Environment | World Change Cafe

Our Plunder Of Nature Will End Up Killing Capitalism And Our Obscene Lifestyles

To anyone who is paying attention, things look doomed. Fortunately for American capitalism, nobody is paying attention. They never have. [...more]

Capitalism, Consumerism, Ecology, Environment, Global Warming, Government, Sustainability Comments (0)

Collapse, Transition, The Great Turning: Why Words Matter

As the work I do circulates around the nation and the world, I frequently encounter resistance to the use of the word "collapse" to describe the unprecedented changes that humans and the earth community is now experiencing. Many people insist that we should focus only on "Transition" and the "Great Turning" because these words make more bearable and palatable the challenges of present and future time. The word collapse, they argue, should be ditched. [...more]

Civilization, Environment, Sustainability Comments (0)

There Really Is Only One Kind Of sustainability

Like the word green , sustainable or sustainability has become the buzzword of the millennia. Corporations and governments of the left or right feel compelled to dress up the most ecologically invasive development proposal or economic activity with assurances that it is sustainable . But there is ultimately only one sustainability . The sustainability of the whole, not its constituent parts. [...more]

Ecology, Environment, Green Living, Population, Sustainability Comments (1)

China or the U.S.: Which Will Be the Last Nation Standing?

Silly me. Here I had thought that world leaders would want to keep their nations from collapsing. They must be working hard to prevent currency collapse, financial system collapse, food system collapse, social collapse, environmental collapse, and the onset of general, overwhelming misery—right? But no, that's not what the evidence suggests. Increasingly I am forced to conclude that the object of the game that world leaders are actually playing is not to avoid collapse; it's simply to postpone it a while so as to be the last nation to go down, so yours can have the chance to pick the others' carcasses before it meets the same fate. [...more]

Consumerism, Economics, Energy, Environment, Fascism, Global Warming, Government, Hunger, Poverty, Social Justice Comments (2)

Shrimp’s Dirty Secrets: Why America’s Favorite Seafood Is a Health and Environmental Nightmare

Americans love their shrimp. It's the most popular seafood in the country, but unfortunately much of the shrimp we eat are a cocktail of chemicals, harvested at the expense of one of the world's productive ecosystems. Worse, guidelines for finding some kind of "sustainable shrimp" are so far nonexistent. [...more]

Animal Ag, Animal Issues, Diet, Ecology, Environment, Health, Ocean, Sustainability Comments (0)

What Do Levi Johnston, Evangelicals and Oprah Have in Common? They All Blind Us to What Really Matters

The chatter that passes for news, the gossip that is peddled by the windbags on the airwaves, the noise that drowns out rational discourse, and the timidity and cowardice of what is left of the newspaper industry reflect our flight into collective insanity. We stand on the cusp of one of the most seismic and disturbing dislocations in human history, one that is radically reconfiguring our economy as it is the environment, and our obsessions revolve around the trivial and the absurd. [...more]

Community, Media, Psychology, Scientific News, Social Justice Comments (0)

It’s time to stop exploiting animals for food

I’ve been interested in issues of animal liberation since the 1970s, but there have been some important new developments in the past few years, particularly the increasing awareness of issues to do with factory farming. [...more]

Animal Ag, Animal Issues, Environment, Global Warming Comments (0)

Composting: Give Back to Mother Earth

The state of our environment has gotten so bad, that if you’re paying attention and have a bone of compassion in your body, it’s more than a little disturbing. A lump of trash is floating in the water near the North Pole twice the size of France; it’s about 33 feet deep. Landfills around the world are overloaded. "First world" trash is shipped to "third world" countries and people living near the dump sites are getting sick. Even our healthy foods have become nutrient deplete because of improperly cared for soils, and all while literally millions of pounds of pesticides are dumped onto the land daily. [...more]

Environment, Gardening, Green Living, Sustainability Comments (0)

Temporary Spaces and Creative Infill

The next time you're waiting at an intersection, look around and imagine how much of the built (and furnished) environment stands empty and unused at any given time. Cafés in the financial district are closed at dinnertime; restaurants that specialize in dinner fare are silent until mid-afternoon; parking lots that fill during the workweek are largely vacant after 6pm and often on weekends. [...more]

World Change Cafe

Tag Archive | "Environment"