My thoughts here were stimulated by a ‘Letter from the Director’ by Beth Sawin, Director of the Multisolving Institute, which I read last month. In that letter, she rightfully struggled over the ‘bad news’ that six of the nine key planetary boundaries between Earth System health and systemic danger had by then been breached. That, … More To Do or To UN-do: Is That the Question?
Such simple words, Freedom and Necessity. What do they mean? Their meanings seem obvious, right? Well, not quite. Freedom to what? Freedom from what? What is necessary, really? Are there conditions or limitations? Read the fine print, there are always conditions. Freedom We could go back to the various origins of the idea of freedom, … More On Freedom and Necessity: A Reality Check
I ran across a fascinating and very important article the other day on LinkedIn, thanks to Erica Gies, author of Water Always Wins, who reposted it from Charles Eisenstein’s Substack.com platform. The importance of Eisenstein’s essay is that it clarifies the often-blurred line between the ideal and the real in what many loosely call ‘climate … More Carbon vs. Conservation: On the Necessary Maturing of the ‘Environmental Movement’
These days we hear a great deal about the sustainability or unsustainability of intentionally endless economic growth on a finite planet. Some argue for “green growth,” and claim that we can somehow ‘decouple’ economic growth and environmental damage so that growth can continue as a key component of business-as-usual. While that view has considerable support … More Clash of Values or Will to Power? Commerce Confronts Catastrophe
Anyone who reads much about current affairs is likely aware of the most recent report from the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change). I have criticized the IPCC reports in the past, mostly because they have consistently underestimated the heating of the planet and the ecological and climate consequences of man-made disruption of the climate. … More The Global Caste System and the Climate Crisis
Only the lonelyOnly the lonely Only the lonelyKnow the way I feel tonightOnly the lonelyKnow this feeling ain’t right Song by Roy Orbison, 1960 The U.S. Surgeon General just released a report on the accelerating degree of loneliness in America and the health consequences of social isolation. The implications are diverse and devastating for … More Only the Lonely: Social Isolation & Industrial Modernity
Overpopulation has been an on-and-off issue for many decades. With the publication of Paul Ehrlich’s book, The Population Bomb in 1971, the issue came to a head…for a while. Then, with the apparent hopelessness of controlling population growth through public policy, few talked much about it for several decades. The idea of population control languished, … More Is the Over-Population Crisis a Non-Starter?
Inequality is an odd word. First, it’s a negative, that is, it represents the absence of something; that something is equality. Equality is a simple term meaning that one thing is equal or the same as another. In economic affairs it is usually talked about in terms of equal opportunity, not equality of outcomes. Economists, … More Life Expectancy and the Complexity of Inequality
I have thought about the implications of the wisdom of indigenous cultures for industrial-consumer culture for quite a while now. The dominant worldview of industrial civilization, despite its power to control some elements of Nature, for a while, is so clearly out of step with the fundamental principles of both science and indigenous wisdom in … More Indigenous and Dominant Worldviews: Realism vs. Illusion
In the U.S. and probably many other places, the struggle between BIG and small continues. Now it’s really a matter of global life or death. Most of us have come to accept the fact that giant transnational corporations dominate the economy and our lives. Of course, some of these entities put forth a public persona … More BIG and BIGGER: How to Undermine Climate Action and Democracy to Save Capitalism and Kill the Planet
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 