Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
David McKenzie Re-discovering how to cook and eat heritage barley – especially in the world’s biggest barley-growing nations of Europe, Australia and North America – could encourage farmers to grow special landrace heritage varieties. These could be grown in marginal climates and make a substantial contribution to ensuring global food security in the face of climate change.
And that’s the amazing thing about climate change. Because whilst it’s the greatest injustice in that those least responsible are the ones most impacted. Solutions to climate change that are fair are also the exact solutions needed to tackle economic inequality.
Located in the Bocas del Toro region of Panama, the Naso have held steadfast to their goal. Like the nearby Ngäbe-Buglé kingdom, they want to create a comarca indígena or demarcated territory that would cover 160,000 hectares of their ancestral homeland. Unfortunately, they have encountered some resistance; because their vision of a secured territory conflicts with the government’s interests in the land the Naso call home.
With a few exceptions — speaking truth to leaders in power and helping loved ones recognize the magnitude of the threat — we need to shift our way of approaching climate communication from changing minds to giving people already on board concrete tasks on which to take action.
Students need to make a real connection between natural resources, the infrastructure we live in, the things we buy, the tools we use, and the energy it all demands. For that, we need to connect education to the Earth System for students to understand why it is so essential to change the way we live in a time of climate crisis.
Champions of energy transition see it happening relatively quickly, emphasizing the advances that are being made in technologies, policy, and projects. While fossil fuel incumbents see a long, gradual process of energy transition, assuring us that demand for their products will remain strong for decades to come. So who’s right? Is energy transition going to be rapid, or gradual?
I made a decision: Upon returning home I would upend the way that I had been cultured to consume and wear textiles, and as a function of this change, I would allow myself and my body to become the center of an experiment.
The Share Shed is a library of things in the town of Totnes in the southwest of the UK (also home to the Transition Town network). People can donate useful items to the library – like ladders, drills, carpet cleaners, camping, cooking and gardening equipment, and sewing machines – and others can borrow them for an affordable fee.
The organic, no-till movement is gaining traction around the world, which is a very hopeful thing. It has a long way to go, however, mostly because of the stubborn belief in the primacy of the plow, which borders on the religious among many farmers. After all, we’ve been using it for nearly 5000 years!
DisCOs, by contrast, start from a different set of premises about humanity. They regard we humans as a cooperative species whose members need and want to engage with others, personally. Earned trust among people and open collaboration can then achieve some remarkable things.
The world’s CO2 emissions are set to continue rising for decades unless there is greater ambition on climate change, despite the “profound shifts” already underway in the global energy system.
That is one of the key messages from the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) World Energy Outlook 2019.
In fact, Strong Towns is one of those rare books (Wendell Berry’s classic The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture is another) whose argument itself exemplifies what it advocates for: it builds towards a challenge to the whole way we conceive of its chosen focus by beginning with the most local and particular relevant matters possible.
