george monbiot
intro’d to George july 2013 – ted global – rewilding the world
In his book “Feral,” George Monbiot advocates the large-scale restoration of complex natural ecosystems.
now thinking.. holmgren indigenous law
found myself scratching at the walls of life..
thinking hari present in society law:
in comfortable safe crowded lands.. few opps to exercise them (our wild nature) harming other people..
this was a constraining i found….. to conquer uncertainty.. to know what comes next.. has almost been the industrial aim..
beyond lifespan of h & g’s.. nor was it authenticity i was looking for.. i don’t find that a useful/intelligible concept.. i just wanted a richer/rawer life than i’ve been able to lead in britian..
only when i stumbled upon an unfamiliar word.. that i began to understand what i was looking for.. and as soon as i found it.. i realized i wanted to devote much of rest of my life to..
r e w i l d i n g
even though a young word.. several defns.. but 2 that fascinate me:
1\ mass restoration of ecosystems..
discovery of widespread trophic cascades.. ie: yellowstone park when wolves re intro’d in 1995.. kill animals.. but give life to many others.. ie: deer changed behavior.. to hide from wolves.. and those areas repopulated ecologically.. ie: height of trees 5x in just 6 yrs.. birds/beavers come.. creating nisches for other species..
really interesting.. wolves changed behavior of rivers.. regenerating forest stabilized the banks.. soil erosion stabilize.. physical geography changed
another ie: whales crucial to ecosystem… pooping and kicking water… sequestering carbon.. changing atmosphere composition
trophic cascades.. tell us ecosystem is even more amazing that we thought.. huge case for bringing back indangered species..
rewilding to me.. bringing back missing plants/animals.. taking down fences.. blocking the drainage ditches.. preventing commercial fishing.. but otherwise… stepping back..
we all need to become indigenous
it has no view as to what a right ecosystem or assemblage of species looks like.. it doesn’t try to produce…. it lets nature decide.. nature is pretty good at deciding
no agenda.. ness.. no strings .. ness
2\ rewilding of human life
because there would be wonderful re wilded habitats
return of mega fawna… it’s not climate that’s gotten rid.. it’s pressure from humans..
talking antifragile.. via being elephant adaptive..
walking down ave…. seeing shadows of these great beasts.. paleoecology.. study of past ecosystems.. feels like a portal thru which you can pass into an enchanged kingdom…
why shouldn’t all of us have a serengeti (ecosystem is a geographical region in Africa) on our doorsteps..
most interesting thing.. that rewilding offers us.. the most important thing that’s missing from our lives… h o p e… in motivating people to love/defend the natural world.. an ounce of hope is worth a ton of despair..
the story rewilding tells us .. is that ecological change need not always proceed in one direction.. it offers us a hope that our silent spring could be replaced by a raucous summer…
control.. perpetuate\ing not us ness… feedback loop is broken..let go.
______
re intro’d and adding page while reading this 2012 article.. – gift of death
http://www.monbiot.com/2012/12/10/the-gift-of-death/
Researching her film The Story of Stuff, Annie Leonard discovered that of the materials flowing through the consumer economy, only 1% remain in use six months after sale
[..]
People in eastern Congo are massacred to facilitate smart phone upgrades of ever diminishing marginal utility. Forests are felled to make “personalised heart-shaped wooden cheese board sets”. Rivers are poisoned to manufacture talking fish. This is pathological consumption: a world-consuming epidemic of collective madness, rendered so normal by advertising and the media that we scarcely notice what has happened to us.
In 2007, the journalist Adam Welz records, 13 rhinos were killed by poachers in South Africa. This year, so far, 585 have been shot. No one is entirely sure why. But one answer is that very rich people in Vietnam are now sprinkling ground rhino horn on their food or snorting it like cocaine to display their wealth. It’s grotesque, but it scarcely differs from what almost everyone in industrialised nations is doing: trashing the living world through pointless consumption.
[..]
The growth of inequality that has accompanied the consumer boom ensures that the rising economic tide no longer lifts all boats. In the US in 2010 a remarkable 93% of the growth in incomes accrued to the top 1% of the population. The old excuse, that we must trash the planet to help the poor, simply does not wash.
[..]
Bake them a cake, write them a poem, give them a kiss, tell them a joke, but for god’s sake stop trashing the planet to tell someone you care. All it shows is that you don’t.
______
after cap panel – oxfard farming conf 2017
https://www.ofc.org.uk/video/after-cap-what-0
3 min – all the features.. which harbor wildlife.. which prevent floods downstream.. which keep the soil on the land.. you have to remove those.. if you are to claim for the land.. so it’s a 50 mill euro perverse incentive for max environmental destruction
4 min – if subsidy system.. has to be a fair one: 1\ rural hardship fund.. but i don’t see why farmers would be main recipient of that.. should be allocated on basis of need not occupation 2\ provision of public goods.. protection/prevention 3\ transitional fund to counter perverse effects been suffering.. ie: payment to help new entrants..
imagine if we tried no money
6 min – if we are to move toward a more market based system.. it has to be a fair market
is there one..? who decides.. ? seems like wasted energy.. seems like what you said in 2012.. choosing market is showing you don’t care..
7 min – the best way to deal with an unfair market is to make it fair
is it..? even if that were possible.. it would market (day-care/dehuman) us..
we can do better.. go deeper..
29 min – we need to negotiate tariff quotas with every single commodity with every single exporter/inporter nation on earth.. if to employ entire civil service.. couldn’t do it.. and result w/a lot of non negotiated.. and will just have to wing it
indeed…. what a waste of energy
33 min – rep ing 50 000 farmers – lady to his right
oy.. a rep speaking for people.. ie: public consensus always oppresses someone
george – not true.. farming id’d as primary cause of destruction of wild life and habitats.. embracing the environment is not the picture you get from currrent farming practices…
38 min – ? education.. cultural reform – lady to his right
44 min –
skimmed this.. as it kept reminding me how much time/money we spend listening to a few talk about the problems/solutions.. sitting in our suits and ties and dresses and hose.. on the panel or in the audience.. ugh.. spending most of time talking about balancing moneys
there’s a nother way.. hosting-life-bits via self-talk as data
1:02 – final question to panel.. what would you farm, where, and how would you make a profit..
yes.. because we can’t imagine life without profit ness… and they all just laugh..
george.. i would farm water
______
find/follow George:
George Joshua Richard Monbiot (/ˈmɒnbioʊ/ mon-bee-oh; born 27 January 1963) is a British writer, known for his environmental and political activism. He writes a weekly column for The Guardian, and is the author of a number of books, including Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain (2000) and Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding (2013). He is the founder of The Land is Ours, a peaceful campaign for the right of access to the countryside and its resources in the United Kingdom.
