Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
In her latest book, titled Love in the Age of Ecological Apocalypse, Baker surveys 16 relationships that she’s found to be basic to human well-being but sorely in need of tending right now.
The latest apocalyptic fad is near-term human extinction, or NTE for short: the claim that humanity, along with most other life on Earth, will inevitably be extinct by 2030 at the latest.
On Tuesday, April 16, the Worldwatch Institute held its seventeenth annual State of the World Symposium to launch its latest book, State of the World 2013: Is Sustainability Still Possible? As contributors to the book, Pat Murphy and Faith Morgan were invited to attend the event, where Pat spoke on one of several panels. The complex topic of sustainability was addressed along with the need to measure it in order to prepare for the currently unsustainable future toward which we are making quick strides. The symposium was held in Washington, but an online live stream of the panels was offered for those of us who could not make it to D.C.
From the World Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers through to Stern and the International Energy Agency, analyses increasingly demonstrate how, without urgent and radical reductions in emissions, global temperatures are set to rise by 4°C or higher – with, as the IEA emphasise, “devastating” repercussions for the planet. But whose responsibility is it to initiate such radical mitigation?
Watch a recording of this Transition Network/Resilience.org web chat featuring Joanna Macy, Chris Johnstone and Rob Hopkins.
The American spirit is rooted in the belief of a better tomorrow. Its success has been due to generations of men and women who toiled, through both hardship and boom times, to make that dream a reality. But at some point over the past several decades, that hope for a better tomorrow became an expectation. Or perhaps a perceived entitlement is more accurate.
About five years ago a colleague of mine, Dale Allen Pfeiffer wrote an essay I can no longer locate. At the time, Colony Collapse Disorder was just being diagnosed in bees, and one of the discussed potential causes of the problem was cell phones and cell phone towers. Pfeiffer didn’t, as I remember, take a stand on this question as a cause, but what he did do was interview people and ask “If it was true that cell phones caused CCD, and knowing that we depend on bees for a large portion of our food, would you give up your cell phone to save the bees?” The answer, overwhelmingly, was no.
