A week before the announcement of the Janata [public] Curfew slated for March 22, 2020, I spoke with a 43-year-old close relative in her village in Leh, Ladakh, by phone from Delhi. Around that time, the news of rising infections from the novel coronavirus coming in from China, Italy and Iran were ominous. Ladakh had […]
A Degrowth Perspective on the Coronavirus Crisis
The coronavirus (covid-19) has caused upheaval across the world, deaths of the most vulnerable, closed borders, financial market crashes, curfews and controls on group gatherings, and many more devastating effects. Despite observations that pollution and emissions have reduced, the sudden, un-planned, and chaotic downscaling of social and economic activity due to covid-19 is categorically not […]
Coronavirus and the Death of ‘Connectivity’
The Covid 19 pandemic is the second major crisis of globalization in a decade. The first was the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, from which the global economy took years to reach a semblance of recovery. We did not learn our lessons from the first, and this is perhaps why the impact of the second […]
Not Giving up on Happiness: Care of the Self and Well-Being in a Plague Year
The specter of plague haunts our world, and it brings with it not only the ghouls of disease and death but vast economic and social uncertainty of a sort only the most elderly among us remembers (the Great Depression and World War II). My father is 90 and when I called him a child of […]
5 ways coronavirus could help humanity survive the ecological crisis
The human tragedy of the coronavirus is immense. Thousands have died, hundreds of thousands have been infected globally, and millions more have been affected. Whilst infectious disease has always been a part of the human experience, the expansion of industrial civilization has inexorably amplified the risk of new diseases. Uncontrolled industrial expansion also dangerously heats […]
My Year Without Industrial Food
For the last year I grew and foraged 100% of my food. No grocery stores, no restaurants, not even a drink at a bar. Nature was my garden, my pantry and my pharmacy. Most people would imagine I live in the countryside on a farm, but actually I live in a city – Orlando, Florida, […]
Disaster Localization: a Constructive Response to Climate Chaos
This blog is also available in Russian and Spanish. The moment I first learned about climate change will always stick in my mind. A seventh-grade ecology class led to a conversation between girls after school about what, back then, was being called “global warming”. Kicking at the snow while waiting for the bus in the […]
The Real Economy
An essential element of a functioning community is that all roles are filled, that people individually and together do what is necessary for the success of the community. In this era of climate change and contracting energy resources, one important and potentially divisive issue is household roles. Many American households these days are just fueling […]
Resist Globally, Renew Locally
This blog is also available in Arabic, Dutch, Italian, Russian and Spanish. A recent discussion forum among the members of The Great Transition Network focused on “The Promise and Pitfalls of Localism.” My friend and colleague Brian Tokar started the discussion by noting that even though there is a resurgence of progressive action at the […]
To Leave or Remain: Dichotomy or Distraction?
Ever since the Brexit referendum was first announced, we have been bombarded by an array of starkly contradictory pronouncements – from the Leave camp’s now infamous claim that withdrawal from the EU would release £350 million a week for the NHS to the former Chancellor George Osborne’s assertion that Brexit would leave the UK “permanently […]