CLIMATE CRISIS
Set in a village in Bundelkhand, which hasn’t seen rain in the last 15 years, the soon-to-be-released Hindi film Kadvi Hawa is a stark story about how climate change affects us all. Instead of capturing the socio-economic impact, director Nila Madhab Panda says, he is interested in looking at the emotional impact of climate change….
Read More about Kadwi Hawa: A harsh wind is blowing
Culture/Cognition
James Kunstler writes: I watched Blade Runner 2049, the latest from Hollywood’s dream-shop. It was an excellent illustration of the over-investments in technology with diminishing returns that are dragging us into collapse and of the attendant techno-narcissism that afflicts the supposedly thinking class in this society, who absolutely don’t get what this collapse is about….
Read More about Blade Runner 2049 gets it wrong: Technology cannot defeat nature and still exist
ALTERNATIVES
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….
Read More about Bookshelf: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis by George Monbiot
Bookshelf
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….
Read More about How ‘Silent Spring’ ignited the modern environmental movement
Bookshelf
From LA Times Review of Books: If global warming is the most pressing planetary problem, why do we see so few references to it in contemporary novels, apart from post-apocalyptic science fiction? Amitav Ghosh believes the inward turn of modern art has cut it off from nature, and that we desperately need a new approach….
Read More about Amitav Ghosh: Why modern art is unable to deal with the big issues of our times
ALTERNATIVES
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 website
WWF
CLIMATE CRISIS
Peter Brannen writes: Climate change is pushing more water into the atmosphere—with bizarre consequences. We’re headed toward a more arid world but one with unprecedented bursts of floodwaters. And in the tropics, a coming deluge unlike any witnessed by humanity. Also, James Hansen, Naomi Klein and others on climate change and hurricanes Harvey and Irma….
Read More about The strange future Hurricane Harvey portends
ALTERNATIVES
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 7: Environmental Justice
ALTERNATIVES
From Greenpeace International: We’ve come a long way since 1971, when on this day, a small group of courageous people set off to stop nuclear testing in a small fishing boat. Today, we operate in more than 40 countries and are part of a global movement of millions, striving for a greener, more peaceful planet….
Read More about Greenpeace turns 46 today. Here are five reasons to celebrateCulture/Cognition
The short film Carbon focuses on global warming and takes a look at what the future could hold for us if we don’t act today. The Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Prachi Desai and Jackky Bhagnani starrer deals with serious environmental issues like Global Warming & pollution and their impact on our world. Watch the full movie here….
Read More about Carbon: A Hindi short film set in 2067
CLIMATE CRISIS
From Grist.org: Yes, we should be having the conversation about climate change and the unprecedented floods, and anyone who tells you otherwise probably has ulterior motives. But before we go there, we need to show the victims that we genuinely care about them. Could our shared value be the lives of those who are hurting?…
Read More about Want to talk climate change amidst floods? Show some compassion first.CLIMATE CRISIS
Here is the melodious truth of our times. Listen to it and get a crash course on our failure to accept what we understand but can’t internalise to enable change. A parody of Simon and Garfunkel’s Sound of Silence, by Parody Project. Mihir Mathur, Mihir’s Musings RELATED A black day for the planet: Trump sounds…
Read More about How he (you-know-who) ‘Confounds the Science’
Bookshelf
From International Socialist Review: Catastrophism explores the politics of apocalypse —on the left and right, in the environmental movement, and from capital and the state —and examines why the lens of catastrophe can distort our understanding of the dynamics at the heart of these numerous disasters —and fatally impede our ability to transform the world….
Read More about Bookshelf: Why dystopia is for losers
Urbanization, the new frontier for conservation - a presentation by course instructor Harini Nagendra
ALTERNATIVES
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 6: Exploring Sustainability in the Indian Context
CLIMATE CRISIS
The Atlas for the End of the World chronicles the archipelago of protected areas into which the world’s genetic biodiversity is now huddled. It is not about the end of the world per se; but the end of the world as a God-given and unlimited resource for human exploitation and its concomitant myths of progress….
Read More about An Atlas for the End of the World
ALTERNATIVES
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
ALTERNATIVES
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 4: Soil Fertility & Food Security
ALTERNATIVES
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 3: Water – Scarcity, Contamination, Conservation
ALTERNATIVES
Kari McGregor writes: The green movement is no longer unified, if it ever really was. Bright Green, Lite Green, Bright Green and Dark Green tribes form around divergent worldviews, theories of change, an accepted range of tactics. Each tribe vies for attention to its message in a world of time-constrained news cycles and manufactured consumerism….
Read More about Light, bright or dark – what shade of green are you?
ALTERNATIVES
Here’s a thinker, who in the 1960s, declared climate change as a defining problem of the age. Who accused his fellow environmentalists of advocating mere “technical fixes” of capitalism, instead of addressing root causes. But today, his ideas are enjoying an unexpected revival. Damian White pays tribute to Murray Bookchin, who died on this day in 2006….
Read More about Tribute: Murray Bookchin and the ecology of freedom
