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ALTERNATIVES

The Church of Economism and its discontents

26th March 2016

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….

From the 17th century text Hortus Malabaricus

Culture/Cognition

The dangers of separating science and environment

25th March 2016

Manu Saunders writes: What will be the consequences if the perceived connection between scientific endeavor and the natural world continues to weaken? Presenting nature study as a pleasant but scientifically irrelevant hobby may have beneficial effects on our health and well-being, but it’ll damage our understanding of environmental issues and therefore our understanding of science….

ALTERNATIVES

Can environmentalism learn from religion?

18th March 2016

Kurt Cobb writes: While it might seem tempting to downplay the nexus between religion and environmentalism in order to bolster environmentalism’s scientific underpinnings, I think this would be a serious mistake. The effectiveness of religious rhetoric suggests that environmentalists ought not to discard it, but rather figure out how to harness it even more effectively….

ALTERNATIVES

Announcing Ecologise Camp 4, near Thally, Tamil Nadu

16th February 2016

Dates: April 16-17, 2016 Venue: A Small Three Acre Farm (“Asta Farm”), Hosur-Thally Road, Krishnagiri District, Tamil Nadu Land custodians: Gracy Elezebeth & Vijay Kundaji Contacts Vijayendra t.vijayendra@gmail.com +91 94907 05634 Vijay Kundaji vijay.kundaji@gmail.com +91 98450 87530 Gracy Elezebeth gracyvijay@yahoo.com +91 94484 82572 “When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned,…

A depiction of the 'Pralaya' or Great Flood, from the Matsya Purana

Bookshelf

Economic collapse: How to face it without fear

20th January 2016

It’s indeed possible to wrap your head around the new emerging reality. It doesn’t take a financial maverick to foresee collapse and it’s by no means my discovery. I just saw the patterns emerging before most people simply because I was paying attention to facts and trends – all in public domain, some for decades….

Economy

Video: What it really means when the top 1% own half of India’s wealth

9th January 2016

This short animated video on inequality from Krishi TV shows what it really means when the top 1% of India owns half of the country’s wealth. The benefits of India’s economic growth of the past years have been largely appropriated by this small group, at the expense of the welfare of the majority of Indians….

ALTERNATIVES

Announcing Ecologise Camp 3 at Sirsi, Karnataka

30th November 2015

Dates: January 23-25, 2016 Venue: ‘No Man’s Land’ Farm, Danandi Village, Sirsi Taluk, Uttara Kannada Dist., Karnataka Host: George Varghese, grgvrghs@gmail.com; +91 9481278348 “When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money.” – Native American saying We now live in…

CLIMATE CRISIS

Video: Weather reports from the future

27th November 2015

How will climate change impact our weather in the year 2050? Watch “weather reports from the future” World Meteorological Organization If humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions continue to increase, the average temperature of the Earth’s lower atmosphere could rise by more than 4°C (7.2°F) by the end of the 21st century. But what does a global average…

Economy

Video: The Impossible Hamster

21st November 2015

New Economics Foundation We wanted to confront people with the meaning and logical conclusion of the promise of endless economic growth. We used a hamster to illustrate what would happen if there were no limits to growth because they double in size each week before reaching maturity at around 6 weeks. But if a hamster…

ALTERNATIVES

Peak Oil (Or why city slickers should learn to get their hands dirty)

15th November 2015

Peak Oil, Food Security and Urban Agriculture T. Vijayendra Abstract Peak Oil refers to the point when oil production reaches a peak, and henceforth can only fall. This has already happened. This has enormous implications for food security. It raises cost and prices of food because farm inputs – primarily fertilisers and pesticides – are petroleum…

ALTERNATIVES

Announcing Ecologise Camp 2, Dharwad, Nov 14

5th November 2015

Date: November 14 -15, 2015 Venue: Suman Sangam– A forest farm (village Daddi Kamalapur (Dharwad — Panaji (Goa) highway) Dharwad, Karnataka, India) Host: Dr. Sanjeev Kulkarni (Note: Registrations are closed for this Camp. If you want to register for the next one, contact the organisers named below) Ecologise Camp The Ecologise Camp is a programme through which those living…

CLIMATE CRISIS

New issue of Mausam, India’s only Climate Change journal

4th October 2015

India Climate Justice The latest issue of Mausam, the e-mag published by India Climate Justice, is out. Here’s the list of contents: CONTENTS Experiencing the Change: Climate Change and Everyday Life in Coffee Plantations of South India Anshu Ogra Human Trafficking and Climate Disasters Sayantoni Datta Betting on the Wrong Horse: Fast Reactors and Climate Change MV…

CLIMATE CRISIS

Syria’s Climate-Fueled Conflict, In One Stunning Comic Strip

15th September 2015

How climate change helped spark a bloody civil war By Audrey Quinn and Jackie Roche, Mother Jones This comic was produced by Years of Living Dangerously and Symbolia Magazine. You can read more of their comics exploring the impacts of climate change here.

ALTERNATIVES

First Ecologise Camp at Nakre, near Udupi, Karnataka

28th July 2015

The Ecologise Camp is a programme through which those living in cities can explore living in an ecologically more sensitive and sustainable manner. Specifically, it is a programme involving stay and work on an organic farm for varying periods, as a volunteer. The programme will be preceded by a weekend orientation workshop , during which the…

Education/Awareness

38th Indian Social Science Congress – Task Force Report

8th July 2015

Task Force Report (TFR) of the 38th Indian Social Science Congress 29th March – 2nd April, 2015; Visakhapatnam, India. Prepared by Dr. Claude Alvares, Dr. J.B.G. Tilak and Sumana Nandi Introduction: The Indian Academy of Social Sciences (ISSA) in association with Andhra University held the 38th Indian Social Science Congress on ‘Knowledge Systems, Scientific Temper and…

Education/Awareness

Prayas looking for Energy Policy Researchers at Pune

5th June 2015

Prayas (Energy Group) Prayas (Energy Group) or PEG is a leading energy policy research and advocacy organization based in Pune, known for its analysis based policy advocacy. Based on a rigorous analytical approach backed by policy and institutional innovation, PEG actively intervenes in regulatory and policy spheres in the energy sector with the objective of promoting public interest…

Education/Awareness

Peak Oil: A Graphic Story

19th May 2015

Australian artist Stuart McMillan has spent over 700 hours creating this amazing cartoon of the life and work of M.King Hubbert. McMillan writes on his blog about what he aimed to do with this cartoon: I knew that I couldn’t produce the definitive account of Peak Oil, through the medium ofcomics. I could simply never…

Education/Awareness

Free Online Course in Environmental Justice (starting 30th March)

15th March 2015

About the course The world faces challenging environmental problems. They are challenging because different people typically contribute differently to environmental change, and because its effects will be felt differently by different people in different places. Understand environmental injustices This free online course will help you understand how injustice is a common feature of many environmental…

Arayil/Flickr

Development/Growth

Negative entropy and sustainability

16th February 2015

When we talk of sustainability, we often hear terms like eco-friendly technologies, appropriate technologies etc. To this, critics often say that we’re talking of going back to nature, we are being primitive, unscientific and that this is not possible. This article tries to provide a logic for eco-friendly, appropriate technologies using human and animal power….