Culture/Cognition
The short film Carbon focuses on global warming and takes a look at what the future could hold for us if we don’t act today. The Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Prachi Desai and Jackky Bhagnani starrer deals with serious environmental issues like Global Warming & pollution and their impact on our world. Watch the full movie here….
Read More about Carbon: A Hindi short film set in 2067
Development/Growth
New scientific research is quietly rewriting the fundamentals of economics, showing decisively that the age of endlessly growing industrial capitalism, premised on abundant fossil fuel supplies, is over. The long-decline of capitalism-as-we-know-it, the new science conclusively shows, began some decades ago, and is on track to accelerate well before the end of the 21st century….
Read More about Nafeez Ahmed: Inside capitalism’s slow-burn energy collapse
CLIMATE CRISIS
From Grist.org: Yes, we should be having the conversation about climate change and the unprecedented floods, and anyone who tells you otherwise probably has ulterior motives. But before we go there, we need to show the victims that we genuinely care about them. Could our shared value be the lives of those who are hurting?…
Read More about Want to talk climate change amidst floods? Show some compassion first.
ALTERNATIVES
We consume more, we fill the atmosphere with carbon dioxide. We have more stuff, our lives are more convenient, yet we’re not happier. Prof. Jules Pretty sets out a plan to engage people with Nature and create more sustainable and enjoyable living for everyone. The first call to action is: “Every child outdoors every day”….
Read More about A manifesto for the green mind
Bookshelf
From International Socialist Review: Catastrophism explores the politics of apocalypse —on the left and right, in the environmental movement, and from capital and the state —and examines why the lens of catastrophe can distort our understanding of the dynamics at the heart of these numerous disasters —and fatally impede our ability to transform the world….
Read More about Bookshelf: Why dystopia is for losers
Economy
From The Guardian: Chemicals and agribusiness giant Bayer has approached the European Union to approve its $65bn takeover of Monsanto, eliminating direct competition between two of the biggest players in the industry. If approved, the merger would be an extremely risky consolidation of corporate power, and a serious threat to food supplies and farmers worldwide….
Read More about This corporate merger threatens food supplies worldwide. Who’ll stop it?
CLIMATE CRISIS
The Atlas for the End of the World chronicles the archipelago of protected areas into which the world’s genetic biodiversity is now huddled. It is not about the end of the world per se; but the end of the world as a God-given and unlimited resource for human exploitation and its concomitant myths of progress….
Read More about An Atlas for the End of the World
Conserve/Resist
From Live Mint: The protesting farmers demanded a waiver of loans and better prices for their harvest. They want a say in trade policy which they think have a pro-consumer bias. They’re aware of the bad debts of the industries. They also ask why farmers should bear the burden of keeping food inflation in check….
Read More about Are farmer movements in India changing course?
ALTERNATIVES
Richard Heinberg writes: Over the past century-and-a-half, fossil fuels enabled the rapid growth of resource extraction, manufacturing, and consumption; and these in turn led to population increase, pollution, and loss of natural habitat and hence biodiversity. Our core ecological problem is not climate change. It is overshoot, of which global warming is only a symptom….
Read More about Why climate change isn’t our biggest environmental problem, and why technology won’t save us
ALTERNATIVES
Prof. Irfan Habib writes: This year is the centenary of one of the most remarkable episodes of modern Indian history, the Champaran satyagraha of 1917 that joined the national movement with the great struggle of the peasantry for bread and land, exposing how the twin processes of drain of wealth and de-industrialisation had ruined India….
Read More about Celebrating the Champaran Satyagraha, a hundred years on
ALTERNATIVES
From Down to Earth Magazine: What does it take to design a permaculture kitchen garden? In this video, permaculture practitioners Rosie and Peter Fernandes, based in Assagaon, Goa, recount their experience of growing a food forest designed to meet their cooking needs round the year. They are now taking their model to the wider community….
Read More about How to grow a food forest that will feed you everyday
CLIMATE CRISIS
From Climate Central: If greenhouse gas emissions continue on their current trajectory, parts of eastern India and Bangladesh will exceed the 95°F threshold by century’s end, a study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has found. The findings raise the issue of environmental justice, as these populations have done the least to cause global warming….
Read More about New study: Extreme heat will hit India’s most vulnerable the hardest
The 2008 movie 'Wall-E' features a small waste-collecting robot as its protagonist
Consumerism/Lifestyle
From Slate.com: Industrial civilisation’s impact is so massive that it goes way beyond climate change. Earth scientists now suggest that it is creating a distinct geological layer made of ‘technofossils’. The scale of our stuff is so gargantuan, that it is throwing off the quite robust balance of our natural systems—that’s how powerful it is….
Read More about Humans are creating a new geological layer of techno-fossils
Representative pic
ENERGY
From Sanhati: A history of the 240 year-old Raniganj Coalfield– the story of its workers –the many lives that have been spent in its shadows, displaced by coal and depending on it for survival –would be a tale every bit as expansive as the Mahabharata. This two-part article gives a short glimpse of this history….
Read More about A window into coal workers in India: The history of Raniganj Coalfield
ALTERNATIVES
From The Conversation: If the global economy grows by 3% till 2100, it will be 60 times larger than now. The existing economy is already environmentally unsustainable, so we simply cannot“decouple” growth from environmental impact. This paper looks at policies that could facilitate a planned transition beyond growth–while considering the huge obstacles along the way….
Read More about Limits to growth: policies to steer the economy away from disaster
Paintings by Meenakshi Subramaniam
Culture/Cognition
I’m no elephant whisperer, nor do I claim to have complex exchanges with them by moonlight, but the reverse is true: when they come by, I’m whispered out of my den by their calls and cries, by their trumpets, rumbles and whooshing sighs. When elephants arrive in the valley, I scoot out of my sheets….
Read More about Suprabha Seshan: The music of everythingALTERNATIVES
From BBC: A recent episode of Newsnight, BBC’s programme on ideas, had a surprising guest: Anthropologist Jason Hickel, who went on to make a case against the lethal addiction to economic growth and in its place proposed “planned de-growth”. Hickel is the author of The Divide: A Brief Guide to Global Inequality and its Solutions….
Read More about Jason Hickel on BBC: Our addiction to economic growth is killing us
A village council meeting being held in Barkheda village to discuss community issues
Ishan Agrawal
ALTERNATIVES
From The Wire: With a predominantly tribal population, Barkheda is a typical central Indian village. A few years ago, the villagers took charge of their natural resources and established a village executive committee. The committee governs all the water bodies of Barkheda, which now has rules on water usage, based on the principles of equity….
Read More about How one village’s successful tryst with self-governance inspired others
CLIMATE CRISIS
What is permafrost? What happens when permafrost thaws? This animation, based on research by scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute, answers these questions. Understanding this problem, and its connection to global climate change, is of vital importance at a time when the thawing Arctic tundra is creating massive craters and bringing back diseases like anthrax….
Read More about Permafrost – the Arctic’s sleeping giant: What is it, and why does it matter?
