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communicating crises

ALTERNATIVES

Hope and mourning in the Anthropocene: Understanding ecological grief

23rd November 2018

From The Conversation: The eminent American naturalist Aldo Leopold described the emotional toll of ecological loss thus: “One of the penalties of an ecological education,” he wrote, “is to live alone in a world of wounds.” Ecological grief reminds us that climate change is not just some abstract scientific concept or a distant environmental problem….

CLIMATE CRISIS

‘It is time to rebel’: Meet Greta Thunberg, 15-year-old climate firebrand

19th November 2018

This September, Greta Thunberg went on strike and sat on the steps of Sweden’s parliament building in Stockholm. Her demand? That the government take radical action on climate change. Since then, this autistic 15-year-old has become the face of climate resistance in Europe. Her motto? “We can’t save the world by playing by the rules.”…

CLIMATE CRISIS

Extinction Rebellion: The green movement making waves in the UK

28th October 2018

A new group called Extinction Rebellion, has called for mass civil disobedience in the UK starting next month and promises it has hundreds of people – from teenagers to pensioners – ready to get arrested in an effort to draw attention to the unfolding climate emergency. The group is backed by almost 100 senior academics….

ALTERNATIVES

David Wallace-Wells: UN says climate genocide is coming. It’s actually worse.

18th October 2018

We’re on track for four degrees of warming, more than twice as much as most scientists believe is possible to endure without inflicting climate suffering on hundreds of millions or threatening at least parts of what we call, grandly, “civilization.” The only thing that changed is that the scientists, finally, have hit the panic button….

Bookshelf

Charles Eisenstein: Initiation into a living planet

14th October 2018

Most people have passed through some kind of initiation; a crisis that defies what you knew and what you were. Societies can also pass through a similar initiation. That is what climate change poses to the present global civilization. A key element of this transformation is from a geomechanical worldview to a Living Planet worldview….

CLIMATE CRISIS

The IPCC systematically underestimates climate risks: here’s the proof

8th October 2018

A Special Report on Global Warming has been released today by the IPCC, considered the international benchmark on climate change. Ahead of it, Donald Brown reviewed three independent studies which show that climate change is a much more urgent and serious threat than indicated by past IPCC reports, and examines the ethical questions they raise….

CLIMATE CRISIS

The study on climate-collapse they don’t want you to read – yet

30th September 2018

A research-paper concluding that climate-induced collapse is now inevitable, was recently rejected by an academic journal, citing the emotional impact that it might have on readers. The paper offers a new framing to make sense of the disaster we face, called “deep adaptation.” It has now been released online by the author, Prof. Jem Bendell….

Consumerism/Lifestyle

Raj Patel: Capitalism made simple, or world history in 7 cheap things

12th September 2018

Nature, money, work, care, food, energy, and lives: the seven things that have made our world and will shape its future. Award-winning writer and activist Raj Patel makes the case that in making these things cheap, modern commerce has governed, transformed and devastated the earth. Also included, an interview with Patel and co-author Jason Moore….

ALTERNATIVES

Memory, fire and hope: Five lessons from Standing Rock

4th September 2018

From Common Dreams: The forced eviction of the Standing Rock protestors is simply the latest chapter in a violent, 500-year-old history of colonisation against the First Nations. It’s also the latest chapter in the battle between an extractive capitalist model and the possibility of a post-capitalist world. For now, let’s remember this movement’s enduring lessons….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Memo to The New York Times: How not to talk about climate change

31st August 2018

From Jacobin Magazine: The New York Times’ blockbuster story on climate change concludes that democracy and human nature are to blame for the climate crisis. They’re wrong. You cannot tell the story of climate change without telling the story of twentieth-century capitalism. This isn’t just a missed opportunity or a partial story—it’s the wrong story….

CLIMATE CRISIS

The world is hot, on fire, and flooding. Climate change is here.

26th July 2018

From Grist Magazine: It’s the hottest month of one of the hottest years in the history of civilization, and the world is being battered by extreme weather events – unprecedented heatwaves in japan, wildfires in Greece and the Arctic Circle, and flooding in Philippines and Laos, where a dam was washed away, forcing thousands to flee….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Charles Eisenstein: Why I am afraid of global cooling

24th July 2018

Climate science has consistently underestimated the effect of biology on climate. A geomechanical bias holds sway, seeing life as hostage to fluctuations in atmospheric components. In contrast, a living planet view holds that fundamentally it’s life itself that maintains the conditions for life, and the depletion of life is the biggest threat to the climate….

Conflict/Dispossession

There is nowhere left to run

12th July 2018

Ratheesh Pisharody writes: There’s really nowhere to run whether we are mammals, trees, insects or even indigenous tribes. What chances do we see for the planet’s revival? When humans take away both “space” and “time” from our co-passengers on this planet, we’re leaving no “leverage” for the others to “somehow” adjust and make it through….

CLIMATE CRISIS

‘Tail Risk’: What the scientists are not telling you about climate change

24th June 2018

Kerry Emanuel writes: There are strong cultural biases against discussion of ‘tail risk’ in climate science; particularly the accusation of “alarmism”. Does the dictum to tell “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” not apply to climate scientists? If we omit discussion of tail risk, are we really telling the whole truth?…

ALTERNATIVES

Six science-fiction authors parse the implications of our unhinged era

16th June 2018

From Nature: Science fiction is increasingly in the here and now. With technological change cranked up to warp speed and day-to-day life smacking of dystopia, where does science fiction go? Has mainstream fiction taken up the baton? Six prominent American science fiction writers reflect on what the genre has to offer about our common future….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Storms in India: The Science of Severity

16th May 2018

Around 127 people died and 300 others injured during the severe dust and thunderstorms that shook north India on May 2; wind speeds of 126 kilometres making it the strongest storm in six years. The world may see more such freak storms due to rising temperatures; reducing pollution and protecting forests are perfect preventive measures….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Red alert: Runaway climate change begins as glacier melt passes point of no return

24th March 2018

This latest news immediately brings some questions to mind: Does this mean that we should stop working toward mitigating climate change? Should we stop worrying and enjoy mindlessly by indulging ourselves in senseless consumerism? I really don’t know. But what I definitely know is that the window of opportunity to act is closing really fast….

ALTERNATIVES

Pablo Solon: Vivir Bien – Old cosmovisions and new paradigms

11th March 2018

From GreatTransition.org: The concept of Vivir Bien (or Buen Vivir), reflecting an indigenous cosmovision that emphasizes living in harmony with nature and one another, gained international attention as an alternative to the rampage of neoliberalism. As its popularity has grown, however, its meaning has been compromised, warns Pablo Solon, Bolivia’s former ambassador to the UN….

Bookshelf

Constructing hope: ‘Green Earth’ by Kim Stanley Robinson

1st March 2018

Adrian Ayres Fisher writes: Part of the relatively new ‘cli fi’ genre, Kim Stanley Robinson‘s novel ‘Green Earth’, is full of climate change related, extreme weather disasters. It could have been yet another nightmarish fantasy trip. Instead, with underpinnings of Shakespearean comedy, its tone and structure convey hopefulness and there are moments of true joy….

ALTERNATIVES

Is it possible for everyone to live a good life within our planet’s limits?

12th February 2018

Daniel O’Neill writes: If everyone on Earth were to lead a good life within our planet’s sustainability limits, the level of resources used to meet basic needs would have to be reduced by a factor of two to six times. These are the sobering findings of our research, recently published in the journal Nature Sustainability….