Speed and Localism
If we are to mitigate catastrophic climate change and also reverse the catastrophically increasing chasm between rich and poor, first, we must reclaim the common.
powering down
Avoiding Excess this Festive Season
Christmas puts a big strain on our carbon budgets, our wallets and our stress levels. So why not try a low-carbon, low-budget, low-stress Christmas? It might actually be more fun.
The Suburbs are the Spiritual Home of Overconsumption. But they also Hold the Key to a Better Future
Suburban catastrophists such as James Kunstler argue that fossil fuel depletion will turn our suburbs into urban wastelands. But we see the suburbs as an ideal place to begin retrofitting our cities.
Keeping Some of the Lights On: Redefining Energy Security
What does it mean for a society to have “energy security”? Although there are more than forty different definitions of the concept, they all share the fundamental idea that energy supply should always meet energy demand.
COP24: Climate Protesters Must Get Radical and Challenge Economic Growth
At COP24 environmental movements have an opportunity to use their platform to highlight the relationship between economic growth and environmental impact, and even to discuss radical alternative futures that are not dependent on a growth-based economy.
How Do You Degrow?
Everything about the lifestyle we are accustomed to, as rich westerners, has to change. If we let that sink in for a little bit that is when the real disruption comes in, giving way to a radical shift in perspective. So, where do we go from here?
The Limits of Renewable Energy and the Case for Degrowth
The energy transition is the focus of much discussion. To read the accounts in the mainstream media, one gets the impression that renewable energy is being rolled out quickly and is on its way to replacing fossil fuels without much ado, while generating new green jobs.
Culture and Climate
Tinkering with improvements to our current ways of life is futile. We must each of us change how we live, or else be changed forever by our own effects.
How Circular is the Circular Economy?
The circular economy – the newest magical word in the sustainable development vocabulary – promises economic growth without destruction or waste. However, the concept only focuses on a small part of total resource use and does not take into account the laws of thermodynamics.
Embracing Inconvenience
But we can—we really can imagine and live with fewer “conveniences”—and even like it. At the risk of being an outlier today, I’ll continue to take the long way, the inconvenient way, for you, Julia—and for your generation.
Varanasi
At some point you realise it’s not about belonging, it’s about being at home in your own skin, on this Earth, wherever you land, and deciding to pay the debt, your family’s debt, your culture’s debt, stretching back through the centuries. The buck stops here, you say. I’m not going anywhere.
Wake up. Stop Dreaming!
The illness of American life is our ignorance of the energy we consume, the products made from it, and the luxuries we take for granted. It’s time to wake up and stop dreaming.