In January 2010, Monbiot founded the ArrestBlair.org website which offers a reward to people attempting a peaceful citizen’s arrest of former British prime minister Tony Blair for alleged crimes against peace.
[..]
Working as an investigative journalist, he travelled in Indonesia, Brazil, and East Africa. His activities led to his being made persona non grata in seven countries and being sentenced to life imprisonment in absentia in Indonesia. In these places, he was also shot at, beaten up by military police, shipwrecked and stung into a poisoned coma by hornets. He came back to work in Britain after being pronounced clinically dead in Lodwar General Hospital in north-western Kenya, having contracted cerebral malaria.
In Britain, he joined the roads protest movement and was often called to give press interviews; as a result he was denounced as a “media tart” by groups such as Green Anarchist and Class War. He was attacked by security guards, who allegedly drove a metal spike through his foot, smashing the middle metatarsal bone. His injuries left him in hospital. Sir Crispin Tickell, a former British diplomat at the United Nations, who was then Warden at Green College, Oxford, made the young protester a Visiting Fellow.
[..]
Among his best-known articles are his critique of David Bellamy’s climate science, his description of an encounter with a police torturer in Brazil, his attack on libertarian interpretations of genetics, his discussion of the ethics of outsourcing, and his attack on the politics of Bob Geldof and Bono.
In January 2011, Monbiot took the unusual step of publishing an account of his assets. In the interests of transparency, Monbiot explained that he earned £77,400 a year, gross, from publishing contracts and rents, and urged other journalists to follow suit. He continues to publish his financial accounts on his website.
[..]
In 2014, Monbiot wrote an article on the theme of loneliness. This led to a collaboration with musician Ewan McLennan. Together they released an Album “Breaking the Spell of Loneliness” in October 2016 followed by a tour of the UK. Folk Radio described it as “an enthralling album” where “Each song is a short, eloquent and thought provoking essay on the destruction of our humanity and how it can be regained”.
[..]
He is the patron of the UK student campaign network People & Planet and appears in the film The Age of Stupid in animated form, in which he says “The very fact that the crisis is taking place within our generation, it’s happening right now, means that we are tremendously powerful people. So this position of despair and ‘I can’t do anything’ and ‘there’s no point’ is completely illogical, it’s exactly the opposite
[..]
Monbiot has been associated with the cause of indigenous rights, and has sought to denounce threats to tribal people, at the face of corporate interests. He contributed to the 2009 book We Are One: A Celebration of Tribal Peoples, which explores the culture of peoples around the world, portraying both its diversity and the threats it faces.
[..]
Monbiot’s first book was Poisoned Arrows (1989), a work of investigative travel journalism exposing what he called the “devastating effects” of the partially World Bank-funded transmigration program on the peoples and tribes of Papua and West Papua in Indonesia. It was followed by Amazon Watershed (1991) which documented expulsions of Brazilian peasant farmers from their land and followed them thousands of miles across the forest to the territory of the Yanomami Indians, and showed how timber sold in Britain was being stolen from indigenous and biological reserves in Brazil. His third book, No Man’s Land: An Investigative Journey Through Kenya and Tanzania (1994), documented the seizure of land and cattle from nomadic people in Kenya and the Tanzania, by—among other forces—game parks and safari tourism.
[..]
His fifth book, The Age of Consent: A Manifesto for a New World Order, was published in 2003. The book is an attempt to set out a positive manifesto for change for the global justice movement. Monbiot criticises anarchism and Marxism, arguing that any possible solution to the world’s inequalities must be rooted in a democratic parliamentary system.
?
[..]
The book also discusses ways in which these ideas may be put into practice. He posits that the United States and Western European states are heavily dependent on the existence of this debt, and that when faced with a choice between releasing the developing world from debt and the collapse of the global economy, their internal economic interests will dictate that they opt for the “soft landing” option. …..He argues that ultimately the global justice movement “must seek…to provide a coherent programme of alternatives to the concentrated power of the dictatorship of vested interests.”
[..]
Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding was published in 2013, and focuses on the concept of rewilding the planet. Monbiot states “rewilding offers a positive environmentalism. Environmentalists have long known what they are against; now we can explain what we are for.”
In the book, Monbiot attacks sheep farming as “a slow-burning ecological disaster, which has done more damage to the living systems of this country than either climate change or industrial pollution. Yet scarcely anyone seems to have noticed.” He particularly looks at sheep farming in Wales.
The book received favourable reviews, including in publications normally hostile to his work, such as The Spectator and The Daily Telegraph. It won the Society of Biology Book Award for general biology in 2014.
________
@GeorgeMonbiot
The age of
#loneliness intensifies. The emotional pain can be overwhelming: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jan/06/half-a-million-older-people-spend-every-day-alone-poll-shows
_________
@jseelybrown
In the age of robots, our schools are teaching children to be redundant | George Monbiot theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
Let’s engineer our children out of the factory and into the real world.
revolution of everyday life. a nother way…
facil curiosity ie: hosting-life-bits via self-talk as data..as the day [aka: not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake…]
__________
Céline (@krustelkram) tweeted at 7:55 AM – 14 Apr 2017 :
Thanks so much for writing about @KateRaworth ‘s doughnut economics
@GeorgeMonbiot & also this: https://t.co/iha927Ng43 and many others. <3 https://t.co/kFQlwbmZX9 (http://twitter.com/krustelkram/status/852883037427818496?s=17)we respond to these crises as if they emerge in isolation, apparently unaware that they have all been either catalysed or exacerbated by the same coherent philosophy; a philosophy that has – or had – a name.
What greater power can there be than to operate namelessly?
[..]
Neoliberalism sees competition as the defining characteristic of human relations. It redefines citizens as consumers, whose democratic choices are best exercised by buying and selling, a process that rewards merit and punishes inefficiency. It maintains that “the market” delivers benefits that could never be achieved by planning.
[..]
Attempts to limit competition are treated as inimical to liberty
[..]
Inequality is recast as virtuous: a reward for utility and a generator of wealth, which trickles down to enrich everyone. Efforts to create a more equal society are both counterproductive and morally corrosive. The market ensures that everyone gets what they deserve.
equity – everyone getting a go everyday..
[..]
