Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Scott Newstok Faced with existential crises in the environment, human migration, creeping authoritarianism, and the specter of artificial intelligence, a world without a broadly disseminated capacity for thinking is severely exposed.
Wider issues like climate change, energy scarcities, economic stagnation and political fragmentation are already reconfiguring our world, but we can only guess at the local adjustments this will demand of us – which makes it hard to know where to put our energies and what kinds of institutions to support and nurture.
Long after Trump is a footnote in history, his impact on the environment will still be felt. For progressives and moderates alike, the horrors of a Trump presidency are cloaked in judicial robes.
The truth is that democracy, in its authentic direct form, has nothing to do with capitalism and is in fact at odds with it. James Madison, one of US’s Founding Fathers, seems to have been aware of this when saying that democracies have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property.
We are a democracy first; liberals or conservatives, Democrats or Republicans second. We need to prepare for the challenges that lay ahead. “Climate hell is here and we cannot stand it.” Neither can we afford to ignore it.
Twin brothers Irucka Ajani and Obiora Embry approach farming in an unconventional way. Instead of relying on the usual row crop methods or the use of pesticides to give plants a leg up, they instead look to ancient history and a loving, symbiotic relationship with the land that has been long forgotten in many parts of the world.
taught by patriarchy to take up less space
at the expense of my breath,
taught by capitalism to be productive
at the expense of my breath,
taught by modernity to disconnect from my body
at the expense of my breath,
this violent mind-body separation
joining all those other power-laden fragmentations
of modern supremacist culture
The idea of a just transition emerged from North American labor law, and has become part of international discussions about making societies more environmentally sustainable.
Prices fell this week amid growing concerns that another wave of the coronavirus pandemic will spark tighter lockdowns and further stifle oil demand.
In many ways, the results of the upcoming elections will reflect the ways youth activists and older activists are able come to a common understanding of what climate justice means and what they want the future world to look like.
What we can do, however, is to raise the call for an economics of humility; an economics that respects the diversity and dynamic flows of the natural world; an economics of localisation.
The TEQs system involves rationing fossil fuel energy use for a nation on the basis of either a contracting carbon emission budget or scarce fuel availability, or both simultaneously, distributing budgets equitably amongst energy-users.
