Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Francesca DiGiorgio At least 124,000 U.S. public and private schools have closed in response to the novel coronavirus outbreak. In some states, schools will remain closed through the end of the academic year. Amidst the transition to remote learning, school officials are taking unprecedented steps to ensure students have enough to eat.
Oil posted its first back-to-back weekly gain since February amid optimism that production cuts are beginning to eat into the massive supply glut. Futures in New York climbed 25 percent to circa $25 and $31 in London.
Geoengineering refers to proposals for solving the problem of climate change, not by mitigation—that is, reducing emissions and deforestation, the causes of global heating—but instead by the use of new technologies.
In search of better ideas and better leadership, Asher, Rob, and Jason discuss how we can reinvent lifeboat ethics and find prosocial ways to manage humanity’s shared crises.
Change needs to be systemic to match the scale of the emergency and the inequalities uncovered and reproduced by the pandemic. This crisis can and should be used as a collective learning point for a transformation towards an alternative feminist degrowth future.
Trained to see the dismemberment of complex production processes as efficient and natural, and its segregation from consumption as a core premise of “the economy,” economists tend to overlook a more elegant, practical approach to provisioning — commoning.
To steer ourselves towards compassion we need to dedicate ourselves to becoming Gaia-wise. Spending time in nature deeply listening to birdsong – that’s a good way to start.
Facing the Anthropocene: Fossil Capitalism and the Crisis of the Earth System by Ian Angus synthesises findings from cutting edge research in the natural and social sciences to demonstrate how capitalism’s excessive drive for growth, fostered by the rapid burning of fossil fuels for economic gains, has driven the earth to the brink of disaster.
Estimations for the percentage of greenhouse gases emitted by the buildings sector vary wildly. But any assessment should include both the embodied energy involved in constructing new buildings and the energy costs of heating, cooling and lighting buildings.
Our practices must return to regenerative methods that work with natural processes, instead of against them. We’ve knocked things so far out of balance that the road back to health will be challenging, but the sooner we get to it, the better.
As we turn our attention to our closest neighbours and seek to support those within our own communities, let us not forget our responsibility to the most vulnerable and disadvantaged members of the human race. Even as we are forced to live locally, it is critical that we think globally.
By taking a close look at where those who advocate inaction on climate change erred or misled their audience about the pandemic, it’s possible to learn a great deal — and not only about who has provided reliable information about COVID-19 and who has misled.
