Christopher Alexander
Written by Contributor, 27th February 2020, 0 Comments
The Nature of Order: An Essay on the Art of Building and the Nature of the Universe
Development/Growth
History’s largest mining operation is about to begin – on the ocean floor
Written by Contributor, 19th February 2020, 0 Comments
As resources dry up on land, mining companies are heading underwater. Today, many of the world’s largest mineral corporations have launched underwater mining programs. But the biggest prize for them will be access to international waters, which cover more than half of the global seafloor and contain more valuable minerals than all the continents combined.
ALTERNATIVES
Why “Corporate Social Responsibility” is a hoax
Written by Contributor, 16th February 2020, 0 Comments
Álvaro de Regil Castilla writes: Over the years, as I watched CSR evolve, it gradually became evident that it was really a hoax, for the simple reason that short-term maximization of profit is baked into the corporate DNA. Businesses thus cannot be socially responsible as long as the institutions of democracy remain captured by marketocracy.
Development/Growth
Nine competing geoeconomic projects that will shape Asia’s future
Written by Contributor, 13th February 2020, 0 Comments
From Great Game India: A global contest with at least 9 geoeconomic projects is underway in and around Asia. Regional powers are putting forward ambitious plans for building roads, railways, and other hard infrastructure across the region. A preview of a competition as wide-ranging as the region itself; whose long-term ecological cost will be incalculable.
CLIMATE CRISIS
The terrifying science behind the accelerating locust plague
Written by Contributor, 11th February 2020, 0 Comments
From Wired: It’s the worst locust outbreak to strike Africa in decades, and Pakistan and India’s border states too have been badly affected. And the problem is about to get a lot worse—the insect population could boom by a factor of 500 by June. Unlike other species, a rapidly-warming planet present an advantage to locusts.
CLIMATE CRISIS
Arsonist-in-chief: How Rupert Murdoch helped set Australia on fire
Written by Contributor, 7th February 2020, 0 Comments
Murdoch has said: “We can be the low-cost energy country in the world. We shouldn’t be building windmills and all that rubbish. Climate change has been going on as long as the planet’s here.” Since 2007, the largely Murdoch-controlled Australian press has helped topple four Australian PMs who dared to try to reduce Australia’s carbon emissions.
Conflict/Dispossession
The Hindu
Ahead of ‘Day Zero’, Delhi’s water crisis is about to turn into a water war
Written by Contributor, 4th February 2020, 0 Comments
From ABC News: Delhi is one of 21 Indian cities that could run out of groundwater, according to a 2018 government thinktank report. Disputes over water often lead to violence, especially in the city’s unauthorised settlements. The state government and the local “water mafia” are drilling bores, further depleting groundwater and exacerbating the larger problem.
CLIMATE CRISIS
Big Pharma emits more greenhouse gases than the automotive industry
Written by Contributor, 1st February 2020, 0 Comments
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.
Bookshelf
Hopepunk, Solarpunk: Here are climate narratives that go beyond the Apocalypse
Written by Contributor, 29th January 2020, 0 Comments
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.
Forests/Wildlife
Credit: sandra1219.tumblr.com
Priya Rajan: A window as wide as the world
Written by Contributor, 26th January 2020, 0 Comments
I live in a concrete maze that boasts a few yards of curbed open space and calibrated greenery. High-rises clutter the view of sky; pigeons and mynahs rule the roofs. Urban wildlife often feels incongruous, surreal. A praying mantis sheltering from lashing rain makes the windowsill suddenly more meaningful, though that is not its purpose.
ALTERNATIVES
How psychedelics helped to shape Extinction Rebellion
Written by Contributor, 23rd January 2020, 0 Comments
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.
Bookshelf
Amitav Ghosh: What the West doesn’t get about the climate crisis
Written by Contributor, 20th January 2020, 0 Comments
The West has come to rely on “an expert discourse” from scientists. The result is that science is giving fearful westerners hope in a business-friendly “sustainable development,”, which they think will save the system before it collapses. The alternative, a massive scale economic adaptation to a new distribution of resources, is too scary to consider.
