Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Joel Stronberg Telling young Asian leaders that they’re basically on their own when it comes to defending against climate change because old people are not going to worry about this as much is not the message you should be sending.
Now is the time when the generations need to feed off each other’s strengths.
Stories play a powerful role in transmitting personal and collective experiences. They allow us to “feel” climate change in ways that can move us emotionally and open our imagination to new possibilities. They raise our awareness not only to what is happening in the world, but to how it may be experienced by others, both now and in the future.
In Argentina, Vaca Muerta is treated as the country’s chance at salvation, with fracking seen as doing everything at once — creating jobs, reducing the debt burden, plugging the energy deficit and turning Argentina into a major player on the global oil and gas stage.
What’s now needed to create an electable left populism is longer-term community-building of another kind, promoting locally shared spaces and resources, environmental care and economic autonomy that tries to build bridges among whoever’s locally in place. That strategy is also the one that’s needed to build a sustainable small farm future. So for me it’s clear at least where to focus political energy.
There’s no substitute for a mattock and a couple of good shovels, which leverage human effort into great effects with a negligible environmental impact. I love the wood stove, the solar shower, the solar oven, the laundry rack, the ceiling fans and most especially, my new solar dehydrator.
The work on progress indicators is all well and good, especially in challenging the political priority given to GDP. However, over the years I have grown more sceptical of the possibility of measuring, accurately and fully, the state of nations and the wellbeing of their people.
As The New York Times recently reported, “votes for the pro-Brexit Conservatives had 10 times the effective power of votes for the anti-Brexit Liberal Democrats” as a result of the electoral system known as “first past the post.”’ And as Phil and I discuss, a voter in Wyoming has 3.6 times the electoral influence as one in California.
Phil and I discuss some of the biggest structural problems with our elections and Constitution, as well as some of his ideas for solving them.
The Bank of North Dakota has fostered a tradition of public sector banking since it was founded in 1919 – the same year incidentally that Neville Chamberlain launched the Birmingham Municipal Savings Bank, which – before it was subsumed into the TSB – and subsequent loss of mutual status, had more than sixty branches around the city.
Draft Agreement 1/CP.25, for instance, calls for all Parties to revise and enhance their Nationally Determined Commitments — their mitigation and adaptation intentions — by October 2020. Regrettably, the draft is not framed as a mandate, merely as advice.
Oil rose on Friday to its highest in nearly three months as progress in resolving the US-China trade dispute was announced, and a decisive Tory win in Britain’s general election appeared to settle two uncertainties that have plagued the markets for months.
Against the backdrop of an agrarian landscape that has become more homogenous, sterile and empty over the past 50 years, a new movement of Dutch farmers and citizens is emerging. They want to support a type of agriculture that does not damage the environment, enriches the life of farmers and citizens, and produces healthy food.
We have to undo our whole way of thinking about education. The process may be unsettling, but the results will be worth it. Join me for the next few weeks as I pick apart the things many people take for granted in our schools.
