Bill McKibben, one of the leading environmentalists of our time. has a real talent for taking the latest developments in climate science and explaining their significance in terms that the average person can easily understand. His latest piece in Rolling Stone magazineis no exception. In it, he gives compelling, fact-based reasons for why the prospects for containing global warming are very dim. But he also presents a new idea that just might provide a glimmering of hope. McKibben suggests that the divestment campaign that helped to end the South African apartheid may provide the model for a public campaign to…
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The recycled can solar heating panel (creative responses)
From the category “Creative responses to environmental challenges“: The recycled can solar heating panel: Newfoundlander Jim Meaney found a creative way to reuse can’s to build cheap but effective solar panels to heat homes and save energy.
Taxing the wealthy (TED lecture by Chuck Collins)
The Program on Inequality and the Common Good, run by Chuck Collins at The Institute for Policy Studies in Washington DC, focuses on the dangers that growing inequality pose for U.S. democracy, economic health and civic life. In this TEDx lecture Collins gives a moving and illuminating talk on the moral justification for reducing income inequality by increasing taxes on the rich. Collins’s privileged background lends to his credibility on this subject, but what really impresses in this talk are the stories of the wealthy people across the US who are actually willing to dramatically increase their tax rates. This talk…
Stiglitz on economic inequality
The issue of economic inequality has been receiving quite a lot of attention in the past few months–at least in the progressive media. This is no doubt due in part to the Occupy movement and to the anti-austerity protests in Europe, which have really thrust the issues of inequality and economic justice into the spotlight. More so than at any point in the last several decades, there is a real public thirst for understanding the causes and consequences of economic inequality and what can be done to reverse it. The Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz is one of several academics who have…
The sad state of affairs in Texas
The 2012 political platform of the Republican Party of Texas is available online here. The views expressed in this document are both disturbing and depressing. Below are a few highlights. 1. On Education Controversial Theories – We support objective teaching and equal treatment of all sides of scientific theories. We believe theories such as life origins and environmental change should be taught as challengeable scientific theories subject to change as new data is produced. Teachers and students should be able to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of these theories openly and without fear of retribution or discrimination of any kind. Knowledge-Based Education –…
Alternatives to capitalism?
In this brief article first published in the Guardian, Richard Wolff, professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts and New School University, discusses the amazing success of the Mondragon Corporation of Spain and its potential as a model of social organization in a post-capitalistic economy. Key differences between businesses working within the MC framework and typical corporations are (1) the democratic nature of the decision-making process within the organization and (2) the limits on income inequality between workers. Imagine all businesses in a country working within the MC framework and you have a realistic and intriguing alternative to capitalism. Here…
Singer on religious freedom
Peter Singer has penned an excellent article for Project Syndicate entitled “The Use and Abuse of Religious Freedom.” The background for the article is a recent proposal of the Party for the Animals, the only animal-rights party to be represented in a national parliament. The party has proposed a law requiring that all animals in the Netherlands be stunned before slaughter. In response to this proposal Islamic and Jewish leaders have united and spoken out in defense of their religious freedom, because their religious doctrines prohibit eating meat from animals that are not conscious when killed. But would the proposed law,…
Children speak out on the climate crisis
Twenty years ago a 12-year-old girl named Severn Suzuki addressed delegates in Rio de Janeiro during the summit’s plenary session on behalf of the world youth. In the following segment DemocracyNow! revisits that passionate, prescient, and powerful and speech that “silenced the world for 6 minutes”. Some quotes from the speech: Coming up here today, I have no hidden agenda. I am fighting for my future. Losing my future is not like losing an election or a few points on the stock market. I am here to speak for all generations to come. I am here to speak on behalf of…
Recent thoughts on the climate crisis
A small sample of some the important things that have been said recently on the state of the climate crisis and the failures of political leaders to address the root causes or even acknowledge the seriousness of the problem: 1. Democracy Now interview with Bill McKibben (environmentalist, author, founder of the remarkable grassroots climate campaign 350.org) 2. Approaching a state shift in the Earth’s biosphere (ground-breaking article in Nature written by over 20 environmental scientists) 3. Is humanity pushing Earth past a tipping point? (a simplified, less technical summary of the aforementioned article in Wired magazine) 4. Democracy Now interview…
Living off the grid in Costa Rica
Al Gore popularized the idea that there is one profoundly inconvenient truth about life in the developed world, namely, that it is unsustainable. His point, which is now common knowledge, is that our societies and economies are based upon the consumption of fossil fuels, which release greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, which in turn brings about a cascade of consequences that undermine the very lifestyles that we currently enjoy. In response to Gore, it should be noted that there is also one rather convenient truth that is easily overlooked, namely, that in certain parts of the world at least it…
Global Land Grab (by Terry Allen)
Global Land Grab by Terry Allen, senior editor at In These Times, documents and analyzes the attempts that certain countries (primarily China, India and South Korea) are making to purchase tens of millions of acres of farmland from some of the poorest countries in Africa, South American, and South Asia to grow crops for export. What is taking place is, in effect, a new form of colonialism under the guise of business transactions. Allen writes: The “new colonialism” is less like a crusade and more like an ordinary business transaction floated on a promise of “win-win.” The deal-makers include international agribusinesses, investment banks,…
Population control or population justice?
