Power to the people (or: what’s it take to get active?)

Seems we need the very basis of our livelihoods to be threatened before we do something about the world outside. For most of us, our livelihood is represented by money, food in the shops, and transport to get us to the places that issue money or food. Which is why we only strike, protest or riot in numbers when one of those is under immediate threat (but not before).

But of course, the basis of our livelihoods is really the land (and air, and water) — and (for those who haven’t noticed), it is under immediate threat.

Civilisation: the oldest confidence trick in history?

Researchers at universities in Portugal and Belgium discovered earlier in the year that the way to less selfish societies is to give individuals the freedom to behave as they wish. Their research gives scientific weight to the idea that, left to their own devices, people tend naturally to cooperation.

Though perhaps not a huge surprise to most of us, it offers another important challenge to the traditional line that our default priority behaviour is to compete – a line that has determined the rules of our economic and social systems for centuries.

Civilisation hasn’t stopped trampling on tribes….

If you’re of the mind that our civilisation is more civilised than past civilisations, you’re probably right — especially if you consider the full definition of civilised (which includes the tendency to exterminate, exploit, oppress, imprison or immiserate everything that isn’t) proposed in the post after this. Not convinced?

By The Skin Of Our Teeth

Pretty soon now, we’ll be holding on by the skin of our teeth,

like Miss Lala at the Cirque Fernando: suspended above

a terrifying drop, as we reach for the impossible

(which has to be possible) under the warm sunset ceiling

of our current predicament. We could always shimmy down

that inviting lifeline to where we started from, but what good

would that do us? And it’s too late anyhow.

Catching up, switching on

Evo Morales has been at it again, saying bold and beautiful things that other world leaders will likely dismiss as radical or simply ignore, instead of recognising his brave attempts to get us to value Earth’s life support systems before it’s too late. On Earth Day, April 22nd, Morales addressed the United Nations calling for the countries of the world to accept a set of principles that would protect the planet’s resources and ‘right to life’.

Catching up (with how things could be)

While mainstream media reported on the gloom and indecision of power-brokers at the World Economic Forum, it somehow overlooked the energized and decisive proceedings at the ninth World Social Forum held in Brazil, which concluded in early February with a raft of resolutions and proposals for implementation through 2009.

Catching up

Ecuador has just adopted a national constitution that is the first ever to recognize the rights of nature.