Home
Education/Awareness

Education/Awareness

Some experts have attributed the unprecedented rainfall that led to the 2015 Chennai floods to climate change

The scientific challenge of attributing extreme weather events to human activity

28th March 2016

Roz Pidcock reports: Working out whether human activity is supercharging extreme events like floods, droughts and heatwaves, is one of the youngest branches of climate science. But it’s moving at breakneck pace. So much so, that the US National Academy of Sciences has fast-tracked a report taking stock of the science and where it’s heading….

The decisions we make about climate change today will reverberate for millennia

27th March 2016

David Roberts writes: The great irony of climate change is that it’s so big we can barely care about it. We’re in a brief window of time when it is still possible to blunt the worst effects of climate change. So let’s try an imaginative exercise: connecting long-term climate consequences to our current political moment….

The Church of Economism and its discontents

26th March 2016

Richard Norgaard writes: Two centuries of explosive economic growth have radically altered our world. With human activity now the major driver of geological change, the industrial era has come to be called the Anthropocene. In this essay, I instead adopt the term Econocene, thereby underscoring its ideological foundation: economism, the reduction of all social relations to market logic….

From the 17th century text Hortus Malabaricus

The dangers of separating science and environment

25th March 2016

Manu Saunders writes: What will be the consequences if the perceived connection between scientific endeavor and the natural world continues to weaken? Presenting nature study as a pleasant but scientifically irrelevant hobby may have beneficial effects on our health and well-being, but it’ll damage our understanding of environmental issues and therefore our understanding of science….

Can environmentalism learn from religion?

18th March 2016

Kurt Cobb writes: While it might seem tempting to downplay the nexus between religion and environmentalism in order to bolster environmentalism’s scientific underpinnings, I think this would be a serious mistake. The effectiveness of religious rhetoric suggests that environmentalists ought not to discard it, but rather figure out how to harness it even more effectively….

The Revolution is Love: A missive from Charles Eisenstein

14th March 2016

This is why so many seasoned activists succumb to despair after decades of struggle. Do you think we can beat the military-industrial-financial-agricultural-pharmaceutical-NGO-educational-political complex at its own game? But the modern environmental movement, and most especially the climate change movement, has attempted just that, risking defeat but also often worsening the situation even in its victories….

Announcing Ecologise Camp 4, near Thally, Tamil Nadu

16th February 2016

Dates: April 16-17, 2016 Venue: A Small Three Acre Farm (“Asta Farm”), Hosur-Thally Road, Krishnagiri District, Tamil Nadu Land custodians: Gracy Elezebeth & Vijay Kundaji Contacts Vijayendra t.vijayendra@gmail.com +91 94907 05634 Vijay Kundaji vijay.kundaji@gmail.com +91 98450 87530 Gracy Elezebeth gracyvijay@yahoo.com +91 94484 82572 “When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned,…

Grist / Amelia Bates

Charles Eisenstein: Climate Change, grief and carbon reductionism

13th February 2016

People are not going to be frightened into caring. Scientific evidence-based predictions about what will happen 10, 20, or 50 years in the future are not going to make them care, not enough. That requires making it personal. And that requires facing the reality of loss. And that requires experiencing grief. There’s no other way….

Peter Wohlleben says, “When I say, ‘Trees suckle their children,’ everyone knows immediately what I mean.”

Gordon Welters

German forest ranger finds that trees have social networks, too

5th February 2016

Peter Wohlleben has delighted readers with the news — long known to biologists — that trees are social beings. They can count, learn and remember; nurse sick neighbors; warn each other of danger; and, for reasons unknown, keep ancient stumps of their long-felled companions alive for centuries by feeding them a sugar solution through their roots….

At the duck pond on the campsite – even better than YouTube!

Venetia Ansell

Ideas, inspiration and ducks: Letter from an Ecologise Camp participant

3rd February 2016

The camp is a great opportunity to meet people who are trying to make the transition from urban to rural or at least high impact to low impact lifestyles, to find inspiration, role models, ideas and perhaps answers to those questions and challenges that well meaning conventional thinking relatives and friends keep hurling at you….

A depiction of the 'Pralaya' or Great Flood, from the Matsya Purana

Economic collapse: How to face it without fear

20th January 2016

It’s indeed possible to wrap your head around the new emerging reality. It doesn’t take a financial maverick to foresee collapse and it’s by no means my discovery. I just saw the patterns emerging before most people simply because I was paying attention to facts and trends – all in public domain, some for decades….

Video: What it really means when the top 1% own half of India’s wealth

9th January 2016

This short animated video on inequality from Krishi TV shows what it really means when the top 1% of India owns half of the country’s wealth. The benefits of India’s economic growth of the past years have been largely appropriated by this small group, at the expense of the welfare of the majority of Indians….

Only 60 years of farming left if soil degradation continues

16th December 2015

Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years, and if current rates of degradation continue all of the world’s top soil could be gone within 60 years, a senior UN official said Chris Arsenault, Reuters ROME (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Generating three centimeters of top soil takes 1,000 years, and if current rates of degradation…

Nature.com

Comic: The 25-year quest for a climate treaty

6th December 2015

The fragile framework A Nature comic examines the 25-year quest for a climate treaty. Can nations unite to save Earth’s climate? Richard Monastersky & Nick Sousanis, Nature Click on image to view comic MORE IN COMICS: Syria’s Climate-Fueled Conflict, In One Stunning Comic Strip Peak Oil: A Graphic Story

Announcing Ecologise Camp 3 at Sirsi, Karnataka

30th November 2015

Dates: January 23-25, 2016 Venue: ‘No Man’s Land’ Farm, Danandi Village, Sirsi Taluk, Uttara Kannada Dist., Karnataka Host: George Varghese, grgvrghs@gmail.com; +91 9481278348 “When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money.” – Native American saying We now live in…

Video: Weather reports from the future

27th November 2015

How will climate change impact our weather in the year 2050? Watch “weather reports from the future” World Meteorological Organization If humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, the average temperature of the Earth’s lower atmosphere could rise by more than 4°C (7.2°F) by the end of the 21st century. But what does a global average…

A few reflections on the galloping environmental degradation

25th November 2015

AUTHOR Prof. Mark Lindley, University of Hyderabad School of Economics DESCRIPTION/EXCERPT The galloping environmental degradation is complicated. Let me distinguish seven aspects of it, as a step toward developing a comprehensive understanding of it. (Some of these seven are closely linked to each other in a cause-and-effect or overlapping way.): 1. Renewable natural resources being…

Video: The Impossible Hamster

21st November 2015

New Economics Foundation We wanted to confront people with the meaning and logical conclusion of the promise of endless economic growth. We used a hamster to illustrate what would happen if there were no limits to growth because they double in size each week before reaching maturity at around 6 weeks. But if a hamster…

Announcing Ecologise Camp 2, Dharwad, Nov 14

5th November 2015

Date: November 14 -15, 2015 Venue: Suman Sangam– A forest farm (village Daddi Kamalapur (Dharwad — Panaji (Goa) highway) Dharwad, Karnataka, India) Host: Dr. Sanjeev Kulkarni (Note: Registrations are closed for this Camp. If you want to register for the next one, contact the organisers named below) Ecologise Camp The Ecologise Camp is a programme through which those living…

E-book: Water warriors – Stories on people and their relationship with water

23rd October 2015

The stories in this yearbook highlight efforts by rural and urban communities across India to take back ownership of their water resources. India Water Portal Water sustains lives and livelihoods. It is a precious and finite resource that, in future years, is likely to become the main bone of contention between peoples, states and nations….