From Catch News: Uttarakhand’s Kosi river is dying, which could spell doom for the region. Data from the last 25 years shows that the lean flow capacity of the river during summers has witnessed a massive, over 700%, drop, while the river’s total length has reduced from 225 kilometers to just 41 in 40 years….
Read More about Uttarakhand’s Kosi river is dying; only an immediate intervention will save it
“Is western civilisation on the brink of collapse?” the lead article in this week’s New Scientist asks. It’s a good question, but it seems too narrow. These pathologies are not confined to “the west”. The rise of demagoguery (and the pursuit of simplistic solutions to complex problems) is everywhere apparent. Environmental breakdown is accelerating worldwide….
Read More about George Monbiot: Is this the end of civilisation? We could take a different path
Peter Buffet writes: Reconsider. Everything. Is it feeding fear? Is it feeding off trauma? Is it creating more suffering? Most of our institutions will crumble under the weight of these questions. And when we have reconsidered the lives we have built, how will we live? Look to the people that are weathering the early storms….
Read More about The fierce urgency of “how”
Richard Smith writes: The fundamental contradiction with capitalism is that maximizing profit and saving the planet are inherently in conflict and cannot be systematically aligned even if, occasionally they coincide for a moment. But saving the world requires that the pursuit of profits be systematically subordinated to ecological concerns— and this no corporation can do….
Read More about Without a viable alternative to capitalism, our goose is cooked
From Grist.org: Two Antarctic glaciers act as a plug holding back enough ice to pour 11 feet of sea-level rise into the world’s oceans —an amount that would submerge every coastal city on the planet. Finding out how fast these glaciers will collapse is one of the most important scientific questions in the world today….
Read More about The icesheet cometh
Recent studies show that those who identify themselves as conscious consumers use more energy and carbon than those who do not. Why? Because, environmental awareness is higher among wealthy people. It’s not attitudes that govern our impacts on the planet, but income. The richer we are, the bigger our footprint, regardless of our good intentions….
Read More about George Monbiot: Why ‘conscious consumption’ won’t save the world
Catrine Jarman writes: Recently, the Easter Islands have become the ultimate parable for humankind’s selfishness; a moral tale of the dangers of environmental destruction. But 60 years of archaeological research and recent genetic data shows that this dark tale of ecocide and Malthusian collapse has more to do with Western ignorance and prejudice than facts….
Read More about Easter Island: A sustainable society falsely blamed for its own demise
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….
Read More about Learning to see in the dark: An interview with deep ecologist Joanna Macy
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….
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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….
Read More about A second warning to humanity, from the world’s scientists
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….
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William Robinson highlights some revealing statistics to expose what is really behind the rapid digitalization of global capitalism, the rise of authoritarian leaders and the creeping spread of the global police state. These, he says, are nothing but an insecure transnational capitalist elite’s attempt to insure themselves against rising inequality and a looming economic crisis….
Read More about A global police state? Digital capitalism and the rise of authoritarian leaders
From The Guardian: Insects are multitudinous beyond our imagining, and have triumphed for hundreds of millions of years, in every habitat. This makes all the more alarming the great truth now dawning upon us: insects as a group are in terrible trouble and the remorselessly expanding human enterprise has become too much, even for them….
Read More about The insect ecosystem is collapsing due to humans. It’s a catastrophe
As much as any book can, Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” changed the world, by describing it. An immediate best-seller, this classic book launched the modern environmental movement, which, in turn, led to the creation of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and a host of green laws. On the 55th year of its publication, a tribute….
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Ashish Kothari & Pallav Das write: Genuine alternatives to the destructive juggernaut of corporate and finance capital are emerging as much from contemporary progressive resistance as from the wisdom of indigenous peoples’ and other traditional community world-views. “Radical Ecological Democracy” (RED) is one such emerging paradigm based on which we can fashion a meaningful future….
Read More about Is there a way out? Announcing the new Radical Ecological Democracy websiteFrom Down to Earth: The Aral Sea has shrunk to a fourth of its size. Neha Mungekar travels to Uzbekistan and recounts how it remains a living sample of a monumental human-made ecological catastrophe. Although the Aral Sea disaster was realised in the 1990s, the true extent of its consequences are becoming evident only today….
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Ecologise has consistently driven home that humanity needs to prepare for unprecedented environmental, economic and socio-political upheaval and uncertainty in the 21st century. In this new series, we showcase free short-duration online courses that focus on these various emerging crises and possible responses. Created by the world’s leading universities, they offer a good starting point to explore these complex challenges….
Read More about Module 5: Biodiversity & Species Extinction
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?Even when we question the personal impacts of modern technology, how many of us consider how our dependence on technology might be harming us? Or question the belief that technological advances will save us from our most pressing environmental and societal challenges? Richard Heinberg tackles this thorny issue in this brilliant essay and animation feature….
Read More about Richard Heinberg: Ecological collapse? There’s no app for that
New York Magazine
It is not often that an article about climate change becomes the most hotly debated item on the internet. But David Wallace-Wells’ lengthy essay published in New York Magazine did exactly that. The full text of the essay –admittedly a worst-case scenario- which has kicked up a firestorm of debate online, along with selected responses….
Read More about Viral essay: The Uninhabitable Earth
