In some ways, Northern New Mexico may be ahead of other regions in building local community resilience and adapting to increasingly difficult environmental conditions. Santa Fe sports a reputation for one of the lowest per capita water usage rates in the nation. On the other hand, its recycling program is dismally inadequate. Over-dependence on a … More Local Community Resilience to Reduce Climate Disruption
Ever wonder why President Obama insists that the “Trans-Pacific Partnership” (TPP) be “fast-tracked” through Congress? Why does its content have to be kept secret from the Congress and the American people? Yes, members of Congress may view its drafts in a secure room but are not allowed to even take notes away with them. Under … More How to Create a Corporate State and Destroy the Planet
For many Americans, the time has come to reassess our relations with the economy that is being driven off the cliff by the creation and hoarding of phantom money by the very few and catastrophic burden of debt for the rest of us. The economy is controlled by the Big Banks and it has not … More Making Money, Making Time, and Making a Living
Efforts to find a viable path to mitigating climate chaos and forging an ecologically viable economy are just not moving fast enough. They seem bogged down in struggles over old ideas and inadequate actions. Even some of the most esteemed liberal economists who are not on the corporate bandwagon have failed to escape this trap. … More Overcoming Ideology: New Actions and New Ideas
Reading [and writing] about climate disruption and social change is disturbing enough. But the unabated climate-disrupting and society-disrupting economy of extractive wealth concentration, keeps me wondering whether we have much chance at all. Lately, I have a growing sense that something very fundamental is missing in the discussions of most environmentalists. Well, maybe more than … More The Chasm between Environmental Theory and Human Imagination
Increasing production of renewable energy at competitive cost is the core strategy for environmentalists whose goal is to reduce carbon emissions and minimize the damage caused by the climate effects of global warming. The goal is to replace fossil fuel energy production with clean renewable energy production. It is widely known that per capita energy … More Conserving Energy: The Overlooked Key to Mitigating Climate Disruption
They said the old John Kerry was back. Well, I listened to Kerry’s ‘impassioned’ speech before the United Nations Climate Conference, COP20, in Lima, Peru, but was not impressed. Were it not for the blatant hypocrisy it represented, I might have been inspired by his somewhat forced passion. Kerry was urging the developed and developing … More How to Not Talk About Human Response to the Threat of Climate Disruption
What will it will take to reduce world carbon emissions enough in the short time necessary to fend off the worst of the effects of climate disruption? So much of the economy and energy technology is involved that it is hard to even imagine the magnitude of resulting social disruption. Yet here we are, faced … More The Dilemma of Transformation: From Petro-Economy to Eco-Society
Power over Nature is an old cultural ideal in the Western world. It seemed largely achieved by the exploding rate of industrial invention in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This core western value continues unabated today. A major downside of the unprecedented successes of the industrial age is the growth of a deep institutionalized hubris. … More Imperious Imaginaries and the Necessities of Now
As I watched the Ukraine/Crimea crisis unfold, the corporate media rendition of the scenario emerged as if pulled from an old cold-war script. Of course, Putin, the Soviet KGB-style dictator, is an obvious “bad guy.” And Obama is following the neo-conservative script of his “advisers,” or is it handlers? But the struggle over Ukraine is … More Putin, Obama, and Carbon: Denial and Decline
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 