In The Road to Serfdom, published in 1944, Hayek argued that government planning, by crushing individualism, would lead inexorably to totalitarian control. Like Mises’s book Bureaucracy, The Road to Serfdom was widely read. It came to the attention of some very wealthy people, who saw in the philosophy an opportunity to free themselves from regulation and tax. When, in 1947, Hayek founded the first organisation that would spread the doctrine of neoliberalism – the Mont Pelerin Society – it was supported financially by millionaires and their foundations.
[..]
among American apostles such as Milton Friedman – to the belief that monopoly power could be seen as a reward for efficiency.
[..]
Something else happened during this transition: the movement lost its name. In 1951, Friedman was happy to describe himself as a neoliberal. But soon after that, the term began to disappear. Stranger still, even as the ideology became crisper and the movement more coherent, the lost name was not replaced by any common alternative
[..]
It may seem strange that a doctrine promising choice and freedom should have been promoted with the slogan “there is no alternative”
[..]
The freedom that neoliberalism offers, which sounds so beguiling when expressed in general terms, turns out to mean freedom for the pike, not for the minnows.
Freedom from trade unions and collective bargaining means the freedom to suppress wages. Freedom from regulation means the freedom to poison rivers, endanger workers, charge iniquitous rates of interest and design exotic financial instruments. Freedom from tax means freedom from the distribution of wealth that lifts people out of poverty.
[..]
As Naomi Klein documents in The Shock Doctrine, neoliberal theorists advocated the use of crises to impose unpopular policies while people were distracted
[..]
Another paradox of neoliberalism is that universal competition relies upon universal quantification and comparison. ..The doctrine that Von Mises proposed would free us from the bureaucratic nightmare of central planning has instead created one.
Neoliberalism was not conceived as a self-serving racket, but it rapidly became one.
[..]
Rent is another term for unearned income
[..]
As property prices and the withdrawal of state funding load people with debt (think of the switch from student grants to student loans), the banks and their executives clean up.
debt as violence
[..]
neoliberal theory asserts, people can exercise choice through spending. But some have more to spend than others: in the great consumer or shareholder democracy, votes are not equally distributed. The result is a disempowerment of the poor and middle.
[..]
Like communism, neoliberalism is the God that failed. But the zombie doctrine staggers on, and one of the reasons is its anonymity. Or rather, a cluster of anonymities.
The invisible doctrine of the invisible hand is promoted by invisible backers.
[..]
Neoliberalism’s triumph also reflects the failure of the left. When laissez-faire economics led to catastrophe in 1929, Keynes devised a comprehensive economic theory to replace it. When Keynesian demand management hit the buffers in the 70s, there was an alternative ready. But when neoliberalism fell apart in 2008 there was … nothing.
This is why the zombie walks.
The left and centre have produced no new general framework of economic thought for 80 years.
[..]
What the history of both Keynesianism and neoliberalism show is that
it’s not enough to oppose a broken system.
A coherent alternative has to be proposed.
__________
marina gorbis (@mgorbis) tweeted at 7:25 AM – 17 Apr 2017 :
Finally, a breakthrough alternative to growth economics – the doughnut | George Monbiot | Opinion | The Guardian https://t.co/OPcYYcwCrq (http://twitter.com/mgorbis/status/853962561884114944?s=17)
We cannot hope to address our predicament without a new worldview. We cannot use the models that caused our crises to solve them. We need to reframe the problem.
[..]
The area between the two rings – the doughnut itself – is the “ecologically safe and socially just space” in which humanity should strive to live. The purpose of economics should be to help us enter that space and stay there.
[..]
New metrics would measure genuine prosperity, rather than the speed with which we degrade our long-term prospects….By rethinking economics from first principles, Raworth allows us to integrate our specific propositions into a coherent programme, and then to measure the extent to which it is realised.
great.. but how to get there.. i don’t think incrementally measuring.. via donut or whatever.. is going to get us to equity (everyone getting a go everyday)
we have to just set people free.. w/mech to facil that chaos (not to measure or validate it).. ie: a nother way
________
GeorgeMonbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) tweeted at 12:21 AM – 27 Sep 2017 :
Please RT: There’s a fairer and more radical way of transforming economic life. Are #Labour and others ready for it? https://t.co/XQT0ig0PVK (http://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/912925188580364288?s=17)
marina gorbis (@mgorbis) tweeted at 12:38 AM – 27 Sep 2017 :
@GeorgeMonbiot @guardian yes, we call it #universalbasicassets https://t.co/ppmthSuqb0 (http://twitter.com/mgorbis/status/912929409438441472?s=17)
GeorgeMonbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) tweeted at 1:13 AM – 27 Sep 2017 :
I can’t claim that this approach solves all the world’s problems, but it takes us some of the way towards that goal (http://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/912938255674413061?s=17)
GeorgeMonbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) tweeted at 1:18 AM – 27 Sep 2017 :
One reason we’re in this mess is that almost all debates abt the economy concern just 2 of its 4 sectors. This article seeks to change that (http://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/912939391882088448?s=17)
Mark James Talbot (@thesandbag) tweeted at 1:27 AM – 27 Sep 2017 :
@GeorgeMonbiot In fact in a post scarcity world the commons will hopefully become the most important sector as we move to cooperation over competition. (http://twitter.com/thesandbag/status/912941687609135104?s=17)
@GeorgeMonbiot
Alarming to see how many commenters cannot or will not grasp that the #commons and the state are different systems: theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
article:
That it is necessary to explain the commons testifies to their neglect..t (despite the best efforts of political scientists such as the late Elinor Ostrom).
A commons, unlike state spending, obliges people to work together, to sustain their resources and decide how the income should be used. It gives community life a clear focus. It depends on democracy in its truest form. It destroys inequality. It providesan incentive to protect the living world. It creates, in sum, a politics of belonging.
@GeorgeMonbiotToday @TWT_NOW: @GeorgeMonbiot, 5.30pm at Fabrica on OUT OF THE WRECKAGE & routes out of crisis theworldtransformed.org/sessions/out-o…
________
This is an important breakthrough:
http://www.monbiot.com/2017/10/13/labouratory/
Private luxury shuts down space, creating deprivation. But magnificent public amenities – wonderful parks and playgrounds, public sports centres and swimming pools, galleries, allotments and public transport networks – create more space for everyone, at a fraction of the cost.
Wherever possible, I believe such assets should be owned and managed by neither state nor market, but by communities, in the form of commons. A commons in its true form is a non-capitalist system, in which a resource is controlled in perpetuity by a community, for the shared and equal benefit of its members
This could be a formula for meeting housing need, delivering public luxury and greatly enhancing the sense of community, self-reliance and taking back control. It helps to create what I call the Politics of Belonging.
