Mitchell Thomashow’s most recent book, To Know the World: A New Vision for Environmental Learning, arrives when we need it most.
Author: Resilience.org
More and more homeowners are renovating existing homes to make them “net zero”
Ultimately, the goal of lowering our carbon footprint at home is to reduce our energy consumption while taking embodied carbon into consideration.
Participatory methodologies enable communities to assess climate-induced loss and damage
Participatory processes such as the collective development of maps and calendars can be effective tools for communities and marginalized sub-sections to gather, understand, analyze and act on information about the climate impacts that they are experiencing.
Footprint Justice
For regionalization, not everything has to be done on a small scale or regionally. It is a search for the optimal scale in terms of transport, energy use, production options, mineral cycle and many other aspects.
Oats or milk is not the question
The choice between milk and plant-based alternatives is less important than how the food system is designed and how they are produced.
On the Possibility of Speaking a Foreign Language in One’s Native Tongue: Why Our Reskilling Conversations Matter
Despite the fact that the world of the unnamed vastly exceeds the extent of the named world, most people choose to inhabit a consciousness bounded by the naming of things.
The Energy Bulletin Weekly 18 January 2021
Prices, which hit their highest in nearly a year the previous week, posted their first weekly decline of 2021 last week.
Whitewashed Hope
While the practices ‘sustainable farming’ promote are important, they do not encompass the deep cultural and relational changes needed to realize our collective healing.
Whitewashed Hope
While the practices ‘sustainable farming’ promote are important, they do not encompass the deep cultural and relational changes needed to realize our collective healing.
The Earth Does Not Belong to Jeff Bezos or Elon Musk
After all, the best hope of successfully navigating the crises of 2021 and beyond must involve King’s dream of building a multi-racial fusion movement to reconstruct society from the bottom up.
Enlightenment and Ecology: An introduction to Bookchin’s legacy
Throughout his life, prophetic American philosopher Murray Bookchin created social ecology as a comprehensive social program for the challenges of our present era.
Where the story takes us
Chapters 1 and 2 of my book tell a story about how our current modern global civilization has got itself into a mess by disregarding some such factors that complicate its tale of endless self-improvement.
Paul Feyeraband and the fight over ‘truth’
We are having worldwide fight not over our view of “the facts”, but over what constitutes “the facts.” It has ever been thus, philosopher Paul Feyeraband tells us. It’s just that now that fight is breaking out into the open and disrupting our lives and our institutions without a clear way to resolve it.
Turn off that camera during virtual meetings, environmental study says
It’s not just to hide clutter anymore – add “saving the planet” to the reasons you leave the camera off during your next virtual meeting.
A Review of Chris Smaje’s A Small Farm Future
So, what kind of a future does this book envision, and how does it differ from the past and the present?
Street Goat: A Blueprint for Urban Agroecology
The original Street Goat concept focused on turning disused land into productive space: bringing goats in to clear scrub, improving sustainability whilst providing a workable model for non-intensive urban dairy production.
Worried about Earth’s future? Well, the outlook is worse than even scientists can grasp
The research published today reviews more than 150 studies to produce a stark summary of the state of the natural world.
Bottom-up Biodiversity
Whether connecting schools to farms in France, daylighting rivers in Mexico, or rewilding grasslands in Patagonia, we’re learning how to ‘do’ biodiversity well.
The Intersection of Gender Equality and Agroecology
The weekly #HUNGERFORJUSTICE Broadcast Series lays the building blocks for a post-COVID food system. Watch the recording of our first episode: The Intersection of Gender Equality and Agroecology with Seno Tsuhah and Wekoweu Akole Tsuhah, moderated by Jen Scott.
Washington State Considers Climate Impact of Major Petrochemical Plant With ‘Pattern of Influence Peddling’
In 2014, a company named Northwest Innovation Works (NWIW) proposed building a multi-billion-dollar petrochemical project in Kalama, Washington, a port town roughly 40 miles north of Portland, Oregon.
A Christmas Carol Foretells the Rise of the Debt Society
Dicken’s story embodies the nature of contemporary economic problems which we face, in terms of interest, debt traps and the meaning of the financial economy for both the haves and the have-nots.
Climate Policy in the Biden Era: A Look Ahead to the Political Environment
Climate politics has taken a 180-degree turn in favor of federal action thanks to the voters of Georgia. The Democrats’ surprising double win in the Peach State’s runoff elections has turned the US Senate from red to blue—or more accurately blue-ish.
Insurrection, pandemic, and censorship
Those of us who understand the systemic crises we face have a special responsibility to build our own emotional resilience and to be open-minded so that we can help others in our communities, who don’t have that same clarity, to navigate the craziness to come. It’s a crazy world out there, and it’s getting crazier. … Continue reading “Insurrection, pandemic, and censorship”
A Farmer and His Extra Row
Plenty of farmers might like to plant an extra row for their community, but may need a helping hand to pull it off.
