Unnecessary Work
So I suspect that soon the lure of fulfillment will eclipse profitability — particularly because we all can meet our own needs, while only a few of us have ever profited from this disaster.
Eliza Daley
The ‘world’s first library farm’ is home to plush gardens and community innovations
What if your urban farm was in a central location? Perhaps your local library? The Cicero Branch of the Northern Onondaga Public Library (NOPL) in Upstate New York has explored precisely this question.
Confronting “Policy Murder” and the Rising Violence of the Right
At a time when rights hard-won in past struggles are being wrested away from us, we can draw strength from the knowledge that if people-power has prevailed in so many such struggles before, it can prevail again.
‘Soil Isn’t Forever’: Why Biodiversity Also Needs Protection Below the Ground
We need people to notice and appreciate the role healthy soil plays in our lives and why it’s so vital we protect it.
Fir Farm Conference in review
The Conference was framed by the launch of the Sustainable Food Trust’s report, Feeding Britain from the Ground Up, which proposes a plan for how the UK could sustainably feed itself. It’s both a radical and eminently sensible proposal.
Book review: The future is degrowth
The best the degrowth literature has to offer served on a silver platter. That’s how I would describe The Future is Degrowth: A Guide to a World beyond Capitalism (June 2022) by Matthias Schmelzer, Andrea Vetter, and Aaron Vansintjan.
Frankly: Meeting the Future Halfway
At end of long week I offer a short riff on: What is the Great Simplification? What have I learned in doing the first 25 episodes? What is a framework for responses?
Overlorded…
In fact, the only thing we must do is survive this mess. And the best way to do that is to jettison the whole thing and build the lives we need.
Deadly Optimism, Useful Pessimism
Resilience builders may end up making the crucial difference between survivable hard times and utter human failure.
How Fossil Fuels Made the Human Race Dependent on a Finite Resource
Carey King of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin discusses how the last 70 years of economic and population growth have been fueled by the transition to petroleum, how a decreasing supply of it has increased political polarization, and what the future might hold as supplies continue to dwindle.
When More is Not Enough
Today, Peter and I discuss how dopamine, evolution, and modern culture push many of us toward a lifestyle of excess and overconsumption.
A Personal Definition and Incomplete History of Gaianism
An ethical global perspective is necessary today. We must find the unity of Earth and the world. It would be helpful if we had a word, better yet a name, that encapsulates this unity.
