Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Within the principles and practices of the Transition movement there is a clear theme that how we do things is as important as what we do. We think that the story of our shared governance model, and the journey that got us here, is an important one to tell.
Adaptive Governance focuses on the aspects of governance that help to increase societal resilience by strengthening the adaptive capacity of its institutions and actors.
Adaptation will require leadership and social cohesion. Instead, America may be lurching toward further political division and violence.
I have a suggestion for a road to sanity. At the moment, it is a thought experiment, but one that is legal and actually common place: consider the Cabinet as the deliberative as well as an advisory body that crafts wise policies.
What matters is the effort to move beyond mere resistance and onto a more substantive engagement with rebuilding – to ask what comes next, and to harness the current disenchantment and loss of faith in a more productive manner. It is said that moments of crisis are also moments of opportunity. There is little doubt that we face a crisis of governance at the moment; this is also a chance to design a new and improved government.
Why environmental education isn’t enough to create change and improve governance.
It is time to talk about important things. Why have we come so close to the brink of extinction so carelessly and casually?
It’s been said that the fate of any great movement is to be cannibalized by the mainstream or to die. I’d like to suggest two others paths: zombiehood and courageous re-invention.
In Extraenvironmentalist #56 we speak with James Howard Kunstler about his recent book, Too Much Magic: Wishful Thinking, Technology and the Fate of the Nation. Jim talks about how the magnitude of corruption in our financial system revealed since 2008 has been even greater than he could have imagined.
The technical-corporate-financial elite which controls our energy supplies has no clue about how to manage those supplies in the unfolding age of energy scarcity. That portends considerable political upheaval as the public becomes more engaged in shaping our energy future.