You cannot take away someone’s story without giving them a new one. It is not enough to challenge an old narrative, however outdated and discredited it may be. Change happens only when you replace one story with another. When we develop the right story, and learn how to tell it, it will infect the minds of people across the political spectrum.
We will build it around a great, neglected economic sphere: the commons.
Decision-making will be returned to the smallest political units that can discharge it
let’s try for 7 bn everyday as the day.. redefine decision making
ie: hlb via 2 convos that io dance.. as the day..[aka: not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake…].. a nother way
Through restoring community, renewing civic life and claiming our place in the world, we build a society in which our extraordinary nature – our altruism, empathy and deep connection – is released. A kinder world stimulates and normalises our kinder values. I propose a name for this story: the Politics of Belonging.
let’s go for a and a.. a nother way via 2 convos
We know that if we can mobilise such silent majorities, there is nothing this small minority can do to stop us. But because we have failed to understand what is possible, and above all failed to replace our tired political stories with a compelling narrative of transformation and restoration, we have failed to realise this potential.
mech to listen to all the voices.. as the day
Could Labour be the party that brings the long 20th Century to an end? I believe, despite its Keynesian heritage, it could. Now, more than at any other time in the past few decades, it has a chance to change the world.
________
George Monbiot: We Need a New Political Story of Empathy and Sharing to Replace Neoliberalism
Sunday, October 22, 2017By Mark Karlin, Truthout | Interview
The idea that human nature is inherently competitive and individualistic isn’t just harmful, argues George Monbiot in his new book. It’s also contradicted by psychology, neuroscience and evolutionary biology. Out of the Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis provides a compelling argument for how we can reorganize our world for the better from the bottom up.
on hold at library – thanks
out of the wreckage [sorry George.. going on frustrating book list]
Humans are altruistic, but we need a new story of empathy and shared development..
ie: hlb via 2 convos that io dance.. as the day..[aka: not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake…].. a nother way
Every generation or so, political stories need to be refreshed or replaced..We have failed to produce a new, well-developed political story
The reason we are stuck with neoliberalism — despite its manifest failures, particularly the financial crash of 2008 — is that its opponents have produced no new, coherent Restoration Story of their own.
The violent and destructive behavior of the few is more salient in our minds than the altruistic and cooperative behavior of the many.
We do not need to change human nature, we need to reveal it..t
So, we need, in pursuit of the new vision I’m seeking to promote, what I call the “Politics of Belonging” to revive community life. There are two ways of doing so that interest me.
1\development of a rich participatory culture: t community projects designed to bring in as many people as possible, ..each a tipping point, at which community participation becomes the norm rather than the exception..that they begin to comprise a major part of the local economy.
let’s do econ sans money/measure.. or we’ll circle/cycle right back around..
2\ reclamation of the commons, t one of the four great sectors of the economy that we always forget. (Our debates tend to focus on only two: the state and the market, neglecting both the commons and the household).
perhaps why we haven’t yet gotten to equity (everyone getting a go everyday) .. ie: can’t seem to let go enough ..let’s try it as our only sector..
I favor the single transferable vote because, while it is directly proportional, it also sustains a sense of local attachment. Voters choose their representatives by name from geographical constituencies.
gupta roadblock law.. ie: why reps..? why voting..? new story.. redefine decision making et al.. because public consensus always oppresses someone.. and cycles..
exercising control over part of the municipal budget is not enough. We need to find ways to extend the process in two directions: to allow citizens to determine a greater portion of local budgets, and to introduce participatory budgeting at the state and national levels. This is initially difficult, but I believe there are various clever ways in which it can be done.
how about clever/brave enough to let go of money/control
I feel we are only just beginning to see what proliferating networks of volunteers using digital technology as well as direct human contact can now achieve.
exactly.. we have no idea.. from science of people ness.. what energies we have.. can uncover.. let’s not talk potential.. new story.. while just re creating the old.. aka: not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake…].. there’s a nother way
________
2012 – the gift of death
http://www.monbiot.com/2012/12/10/the-gift-of-death/
Annie Leonard discovered.. 1% remain in use six months after sale
many of the products we buy, especially for Christmas, cannot become obsolescent. The term implies a loss of utility, but they had no utility in the first place.
no one is expected to use them, or even look at them, after Christmas Day. They are designed to elicit thanks, perhaps a snigger or two, and then be thrown away.
World trade rules force countries to participate in the festival of junk.
The growth of ineq that has accompanied the consumer boom ensures that the rising economic tide no longer lifts all boats. In the US in 2010 a remarkable 93% of the growth in incomes accrued to the top 1% of the population.. The old excuse, that we must trash the planet to help the poor, simply does not wash.
Witness last week’s Moral Maze programme, in which most of the panel lined up to decry the idea of consuming less, and to associate it, somehow, with authoritarianism. When the world goes mad, those who resist are denounced as lunatics.
Bake them a cake, write them a poem, give them a kiss, tell them a joke, but for god’s sake stop trashing the planet to tell someone you care. All it shows is that you don’t.
________
GeorgeMonbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) tweeted at 4:43 AM – 16 Nov 2017 :
Here’s my video with @openDemocracy on replacing both #neoliberalism and Keynesianism: https://t.co/dCVxMveq5m (http://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/931125690040246272?s=17)
13 min video:
the driving force of politics is not political leaders/parties.. but political narratives
the reason we’re stuck with neoliberalism today.. despite its multiple and manifest failures on just about every front.. is that we haven’t produced a big new political restoration story w/which to replace it.. that’s our task..t
let’s try this George.. a means for 7 bn to leap to a nother way to live
ie: hlb via 2 convos that io dance.. as the day..[aka: not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake…].. a nother way
3 min – most have state vs market.. but we’ve got 4.. state market household commons.. non capitalist.. non communist.. doesn’t depend on econ growth.. but steady well-being..
4 min – we’ve lost this fundamental source that gave us our sense of belonging.. (commons ness)..t
after that.. so much focus on ..ie: revenues coming in.. bi.. times beg a more radical new narrative..
7 min – public effort.. public luxury.. we’ve got plenty of space for that .. rather than everyone fighting each other.. politics of belonging..
luxury ness.. belonging ness.. maté basic needs
8 min – assumed consent rather than actual consent.. no way to run a nation.. can go thru entire life w/o actually being represented by anyone..
