Articles from the bimonthly e-zine
1 A plant’s way of sensing itself at home is sidling or seeding its way to nurturing soil, neighbors, sun and water. Our plant selves find our way to nurturing beliefs, stores of food and sources of water, and feel safer. 2 An animal’s way of sensing itself at home is scanning for relevant signals…
Donald Trump is an anomaly in that he presents a unique danger that would not be presented except for his highly unlikely election as President of the United States and his conduct in that office. Consider these questions: What were the odds that Trump would run against 17 Republican contenders and win nomination by receiving…
The evidence is overwhelming and convincing. If we want to live a full and fulfilling cultural life, make the arts a fundamental part of it. When the American psychologist Rollo May asked many years ago, “What if art and culture are not the frosting at all, but rather the fountainhead of human existence?” he put…
Join the People’s Climate March in Washington DC on April 29 or one of the sister marches on the same day. Here’s the announcement from peoplesclimate.org: On the 100th Day of the Trump Administration, we will be in the streets of Washington D.C. to show the world and our leaders that we will resist attacks…
CLIMATE Scientists gathering at the American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference in San Francisco on December 13, 2016, expressed concern about what one speaker called the “Trumpocene.” More than 20,000 researchers from the Earth, atmospheric and space science communities attended the annual meeting, and in references subtle and overt, speakers referred to the unsettled atmosphere in…
A majority of people in the United States and many elsewhere are worried about the agenda proposed by Donald Trump as he comes into office. Today the leader of a women’s chorus wrote in an email, “I am particularly grateful for our community of heart-song during these post-presidential-election times. I have needed the healing that…
Editor’s Note: The following article which is reprinted with permission from ProPublica provides a very thoughtful analysis of the likely impact of the Trump administration on US greenhouse gas emissions and puts this in the context of the larger “super-wicked” issue of global emissions. This html coding is required by ProPublica as a condition…
I am writing a brief response to Herman Greene’s recent letter, “Are Ecozoans Now at War? Should They Be?“, and his essay, “We Now Live in the Cabaret: Laissez les Bon Temps Rouler!” Our world is a confusing and dangerous place which we humans have coped with by developing illusions of control through intellectual mastery…
Editor’s Note: Felix Dodds is one of the world’s most informed writers on intergovernmental efforts toward sustainable development. He has written three books giving the history of the UN’s sustainable development process, his latest (written with Ambassador David Donoghue) being “Negotiating the Sustainable Development Goals: A Transformational Agenda for an Insecure World.” Felix is…
The Institute for Educational Studies (TIES) at Endicott College, Beverly, MA, is offering a collaborative distance learning M.Ed. in Integrative Learning that begins in March 2016. Questions that contextualize the course of study include: How does integrative learning create a context for exploring one’s Great Work? What is a learning community and what capacities…
On January 21, 2017, hundreds of thousands of people are expected to march in Washington, DC, and in other cities in the United States and around the world. For more information here is the website on the event, and here is the facebook page. This is the statement of the mission and purpose of…
Many of us, not knowing what to do, face 2017 with uncertainty and anxiety. Rev. Dr. Barber, who has become an important prophet for justice in our time, made a powerful statement on hope and resistance in a January 1, 2017 interview of him by Michel Martin on NPR’s All Things Considered. You may listen…
Discouraging, appalling, dreadful—leaving me full of dread: the 2016 election results struck me down, as they did many others. I had spent some time preparing for the outcome, however, with my darkest day arriving a week before November 8 when I read two news articles in sequence. The first named a dozen or more elites…
It seems that Trump will withdraw from the Paris Climate Accord, will promote greater fossil-fuel dependency, and weaken environmental regulation. ~Herman Greene, Center for Ecozoic Societies We are now beginning a new, difficult, and dangerous period of social history for the people of the United States of America, for the entire human family, and for…
For over twenty-five years I have been predicting that the human species has a twenty percent chance of surviving fifty or one hundred more years. While it doesn’t sound like it, I am an eternal optimist. But our species is attacking everything on this planet that we are dependent on. We are changing the air,…
The elections hit me hard. I have never been directly affected by war or a major catastrophe such as an earthquake, the direct hit of a tornado, major flood or drought, a tsunami or a major volcanic eruption that buries cities and darkens the skies. I’ve never lived under a dictatorship or endured torture or…
What happened? What happened is that ninety seven million eligible voters underestimated the danger and did not exercise the most basic right and duty of democracy. Some may call it a mortal sin of omission. How have things changed? We have not even seen the beginning of it yet: regression on all fronts and for…
The election of Donald Trump is very puzzling and troubling, both nationally and internationally. His failings as a leader, businessman, husband and person are legion. He has never held elective office, has never served in the armed service, is contemptuous of the law and international treaties, insults anyone who disagrees with him, and is ill-…