustain it.
If we put all our efforts into creating a system of electric heat, what we’re going to produce is very little warmth for most people, a whole lot of wasted resources and toxic trash — and no capacity to produce any energy at all within a few decades.
The heat and extreme climate records of 2023 shocked scientists. So where are we heading? Given current trends, the world will zoom past 2°C of warming and the Paris climate goal of limiting warming to 1.5-2°C.
What if… the Transition movement could play a part in putting justice at the heart of the ‘transition’ we’re working towards, in our communities and beyond?
By developing the commons paradigm and discourse, its practices and ethical values will have many valuable impacts, not just in the agriculture and food sectors, but more universally.
