By Linda Etchart, Esperanza Project
From the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to the oil fields of Texas, to the Ecuadorian Amazon, The Condor & the Eagle tells the story of the collective struggle of the Indigenous peoples of North and South America in their fight to preserve their communities and to protect the Earth from climate change.
By Elizabeth Glenn-Copeland, Resilience.org
According to Cantadora and Wise Woman, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Descansos are symbols that mark a death: as an example, a cross by the wayside with the name of the person who died spelled out in nails. Can we create Descansos for our dying civilization? For die it must if we are to live. Let these words be my Descansos offered in gratitude to She Who Loves Us All.
By Vicki Robin, Vicki Robin blog
Now that we’ve patted ourselves down to check for wounds to our wallets or cupboards or health, I challenge us to plant the question in our hearts – who isn’t safe, needs support, needs allies – and see what grows. Who will you be on the other side of this?
By Dougald Hine, Bella Caledonia
What we know and what we have good grounds to fear about climate change calls our way of living into question. To take this evidence seriously leads to difficult questions about the stories we have been telling about the shape of history, the nature of the world in which we find ourselves and the virtue of achievements in which we have taken pride.
By Dougald Hine, Bella Caledonia
Artists are enlisted to help ‘deliver the message’ and ‘raise awareness’, as though art were a sophisticated extension of the PR department or a cheap alternative to an advertising agency. This is not only a misconception of what art is and what it’s good at, it’s also a misconception of the knowledge work that remains, when the scientists reach the end of their road.
By Mi You, Open Democracy
There are many proposals for radical economies from progressive economists, activists and think tanks. Artists are increasingly joining these debates with speculative proposals and unconventional methodologies.
By David Bollier, David Bollier blog
The Arts, Culture and Commoning working group is interested in using commons-based approaches “to transform the landscape of arts and culture toward equity, abundance, and interdependence as part of a social movement engaged in and in conversation with this urgent moment. Cooperation, collaboration, mutuality, and co-creation bring us together.”
By Elizabeth Glenn-Copeland, Resilience.org
I believe the portal to this new way lies partly in our DNA. On a cellular level, we all hold memories of living in harmony with the natural world. We can activate these memories in many ways: through our imaginations; through time spent quietly in wild places; through the study of ancient, land-based wisdom; through wholehearted, community-driven, research-based exploration rooted in respect for the living world.
By Michele Guieu, MAHB
Students need to make a real connection between natural resources, the infrastructure we live in, the things we buy, the tools we use, and the energy it all demands. For that, we need to connect education to the Earth System for students to understand why it is so essential to change the way we live in a time of climate crisis.
By Rachel Kohler, Resilience.org
You’re here because you see the danger clear. That’s great, but now where do we go from here? I don’t know! There’s a lot of things to factor, And I don’t have the answers; I’m an actor. But yet our voices join with yours this hour For even silly words speak truth to power.
By George Lakey, Waging Nonviolence
Drama is useful in getting attention for our issues. The Sunrise Movement is only one of the recent movements that grew by seizing the public imagination through drama.
By Jonathon Porritt, Jonathon Porritt blog
The priority now has to be actively to support all divest/invest initiatives (in the arts, in our universities, in the financial services sector etc), and to ensure that our own pensions are invested accordingly. In a Climate Emergency, nothing else will suffice.