9 min – ways we get to vote often
let’s try 24/7.. rev of everyday life .. a radical nother way
________
black friday consumption
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/22/black-friday-consumption-killing-planet-growth
Every Friday is a Black Friday,..
It is the system itself that needs to change.
nov 24 – everything must go (same as above black friday post)
http://www.monbiot.com/2017/11/24/everything-must-go/
________
career advice
http://www.monbiot.com/career-advice/
The first advice I would offer is this: be wary of following the careers advice your college gives you
The advisers say that a career path like this is essential if you don’t want to fall into the “trap” of specialisation: that is to say, if you want to be flexible enough to respond to the changing demands of the employment market. But the truth is that by following the path they suggest, you are becoming a specialist: a specialist in the moronic recycling of what the rich and powerful deem to be news. And after a few years of that, you are good for little else.
This career path, in other words, is counter-educational. It teaches you to do what you don’t want to do, to be what you don’t want to be. It is an exceptional person who emerges from this process with her aims and ideals intact. Indeed it is an exceptional person who emerges from this process at all. What the corporate or institutional world wants you to do is the opposite of what you want to do. It wants a reliable tool, someone who can think, but not for herself: who can think instead for the institution. You can do what you believe only if that belief happens to coincide with the aims of the corporation, not just once, but consistently, across the years (it is a source of wonder to me how many people’s beliefs just happen to match the demands of institutional power, however those demands may twist and turn, after they’ve been in the company for a year or two).
thinking we have to be employable.. is killing us
_______
jan 24 2018
Is this the end of civilisation? We could take a different path
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/24/end-civilisation-take-different-path
These interlocking crises will affect everyone, but the poorer nations are hit first and worst.
In many cases they joined the “barbarians”. This so-called secondary primitivism, Scott notes, “may well have been experienced as a marked improvement in safety, nutrition and social order. Becoming a barbarian was often a bid to improve one’s lot.” The dark ages that inexorably followed the glory and grandeur of the state may, in that era, have been the best times to be alive.
But today there is nowhere to turn.
So what we do? Next week, barring upsets, I will propose a new way forward. The path we now follow is not the path we have to take.
i hope it doesn’t involve/include measuring transactions man..
________
Todd Hoskins (@toddhoskins) tweeted at 6:34 AM – 21 Feb 2018 :
Beautiful and brilliant. We need more stories and more data on the impact of connectedness. From @GeorgeMonbiot https://t.co/wBc9SaC4j5(http://twitter.com/toddhoskins/status/966305012476534784?s=17)
Frome in Somerset has seen a dramatic fall in emergency hospital admissions since it began a collective project to combat isolation..a newfangled intervention called community..t
The Compassionate Frome project was launched in 2013 by Helen Kingston, a GP there.
Remarkable as Frome’s initial results appear to be, they shouldn’t be surprising. A famous paper published in PLOS Medicine in 2010 reviewed 148 studies, involving 300,000 people, and discovered that those with strong social relationships had a 50% lower chance of death across the average study period (7.5 years) than those with weak connections. “The magnitude of this effect,” the paper reports, “is comparable with quitting smoking.” A celebrated study in 1945showed that children in orphanages died through lack of human contact. Now we know that the same thing can apply to all of us.
maté basic needs.. let’s focus on that via 2 convos .. as the day.. for all of us
________
prostate cancer and happy
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/13/prostate-cancer-happy-diagnosis-operation
The reason is that I’ve sought to apply the three principles which, I believe, sit at the heart of a good life. The first is the most important: imagine how much worse it could be, rather than how much better
The second principle is this: change what you can change, accept what you can’t. This is not a formula for passivity. I’ve spent my working life trying to alter outcomes that might have seemed immovable to other people
The third principle is this: do not let fear rule your life. Fear hems us in, stops us from thinking clearly and prevents us from either challenging oppression or engaging calmly with the impersonal fates.
Let there be no more terrible secrets.. I have sought to discuss my prostate cancer as I would discuss any other issue. I make no apologies for subjecting you to the grisly details: the more familiar they become, the less horrifying. In doing so, I socialise my condition.
The old strategy of suffering in silence could not have been more misguided.
Finding better tests and treatments is a matter of both urgency and equity.
________
via Michel fb share
In reality, natural wealth and human-made capital are neither comparable nor interchangeable.
Still more deluded is the expectation that we can defend the living world through the mindset that’s destroying it..t
Markets change the meaning of the things we discuss, replacing moral obligations with commercial relationships. This corrupts and degrades our intrinsic values and empties public life of moral argument.
i think moral obligations corrupt and degrade as well..
It showed that when people were reminded of the intrinsic value of nature, they were more likely to defend the living planet and support WWF≈than when they were exposed to financial arguments. It also discovered that using both arguments together produced the same result as just the financial one: the natural capital agenda undermined people’s intrinsic motivation.
Never underestimate the power of intrinsic values..t
________
douglas rushkoff (@rushkoff) tweeted at 6:38 AM – 6 Sep 2018 :
My friend @GeorgeMonbiot explains how environmental problems require systemic understanding and solutions. Less consumption (as opposed to “green” consumption) is a start: https://t.co/fVQTUAsV0Z (http://twitter.com/rushkoff/status/1037681424676122627?s=17)Regardless of what we consume, the sheer volume of consumption is overwhelming the Earth’s living systems.
..we cannot address our environmental crisis by swapping one overused resource for another. When I challenged that call, some people asked me, “So what should we use instead?”
The right question is, “How should we live?” But systemic thinking is an endangered species.
Amid the general incoherence, one contributor stated: “It comes down, I think, to us each taking responsibility for the personal choices in our everyday lives. That’s all any of us can be expected to do.” This perfectly represents the mistaken belief that a better form of consumerism will save the planet. The problems we face are structural: a political system captured by commercial interests, and an economic system that seeks endless growth..t.. Of course we should try to minimise our own impacts, but we cannot confront these forces merely by “taking responsibility” for what we consume.
Abandoned fishing materials tend to be far more dangerous to marine life than other forms of waste. As for the bags and bottles contributing to the disaster, the great majority arise in poorer nationswithout good disposal systems. But because this point was not made, we look to the wrong places for solutions.