ALTERNATIVES
Nazmul Haque
The Galactic Gardeners’ Forum pings the people of Planet Earth in the New Year
Written by Contributor, 17th January 2020, 0 Comments
We come from a remote handful of living planets and moons scattered across this galaxy. We are a network of galactic gardeners who nurture life by sharing our stories, experiences, knowledge, and ideas. We’ve decided to contact you because we cherish life everywhere we find it — and life on your planet is in grave danger.
Conflict/Dispossession
A $5 trillion economy for India: At what cost?
Written by Shankar Sharma, 14th January 2020, 0 Comments
PM Narendra Modi wants India to be a “$5 trillion economy” by 2024. The consequences of such high GDP growth –even setting aside questions regarding its distribution or true worth– will result in depriving the dispossessed sections of society of access even to natural resources, while driving fragile ecologies to a point of no return.
CLIMATE CRISIS
As animals and plants go extinct, languages die off too
Written by Contributor, 11th January 2020, 0 Comments
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.
CLIMATE CRISIS
Jason Hickel: The Nordic model is a disaster for the environment
Written by Contributor, 8th January 2020, 0 Comments
From Al Jazeera: Scandinavian countries have some of the highest levels of happiness on the planet, and top virtually every ranking of human development. They re worth celebrating for all they get right. But there’s a problem. They’re an ecological disaster, with some of the highest levels of resource-use and CO2 emissions in the world.
CLIMATE CRISIS
Climate crisis: Is there a Savitri to save the world from catastrophe?
Written by Sagar Dhara, 5th January 2020, 1 Comment
The legend of Savitri and Satyavan in the Mahabharata, is a love story. Savitri, a beautiful princess, marries Satyavan, a penniless woodcutter, despite the Sage Narada warning her that Satyavan, a dead man walking, would die in one year. Now, the story of Savitri and Satyavan is being played out in real life in the ongoing climate change saga.
ALTERNATIVES
Daniel Christian Wahl: We are a young species growing up
Written by Contributor, 2nd January 2020, 0 Comments
Humanity is facing the terminal crisis of an outdated worldview. From a long-term perspective, as a relatively young species on this planet we are collectively undergoing a maturation process which requires us to redefine how we understand our relationship to the rest of life on Earth— facing the choices of either collapse or profound transformation.
Bookshelf
2020: The Incipient Bet
Written by Contributor, 30th December 2019, 0 Comments
From CounterPunch: He whipped out a check for a thousand dollars and said, “I bet you US$1000 that in the year 2020, we’re not even close to the kind of disaster you describe.” He had obviously planned to maneuver me into this kind of challenge. “We won’t even be close. I’ll bet on my optimism.”
ALTERNATIVES
Your money or your life? Putting wellbeing before GDP
Written by Richard Eckersley, 27th December 2019, 0 Comments
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.
CLIMATE CRISIS
This was the decade climate change slapped us in the face
Written by Contributor, 24th December 2019, 0 Comments
From BuzzFeed: The 2010s will likely lock down the record for the hottest decade so far. The 10-year stretch boasted many of the most expensive and destructive catastrophes ever. Here’s a review of six of the most devastating climate-records we broke this decade. Also, a short video featuring expert views on looming climate tipping points.
ALTERNATIVES
The 2019 Nobel Prize shows why we need to dump conventional economics
Written by Contributor, 21st December 2019, 0 Comments
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.
ALTERNATIVES
Mihir Shah: India’s water crisis has a simple solution
Written by Contributor, 18th December 2019, 1 Comment
“This plan has multiple win-wins: Improvement in soil and water quality, higher incomes for farmers, reduced malnutrition and obesity, and a simple solution to India’s water problem by drastically reducing use of water in agriculture.” Also watch: ‘Bringing the Science Back Into Water: A New Paradigm for 21st Century India,’ a talk by Mihir Shah.
Bookshelf
Blip: Humanity’s 300 year self-terminating experiment with industrialism
Written by Contributor, 15th December 2019, 0 Comments
In his new book ‘Blip’, Christopher Clugston synthesizes the evidence produced by hundreds of research studies to quantify the causes, implications, and consequences associated with industrial humanity’s predicament. He presents compelling evidence to show how industrial civilisation’s enormous and ever-increasing utilisation of nonrenewable natural resources will lead to global societal collapse in the near future.
