Climate Change Politics-as-Usual can’t Fix the Climate Crisis. Maybe it’s Time to Try a Citizens’ Assembly

This climate emergency requires a courageous response from our political leaders. A citizens’ assembly – given sufficient time, resources and expert assistance – offers one means to solve the problem of taking difficult, long-term decisions in a political system governed by short-term rules.

Human Rights from the Ground Up

The initiative to which I have dedicated my energies is the growing global “human rights cities” movement. This movement is a response that has been building from cities around the world to address the growing urgency for protections of people’s basic needs such as housing, water, energy, and other rights.

Rethinking the Modern University

We need a form of civilization that co-exists with the nine million other species of life on this planet. We need a form of civilization that is socially just and does not equate human happiness and well-being with the endless consumption of material goods.  The modern university, as it is currently configured, stands in the way of creating this form of civilization. Rethinking civilization requires rethinking higher education.

With New Perennial Grain, a Step Forward for Eco-Friendly Agriculture

A cereal and beers are now being made with a new variety of perennial grain known as Kernza. Proponents say this marks a significant advance for a new agriculture that borrows from the wild prairie and could help ensure sustainable food production in a warming world.

The Green New Deal Battles Business as Usual. Both Will Doom Us

We’ve begun to experience collapse in all spheres of life. Collapse can be both slow and rapid. It is a series of unending emergencies. Instead of responding or preparing, we’re cheering on a fight between fantasies. 

Cap and Adapt: A Failsafe Approach to the Climate Emergency

Here, we propose a policy framework we call Cap and Adapt, to accomplish the resolution’s proposed managed phase out of fossil fuels, and by design to do so at a speed matching the last-minutes-to-midnight urgency of our climate plight. Also, by design, it is inherently failsafe both for meeting any target end-date the final legislation may adopt for the phase out and for ensuring the needs of individuals, families, communities, and the national economy are met.

Did North Dakota Regulators Hide an Oil and Gas Industry Spill Larger Than Exxon Valdez?

In July 2015 workers at the Garden Creek I Gas Processing Plant, in Watford City, North Dakota, noticed a leak in a pipeline and reported a spill to the North Dakota Department of Health that remains officially listed as 10 gallons, the size of two bottled water delivery jugs.

But a whistle-blower has revealed to DeSmog the incident is actually on par with the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska, which released roughly 11 million gallons of thick crude.

P2P Accounting for Planetary Survival

Why should you read this latest report of the P2P Foundation, and why does it matter?

Our inspiration comes from the great synthesis provided by Kate Raworth in her book, Doughnut Economics, which graphically presents the great question of our age: can we produce for human needs, without exceeding planetary boundaries?