Topic: Less of What We Don’t Need
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Cannibal Economics: Why the Black Snake Will Eventually Eat Itself
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As the plagued Keystone Pipeline spilled 200,000 gallons of oil near the Sisseton Dakota reservation, on November 20, the Nebraska Public Service Commission issued a convoluted permit approval, allowing TransCanada to route the line through part of the state. In the meantime, the Dakota, Lakota and their allies stand strong. That same day hundreds gathered for…
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In Defense of Degrowth
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The economist Branko Milanovic recently wrote a blog post titled “The illusion of degrowth in a poor and unequal world.” He penned it, he says, following a conversation he had with a proponent of degrowth. As it turns out, that proponent was me.
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Meet the frontline activists facing down the global mining industry
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Leaders from the frontlines of mining struggles in the Philippines, Colombia and Uganda travelled to the UK this November to expose the true costs of the UK’s extensive ties to the global mining industry and oppose the Mines and Money Conference in London- a global hub of mining finance and power. Advertising itself as an…
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Trump’s National Security Strategy: Making America Greedy Again
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Warning: President Trump’s national security strategy is going to backfire like a shotgun plugged with mud. In one fell swoop, Trump called for: 1) Locking out foreigners; 2) Growing GDP as the key to national security, and; 3) Better terms of trade. Now many voters, going down the list, will promptly put a checkmark by…
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The Seneca Cliff Explained: a Three Dimensional Collapse Overview Model
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The Limits to Growth was published in 1972 by a group of world class scientists using the best mathematical computer modelling available at the time. It projected the future collapse of global industrial civilisation in the 21st century if humanity did not curb its population, consumption and pollution. It was pilloried by many “infinite growth…
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Medicine for the People: Single-Payer and Beyond
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The movement for a single-payer health care system in the United States represents a vision of basic access to health care for everyone. As popularly expressed, the demand for “Improved Medicare for All” rightly embraces the idea that health care should be every human being’s right, not a privilege dependent on a person’s income, wealth,…
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In Search of Los Angeles’ Lost Socialist Colony, Llano del Rio
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It’s a typical summer day in the desert of Southern California. Very little breeze and blazing, unforgiving heat. We’re in the Mojave on an excursion to find the ruins of Llano del Rio, a socialist colony that sprouted up here in 1914. The temperature is well over 100 and it feels even hotter. As we…
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Farming for a Small Planet
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Frances Moore Lappe demonstrates that capitalism, and the energy-intensive industrial farming it promotes, can't feed the world. There are however alternatives that are efficient, sustainable, democratic, and egalitarian.
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Betting the Earth on a Game of Wrap-Cut-Smash
. . .The Earth is having to deal with continuous, largely unchecked emissions of greenhouse gases, along with soil degradation, mass extinction of species, destruction of ecosystems, and disruption of nitrogen, phosphorous, and water cycles. Meanwhile, efforts to head off the planet-wide ecological crisis remain trapped in a game of rock-paper-scissors [1] …
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Averting the Apocalypse: Lessons from Costa Rica
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"If we want to have any hope of averting catastrophe, we’re going to have to do something about our addiction to growth." Earlier this summer, a paper published in the journal Nature captured headlines with a rather bleak forecast. Our chances of keeping global warming below the 2C danger threshold are very, very small: only…
