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education & awareness

ALTERNATIVES

How viable (and sustainable) are solar PV systems? A debate

15th June 2016

Post the Paris climate agreement, the world looks to solar energy more than ever to reduce carbon emissions and counter climate change, with multi-billion dollar solar programmes announced by just about every major country. But just how efficient, and environmentally sustainable is the celebrated solar photovoltaic technology? Here’s what some leading voices have to say….

ALTERNATIVES

Time to wake up and smell the climate change coffee

Jayanta Bandopadhya writes: We no longer need meteorologists to tell us that the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere is growing steadily. Our most urgent task will be to take action towards reduction and reversal of global warming and consequent climate change, and thus, avoid a great threat to the survival of all life forms….

Economy

Debt: The key factor connecting energy and the economy

7th June 2016

Gail Tverberg writes: Growth in energy consumption is dependent on the growth of debt. Both energy and debt have characteristics that are close to “magic” when it comes to economic growth, which can only take place when debt (or a close substitute, such as company stock) is available to enable the use of energy products….

Education/Awareness

Just how scary is Artificial Intelligence? A survey among the experts

6th June 2016

Daniel Fagella writes: Recent advancements in Artificial Intelligence have led to fears of elimination of jobs or destruction of life as we know it. But are these fears legitimate? To help shed light on this, TechEmergence asked over 30 AI researchers on what they believe is the most likely AI-related risk. Here are their responses….

CLIMATE CRISIS

The hidden connection between air pollution and heat spikes: India’s lethal double bind

1st June 2016

India has an extreme air pollution problem, which kills up to 400,000 people every year. This pollution, made up of fine particles called aerosols, also has the effect of cooling the local climate by reflecting or absorbing sunlight before it reaches the ground. It is feasible that India’s pollution problem has been “hiding” extreme heat spikes….

CLIMATE CRISIS

Hitler Denial: A comic on global climate action

25th May 2016

Today, global action to stop climate change is inconceivable. Yet, in 1938, global action to stop Nazi Germany was also inconceivable. The world was in Hitler denial. Australian cartoonist Stuart McMillen, whose acclaimed long-form comics are inspired by science, ecology, sustainability and economics, takes on the most daunting challenge of our times – climate change….

Education/Awareness

Ghagh: Why a 16th century farmer-poet is still relevant

24th May 2016

Mrinal Pande writes: For more than four centuries, Ghagh, literally “the sly one”, has been undoubtedly the most popular of poet philosophers for farming communities in the Indo-Gangetic plains. An astronomer and agricultural guru, Ghagh’s pithy couplets discuss crop cycles, seeds, tips for buying healthy cattle, and reflections on vagaries of both man and nature….

Culture/Cognition

Anthropocene, or the art of living on a damaged planet

19th May 2016

Donna Harraway: I’m going to propose that the Cthulucene might be a way to collect up the questions for naming the epoch, for naming what’s happening in the airs, waters, and places, in the rocks, oceans, and atmospheres. Perhaps needing both the Anthropocene and the Capitalocene, but offering something else, something just maybe more livable….

Bookshelf

How our economic system is designed to promote greed, fear and selfishness

16th May 2016

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! …

ALTERNATIVES

What Gandhi can teach us about sustainability

9th May 2016

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….

CLIMATE CRISIS

How the greatest technology ever developed backfired on us

7th May 2016

Ugo Bardi writes: Their oversized antlers were beneficial for Irish Elk males in sexual competition. However, the weight of the antlers was also a burden and it has been argued that it was perhaps the main reason that led to the extinction of this species. With humans, we may consider language to be the same. …

Bookshelf

Bookshelf: The Oracle of Oil: A Maverick Geologist’s Quest for a Sustainable Future

2nd May 2016

The focal point of The Oracle of Oil, the first biography of King Hubbert, is his distinction as the first person to recognize the phenomenon of peak oil. Hubbert spent decades studying petroleum and natural gas reserves data, hypothesizing that output from large regions—such as the United States, or the whole world—would tend to follow a bell-shaped curve….

Shunya.net

ALTERNATIVES

Ecologise Hyderabad: Workshops for Sustainability and Equality

29th April 2016

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….

Nesta.org.uk

ALTERNATIVES

Bookshelf: 150 Strong – A Pathway to a Different Future

25th April 2016

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….

Bookshelf

Bookshelf: The Politics of Nature by Bruno Latour

19th April 2016

Kurt Cobb writes: Latour understands that the natural world — which politics has always held at arm’s length while nevertheless dealing daily with nature’s demands — must now explicitly invite that natural world to the bargaining table. This is not about being a “nature lover” who only cares about animals and plants, but not about humans….

"The Logic of Neo-Liberalism"

John Ledger

Bookshelf

Neoliberalism – the ideology at the root of all our problems

18th April 2016

George Monbiot writes: So pervasive has neoliberalism become that we seldom recognise it as an ideology. We accept the proposition that this utopian, millenarian faith describes a neutral force; a biological law, like Darwin’s theory of evolution. But the philosophy arose as a conscious attempt to reshape human life and shift the locus of power….

Riber Hansson

CLIMATE CRISIS

Study: Climate change takes from the poor, gives to the rich

17th April 2016

A new study finds that climate change is triggering a massive reallocation of resources to the world’s wealthiest countries. Fish and other important resources are moving toward the Earth’s poles as the climate warms, and wealth is moving with them, according to a new paper by scientists at Rutgers, Princeton, Yale, and Arizona State universities….

Education/Awareness

Video: Learning from water – What if we need to disobey to survive?

13th April 2016

Nikhil VJ writes: Although water is a liquid, it breaks nearly all the rules that liquids follow, and has characteristics that are totally unique. It is precisely the rule-bending characteristics of water that make life possible. In what other systems can a little breaking of the rules be essential to making life possible, sustainable, thriving?…

ALTERNATIVES

‘Ideas For Going Forward’: A manifesto for a world in crisis

8th April 2016

“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.”…

CLIMATE CRISIS

Video: Climate science pioneer Hansen warns of disastrous climate shift

31st March 2016

The world may be much closer to an abrupt and catastrophic climate shift than previously thought. That’s the warning from modern climate science pioneer James Hansen. His latest research suggests that polar ice sheet disintegration may cause sea level rise enough to drown coastal cities, not in a few centuries, but in a few decades….