Climate Change Doesn’t Care about Anyone’s Opinion: Notes on Reciprocity and Sacrifice

How do we revalorize the idea that the community, from which we are not separate, though we are an individual species within it, is “Nature,” aka the biosphere, and every aspect and part thereof? And finally, how do we re-learn the value of reciprocity in our relations with the natural world, our community?

Where They Teach Students How to Revitalize Their Local Communities

Searching for ways to reconnect and renew, a non-profit organization called the Community Learning Partnership is providing students, instructors, and community groups a model for preparing the next generation of local leaders and activists.

Heat Storage Hypocausts: Air Heating in the Middle Ages

Hypocausts were heating systems that distributed the heat from an underground fire throughout a space beneath the floor. The heat was absorbed by the floor and then radiated into the room above. The effect on thermal comfort must have been similar to that of a modern-day hot water or electricity-based radiant floor heating system.

Will the Poor Always Be with Us?

It is not an idle myth, that the poor will always be with us, but a vital myth, a powerful and essential means of sustaining our culture and the business of it as usual. It is a myth that has haunted me throughout my two and a half decades of feeling and actively expressing both compassion and indignation in relation to the persistence of hunger, homelessness and poverty in our affluent nation and abroad.

The Future of Clean Energy and Environmental Programs: When the Past is No Longer Prologue

The truth of the matter—inconvenient or otherwise—is time remains of the essence in the global quest for sustainability. Whether you choose to define sustainable in terms of slowing climate change or dealing with human congestion, something needs to be done on a regular basis.

Self-Build Commmunities in Farming

L’Atelier Paysan is a French cooperative that works with farmers to design machines and buildings adapted to the specific practices of small farm agroecology. In addition to distributing free plans on its website, L’Atelier Paysan organizes winter self-help training sessions, during which farmers train in metalworking and build tools which they can then use on their own farms.

The First 100 Days – Budget Week -Sawing Off the Branch on Which We Sit

The veil has been lifted. The administration’s budget proposal for 2018 eviscerates agencies which could have mitigated some of the climate change devastation ahead. We have confirmation that the White House is sawing off the branch on which 99% of Americans sit.