I’VE SPENT TWO decades studying the transformations that take place under the cover of disaster. I’ve learned that one thing we can count on is this: During moments of cataclysmic change, the previously unthinkable suddenly becomes reality. In recent decades, that change has mainly been for the worst — but this has not always been the case. And it need not continue to be in the future.
The measures taken to stop the pandemic have set a new standard for our collective response to the climate crisis
If a few months ago I suggested that we should shrink the cruise ship industry as a response to the climate emergency, you would probably have rolled your eyes. But now that the cruise industry is on the verge of a shutdown that could bankrupt major operators, does it seem so impossible?
This is the sixth in a series of essays from our Commissioning Editor, Dougald Hine. In Notes From Underground, Dougald invites us to explore the deeper context of the new climate movements that have emerged over the past eighteen months, asking what they tell us about the moment in which we find ourselves. The essays are also available as a podcast and on YouTube.
Wherever Bernie Sanders’ campaign goes from here, the left critique of establishment politics is getting empirical backing through popular support for his candidacy. The establishment’s response— incredulity that the little people have the temerity to question their betters, is combined with a posture of victimhood, that blameless elites are being demonized by neo-collectivist malcontents who are too stupid to appreciate the blessing that four decades of neoliberalism has bestowed on them.
Feb 27, 2020 - I hope we will soon see political analysts and commentators acknowledging that the massive uprising we are seeing in Canada is far more than spontaneous solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en people, although it certainly is that.
"The path to a Green New Deal starts with bold action to restrict the supply of fossil fuels, and that is precisely why a ban on fracking is an absolute necessity."
More than 570 national, regional, and local groups signed on to a letter Thursday endorsing the first-ever national legislation that would immediately prohibit federal permits for new fracking or related infrastructure and fully ban the practice in the United States beginning in 2025.