Over at the National Radio Project, another amazing example of independent media with a social conscience, there is a fascinating audio segment on the question of population control within the context of environmental sustainability (Population Control or Population Justice?). It is (one hopes) becoming increasingly clear that limitless economic expansion is not possible on a planet of finite resources and that if environmental catastrophe is to be avoided human societies need to radically overhaul their economies and abandon the fixation on economic growth. Hence the increasing interest in the concept of de-growth among ecologically oriented economists, people like Herman Daly and…
Julian Assange interviews Moazzam Begg and Asim Qureshi (The World Tomorrow)
From the website of the The World Tomorrow: [The fifth episode] of The World Tomorrow takes us to the very heart of America’s War on Terror: Guantanamo Bay. Julian Assange sat down with a former Gitmo prisoner and a rights campaigner fighting for those still trapped behind the wire. Ten years ago the war on terror prompted the opening of the facility. Now, more than three years after President Obama ordered its closure, the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, like the war in Afghanistan, remains with us. Over a year ago, Wikileaks blew the lid on Gitmo by releasing a cache of…
Sam Harris on racial profiling
Sam Harris is no stranger to controversy, but with his recent defense of racial profiling it seems that he has really stuck his foot on it and alienated a good deal of his former fan-base. Harris suggests that people who are (or look like they are) Muslim should receive a higher level of security screening at airport check-in counters than non-Muslims. Needless to say, this suggestion offends many secular liberals, who may approve of Harris’s spirited attack on religion in general, but not his more specific attack on Islam. To his credit, though, he was willing to engage in debate…
Does Google censor the internet?
The answer is “yes.” The evidence for this comes from a report prepared by Google itself, which will be released next week. According to the Wall Street Journal, the report shows that: Google received more than 1,000 requests from governments around the world in the second half of last year to take down items such as YouTube videos and search listings, and it complied with them more than half the time, according to information provided by the company. One example of the sort of censorship Google engages in concerns a request by the Thai government to remove YouTube videos insulting the…
Sun-powered system to provide electricity, heat and cooling to rural schools and clinics (creative responses)
From the category “Creative responses to environmental challenges“: Sun-powered system to provide electricity, heat and cooling to rural schools and clinics. This system, developed and introduced by MIT students showcases yet another amazing technology to utilize solar energy. The students also founded a nonprofit company to further develop the system and get spread it’s use around the world.
Cob houses built with local clay (creative responses)
From the category “Creative responses to environmental challenges“: Cob houses built with local clay Cob, which is made from clay, is a material that has been around for centuries, but was abandoned in favour of concrete and other material. Though not exactly a new “invention” these houses are easy to build and come at a astonishingly low costs. For a whole documentary dedicated to cob houses check out: First Earth: Uncompromising Ecological Architecture
Julian Assange interviews Rafael Correa (The World Tomorrow)
In the sixth episode of RT‘s The World Tomorrow, President Rafael Correa of Ecuador discusses the media, government corruption, and his country’s relationship with the United States. The interview opens with the circumstances surrounding the attempted coup in Ecuador in 2010, during which the president was taken hostage. Following the attempted coup, Correa embarked on a furious and controversial counter-offensive against Ecuador’s media. In this interview he explains the media’s role in the events of 2010 in terms of the vested interests of media corporations. He claims that corporate owners of the media “disguised as journalists, are trying to do politics,…
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Augmented and bot-mediated reality
While Google’s Project Glass has recently generated quite a stir with the possibilities of augmented reality, the idea is not exactly new. In the 1990’s MIT Cyborgs carried around huge backpacks stuffed with computer hardware to remain connected to the digital world via their clunky screen-goggles. Sherry Turkle, an MIT researcher herself, discusses them in an article entitled “Always-on/Always-On-You: The Tethered Self,” which analyzes how augmented reality transforms human interaction into a world in which people are ensnared in round-the-clock digital social networks. Yet the official description for the Google’s Project Glass is just as optimistic as Turkle’s analysis is cynical: We believe technology…
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