Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Nate Hagens From the archive | Having spent twenty years articulating the more-than-human predicament, Nate Hagens shares a timely first-pass framework for action and response organized around what to do now, which could be applied in various contexts and at multiple scales.
A landmark International Court of Justice advisory opinion has clarified that states have a duty to prevent climate harm, marking a shift toward enforceable climate accountability and strengthening the emerging framework of ecological and rights-based environmental law.
In Malawi, farmers who have embraced agroecology are navigating the challenges of climate change, market pressures, and community needs.
From scientists to intelligence agencies, repeated warnings about climate and ecological collapse have gone largely unanswered by governments, media and markets.
In January, we launched a brand-new Marine Ecosystems Community of Practice – a collaborative initiative bringing together four Ecosystem Restoration Communities (ERCs) working at the frontlines of coastal and marine restoration.
What if, instead of going into debt to invest in their farms, farmers came together to pool equipment? What if, instead of struggling to run a small farm alone, there was extra help at hand? What if new entrants could draw on the experience of more established farmers in their local area? It may sound too good to be true, but this is the reality with France’s network of Agricultural Machinery Cooperatives (CUMA).
Understanding this deeper history widens our conception of political possibility. It reminds us that democracy has emerged through multiple pathways and has sustained under diverse historical conditions—and that its durability has depended not just on shared norms or formal institutions, but on the fiscal systems that underwrite them.
The easiest and cheapest means of reducing warming is increasing vegetation in rural areas; eliminating bare soil, especially the millions of acres produced by industrial agriculture, addressing erosion and aridification, and restoring forests, which will also increase fire-resistance, reducing the need for the far-more complex and expensive changes required in suburban and urban areas.
Benicia, California, is set to lose its largest single employer and source of tax revenue, a sprawling oil refinery. A Guardian article about this issue catalyzed this essay that describes what a thoughtful process might look like, if a community – any community – chose to pursue sustainability instead of economic growth.
We’d love you to follow our exciting journey into the specifics and challenges of vertically micro-manufacturing the first bioregional, ecological UK linen in decades!
Humans only fool themselves to believe they can do any better than ecology. We can’t expect to invent substitutes via cognitive processes: it’s never worked that way, and our attempt is proving to be a colossal flop in a mere 10,000 years.
If we take back control of our food and our water we stop environmental degradation. We cannot do it alone. But we can do it within a community.
