Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The financial crash that brought the era of neo-liberalism to an end has now led to the formation of a novel coalition in Britain after 65 years of single-party government. This essay argues that it is important to understand what is special about the underlying economic and social crisis – and how the balance of forces is very different from those that wracked Britain in the 1970s and opened the way to Margaret Thatcher.
For several months now the eyes of world are focused on Greece, the “weak link” in the eurozone economy, as the country is fighting to survive against bankruptcy over soaring deficits (standing at 14% of GDP), astronomical debt (at a whopping 130% of GDP), and—more important than anything else–a collapsing productive sector. In many ways, the Greek saga has been worth following because the economic aspects involved merely represent the mirror image of everything we have associated politics with in the age of financialization.
In your widely publicized May 2010 letter to Bill McKibben, you ask for specific strategies to achieve a global CO2 reduction down to 350ppm. Here’s how, from the United States arm of the international Transition movement:
South Asians are seeing more work on the ground and hearing more policy announcements about urban development than ever before. For many who live in and around towns and cities in Bangladesh, Pakistan and India (where South Asia’s biggest cities lie) this could be a good thing. The trouble is: national governments and planning authorities in Dhaka, Islamabad and New Delhi are tending more and more to follow a single ideology – economic growth will drive down poverty – and a primary route to that misplaced objective, which is greater urbanisation.
When a society’s problems are caused by too much complexity, adding more layers of complexity is a recipe for more problems. In the abstract, this is easy enough to grasp, but applying it in practice is quite another matter. Fortunately, the writings of maverick economist EF Schumacher come to the rescue with another of his counterintuitive but valuable insights.
On a winter’s day in Boston in 1773, a rally of thousands at Faneuil Hall to protest a new British colonial tax levied on tea turned into an iconic moment in the pre-history of the American Revolution. Some of the demonstrators — Sons of Liberty, they called themselves — left the hall and boarded the Dartmouth, a ship carrying tea, and dumped it overboard.
-Mainstream Green Groups Cave In on Climate
-Reclaiming Earth Day: With Climate Chaos on the Horizon, the Environmental Movement Needs Traction
-A New Climate Movement in Bolivia
-Earth Day™ — Tastes Great, Less Filling
-The Open Veins of Climate Change
The World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth (CMPCC, for its Spanish acronym) ended on Thursday in Cochabamba and every airport I’ve stopped in (more than a few now) has been filled with people heading home with new energy, new direction, and excitement to get back to work. But before the movement moves on I want to share some last reflections that we’ll be taking forward.
A brief analysis of social networking in a time of crisis, the bourgeoisie luxury of flight, and why disregarding Arctic wildlife will save Arctic wildlife.
Earth Day Network is organizing a huge event on the Mall in Washington D.C. on April 25. The goal is to demand tough, effective climate legislation and a swift transition away from 19th century energy sources.
A number of commenters to my previous post argued that I’m being unfair to Earth Day – of course, there’s greenwashing. of course people are cashing in, but underlying the greenwashing, there’s something good and serious and worthwhile there and I’m being churlish to deny it.
Many people see governments with ministers and presidents as the only way of ruling a country, even in democratic systems. It may seem that since all countries are now ruled by some form of government — parliamentary, presidential or monarchal — it must have always been like that. Well, it wasn’t.
