We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, January 2, 2015

The End of Endless Growth: Part 1

Click here to access article by Nafeez Ahmed from Motherboard. 
It’s the New Year, and the global economic crisis is still going strong. But while pundits cross words over whether 2015 holds greater likelihood of a recovery or a renewed recession, new research suggests they all may be missing the bigger picture: that the economic crisis is symptomatic of a deeper crisis of industrial civilization’s relationship with nature.

Far from implying the end of the world, some economists see the current era of slow growth and austerity as part of a momentous, transitional shift to a new form of civilization that could either adapt in the face of natural limits and prosper, or crumble in denial as nature restores its own balance. So could 2015 herald the dawn of a new era of prosperity, or the breakdown of the global economy?
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