Review of the State of American Democracy Conference, Oberlin, Ohio, November 15-17, 2017 Why would David W. Orr, one of the foremost ecologists in the country, decide late in his career that he needed to focus on democracy? Perhaps the background for this decision is found in his book Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate…
Review of the New Republican Tax Cuts and Jobs Act Naomi Klein in This Changes Everything identified three pillars of the corporate globalization process: “privatization of the public sphere, deregulation of the corporate sector, and lower corporate taxation, paid for with cuts to public spending.” And she wrote, “Granting the corporate wish list, we were…
Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime By Bruno Latour (Polity Press, 2017) Reviewed by Herman Greene Bruno Latour was trained first as a philosopher and then as an anthropologist. He came to prominence for his work in “science studies,” which is a field that studies how scientists do their work. He came…
In Catastrophic Times: Resisting the Coming Barbarism By Isabelle Stengers (Open Humanities Press, 2015) Reviewed by Herman Greene I have had my foot in two worlds for most of my professional career. I have worked on social justice and ecological issues since 1967, and I have practiced as a finance lawyer since 1979. I have…
“How Do We Get There? The Problem of Action” By Paul Raskin and Respondents (Great Transition Initiative, 2017) In 1995, the Stockholm Environment Institute convened the “Global Scenario Group” to study the requirements for the transition to sustainability. An outcome of this work was the publication in 2002 of the influential and widely read book,…
Paul Schafer is the director of The World Culture Project. Paul has worked in the cultural field for more than fifty years as an educator, advisor, administrator, and researcher. He was Assistant Director of the Ontario Arts Council from 1967 to 1970, taught arts administration and cultural policy at York University and the University of Toronto,…
Introduction to “The State of American Democracy” Conference, Oberlin, Ohio, November 15, 2017 For if we should perish, the ruthlessness of the foe would be only the secondary cause of the disaster. The primary cause would be that the strength of a giant nation was directed by eyes too blind to see all the hazards…
Interview of Tim Watson, Architect, by Sue Barry Tim Watson’s architectural career includes searching for alternative means for people to acquire affordable, simplified high technology habitations inspired by nature. He envisions places where people live that impact the natural world in positive ways. He is now focused on a new form of architecture and local…
So why did I build the first panelized hempcrete house in North America? Two years ago I met with architect Mike Spinello and told him that I wanted to create a lego-like system for tiny houses. Right around the same time, I became President of the North Carolina Industrial Hemp Association. The mandate changed to…
Too many bad things are happening. At this moment the US Congress is preparing to approve a tax code revision that is a hymn to the rich and a declaration of war on the poor. The economic-industrial system continues to put pressure on the planet’s ability to sustain life. As the ice melts, the time…
The “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: Second Notice,” signed by 15,000 scientists, was published by BioScience on November 13, 2017 (academic.oup.com). This second warning updates the original warning twenty-five years ago by the Union of Concerned Scientists and more than 1,700 independent scientists, including the majority of living Nobel laureates (ucsusa.org). The scientists say the…