Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
"We couldn’t outspend the fossil fuel industry – they have more money than God. But we had other currencies that we could find work in – the currencies of movements: passion, spirit, creativity…"
Naïve or Necessary? How does the economic and ethical case for divestment stack up?
Fear. It’s that chill that creeps up your spine. That awful, churning hot knot, deep in the pit of your stomach. The tremble that makes your hands feel powerless. The freeze-up, that tempts you to inaction.
This morning, I turned on the radio to be greeted with the news that 60% of the species in my country are in decline…There was a five-minute discussion about this on the news programme before the agenda moved on to more important topics.
So, sustainable communities, to me, means keeping out of the way of things that are too big to fail.
Ten years ago, as a contrarian and a person who prefers not to see others suffer, I tried to undermine despair with the case for hope.
With no prior experience in grassroots organizing, Deal orchestrated a campaign against fracking in South Africa to protect the Karoo, a semi-desert region of the eastern Cape that he had come to know and love.
•Sanders, Boxer Outline ‘Gold Standard’ Climate Bill •Secret funding helped build vast network of climate denial thinktanks •HSBC and Aviva back project to identify ‘stranded’ high-carbon assets •The transformational challenges of climate change: An interview with Professor John Schellnhuber and Professor Ottmar Edenhofer •Carbon trading has failed: scrap the ETS now •In historic turn, Sierra Club gets arrested for the climate •Fossil fuel subsidies and tax breaks are still rising •There is no such thing as climate change denial
Monbiot, Mann, McKibben, various Transitioners and others on what to do if your Transition initiative comes under attack…
•Radical activism has a role in speeding up corporate change •Rebuilding optimism of will for effective climate activism•State of Fear •Exporting carbon: Canada’s new asbestos? •A chat with the Sierra Club’s Michael Brune about civil disobedience •The new weapon in the battle for Hastings – the ‘granny tree’
Among the various lessons we learned in 2012 there is also whether or not the so-called “mainstream media” really can be trusted to tell the truth about environmental issues. Or can it be trusted to do just the opposite, and in various diverse and difficult to detect ways?
I think that people who want to stop environmental destruction, the closure of services and other things that are wrong in the world, are in many cases the very people who will also want to create positive change in their own communities.
