Indigenous Culture for the World

A collective space for storytelling and talking about indigenous culture from various regions of Brazil, online radio contributes to maintaining the traditions of various ethnic groups. In the Tupi-Guarani language, the word “yandê” means at once “we” and “our”. It’s no coincidence that this vocabulary was used to name the first online indigenous radio station in Brazil, created in 2013 by three friends…

At the Mouth of the Cave

What, if anything, is sacred? ‘Nothing should be sacred!’ comes the impatient answer from the enthusiasts for gene-splicing and geoengineering, the singularitarians eager to upload their consciousness into a disembodied digital eternity. To call anything sacred is to set it off-limits to improvement by the application of human ingenuity – to stand in the way of progress.

‘It’s Global Warming, Stupid’: Five Years after Sandy, We’ve Learned Nothing

It’s been five years since Superstorm Sandy devastated the Northeast. The monster storm — which killed more than 100 people, destroyed entire communities, and inflicted more than $70 billion in damages — should have completely changed the way we approach climate impacts, resilience, and global warming policy. But it didn’t.

Policy Making in a Globalized World: Is Economic Growth the Appropriate Driver?

Surely emphasis on increasing well-being should prevail over creation of investment opportunities that bring negative externalities and few benefits to the municipality. Other worlds are possible, and responsive policy making would be a chance to shape those possibilities.

Power for Puerto Ricans, not Private Investors

It has been almost a month since Maria devastated Puerto Rico. Since then, most of the island’s 3.4 million residents have been without electricity or running water. The power grid was effectively destroyed, with only 7 percent back online to date. This means that the entire system, from generation to distribution, will need to be rebuilt. The question now is: how?

The Role of Imagination in Craft Brewing

As much as I see imagination coming through in the beers that people are making, I see it coming through in the business models and the experiences that they’re offering.  To me this is still somewhat of a golden age in what’s possible from an imaginative standpoint in craft beer.

The History of the World in 10½ Blog Posts. 7. Capitalism, the State and Historical Progress

The basic point is that despite our contemporary post-socialist tendency to counterpose ‘the market’ of the capitalist economy with ‘the state’, capitalist development has always been a state project, albeit in partnership with private actors. Without the state, there’d certainly be no capitalism, and probably not even all that much of a ‘market’ in the sense of places where people come together to buy and sell goods.

Religiously Grounded Pipeline Resistance

Two days ago, on October 27th, Lancaster Against Pipelines in central Pa. organized their third action in the last two weeks at the site where the Williams Partners company is laying pipe for the Atlantic Sunrise pipeline. At the previous two actions a total of 29 people were arrested in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience.

In Praise of Being Disconnected

Perhaps the saddest accolade of our modern faith is this: “Our world is more interconnected than ever before.” It’s a statement as bold on the first read as it is meaningless on the second, and one that is not only sad but also somewhat horrifying upon further examination. So, exactly what is “more” interconnected, and why are we celebrating?

Vermont has Developed America’s Most Comprehensive Food Plan

By many accounts, Vermont has developed the most comprehensive food system plan in the United States. How did Vermonters do it? We harnessed the power of networks to build trust, pursue new opportunities, and tackle long-standing problems across the state and have developed a comprehensive data collection, analysis, and visualization system for tracking progress and telling stories.

A Response to “A World Made by Hand”

My point in writing this article wasn’t that I don’t use appliances or am against technology, but rather, that we need to use our hands more.  Or as another person wrote “Many of us have one foot in the modern world and another in the world we think is likely to come”. Exactly!