Home
ALTERNATIVES

ALTERNATIVES

Why “Warning to Humanity” gets the global crises (and its solutions) wrong

10th December 2017

From Entitle Blog: The “Warning to Humanity” signed by more than 15.000 scientists calls for action to save the planet proposing elitist environmentalism and missing the real target. The problem is not in the “barbarian hordes” and the “overpopulation bogeyman” but in the West’s “imperial mode of living” that is now expanding around the world….

Meet the new age Robin Hoods building a post-capitalist Catalonia

5th December 2017

From Shareable.net: An intriguing blueprint for a post-capitalist world is gradually being built in a converted spa in Barcelona, Spain. Founded by dissenter Enric Duran, the Catalan Integral Cooperative is a wide-ranging operation offering diverse services; including a financial co-op, food pantry and open-source tool workshop, all run on its own local currency —the eco….

‘We’re facing a conspiracy of silence’: Sunita Narain

4th December 2017

Sunita Narain, India’s best-known environmentalist, says the environment challenges we confront-like Delhi’s extreme air pollution-are progenies of “a conspiracy of silence”. “It is a conspiracy because you don’t want the people to know (the harmful effects of environmental pollution),” says Narain, whose new book “Conflicts of Interest” gives a personal account of her green battles….

This student’s epic legal battle can have a big impact on global climate action

27th November 2017

From Greenpeace International: In June this year, a courageous 26-year old Hamilton law student, Sarah Thomson, spent five days in court challenging the New Zealand government over climate change targets she called “unambitious and irrational”. Now, she’s made history, after the country’s High Court issued a game-changing verdict that has implications for climate legislation worldwide….

The Wishing Tree: A tale for our times

26th November 2017

The Wishing Tree is an inspirational film that tells the story of five children in a hill-station who come together to save their ‘wishing tree’ from being cut by vested interests. According to director Raajaysh Chetwal, “It gently nudges people to think about, and restore, the organic and utterly magical relationship between humans and nature.”…

Learning to see in the dark: An interview with deep ecologist Joanna Macy

24th November 2017

Joanna Macy, an eco-philosopher and a scholar of Buddhism, general systems theory and deep ecology, coined the phrase “The Great Turning” to describe “the essential adventure of our time”: the shift from what she calls the “industrial growth society” that is consuming the planet to a life-sustaining civilization. Here’s Macy’s interview with Truthout.org’s Dahr Jamail….

Announcing Presscoin/Insurge: The blockchain for people and the planet

22nd November 2017

A coalition of investigative journalists, privacy activists and alternative economy enthusiasts including Nafeez Ahmed, John Pilger and Barkha Dutt, have announced Presscoin/Insurge, a fascinating new hybrid platform that seeks to meld cutting-edge journalism with activism and alternative currencies. “Dedicated to people and the planet, it represents a fundamental break with the old paradigm,” Nafeez says….

“We should be on the offensive” – ‘Father of climate awareness’ calls for wave of lawsuits

19th November 2017

From The Guardian: James Hansen, former Nasa scientist and one the most respected names in climate science, has called for a ‘litigate-to-mitigate’ strategy, a wave of lawsuits against governments and fossil fuel companies for delaying action on the mortal threat of global warming. Hansen himself is involved in a 2015 climate lawsuit against the US-government….

‘Nature gives us hope’: A tribute to Latha Anantha, river guardian

18th November 2017

Dr Latha Anantha, an expert on rivers and one of the first names to crop up in the struggle to protect them, is no more. The founder and moving spirit behind the River Research Centre, Kerala, she was best known for her efforts to save the Chalakudy river. She’d been diagnosed with cancer in 2014….

A second warning to humanity, from the world’s scientists

15th November 2017

Mankind is facing the existential threat of runaway consumption of limited resources by a rapidly growing population, says a new, dire “warning to humanity” written by 15,000 scientists from 184 countries.The message updates an original warning sent 25 years ago. The experts say the picture now is far, far worse than it was in 1992….

