We must build parallel institutions and organizations that protect us from corporate assault and resist corporate domination. We must sever ourselves as much as possible from the vampire state. The more we can create self-contained communities, with our own currencies and infrastructures, the more we...
The industrial era is when most of the technologies that we see today got invented. In the process of creating and deploying these technologies, we have had to burn a lot of fossil fuels, destroy a lot of forests, pour a lot of fertilizers and...
Imagine that we are Earth doctors and we are being asked to diagnose the Earth's condition and prescribe a course of action for healing and reversal. Let's take each of the planetary boundaries and examine the root cause for the human induced perturbations in the...
Modern animal husbandry is a marvel of technology. From instruments that guarantee the impregnation of animals to machines that milk dairy cows and the disassembly line that is the modern slaughterhouse, technology has relentlessly squeezed the resource requirements for livestock production.
...It’s a human condition to be blind to our foibles. It is very difficult for us to correct for that blindness when the dominant culture encourages and subsidizes those foibles.
...The Nobel-winning behavioral economist, Daniel Kahnemann, said,
“We can be blind to the obvious. And we can be blind to our blindness.”
But the time is ripe for our globally connected industrial civilization to overcome culturally bequeathed habits that no longer serve their...
In Nature, both the Caterpillar and the Butterfly serve useful purposes and have their respective niches in ecosystems. But in order to understand the purpose served by human beings in both our Caterpillar and Butterfly phases, we must examine the human story in a broader...
Who or what is the Earth anyway? Is the Earth just a big lump of rock with useful resources on it, a "Blue Marble" as seen from outer space? Or is the Earth a more complex material object governed by the laws of physics and...
In order to comprehend why Life has spawned a tool-building species, we first have to embed the human story within the Earth’s biography.
...Our solar system orbits the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy with a period of 225Ma-250Ma, the Galactic Year or the Cosmic Year.
...Wayne Dyer, the noted self-help author and motivational speaker once said,
"When you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change."
That is precisely what our story does by reversing the mainstream perspective.
Throughout his life, Gandhi urged Indians and the whole world to adopt a simple lifestyle for the true pursuit of happiness, for such pursuit is entirely inward looking once basic necessities are met.
...Dr. Vandana Shiva, the Indian humanitarian and environmentalist, said recently[18],
"There are two great trends sweeping the world: one, a trend of diversity, democracy, freedom, joy, culture, people celebrating their lives. And the other, monocultures, deadness, everyone depressed, everyone on Prozac. We don't want...
What we are witnessing in the US and indeed throughout the western world is the total failure of capitalism. Capitalism is now merely a looting machine. The financial sector no longer supplies capital for production. What the financial sector does is to turn discretionary consumer...
Veganism is like a four-legged stool with health, ethical, environmental and spiritual reasons for elevating our lives. While the health reasons are becoming increasingly well known with the advocacy work of numerous health and nutrition professionals and organizations, the ethical, environmental and spiritual reasons reinforce...
The final change that will help dismantle the hierarchical system of the Caterpillar is when we transition to agro-ecologically grown, local, plant-based foods. To grow animal-based foods, humans had to create vast monocultures and an industrial infrastructure encompassing almost half the land area of the...
The Vegan movement has the same role to play in dismantling the hierarchical system of the Caterpillar in the early 21st century as the "Khadi” movement, spearheaded by Mahatma Gandhi, played in dismantling the British colonial empire of the early 20th century.
...Just as the Khadi movement was a necessary first step on the road to Indian independence in the 20th century, so is the Vegan movement also just a necessary first step on the road to global sustainability in the 21st century.
...If it’s true that the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is unstoppable and our major coastal cities drown, humans can rebuild cities inland. If it’s true that the scorching of the American Southwest will be irreversible, humans can move out of Nevada into...
I have spent the last eight years working with indigenous communities in India on our global environmental crises. These communities experience climate change, biodiversity loss, desertification and toxic pollution first-hand and they have been among my best teachers.
...Over the past six years, Climate Healers’ collaboration with the University of Iowa on the Winterim program has been a tremendous boon to our healing efforts.
...To experiment with the traditional chulha in a controlled setting, the team decided to build a makeshift chulha in the backyard of our hotel in Udaipur, Rajasthan. Though our makeshift chulha was going to be made with bricks and would not have mud caked around...
The Setting: Rural Village in Rajasthan, India
There’s no sign of the sun yet, but the sound of Kamlabai, the wife and mother of our host family, slipping on her shoes means it’s not far from peeking over the horizon.
The MA has potential to spread organically by simply sharing the idea. The design is simple and flexible enough to be manufactured and distributed in localities around the world, which can also provide economic opportunities in small communities.
...At present, we are being bombarded with apocalyptic stories predicting doom and gloom based on the linear extrapolation of our recent history. But we forget that our past is littered with nonlinear transformations that completely changed the linear course of history.
...The rise of Veganism is a swift kick in the rear to such linear thinking. We know that the current socioeconomic system, based on mindless consumption, is incompatible with Veganism. When taken through its logical progression, Veganism necessitates conscious simplicity since any unnecessary consumption uses...
System change is not a new imperative. People have been designing and implementing novel socioeconomic systems for decades, especially since the 1960s. Examples abound of intentional communities where people have redesigned their lives and their interactions with the environment.
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