Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
However uncomfortable the leaders of China, India, and the United States might be when it comes to collaborating with their counterparts, they will have little choice if they are to escape an increasingly calamitous future.
One way or another, however, we can be reasonably certain of one thing: as the term makes all too clear, the old Cold War format for military policy no longer holds, not on such an overheating planet.
A city near Beijing is being designed with rooftop farms, 3-D printing facilities and ample space to work from home – to protect residents against future pandemics. Vicente Guallart, whose Barcelona-based firm of architects won a contest to design the community, said: “We cannot continue designing cities and buildings as if nothing had happened.”
Ecological agriculture – food production following the ecological principles with reduced or no use of chemicals – is being increasingly adopted by an emerging group of agricultural entrepreneurs. Driven by consumer interest in safe and healthy food, various ecological food initiatives such as organic and “green” food companies, farmers’ cooperatives, community supported agriculture, and ecological farmers’ markets have been taking root in China in the past decade.
Rare earth metals which are crucial to modern electronics are in the news because the Chinese, the dominate world supplier, are threatening to cut off exports in retaliation for tariffs on Chinese goods imposed by the Trump administration. Is there any way to counter Chinese control of these crucial metals?
There’s a standard historical narrative of economic development with which we’re familiar in the west, essentially of peasant farmers quitting agriculture for industrial wage labour in the city and thereby building all-round prosperity.
The lessons of China’s tumultuous history demand attention from those of us who advocate for more localized, land-based economies as part of the solution to global problems.
A current book asks Will China Save the Plamet? The author, Barbara Finamore, served as the China representative of the Natural Resources Defense Council. Her story gives first-hand material less for answering this question than for showing how a big country can move from defensive nationalism to global leadership in starting the transition to a green economy.
In a nutshell, Modernist thinking on food exalts agricultural productionism, which frequently uses toxic technologies to overwhelm natural systems and limits, artisanal work methods and traditional home-based skills and habits.
If you want to put meaning into meaningless slogans, he said, think about an eco-civilization that means local resource sovereignty, multidiversity solidarity, and sustainable ecological safety.
1. Oil and the Global Economy
2. The Middle East & North Africa
3. China
4. Venezuela
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