Disposable coffee cups made from new materials are not just a non-solution: they are a perpetuation of the problem. Defending the planet means changing the world..t
begs we focus on a problem deep enough to get at global systemic change
________
GeorgeMonbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) tweeted at 12:04 AM – 13 Sep 2018 :
This week’s column is about the young Kazakhstani scientist who has broken down the gates of knowledge. She is a true hero of our age: https://t.co/JKymJvOFzz (http://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1040119076574646273?s=17)Scientific publishing is a rip-off. We fund the research – it should be free
t Alexandra Elbakyan has done to the multibillion-dollar industry that traps knowledge behind paywalls. Sci-Hub, her pirate web scraper service, has done more than any government to tackle one of the biggest rip-offs of the modern era: the capture of publicly funded research that should belong to us all.
His (Robert Maxwell) business model relied on the enclosure of common and public resources. Or, to use the technical term, daylight robbery..t.. As his other ventures ran into trouble, he sold his company to the Dutch publishing giant Elsevier
Sci-Hub allows free access to 70m papers, otherwise locked behind paywalls.
While the US courts have characterised her activities as copyright violation and data theft, to me her work involves the restoration to the public realm of property that belongs to us and for which we have paid
Those who pay most are publicly funded libraries. Taxpayers must shell out twice: first for the research, then to see the work they have sponsored. There might be legal justifications for this practice. There are no ethical justifications.
The brilliant online innovator Aaron Swartz sought to release 5m scientific articles into the public domain. Facing the possibility of decades in a US federal prison for this selfless act, he took his life.
In the meantime, as a matter of principle, do not pay a penny to read an academic article. The ethical choice is to read the stolen material published by Sci-Hub.
_________
while reading jason hickel’s the divide.. george shares this 5 min video:
The true legacy of Christopher Columbus: ‘Western Civilisation’ | George Monbiot
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtBKDMN2U4s]
3 min – the impact of the rich/powerful nations has been so phenomenally murderous and destructive that it has been completely airbrushed from our national consciousness.. in order to justify.. had to create an ideology of rescue.. to do that have to demo that the rest of the world is depraved and backward.. from this arose the racism that is still w us today.. it was necessary component of the colonial project.. where we are is a continuation of the project
4 min – we don’t have to be like this.. skin color and any other diff.. is completely irrelevant by comparison to what we share.. which is our humanity..
________
The Rules (@TheRulesOrg) tweeted at 5:35 AM – 14 Nov 2018 :
‘Why do civilisations collapse? Not because they lack technology or expertise, but because t/ power of oligarchs blocks the necessary solutions.Will this happen to us?’ By .@GeorgeMonbiot #growthorlife #postgrowth https://t.co/houfrB0sPS(http://twitter.com/TheRulesOrg/status/1062685536194887680?s=17)We can no longer tinker around the edges and hope minor changes will avert collapse
Economic elites, which benefit from social dysfunction, block the necessary solutions.
Decades of institutional failure ensures that only “unrealistic” proposals – the repurposing of economic life, with immediate effect – now have a realistic chance of stopping the planetary death spiral. ..t
a nother way.. not ridiculous and not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake…
And only those who stand outside the failed institutions can lead this effort..
Do not allow those who have caused this crisis to define the limits of political action.
w/in thread
GeorgeMonbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) tweeted at 2:26 AM – 14 Nov 2018 :
Here’s my response to those who say that preventing environmental breakdown means a drastic cut in our quality of life. #PrivateSufficiencyPublicLuxury https://t.co/46WA6AQMAU (http://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1062637765324615680?s=17)private sufficiency; public luxury
george’s reply to this tweet:
Some people have asked why it has taken me so long to frame the issue this clearly. The answer is that thinking takes a long time, 95% of which is spent unthinking everything we have been led to believe.
it’s not hard to assess whether what you are doing matters.. it is hard to choose to make that assessment and to disengage with what is irrelevant – Vinay Gupta
________
intro’d to everyone everyday via George in this post:
Johann Hari (@johannhari101) tweeted at 4:44 AM – 24 Jan 2019 :
Almost every problem we face needs to be dealt with, as a first step, by reconnecting compassionately with the people around us. Inspiring & beautiful piece by @georgemonbiot about this: https://t.co/ySZ4UpJo7c (http://twitter.com/johannhari101/status/1088402256880455680?s=17)Could this local experiment be the start of a national transformation?..t
global.. if it includes both missing pieces.. simultaneously..
The best antidote to the rising tide of demagoguery and reaction is a politics of belonging based on strong and confident local communities.
belonging and authenticity/eudaimonia.. need both.. simultaneously..
Just as the council began looking for ideas, the Participatory City Foundation, led by the inspiring Tessy Britton, approached it with a plan for an entirely different system, developed after nine years of research into how bridging networks form. Nothing like it had been attempted by a borough before. The council realised it was taking a risk. But it helped to fund a £7m, five-year experiment, called Every One, Every Day.
after 10 yr research.. let’s try a 1 yr experiment.. ie: short
Researching successful community projects across the world, the foundation discovered a set of common principles..t
links to 151 page pdf entitle ‘made to measure’
didn’t read.. but can’t have principles be 151 pages.. and have to stop measuring
if want it to be for everyone everyday begs a mech simple enough for 7b to access/use today
Typically, they demand little time or commitment from local people, and no financial cost. They are close to people’s homes, open to everyone, and designed to attract talent rather than to meet particular needs.
let’s try this – 3 and 30 – 2 convers as infra
They launched Every One, Every Day in November 2017, opening two shops(the first of five) on high streets in Barking and Dagenham. The shops don’t sell anything but are places where people meet, discuss ideas and launch projects. The scheme has also started opening “maker spaces”, equipped with laser cutters and other tools, sewing machines and working kitchens. These kinds of spaces are usually occupied by middle-class men but, so far, 90% of the participants here are women. The reason for the difference is simple: almost immediately, some of the residents drew a line on the floor,..t.. turning part of the space into an informal creche, where women take turns looking after the children. In doing so, they overcame one of the biggest barriers to new businesses and projects: affordable childcare.
lines in the city.. ie: city sketchup ness
the experiment has catalysed a remarkable number of projects set up spontaneously by residents..t
imagine 7b spontaneous ness by facil ing daily curiosity ie: cure ios city
Local people have leapt on the opportunities the new system has created.
this is wonderful.. much better than what most of us are doing.. but we have the means for it to me – local people (everyone everywhere everyday) are heard.. and their daily curiosities are facil’d.. ie: cure ios city
There’s a long way to go. Four thousand of the borough’s 200,000 people have participated so far. But the rate of growth suggests it is likely to be transformative. The council told me the programme had the potential to reduce demand for social services as people’s mental and physical health improves.. t
imagine a means for 7b to leap
Perhaps it’s not the whole answer to our many troubles. But it looks to me like a bright light in a darkening world.. t
not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake.. a nother way
__________
via michel fb share: http://www.irishnews.com/arts/2019/02/28/news/george-monbiot-on-how-we-can-help-pull-society-out-of-the-wreckage-1561194/
his ideas shared here:
consent-centric participatory democracy functioning successfully around the world which could be used as a model for change.
