If you take a realistic view of any number of situations in the world today, you may find yourself hard pressed to see any of them as hopeful. Of course, that would not stop an optimist from being optimistic. From an entirely different perspective, the pessimist might say, “I told you so; these situations are … More What is Hopeful Realism?
Ugo Bardi is an Italian scientist who studied hydrogen energy technology while on a post-doctoral assignment at the University of California, Berkeley. After his research with the team at Berkeley revealed the seemingly intractable problems of converting hydrogen energy to electricity in any practical way, Bardi moved on to other topics of research back home … More Living in Ugo Bardi’s Seneca Effect
The global corporate economy of perpetually growing extraction, production, consumption, and waste, has already produced far too much. It has done so for a very long time, with increasingly inequitable distribution. Consumption and waste not only exhaust non-renewable resources; they contaminate the complex adaptive living systems we call ecosystems, that is, our habitats. The only … More To Transform Society for Survival, We Must Liberate Ourselves from the Endless Growth Economy
I cannot count the number of times I have heard of some federal “Preemption” of a State Law in recent years. Each time, the winner is some corporate polluter or other practitioners of the “externalization” of environmental or societal costs of its operations. Such corporate criminals have destroyed countless ecosystems and, ultimately, destabilized most of … More Federal “Pre-emption” of State Laws Weaponized by the Corporate State
Can we get there from here? That is an open question. It all depends on what we do, and if we do. So far, we have done almost nothing in comparison with what we must do to retain a livable world into the Anthropocene. Overwhelming evidence on global warming and its effects destabilizing the key … More Getting Real: How to Constrain Climate Chaos for a Livable World
Thomas Linzey won a lot of lawsuits over corporations impinging on local communities with giant projects that would destroy local ecosystems and make life miserable for residents. He discovered that the corporations would simply re-apply for zoning permits, countering the factors Linzey used to win the lawsuits. Linzey began to realize that his efforts as … More Ecological Community and Rights of Nature vs the Technosphere
Sustainable This, Sustainable That; Green This, Green That. What exactly is the point? The “sustainability” meme seems to have gone culturally viral. Promoters use it to give any action or proposal at all a sheen of environmental respectability. But what does it actually mean? I am afraid that “sustainability” has come to mean nothing at … More The Sustainability Conundrum
~ Another entry in the Mad Jubilado series ~ Palpable fear, justified if misdirected anger, and xenophobic demagoguery have Trumped American democracy, even in its degraded form within the corporate state. With the powerful influence of the fossil-fuel industry, largely through Koch-brothers’ and similar front groups, neo-fascists and white supremacists have penetrated the U.S. politics and that of … More Overcoming Trumpery and the Technosphere
Giving thanks at Thanksgiving dinner continues as an ingrained ritual. At some holiday tables, those present state in turn what makes them most thankful. At others, the most senior member gives a Thanksgiving prayer. In most cases, that is about as far as reflection on the meaning of this peculiar American holiday goes. Nobody mentions, … More Giving Thanks for what?
Resistance seems necessary, though clearly, it is not sufficient. What will resistance get us, really? A slower unraveling of American Democracy? Maybe, but not much slower. Democracies die not so much by military coup but by slow erosion of crucial institutions such as the courts and the press. The anti-democratic forces of the corporate state … More Beyond Resistance
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 