Finding Lights in a Dark Age – or, writing ἀποκάλυψις
We need to find ways to inhabit place and meta-place differently to the present, ways that are equal to the challenges of our times and what they’re revealing to us.
Chris Smaje
Off the Marx–Hitler Spectrum
I’m more concerned with the course and speed of the Titanic (or why there even is a Titanic) than with the proper arrangement of deck chairs. As in Ishmael Chapter 12, my chief aim is not fairness and equity within the prison, but in dismantling the prison altogether—arguing that we oughtn’t be on the Titanic in the first place.
Be a gardener
Being alive to the real world around us, seeing the love and the connection and the magic, is all we need in life, it is all we want. It is the meaning of life.
Familiarizing Degrowth: Art and Grounded Communities
At the heart of everything this is what a strong social movement needs: people coming together to form meaningful and lasting friendships with a shared passion for system change and a willingness to push for that change.
One hope, heroism and denial
Heroism and hope in these times are only possible against a backdrop of total relinquishment to the possibility that we won’t be able to control our own fate. But on a deeper level, this will be the way for us to reconnect with our origins, to become one again with the natural world.
Imagine You Are a Poor Nation, Trapped by Debt and Strangled by Climate Change—What Are Your Options?
The main lesson is that debt cancellation is a crucial component of a global energy transition, and substantial reconstruction funds must also accompany it. What would be the overarching rationale for the cancellation? To ensure that low-income countries constitute a strong and economically successful defense against climate change.
From failing to prepare to preparing to fail?: The Climate Change Committee’s devastating verdict on the state of Britain’s climate resilience
The recent Climate Change Committee report on the UK government’s lack of preparedness for climate breakdown reveals negligence at a historic scale.
Trump’s Tariffs = Localist Liberation?
So, yes, we need to condemn globalization loud and clear. And we need a cohesive strategy that moves us sensibly and sanely in the opposite direction.
Open Reality: Meeting the Polycrisis Together With All Beings
If you close your eyes, you can feel the energy of land and creek, rocks and bluffs, grasses and red cedar trees, blue sky and snow, all of it together.
The Alchemy and Reality of Sustainable Business
Let’s keep pushing businesses to behave better and to innovate in ways that are genuinely beneficial for us and the environment, and let’s celebrate them when they do. But we should not expect – and we certainly should not depend on – commercial salvation.
Autonomy for the Majority of the World! Community Struggles for Self-Governance in the Global South
In many ways, then, the real challenge in times of ecological collapse, the rise of authoritarian governments, capitalist crisis, and war-mongering militarization is to truly understand these systems, their evolving nature in relation to contemporary societies, their potential interface with modern institutions of governance, and how to strengthen overall governance for the purposes of justice and sustainability.
Ishmael: Chapter 10
Ishmael asks Alan to define culture, working out in steps that culture is the accumulated knowledge that defines a people, passed down to—and refined/amended by—future generations. This transmission goes beyond mere information, encompassing “beliefs, assumptions, theories, customs, legends, songs, stories, dances, jokes, superstitions, prejudices, tastes, attitudes.”