“A very good one is the Better Reykjavík system, where basically the whole population runs the city,” he enthuses.
“It’s a very clever participatory system they’ve devised which ensures that decision-making belongs to the people. They have genuinely ‘taken back’ the city and the results have been remarkable – a massive improvement in people’s quality of life.
also.. participatory budgeting can’t be rolled out worldwide.”
‘participatory culture’ is already under way thanks to the Every One Every Day initiative.
“It’s a world-leading project,” Monbiot explains, “there’s nothing quite like it on Earth.
“They’re turning participatory culture into something entirely normal to create a system where everyone feels that they want to become involved. It’s drawing on nine years of global research and it’s already having amazing results: thousands of people setting up their own events and community activities.
imagine going deeper.. ie: less focus on participatory ness.. more on daily curiosities .. a system where everyone’s voice is heard/facilitated.. everyday
ie: cure ios city
_________
George and Douglas/team human on virtual futures- march 2019 – 90 min:[https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=1&v=TrPvhRGHaFg]
Here’s the brilliant @GeorgeMonbiot engaging with me at the British Library last month, courtesy of @VirtualFutures https://t.co/qZ6Wm0u56U
Original Tweet:https://twitter.com/rushkoff/status/1112497934388641792
35 min – g: most advanced at trying this.. participatory city @ParticipatoryC..t
40 min – d: when we function as a team we’re real..t
ai humanity needs..augmenting interconnectedness
48 min – g: progress is progress to the cliff edge..t
50 min – d: we don’t have communities so we’re depending on retirement plans to be the way we survive in our old age.. t
56 min – d: (monks) language itself is an operating system w biases.. it’s a drug..t
beyond words ness – idio-jargoned self-talk as data
58 min – g: restoration narrative: hero confronts and overthrows..
59 min – g: we use narrative to try to cut thru the noise of data.. the short cut we look for is the story.. because they make that sense of the world..
1:01 – g: it’s absolutely fundamental to tell a coherent story which explains the transition from one dispensation we live with in the moment and we hate toward dispensation we want to reach.. and it’s our failure to tell stories .. to tap into that narrative.. that traps us ..t
1:03 – g: preaching to the choir.. as if it’s a bad thing.. the way politics works is thru preaching to the choir.. to move on from dysfunctional state
1:14 – d: sm great connectors until they had to show proof of growth
1:24 – d: (on calling out kids for slacking off for climate change).. i wonder.. maybe they will leverage even that sentiment.. that they’ve slacked off.. .. what if we slacked off.. what if we decided that life was about leisure and not work.. even the idea of getting jobs for people is inane.. why are we getting more jobs for people anyway.. because we need more stuff.. no.. it’s so that we can justify letting people have the stuff.. maybe that might be the next.. what are we training for.. i don’t need your job..t
__________
ted summit july 2019
GeorgeMonbiot (@GeorgeMonbiot) tweeted at 9:02 AM – 26 Jul 2019 :
The new political story that could change everything.
My new TED talk, just posted:
https://t.co/7Ge6bnDBhL (http://twitter.com/GeorgeMonbiot/status/1154769009381904384?s=17)
(why in mess): i believe the answer is that we’ve not yet produced a new story to replace it
you can’t take away people’s story w/o giving them a new one
(ongoing dismantling story – identical narrative structure): disorder afflicts the land.. to hero restoring it.. new story
today.. just the old failed story w no new story
7 min – political failure is at heart .. a failure of imagination..t
w/o a restoration story that can tell us where we need to go.. nothing is going to change.. but w a restoration story.. everything can change
the story we need to tell is a story that will appeal to as wide a range of people as possible..t
has to be all of us.. everyone.. or it won’t work
imagine deeper
it should resonate w deep needs and desires.. t
ie: maté basic needs as infra
it should be simple..t
simple enough: a nother way book
and it should be grounded in reality.. i understand this might sound like a tall order.. but i believe.. there are stories like this waiting to be told
9 min – that urge to coop has been hardwired into our minds.. but something has gone horribly wrong.. disorder afflicts the land..t
rather.. hard won order.. afflicts the land
10 min – competition.. weakens our social bonds that make our lives worth living
we have an incredible capacity for togetherness and belonging and by invoking that capacity we can recover those amazing components of our humanity
almaas holes law – via 2 convers as infra.. augmenting interconnectedness (ai humanity needs)
we can build a thriving civic life.. an econ that respects both people and planet.. around that great neglected sphere.. the commons.. neither marker nor state.. neither capitalism nor communism..
(the commons) consists of 3 main elements: particular 1\ resource 2\ community that manages that resource 3\ rules of negotiation
yeah.. i think this is where we’re missing it.. commons has to be for everything.. no particulars with rules/management.. (just like new story has to be for all people).. or it won’t work..
commons can’t be sold can’t be given away.. its benefits shared equally
not equally.. equitably.. – everyone getting a go everyday.. with whatever they need
we can use new rules/methods of elections.. to ensure that fin power never trumps demo power again
dang.. missing it if we stick w elections and money (any form of measuring/accounting)
rep democ should be tempered by participatory demo.. so we can refine our political choices.. and that choice should be exercised as much as possible .. at the local level..
we have to let go of rep ness – and i’m thinking democ – unless we define it as redefining it everyday
life isn’t about any number (no matter how large a number) of limited choices.. we need to get to the point where we trust those human qualities (altruism.. cooperativeness.. et al.. that you mention and more) and just listen to and facil daily curiosity ie: cure ios city
if something can be decided locally.. it shouldn’t be determined nationally
fractal that to local being w/in each heart.. everyday.. ie: curiosity (where’s my insatiable itch today) over decision making (ie: what should i participate in)
i call all of this the politics of belonging
the opposite of belonging.. is fitting in
true belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are.. it requires you to be who you are.. and that’s vulnerable.. -Brené brown
– finances, rep ness, finite choices, .. all strip away who we are.. the require of us to fit in.. bit by bit.. till we’re whales in sea world.. rather than us
and i think this has the potential to reach a wide span.. two things left and right share.. is belonging and community
maté basic needs – let’s build around that.. not part\ial.. for (blank)’s sake.. a nother way
what we need to create are communities based on bridging networks not bonding networks.. t.. bonding brings homogenous.. bridging from diff groups..
augmenting interconnectedness.. via cure ios city
our task is to tell the story that lights the path to a better world
_________
I agree with @GeorgeMonbiot. In an age of ecological collapse, the case for capping the incomes & wealth of the rich is impeccable.
