ALTERNATIVES
As India reels under a back-to-back drought, with 10 states declared affected and nearly 2,00,000 villages affected, it’s time to ask whether the present situation could’ve been avoided. And yet, here are examples from across India where, armed with little more than determination and imagination, ordinary people have turned things around to create little oases….
Read More about Series: Combating drought – 2: Success stories
ALTERNATIVES
The Indian Express reports: Last week, a Solar Pump Irrigators’ Cooperative Enterprise (SPICE) was up and running in Dhundi, a village in Gujarat’s Anand district. Members of this cooperative —the first of its kind in the world— are using solar power not only to run pumps, but also sell their surplus energy to the grid….
Read More about SPICE: The world’s first solar farming cooperative
Digests/Specials
As India reels under a back-to-back drought, with 10 states declared affected and nearly 2,00,000 villages affected, it’s time to ask whether the present situation could’ve been avoided. As many expert voices presented here point out, it’s not the weather alone that creates a drought, but bad planning and an often corrupt and apathetic administration….
Read More about Series: Combating drought – 1: What the experts say
ALTERNATIVES
Madhu Ramnath reports: Unknown to the rest of the country, a small group of adivasis from the forested villages in central Bastar have been busy doing work that would make conservationists proud. People from Sandh Karmari, Kakalgur, Kangoli and nearby villages have been gathering native seeds and raising them in nurseries in fairly large numbers….
Read More about Bastar: Conservation in the time of conflict
ALTERNATIVES
Sonal Shah writes: Cities have concentrated on bettering vehicle and fuel technologies and building bus rapid transit or metro rail systems. However, they need to focus on managing demand, augmenting their bus transport systems, improving last mile connectivity and enabling compact development. This will shift people towards non-motorised and public transport and avoid motorised trips….
Read More about What other cities can learn from Delhi’s experiments with public transport
Bookshelf
Rob O’Grady writes in ‘150-strong’: Aldous Huxley suggested that “Our present economic, social and international arrangements are based, in large measure, upon organized lovelessness,” and, on the evidence, it appears that he was right. Our current system, governed by the reconciling force of profit motive, is dominated by greed and fear – certainly not love! …
Read More about How our economic system is designed to promote greed, fear and selfishness
ALTERNATIVES
Alberto Acosta writes: Mainstream thinking – embedded within capitalist globalisation – makes us accept the impossibility of imagining an economy that does not promote economic growth, as much as a world without oil, mining and agribusiness is impossible. Within this mainstream thinking, we can find people from every political and ideological stance, from neoliberals to socialists….
Read More about The only sustainable growth is de-growth!
ALTERNATIVES
Vaidehi Daptardar writes: Though not a structured model, Gandhi’s concept of trusteeship envisioned every member of society as the trustee of wealth generated out of the collective efforts of all. He expected that trusteeship will result in non-violent and non-exploitative socio-economic relations and development models based on production systems centred around the preservation of nature….
Read More about What Gandhi can teach us about sustainabilityALTERNATIVES
The rise of the film ‘Demain‘ appears unstoppable. Viewed in France now by almost a million people, winner of the Cesar award for Best Documentary, the film has been received with standing ovations, and has inspired many to roll their sleeves up and do things. Rob Hopkins’ of the Transition Network’ interviews director Cyril Dion….
Read More about Video: Demain – The documentary that’s taking over France by storm
Shunya.net
ALTERNATIVES
Some of us have recently created a small group called ‘Ecologise Hyderabad’. The aim of the group is to look at the many ecological crises of the city holistically, interact with experts and social activist and run programmes to strengthen the efforts of the activists in running green programmes in different localities of the city….
Read More about Ecologise Hyderabad: Workshops for Sustainability and Equality
Nesta.org.uk
ALTERNATIVES
Rob O’ Grady explains why none of the existing large-scale systems —be they capitalist or communist— would work. For a community to function well, it must resolve conflicts as they arise. It can only operate if we personally know every other person. This limits the maximum size of the community to Dunbar’s Number—around 150 individuals….
Read More about Bookshelf: 150 Strong – A Pathway to a Different Future
ALTERNATIVES
Rocco Pallin writes: Thirty-three percent of soil worldwide is degraded, and 50,000 square kilometers of soil are lost each year. Soil is not a renewable resource and “isn’t recoverable within a human lifespan,” but sustainable practices could increase the world’s food production by 58 percent. Here are seven projects helping to restore the world’s soil….
Read More about Seven projects around the world that protect soilALTERNATIVES
The Ringing Cedars of Russia series of books have sold over ten million copies in Russia, and has inspired a massive movement in earth consciousness there. Its part of a new, silent revolution in Russia, where more and more people are leaving the cities to live closer to nature. Interestingly, the Russian government actively supports it….
Read More about Special: Ringing Cedars and the new, silent revolution in RussiaALTERNATIVES
Chetan Raut, founder of the intriguingly named startup Cowism, aims to empower distressed Maharashtra farmers to become self-reliant and financially independent by integrating commercially useful assets like native cattle into farming practices to improve soil fertility, lower input costs, and raise profits. “Invariably, the solutions to our problems lie right under our noses,” says Chetan….
Read More about Video: Cowism! How an engineer is transforming Indian agriculture
ALTERNATIVES
“Some Possible Ideas For Going Forward” is a manifesto for global change, signed by leading activists, academics and intellectuals, including Noam Chomsky, to “help inspire more conversations within groups and movements that, over time, come to a synthesis… We believe only program that is fully understood and owned by grassroots participants can win lasting change.”…
Read More about ‘Ideas For Going Forward’: A manifesto for a world in crisis
ALTERNATIVES
This first of its kind Green Development Agenda for Kerala was collectively drafted by green collective Paristhithi Aikya Vedhi, and has been submitted to the leaders of the main political parties in the fray for the upcoming Assembly Elections in May. It was released on 30th March by Dr.V.S.Vijayan, Member, Western Ghats Ecology Expert Panel….
Read More about A Green Development Manifesto for Kerala
Digests/Specials
Charles Hugh Smith writes: If we don’t change the way money is created and distributed, we will never change anything. The Panama Papers offer damning proof of this: increasing concentrations of wealth and power free of constraint (like taxes) is not just the consequence of centralized money and state power, but its only possible output….
Read More about The Panama Papers: Consequences of centralised money and power
The endangered Northern White Rhino
Culture/Cognition
A planet where caged wild animals go extinct is also one that warehouses its elderly in nursing homes. A world where the last white rhinos age in zoos is also a world of war, racism, poverty, and ecocide. It’s impossible for one to exist without the others. All are part of the same unholy matrix….
Read More about Charles Eisenstein: In a Rhino, Everything
ALTERNATIVES
Colin Todhunter writes: GMO enthusiasts insist that agroecological farming could never feed the world. But it has been feeding us all for millennia – and it’s the only way to continue while enriching the soils on which all farming depends. Gandhi once called industrial agriculture a nine-day wonder. And its time will soon be up….
Read More about Organic agriculture, agroecology and the parallel reality of the GMO evangelist
ALTERNATIVES
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….
Read More about The Church of Economism and its discontents