A fast plant for rapid shifts in construction – how the ancient supercrop Hemp can help build low carbon homes
There is now a huge opportunity to scale up this kind of building, while also bringing a decent living to farmers from a crop that is environmentally sustainable to grow.
Get Real Canada, Get to Zero
If going for zero succeeds as it has in Australia, Vietnam, Taiwan and New Zealand, then Canadians will live their lives normally with vaccine programs as part of the solution — as opposed to the only solution.
Indigenous-led resistance to Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline threatens Big Oil’s last stand
Most of Line 3’s path through Minnesota bisects territory covered under the terms of a series of treaties signed between the U.S. government and different Anishinaabe bands in the mid-1800s.
Defending the Birthplace of the Sun
It was the native Wixárika people—better known internationally by their Spanish name, the Huicholes—who galvanized a global movement with their call for help.
Defending the Birthplace of the Sun
It was the native Wixárika people—better known internationally by their Spanish name, the Huicholes—who galvanized a global movement with their call for help.
Growth without economic growth
Economic growth is closely linked to increases in production, consumption and resource use and has detrimental effects on the natural environment and human health.
Growth without economic growth
Economic growth is closely linked to increases in production, consumption and resource use and has detrimental effects on the natural environment and human health.
Freeing space: building worlds outside of state and capital
In the countryside, one lives on the means of production, making food and energy sovereignty that much easier to achieve.
Food, Land, Agriculture: A movement for equality
FLAME is made up of young people who believe that the way we produce food and eat it can be a solution to creating a better world.
France | Lessons from Agricultural Archeology
In these 500 hectares of mainly wild nature, I now constantly look for signs of the ancestors of the indigenous population. I have always been fascinated by the life of the previous generation that was born and bred here, who shaped our way of practicing agriculture and animal husbandry.
Analysis: Which countries met the UN’s 2020 deadline to raise ‘climate ambition’?
The end of 2020 marked the moment, under the Paris Agreement’s “ratchet mechanism”, when nations were supposed to formally submit more ambitious commitments for cutting their emissions.
Roosevelt’s ‘four freedoms’ weren’t just an American idea
January 2021 marks the 80th anniversary of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s famous State of the Union Address, delivered by the US President in 1941 at a time of deep turmoil and conflict in the world.
An Open Letter to the Lead Authors of ‘Protecting 30% of the Planet for Nature: Costs, Benefits and Implications.’
We believe that a world with more protected areas could be a much better place. But that hinges on the types of protected areas that are promoted and the means by which they are sustained.
The Energy Bulletin Weekly 11 January 2021
Oil posted the biggest weekly gain since late September as Saudi Arabia’s plan to slice output spurred a surge in physical crude buying.
A champion of adaptation and resilience
It will be interesting to see therefore whether Trevelyan will address the key areas for enabling adaptation and enhancing resilience of vulnerable communities in low-income countries to more frequent and intense climate change impacts.
Automation and a small farm future
One way to address the impasse of the present global political economy may be to embrace the possibility of creating a labour-intensive, semi-autonomous livelihood through farming, homesteading or gardening largely on one’s own account, within a wider society which is collectively oriented to enabling people to live that way.
A new landscape for skill-sharing emerges from pandemic aftermath
The pandemic has created many challenges for skills exchanges and other sharing initiatives that rely on person-to-person contact.
What my Linux adventure is teaching me about our possible future
I am a Linux ambassador of sorts. I’ve been using the Linux computer operating system since 2013. I can still remember the light feeling I had the day I broke free of the Microsoft Windows operating system.
UK | Sustainable Wine’s Reign of Terroir
Undaunted by the challenge of growing grapes in rainy England, the family-run Aldwick Estate turned to wine production as a way to improve soil health.
Why the Climate Change Committee have got it wrong on land, food and farming
I gained the impression, perhaps unfairly, that none of the so-called experts who were presenting had any practical knowledge of, or insights into, regenerative farming.
Open Source Seeds and Commoning Mushrooms: The Iriaiken Philosophy
The appropriation of seeds raises a profound challenge to farmers and, really, everyone, because we all have to eat.
The economic legacy of the Holocene
We should face reality: The other-than-human-world now has become almost entirely eclipsed by an unassailable “superorganism”—us, the human species—that continues to expand in evermore destructive fashion.
Racism in finance has sparked a grassroots response. Meet the Boston Ujima Project.
Economic racism is a real issue that denies people the opportunity to support themselves and their families, start businesses, or build financial legacies — such as homeownership — that pass from one generation to the next.
Hot off the press: New Open Access Book on Transformations Towards More Just and Sustainable Food Systems
This new open access book develops a framework for advancing agroecology in transformations towards more just and sustainable food systems focusing on power, politics and governance.
Putting the Heart Back in the Valley by Putting the Fire Back in the Ground
Repairing the land is directly linked to repairing a way of life. Not just an ecosystem is being restored, but “home.”
Why My Older, Smaller Library Was Better
Only by reaching out to the community at large can we fully understand how a neighborhood connects with the key resources in its midst.