CLIMATE CRISIS
Courtesy of Union of Concerned Scientists
“Humanity’s mortality moment”: Scientists’ restate climate warning
Written by Contributor, 12th December 2019, 1 Comment
Earlier this year, over 11,000 scientists from around the world issued a signed warning stating “clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency”. At the ongoing CoP-25 climate talks at Madrid, Dr. William Moomaw, one of the report’s co-authors, explains the nature of that emergency, and what we must do about it.
ECOCIDE/EXTINCTION
What America lost when it lost the bison
Written by Contributor, 9th December 2019, 0 Comments
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.
Conflict/Dispossession
Beggars as choosers: Why India’s poor opt to beg
Written by Contributor, 6th December 2019, 1 Comment
Beggars are usually ignored on the streets and questions are asked about why they don’t work. But many have indeed worked as paid labour and have chosen begging as the primary activity, finds Sabina Yasmin Rahman. As India’s urban and rural poor reel from a state-made economic crisis, this revealing study takes on an urgent relevance.
CLIMATE CRISIS
Oil is the new data: How Big Tech and Big Oil collaborate
Written by Contributor, 3rd December 2019, 0 Comments
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.
ALTERNATIVES
Welcome to the global rebellion against neoliberalism
Written by Contributor, 30th November 2019, 0 Comments
Massive protests have been roiling through Algeria, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, France, Germany, Guinea, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, the Netherlands, Spain, Sudan, the UK, and Zimbabwe—and that’s only since September. As distinct as the protests seem, the uprisings rocking scores of countries all share a common theme, argues Ben Ehrenreich.
CLIMATE CRISIS
The Hindu
How caste shapes water conflicts in drought-ridden Maharashtra
Written by Contributor, 27th November 2019, 0 Comments
Anuj Ghanekar writes: Drought affects everyone, but the Dalits are the worst affected. They often become targets of threats and violence in different ways if they try to access water or demand rights for water, with several atrocities on record. One study noted several instances where water sources used by Dalits were deliberately contaminated with human excreta.
ALTERNATIVES
55 ways to ‘starve the beast’
Written by Contributor, 26th November 2019, 0 Comments
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.
CLIMATE CRISIS
The scientists who predicted Australia’s bushfire emergency decades ago
Written by Contributor, 23rd November 2019, 0 Comments
From The Guardian: Now, as more dangerous fire weather is forecast, they’re being asked: why did the science not lead to action? “I would blame most of that on the lobbying”,” says Pearman, now 78. “That lobbying has been extremely powerful in a country driven by the resource sector that includes uranium, coal and gas.
Conflict/Dispossession
Bolivia, Brazil and South America’s never-ending resource curse
Written by Contributor, 20th November 2019, 0 Comments
From The Intercept: Anthropologist and Bolivia scholar Bret Gustafson offers a nuanced analysis of how the coup in Bolivia unfolded, who benefits from the present crisis, and what is at stake for the overwhelmingly indigenous population. Also, Glenn Greenwald talks about his recent conversation with Brazil’s former president Lula, who was recently released from prison.
Conflict/Dispossession
The Great Water Grab: Wall Street is buying up the world’s water
Written by Contributor, 17th November 2019, 0 Comments
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
CLIMATE CRISIS
'Skeleton Arresting Masqueraders', 1891 painting by James Ensor
Catabolism: The final phase of Capitalism
Written by Contributor, 14th November 2019, 3 Comments
From Counterpunch: In a contracting, growth-less economy, the profit motive can have a powerful catabolic impact on capitalist society. In biological terms, “catabolism” refers to the condition whereby a living thing feeds on itself. Catabolic capitalism is a self-cannibalizing system whose insatiable hunger for profit can only be fed by devouring the society that sustains it.
ALTERNATIVES
The fate of Ladakh in the Age of Ambani
Written by Contributor, 11th November 2019, 0 Comments
Padma Rigzin writes: Ladakh’s folk religion teaches that humans do not form the centre of the natural world but are merely inhabitants. So much so that my ancestors would not move a rock to build a house. Unfortunately, people in Leh are shouting the tune of the mainstream. Ambani has already started knocking our doors.
ALTERNATIVES
Compulsive consumption: The malaise at the core of the climate crisis
Written by Swati Agarwal, 8th November 2019, 0 Comments
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.