By Richard Heinberg, Common Dreams
You see, the real downside of the green-profit narrative has been that it created the assumption in many people’s minds that the solution to climate change and other environmental dilemmas is technical, and that policy makers and industrialists will implement it for us, so that the way we live doesn’t need to change in any fundamental way.
By Paul Gilding, The Cockatoo Chronicles
COVID-19 gives us clear evidence that market fundamentalism is a failed economic strategy. Interpreting markets as an ideology or quasi-religious belief system, results in unmanageable and systemic economic risks.
By Chris Smaje, Small Farm Future
In a recent post I questioned the well-known formula: Human Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology. But I don’t question that humans now have a severe impact on earth systems. So if not PAT, then what? Here I’m going to lay out some other factors that I suggest underlie our impact and our present predicament in a more fundamental sense than the PAT variables.
By Thomas H. Greco, Jr., Beyond Money
In either case, the ultimate realization of social justice, economic equity, true democracy, peace, and environmental stability will depend on people learning to work together in our communities to find common ground and tackle the larger task of building systems that better serve all the people and promote the common good. Your vote does count, so stand up and be counted.
By Joel Bakan, Transnational Institute
We need to see ourselves as political actors, citizens, obliged to take part in and contribute to creating good and just societies. We need to accept that democratic governance is messy and uncertain, that it’s as much about the process of participation as it is about the resulting policies, and that it can only flourish in social conditions that nurture empathy and solidarity among citizens.
By Patrick Noble, Feasta
It may come as a surprise to most, that my answer for the times is capitalism. What is capitalism? – it is the ethics of a society, whose aim is to maintain its capital – that is, spiritual, pleasurable and human assets, combined with that which maintains all those things – the undiminished vigour of life – in soil, sea, biomass and biodiversity.
By Norton Smith, Resilience.org
We live with the belief that we have created an economic system called capitalism and that we have control over it though government policy and taxes. What if the tables were turned and capitalism only describes a self organizing system that creates itself in an environment of surplus goods and services?
By Hannah Cross, Open Democracy
Fundamentally, migration has always been, and will always be, a part of human development. There is no use in casting it as a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ phenomenon in itself: the notion of being ‘pro’ or ‘anti’ migration is a useless hook for popular debate and undermines the dignity of people who have migrated.
By Mark H. Burton, Steady-State Manchester
If nothing else, the last few months have heightened awareness of the desperately parlous predicament that now faces humanity, with an accelerating climate and ecological crisis. So attempts to design assertive policy proposals are very welcome. The Green New Deal is the one that currently is getting the most attention and perhaps traction. So I want to ask some critical questions....
By Alf Hornberg, The Conversation
The current blind faith in technology will not save us. For the planet to stand any chance, the global economy must be redesigned. The problem is more fundamental than capitalism or the emphasis on growth: it is money itself, and how money is related to technology.
By Rob Wallace, Uneven Earth
It’s as if, as environmental humanities scholar Anthony Galluzzo posted recently, humanity, not tech is—ha—the engine of history. Again, it’ll be people, not science alone, environmental scientist Erle Ellis wrote in another Times op-ed, who’ll save us from ecological collapse.
By Brian Kaller, Restoring Mayberry
Interview with the late Rhoda Gilman, one of the early leaders of the Green movement. She talks about the origins of the Greens and Adam Smith's vision of capitalism. "If we were living in Adam Smith’s world, we wouldn’t be doing badly at all; the Greens would be right at home."