Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Joel Stronberg Democrats need to pay attention to rural America both to improve their chances to capture the presidency and the Senate while holding on to the House. The future of national climate policy is riding on Democratic shoulders.
There are certainly things that can be done to deal with the realities of stagnation and decline; some of them even involve adopting renewable energy technologies, on the one hand, or making sensible preparations for a range of non-apocalyptic but still serious troubles on the other.
Localization means getting out of the highly unstable and exploitative bubbles of speculation and debt, and back to the real economy – our interface with other people and the natural world.
To win the GND, it’s going to take a broad, deep and diverse political alliance. Workers need a strong voice in this alliance, and by being a part of that, we can speak up for our issues.
The climate movement has excelled at resistance but is missing a crucial, essential element: a focus on repair. It is clear about what it is against, but largely mum on a restoration project equal to the scale of climate change damage.
What might surprise many is that there is a tax haven sitting under everyone’s noses, here in England. It’s all perfectly legal and above board too. That tax haven is farmland.
Capitalism has evolved new and far more effective ways to plunder than by sending armies to ransack poor countries and butcher their people. Just as chattel slavery was replaced with the silent compulsion of wage slavery, in which workers ‘freely’ sell their labour to capitalists, so colonial plunder has been replaced by what is euphemistically known as ‘free trade’.
Why is car culture so dominant in North American life? Is it a matter of personal preference, or is it the result of extensive advertising?Those are important factors – but University of Iowa law professor Gregory H. Shill says that auto dominance has also been cemented by a myriad of laws that favour drivers and discriminate against non-drivers.
In the time of the Seventh Fire, the Anishinaabe were told that we will have a choice between two paths: one well worn, but scorched; and a second that’s not well worn, but green. We are instructed to make a choice.
Instead of free market capitalism versus the climate, we have fossil fuel welfare versus the climate. And if we reinvested that fossil fuel welfare into social and ecological welfare, we could create a much more socially and ecologically prosperous future.
I have become more certain that the way through despair involves experiencing oneself as part of a greater whole and surrendering to the mystery of creation. But now the climate crisis invites us to engage with the mystery of life with fresh eyes and open hearts.
The UK government only has 12-18 months left to raise its game on climate policy, or risk “embarrassment” as the likely host of the COP26 UN summit late next year.
