One-Planet Solidarity

One-planet solidarity means living purposefully as a valuable member of a connected Earth Community. In sharing responsibility for providing access to basic needs for all humans, and for preventing or addressing damage done to our shared planet in the process, we necessarily connect, collaborate, and co-create the resilient communities of the future. What better insurance scheme could there be?

Changemaker Profile: Going Beyond Green

A new initiative has sprung up to bridge the chasm that separates activism and the necessary transition to a sustainable economy from the sphere of mainstream politics.

The Labour-Saving Paradox

Humans are more than the one-trick pony our obsession with technological fixes depicts us as. We are adaptable, and have the capacity to approach our problems from a variety of angles. We also have the capacity to exercise restraint when necessary. And we can break the cycle of the labour-saving paradox, if we think outside the tool-box.

A Deeper Shade of Green

Environmentalism – once radical and ecocentric – has mainstreamed itself into a movement of eco-pragmatists. Discourse is diluted to a paler shade of green that fits safely within the parameters of a consumption-oriented growth economy, and we chip away at the symptoms of our ecological crisis while the root remains intact.

COP-out: Time to Change Tack

If you don’t have time to sift through a 29 page document in (mostly bracketed) legalese and then scratch your head wondering what it all actually means and how it applies to real-world action, here’s my summary of COP 21…

COP 21: The Great Climate Cop-out

The continued rise in emissions twenty years on from the first COP indicates an elaborate waste of time. What is the point of these annual conferences if the result is not a reduction in emissions?

Shades of Green – Part 3: A Movement in Search of a Narrative

Unity does not imply conformity, and diversity does not imply fragmentation – instead, a more complex form of unity emerges based on the understanding that the different worldviews, skills and tactics that each element contributes enrich the movement.

Shades of Green – Part 2: Reconciling Differences & Building Solidarity

In building a movement, finding common ground is paramount. When strategy-building becomes complicated by incongruent worldviews, then common ground becomes shaky or elusive at times. A movement can progress with the aid of constructive criticism, but it is imperative that this criticism be accompanied by genuine effort to understand and learn from one another, and recognition of each party’s value to the movement.

Shades of Green – Part 1: The Spectrum of a Movement

As the movement pulls resources toward the organizations and agendas at the centre of the bell curve the extremities get frozen out, and alternative perspectives get lost. More radical perspectives, once commonplace in the environment movement are now greeted with disdain, and the worldviews underpinning them are not given serious consideration – instead they are often denigrated as extremist. We have become a movement of eco-pragmatists, a position far removed from our roots in ecocentrism, where nature was regarded first and foremost.

Book finished mid-chapter

I wanted to do you justice with my goodbye, but my heart has stolen all the words from my mind and turned them into tears.