ALTERNATIVES
Dr. Iain McGilchrsit talks about the left-brain right-brain divide, culture and cognition in the West, metaphysics, philosophy and how science and technology affect our society.
Read More about [WATCH] We are living in a deluded world: Interview with Iain McGilchrist
ALTERNATIVES
What’s wrong with the popular Miyawaki method of ecological restoration?
Read More about How Mr Miyawaki Broke My Heart
ALTERNATIVES
The founder of Deccan Development Society not only popularised millets but also worked for agro-biodiversity, food sovereignty, women’s empowerment, Dalit rights, social justice and local knowledge systems.
Read More about P.V. Satheesh, the Original Millets Man of India
Author (with spectacles) at Narmada Sangharsh Yatra (Struggle Journey), 1990
Photo by Shailendra Yashwant
CLIMATE CRISIS
The many faces of India’s Narmada movement: Since the mid-1980s, the Narmada valley has also been the site of one of Independent India’s most iconic and globally well-known people’s movements, the Narmada Bachao Andolan (Save the Narmada Movement). For the last nearly 40 years, this movement has raised questions about and tried to stop, a series of mega-dams along the river and its tributaries.
Read More about It did not stop the dam, but is it a failure?
ALTERNATIVES
After relinquishing control of forests to the villages that depend on them, forest cover in Nepal nearly doubled.
Read More about How Nepal Regenerated its Forests: Communities know their Forests Best
CLIMATE CRISIS
From Fanack.com: From Saddam Hussein’s destruction of the unique Southern marshlands to the burning of croplands in Iraq’s greenbelt in 2019, the country’s valuable natural and cultural resources are being degraded rapidly. At the same time, growing awareness of environmental issues has spurred the rise of groups that want to change the course of the country….
Read More about War, mismanagement and climate change: Iraq’s environment on the brink
Bookshelf
From CBC Radio: Wind, rain, wildlife, and how they interact with the different sizes and shapes of leaves and branches all make up what David George Haskell calls the “distinct voices” of trees. His new book closely examines a dozen trees to show how they’re joined to the natural world, and to humanity as well….
Read More about The Songs of Trees: Stories From Nature’s Great Connectors
Education/Awareness
From The Conversation: People around the world and throughout history have used birds to think about and predict the future. This new research project that compared reports from six continents found that people from diverse communities pay attention to particular birds and what they reveal about the world around us, from approaching weather to illness….
Read More about Ethno-ornithology: What the birds have to tell us
CLIMATE CRISIS
From The Conversation: The pharmaceutical industry rarely conjure up images of pollution and environmental damage. Yet, this recent study found that the global pharmaceutical industry is not only contributes significantly to global warming, but is also dirtier than the global automotive production sector. Also watch a video on extreme pharmaceutical waste pollution in Patancheru, Telangana….
Read More about Big Pharma emits more greenhouse gases than the automotive industry
Bookshelf
Alyssa Hull writes: We desperately need narratives that move past apocalypse as an endpoint, not only because there are people and societies already living through the Western world’s vision of climate apocalypse, but also because it can only inspire a helpless waiting for the post-apocalypse to arrive, suddenly, to cleave the past from the future….
Read More about Hopepunk, Solarpunk: Here are climate narratives that go beyond the Apocalypse
CLIMATE CRISIS
From Vice.com: Just like an animal species, our languages evolved in the context of the environments that surrounded them. When we change those environments, we threaten much more than just the physical living things that thrive there. In the parts of the world where biodiversity is most at risk, words and phrases also face extinction….
Read More about As animals and plants go extinct, languages die off too
ALTERNATIVES
Researching public perceptions of the future, I’m not aware of any progress indicators that reflect the real depth of people’s concern. The current wave of global political unrest and protest is commonly attributed to growing inequality, corruption, austerity, thwarted expectations and climate change. But the real reasons also go deeper, challenging the entire narrative of modernisation itself….
Read More about Your money or your life? Putting wellbeing before GDP
ALTERNATIVES
Ted Trainer writes: The prize has gone to three people studying how the poor can derive more benefit from existing “development” practices. It sees no reason to question the existing market and growth-driven economy and its derivative, development theory. It doesn’t threaten the massively unjust and environmentally destructive global systems that keep billions in poverty….
Read More about The 2019 Nobel Prize shows why we need to dump conventional economics
ECOCIDE/EXTINCTION
From The Atlantic: In the 18th century, European colonizers virtually eliminated the American bison. When we lose animals, we also lose everything those animals do. When insects decline, plants go unpollinated. When birds disappear, pests go uncontrolled and seeds stay put. When bison are exterminated, springtime changes in ways that we still don’t fully understand….
Read More about What America lost when it lost the bison
CLIMATE CRISIS
From Logic Magazine: Despite the climate crisis, Big Oil is doubling down on fossil fuels. At over 30 billion barrels of crude oil a year, production has never been higher. Now, leading oil companies are forging a lucrative partnership with tech giants like Microsoft, building a new carbon cloud that just might kill us all….
Read More about Oil is the new data: How Big Tech and Big Oil collaborate
ALTERNATIVES
Big Agri, Big Pharma, Big Tech, Big Food, Big Banking, Big Oil and Big Government aren’t there to make our lives better. They’re there to control us and make as much money as possible; and they’ll run you over if you’re in their way. Daisy Luther on how to fight back and starve the Beast….
Read More about 55 ways to ‘starve the beast’
Conflict/Dispossession
Jo-Shing Yang reports on how Wall Street banks like Citigroup and multibillionaires are buying up water sources all over the world at unprecedented pace. Simultaneously, governments are moving fast to limit citizens’ ability to become water self-sufficient. Also read an investigative report from The Guardian: Liquid assets: how the business of bottled water went mad…
Read More about The Great Water Grab: Wall Street is buying up the world’s water
ALTERNATIVES
Thanks to the capitalist propaganda machine, we’ve forgotten the difference between ‘conscious’ and ‘compulsive’ consumption. Frugality, which once used to be the essence of responsible living has been labelled as ‘shame’. Though rarely discussed, this was the beginning–and now the core–of the climate crisis. And it has begun to control all aspects of our lives….
Read More about Compulsive consumption: The malaise at the core of the climate crisis
CLIMATE CRISIS
From Down to Earth: Findings by Hiroyuki Murakami of Princeton University suggest that 64% of the cyclone risk in the Arabian Sea was due to climate change. The study further warns that the coastal areas surrounding the Arabian Sea are at specific risk since the geographical location offers cyclones nowhere to go but the land….
Read More about Arabian Sea: The new cradle for deadly tropical cyclones
ALTERNATIVES
In 1973, Norwegian philosopher Arne Næss coined the concept of ‘deep ecology’, arguing that only a “deep” transformation of modern society could prevent ecological collapse. Næss criticized one-sided technological approaches in dealing with environmental problems, an attitude he called ‘shallow ecology’. A tribute to the visionary thinker, including a documentary-film on his life and work….
Read More about Tribute: Is your ecology deep or shallow?