Sulak Sivaraksa on the structural violence of the global economy

13th November 2017

Sulak Sivaraksa, the 85-year-old Thai Buddhist monk, thinker and peace activist, is currently facing the prospect of a fifteen-year jail sentence, for criticising his country’s royal family and military junta. Here, he speaks on the global economy’s built-in inequities and biases. Also included is ‘Heavenly Messengers,’ an excerpt from his book, ‘The Wisdom of Sustainability.’…

7 Days of Rest: A global event for healing the planet and its inhabitants

9th November 2017

7 Days of Rest, 1 – 7 January 2018, is a global unifying event, dedicating 2018 and beyond to the healing and replenishment of the planet and its inhabitants. It seeks to initiate coordinated, unified global action to catalyse mass awareness about the earth’s looming ecological and civilisational crises, in an immediate and effective way….

Narsanna Koppula: The man behind the upcoming Permaculture Convergence

8th November 2017

Narsanna Koppula, a pioneer of permaculture in India, founded Aranya Agricultural Alternatives, with an aim to provide alternate solutions to the present chemical agricultural practices. Later this month, Aranya, which has impacted thousands of farmers in Telangana and Andhra, is playing host to the International Permaculture Convergence, the biggest event on the permaculture calendar globally….

Noam Chomsky: Indigenous people are our only hope for survival

4th November 2017

According to the legendary scholar Noam Chomsky, the world is “facing potential environmental catastrophe and not in the distant future,” and the only communities standing between humankind and catastrophe is the world’s Indigenous people. Here we present a selection of articles & essays on indigenous people and their fight to defend nature from ‘civilised’ humans….

Representative pic

Paani Foundation is creating a new paradigm for fighting drought

30th October 2017

Moin Qazi writes: The Indian film celebrity Aamir Khan is shepherding a very revolutionary campaign–making Maharashtra drought-free in five years. Khan’s Paani Foundation is galvanising the rural population to go back to fundamental lessons of water management taught by their ancestors. Many Maharashtra villages are seeing water in their parched lands after consecutive dry years….

Reality check: Fossil fuel expansion crushes renewables

24th October 2017

Barry Saxifrage writes: What determines our climate fate is how much climate-polluting fossil fuels we burn. Renewables are great, but only if they actually replace oil, gas, or coal. Sadly, rising renewables haven’t stopped our fossil fuel burn. Instead, we keep expanding both renewables and fossil fuels at the same time, in a new business-as-usual….

Manoj Bhargava’s simple inventions could be a game changer for Indian villages

21st October 2017

Billions in Change, the brainchild of Indian-American entrepreneur Manoj Bhargava, shows how simple but life-changing inventions provide clean water, electricity, and improve rural lives. The innovations include a RainMaker device that can turn dirty water clean, a low-cost, portable solar-based power generator and a ‘cost-free fertilizer’ that is made by gathering whatever is laying around….

A documentary on Mali, where agribusiness is turning local farmers into labourers

Who feeds us? The Peasant Food Web vs. the Industrial Food Chain

20th October 2017

Industrial farming, which gets all the attention (and most of the land), accounts for more than 80% of fossil fuel emissions and uses over 70% of the water supply in agriculture, actually produces only about 30% of the world’s food. It’s the diverse network of small-scale producers-the ‘Peasant Food Web’-that feeds 70% of the world….

Bookshelf: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis by George Monbiot

14th October 2017

George Monbiot‘s powerful new book looks at how democracy and economic life can be radically organised from the bottom up. He argues against the “society-crushing system of neoliberalism”, and for a political agenda “that isn’t destined to destroy the living planet”, power given back to people so that wealth isn’t continually distributed to the rich….

Representative pic

At the heart of India’s raging tribal insurgency is a simple thing: respect

6th October 2017

Madhu Ramnath writes: Time and again we have heard that the Naxal insurgency is due to “under development” in areas like Bastar. Education is also supposed to deter Naxalism, according to some, but one may ask whose education? Fundamentally it’s about respect, dignity and trust in our behaviour towards others, in this case the Adivasi….