We cannot accept a world where the rights of the rich to accumulate and destroy trumps the rights of the rest of us to live on a habitable planet.
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1174637182792941569
perhaps we can’t accept a world that focuses on rights.. and capping income or not.. et al we need a nother way to live.. a nother operating system.. for all of us ie: money (any form of measuring/accounting) as the planned obsolescence
via commons transition fb share:
For the Sake of life on Earth, we must put a limit on wealth’, by George Monbiot.
“It’s not just the megarich: increased spending power leads us all to inflict environmental damage. It’s time for a radical plan.”
“A meaningful strike in defence of the living world is, in part, a strike against the desire to raise our incomes and accumulate wealth: a desire shaped, more than we are probably aware, by dominant social and economic narratives. I see myself as striking in support of a radical and disturbing concept: enough. Individually and collectively, it is time to decide what “enough” looks like, and how to know when we’ve achieved it.”
Read the full article here: https://www.theguardian.com/…/life-earth-wealth-megarich-sp…
Illustration by Bill Bragg.
my notes from this sept 19 2019 guardian post:
It’s not just the megarich: increased spending power leads us all to inflict environmental damage. It’s time for a radical plan
perhaps a short bp with bi as temp placebo.. ie: money (any form of measuring/accounting) as the planned obsolescence
Immense wealth translates automatically into immense environmental impacts, regardless of the intentions of those who possess it. The very wealthy, almost as a matter of definition, are committing ecocide.
A series of research papers shows that income is by far the most important determinant of environmental impact. It doesn’t matter how green you think you are; if you have surplus money, you spend it. The only form of consumption that’s clearly and positively correlatedwith good environmental intentions is diet: people who see themselves as green tend to eat less meat and more organic vegetables. But attitudes have little bearingon the amount of transport fuel, home energy and other materials you consume. Money conquers all.
he has missed the crucial point: in seeking to prevent climate breakdown, what counts is not what you do but what you stop doing… this requires structural change, which involves political intervention as well as technological innovation..t
perhaps we try 2 convers as infra.. via tech as it could be..
ie: can you hear me now? – perhaps the less/enough comes from focus on hearing all the voices.. everyday
it is time to decide what “enough” looks like, and how to know when we’ve achieved it.
begs being quiet enough to hear/see what is enough
Surplus money allows some people to exercise inordinate power over others: in the workplace; in politics; and above all in the capture, use and destruction of the planet’s natural wealth. If everyone is to flourish, we cannot afford the rich. t
rather.. any money (any form of measuring/accounting) is cancerous to all of us.. if everyone is to flourish, we cannot afford to measure/monetize
there is neither the physical nor ecological space for everyone to pursue private luxury. Instead we should strive for private sufficiency, public luxury. Life on Earth depends on moderation..t
perhaps there is that space.. if we focus on fittingness 1st
we have no idea because we keep analyzing whales in sea world
luxury.. eudaimoniative surplus.. getting back/to an undisturbed ecosystem.. by focusing on our very basic needs first.. what we need most is the energy of 7b alive people..
__________
This article by @GeorgeMonbiot is the most politically & philosophically important article I have read about Coronavirus https://t.co/rESRBvc6Ip
Original Tweet: https://twitter.com/johannhari101/status/1242841793194065921The wealth we’ve accumulated – often at the expense of others – has shielded us from reality.. Now the membrane has ruptured, and we find ourselves naked and outraged, as the biology we appeared to have banished storms through our lives. The temptation, when this pandemic has passed, will be to find another bubble. We cannot afford to succumb to it…t
so let’s get a (simple enough) mech in place for 8b people to leap to a nother way to live
A food deficit could result in billions starving. Hoarding will happen, as it always has, at the global level, as powerful people snatch food from the mouths of the poor.. t
but it wouldn’t .. if we focused on 2 basic needs first.. ie: beyond food, meds, et al ..
fill the hunger/holes with the deeper needs (ie: authenticity & attachment) then people won’t be looking for (wasting/hoarding) false fillers..
this is not ridiculous.. this is a perfect opp to leap to a nother way to live.. we just need a mech in place.. so the leap can be about everyone.. has to be everyone .. or it won’t work.. and we’ll go back to ie: hoarding/wasting
Sacred cows and holy lambs are everywhere, and the thinking required to develop the new food systems that we need, like lab-grown food, is scarcely anywhere..t
rather.. the thinking required to develop new human systems.. 1st
Our multiple crises, of which these are just two, have a common root..t
indeed.. and we’re missing it.. ie: maté basic needs (roots of healing)
Sunk costs within the fossil fuel industry, farming, banking, private healthcare and other sectors prevent the rapid transformations we need. Money becomes more important than life..t
to detox us .. what we need is to try/code money (any form of measuring/accounting) as the planned obsolescence
ie: ubi as temp placebo..
Or this could be the moment when we begin to see ourselves, once more, as governed by biology and physics, and dependent on a habitable planet.. t
indeed.. let’s curate (take care of souls)
_________
via michel fb share:
George Monbiot chimes in:
”
Planet of the Humans, whose executive producer and chief promoter is Michael Moore, now has more than 6 million views on YouTube. The film does not deny climate science. But it promotes the discredited myths that deniers have used for years to justify their position. It claims that environmentalism is a self-seeking scam, doing immense harm to the living world while enriching a group of con artists. This has long been the most effective means by which denial – most of which has been funded by the fossil fuel industry – has been spread. Everyone hates a scammer.And yes, there are scammers. There are real issues and real conflicts to be explored in seeking to prevent the collapse of our life support systems. But they are handled so clumsily and incoherently by this film that watching it is like seeing someone start a drunken brawl over a spilled pint, then lamping his friends when they try to restrain him. It stumbles so blindly into toxic issues that Moore, former champion of the underdog, unwittingly aligns himself with white supremacists and the extreme right.
Occasionally, the film lands a punch on the right nose.”
https://www.theguardian.com/…/michael-moore-far-right-clima…?
didn’t read post.. but i didn’t get that from planet of humans
in comments:
Simone Cicero Let George Monbiot read Wendell Berry’s critique of conservationism…
_________
george in seaspiracy doc – notes on documentaries page
_______
________
be you. 