building resilient societies

Monbiot: ‘We Need that New Political Narrative’

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Prompted by the sense that we are living through a moment of transition, George’s latest book, ‘Out Of The Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis’, attempts to sketch a way forward. Most important to this project, he argues, is a political ‘narrative’ that can gain traction as the new ‘common sense’, carrying within it our values and the society that we want live in. But the book is also full of practical proposals, from land value taxes and community land trusts, to democratic reforms and ‘Big Organizing’.

The Community Resilience Reader: Radio Ecoshock interview

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“Resilience” is a key word for a spectrum starting with collapseniks all the way to big city Mayors and regional planners. But what is it? Has anybody thought this through? Enter The Community Resilience Reader from the Post Carbon Institute. It’s billed as “Essential Resources for an Era of Upheaval”. We’ve certainly got the upheaval.

A Field Guide to Thoughtstoppers

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The question is why a species with the tolerably impressive intellectual capacities we’ve got has done such a bad job of applying those capacities in the face of civilization-ending threats. From this perspective, our problem can be phrased very precisely: the vast majority of people in today’s industrial world have never learned how to think.

There Could Be a Real Solution to Our Broken Economy. It’s Called Universal Basic Assets.

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In this moment of massive wealth inequality​,​ we urgently need to develop a new model for society to deliver both social and economic equity. The answer may be in the concept of Universal Basic Assets (UBA),​ which​ in my definition​ is​ a core, basic set of resources that every person is entitled to, from housing and healthcare to education and financial security.

Transition Sacred

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To be as clear about this as I can, I am still hoping for a sort of drastic cultural change, a new way of seeing and believing, a new paradigm, a reorientation of wants and expectations, dreams and desires—and all the more so for abandoning some of the pragmatic and logistical aspirations that initially led the way in many a Transition imagination.  In other words, I’m rather simply asking this: what if we focus mainly, now, on all the inner change that has happened along the road to Totnes? 

BFM Podcast with Richard Heinberg: There’s No App for That

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It has become something of a mantra within the sustainability movement that innovations in technology will save the world and all of us in it, but we tend to forget that technology played a big part in getting ourselves into this mess in the first place. In a manifesto released back in August, author Richard Heinberg, who is also the Senior Fellow-in-Residence of the US-Based Post Carbon Institute, explains why technology, which is widely heralded as our saviour, is not the secret sauce to solve all our environmental troubles.

Team Human Podcast: There’s No App for That, with Richard Heinberg

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Playing for Team Human today is Post Carbon Institute fellow Richard Heinberg. Richard is the co-author of Our Renewable Future and most recently, the manifesto, There’s No App For That. On today’s show Richard and Douglas challenge the idea that technological “progress” is a panacea for solving systems-level crises like climate change.

Brazil’s National Indigenous Movement: Resolute in Times of Crisis

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When Brazilian indigenous leader Sônia Guajajara gave a fiery speech on environmentalism and human rights at the Rock in Rio music festival in September 2017, alongside Alicia Keys, she captured the power and authority of Brazil’s National Indigenous Movement (Mobilização Nacional Indígena, MNI). “This is the mother of all struggles, the struggle for Mother Earth!” exclaimed Sônia to a massive, cheering audience.

Want to Change the System? ‘Become the System’

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We live in turbulent times: many certainties are disappearing and changes are difficult to understand. Can transition management help us to explain where the world is heading? Derk Loorbach, director of the Dutch Research Institute for Transitions (DRIFT) at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam, talks about the mechanisms, risks, and trends necessitated by transitioning towards a more sustainable world. “If you want to change the system, you should eventually be willing to become the system,” he says.

Naomi Klein: Say No to the Shock Doctrine

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The reason I am highlighting Puerto Rico is because the situation is so urgent. But also because it’s a microcosm of a much larger global crisis, one that contains many of the same overlapping elements: accelerating climate chaos; militarism; histories of colonialism; a weak and neglected public sphere; a totally dysfunctional democracy; and overlaying it all, the seemingly bottomless capacity to discount the lives of huge numbers of black and brown people.

Puerto Rico is our Future

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Obviously, the Puerto Rican people have immediate needs for food, water, fuel, and medical care. We mainland Americans should be doing all we can to make sure that help reaches those in the throes of crisis. But Puerto Ricans—all Americans, indeed all humans—should be thinking longer-term about what kind of society is sustainable and resilient in this time of increasing vulnerability to disasters of all kinds.