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green heroes

ALTERNATIVES

Mikhail Gorbachev: “We need a new economic model, the planet is overburdened”

25th February 2020

Mikhail Gorbachev, founder of Green Cross International, on the need for urgent economic and social change to promote true sustainable development that does not over-consume and waste natural resources, while at the same time ensures opportunities and peace for humanity. This 2012 interview with the former USSR President and Nobel-winner remains just as relevant today….

ALTERNATIVES

How psychedelics helped to shape Extinction Rebellion

23rd January 2020

From Emerge: Gail Bradbrook, one of the founders of Extinction Rebellion, writes about her experiences with psychedelic plants, which she says altered her worldview so radically as to set her on her current path to initiate social change. Bradbrook helped found, and continues to play a key role in this global movement for systemic change….

ALTERNATIVES

Tribute: Is your ecology deep or shallow?

30th October 2019

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….

Education/Awareness

Aseem Shrivastava: Meher Engineer RIP… “Ami ki korbo?”

23rd May 2019

Prof. Meher Engineer, physicist and formerly Acting Director, J. C. Bose Institute, Kolkata and former Chairperson, Indian Academy of Social Sciences, passed away on April 24, 2019. Involved in many people’s movements working on human rights, livelihood and environmental issues, he was also an authority in climate science and active in the climate justice movement….

ALTERNATIVES

The Greta Thunberg controversy

17th May 2019

This series by Cory Morningstar charges Greta Thunberg—the face of the youth climate activism, and an inspiration to millions—with being a pawn of a ‘Non-Profit Industrial Complex’ seeking to hijack the movement to usher in the next stage of global capitalism, dubbed the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’. Also included here is Thunberg’s response to her critics….

CLIMATE CRISIS

International Rebellion: UK’s Extinction Rebellion movement goes global

20th April 2019

From The Ecologist: Extinction Rebellion, the activist group spearheading mass civil disobedience for climate action in the UK, has drawn people of all ages into their effort to draw attention to the unfolding climate emergency. Now, they are inspiring similar actions everywhere “from Auckland to Accra, Mexico City to Vancouver”, as the movement goes international….

ALTERNATIVES

Greta Thunberg’s problem. A problem without a solution?

8th April 2019

Thunberg, the face of school climate-strikes, writes, “Either we go on as a civilization, or we don’t”. But who said we must go on with this civilization? If we drop this idea, then the survival of the human species (not of the current Western civilization) is possible – with a different, yet to be fully described, kind of civilization….

ALTERNATIVES

Thank you, climate strikers. You are the force of possibility that runs through the present like a river through the desert.

20th March 2019

Rebecca Solnit writes: I want to say to all the climate strikers: thank you so much for being unreasonable. You may be told that what you are asking for is impossible. Don’t listen. Don’t stop. Don’t let your dreams shrink an inch. Don’t forget; this might be the year when you rewrite what is possible….

ALTERNATIVES

Tribute: Dr. G. Nammalvar, messiah of Tamil Nadu’s organic revolution

6th January 2019

It’s been five years since the passing of G. Nammalvar, the icon of sustainable farming who died on December 30, 2013, while leading a campaign against the plan to extract methane gas in Cauvery delta. An agriculture scientist, he left his job and travelled across Tamil Nadu spreading the message of organic farming using story-telling….

ALTERNATIVES

The Sunrise Movement and the ‘Green New Deal’: Climate hope from Trump’s America?

15th December 2018

Naomi Klein writes on the game-changing proposal for a ‘Green New Deal’ mooted by popular U.S. politician Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Also, an inside view of the youth climate movement unexpectedly making waves in Trump’s America, and an interview with co-founder Varshni Prakash. Also included is a critical take on the Green New Deal by Don Fitz….

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.”…

Culture/Cognition

J.C. Bose: Why the great scientist’s legacy remains astonishing a century later

13th November 2018

Stefany Ann Goldberg writes: Famous for his plant-response studies, J.C. Bose was also the first scientist to study inorganic matter the way a biologist examines a muscle or a nerve. Bose performed his plant experiments on rocks and metals, too. Remarkably, he found that the “non-living” responded when subjected to mechanical, thermal, and electrical stimuli….

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

Why is the Indian govt silent on this 86-year-old’s fast for the river Ganga?

2nd October 2018

From Mainstream Weekly: Dr. G. D. Agrawal (now Swami Gyan Swaroop Sanand) is one of India’s most distinguished environmental engineers, who served as the first Member-Secretary of India’s Central Pollution Control Board. Fasting for almost 100 days now to save the river Ganga, he’s now on his sixth, and in his own words, final “fast-unto-death”….

Conflict/Dispossession

The defenders: Nine activists defending the Earth from violent assault

23rd August 2018

Individually, they are stories of courage and tragedy. Together, they tell a tale of a natural world under ever more violent assault. A series of portraits of people who are risking their lives to defend the land and environment today, from India to South Africa. Also read: ‘Why 2017 Was the Deadliest Year for Environmental Activists’…

ALTERNATIVES

Tribute: Masanobu Fukuoka, the ‘one-straw revolutionary’ of agriculture

15th August 2018

August 16th marks ten years since the passing of the legendary Japanese farmer and author Masanobu Fukuoka, who initiated the natural farming movement. Here’s a documentary on his life and work, along with notes by Larry Korn, Fukuoka’s American student and the translator of his book, ‘One Straw Revolution,’ considered the ‘bible’ of natural farming….

ALTERNATIVES

Economy of Permanence: The enduring legacy of J.C. Kumarappa

26th June 2018

J.C. Kumarappa was a stalwart of India’s freedom movement, Gandhian economic philosopher, pioneer in the development of village and cottage industries and advocate of a decentralised, localised economy of permanence and freedom. Yet, he remains practically unknown to the present generation of Indians. A tribute to Kumarappa by Pranjali Bandhu, editor of his collected writings….

ALTERNATIVES

Dhrubajyoti Ghosh: The intrepid ecologist and his ‘laboratory of survival’

14th June 2018

Aseem Shrivastava writes: Ghosh insisted that human culture does not consist just of literature, cinema, music and dance. Rather, the patrimony of ecological culture, which is not just an artefact of the past, resides in the practical collective memory of communities, showing pathways of “living creatively with nature”. Such rooted wisdom lights up paths to…

A temple and a small pond at the origin of Nanduwali

ALTERNATIVES

Nanduwali: A river comes to people

10th June 2018

Nanduwali in east Rajasthan started flowing again when the villagers decided to work with nature and not against it. There was a time when they believed that crops grow only with rainfall -lacking knowledge about the underground movement of water and how it can be enhanced. Today, the revived river is a lifeline to them….

ALTERNATIVES

Tribute: Pirating Seeds – The story of Dadaji Khobragade

6th June 2018

Grown over a million acres of farmland, the HMT rice variety – developed by Dadaji Ramaji Khobragade, a small cultivator and self-trained plant breeder – brought a measure of prosperity to several hundred thousand farmers in Maharashtra and neighbouring states. Bharat Mansata pays tribute to the legendary farmer and seed saver who died on Sunday…