Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Jody Tishmack I’ve been enjoying reading one of Richard Rohr’s books, “Falling Upward, A spirituality for the two halves of life”. He writes “Unless you can chart and encourage both movement and direction, you have no way to name maturity or immaturity.” It’s made me think about how humanity is or is not maturing as a species, and how we need to move away from our current way of living.
Around the world, as governments shift away from the coal that fueled two ages of industrial revolution, more and more mines are falling silent. If there’s an afterlife for retired coal mines, one that could put them to work for the next revolution in energy, it will have to come soon.
Although West Street Recovery formed out of Hurricane Harvey, the organization doesn’t plan to dissolve once those in predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods recover. The members know that another hurricane will hit eventually, and they want to be prepared.
The Agua Caliente case was the culmination of a struggle over nearly two-decades by the tribe of more than 400 members to ensure that their sole water source remains as clean as it was when Europeans first came to the arid region on the borders of the Mojave and Sonoran deserts.
The good news, of course, is that GDP is an insane metric for success, just as “giant stone heads” was (though to give the Easter islanders their just due, at the time they had no evidence their belief was nuts, while in 2016 we have demonstrable proof that the conclusions of neoclassical economics are refuted by basic science). If we decide that we value happiness, quality of life, and a healthy planet with uncounted thousands of human generations left, we could in principle jettison GDP and do things differently. It won’t be easy, only necessary.
Yet even amid the companies’ growing use of scare tactics and secret maneuvers, citizens are ramping up direct action. People have braved the elements and matched the energy giants with their own brand of force, as residents nationwide turn to a mix of creative and traditional tactics to halt as many projects as they can.
What Sandy’s inequalities show is that around America’s largest metropolis as much as in other corners of our nation and planet, the battle against global warming is also a battle for environmental justice.
Traders have to communicate and mediate with all kinds of people. And we have a tradition of “polder politics” because we live in low-lying land (polder) that is always in danger of being flooded if the dykes don’t work. If you live with people in a polder, you have to work things out, or you’ll all drown. You need to talk with everybody. You need to get everybody on board.
The new order is the result of a broken process at the FCC used to reach a faulty and false conclusion on the facts and on the law. The FCC has lost in court every time it’s attempted to prop up open-internet protections on flimsy legal-authority claims. This time should prove no different, and we’re already preparing our legal challenge. The FCC will vote on Pai’s internet-destroying plan at its Dec. 14 meeting. There’s still time to let the FCC know what you think.
As the Trump administration sets its sights on cutting federal nutrition programs, millions of Americans could stop receiving aid and millions of undocumented immigrants are afraid to sign up for the help they desperately need. Leaders in the anti-hunger movement in California gathered to discuss what it takes to fight hunger in the age of Trump.
In addition to the obvious economic savings, the occasional hassle of giving and getting free stuff actually has a more profound advantage: You feel the physical and mental burden of having to gift every item you no longer want in your home, and it’s an embodied lesson in the cost of consumerism that’s quite effective…
When B.C.’s Oil and Gas Commission identified significant methane leaks from hundreds of gas wells in 2013, the energy regulator withheld that information from BC Liberal politicians. Members of the former Christy Clark government wrongly claimed that B.C. wells didn’t leak and that the province’s shale gas industry was “clean.”
