Illusions Revolt!

YES Magazine We live in an era of extraordinary disruption, from the serial crises of a changing climate to the wrenching shifts of a globalized economy. But in that disruption lies the potential for positive transformation. Addressing climate change requires adapting to the impacts that are already here—heat waves, droughts, superstorms and more—while preventing and mitigating future impacts. Taking these challenges seriously calls for radical changes in the way we live. It calls us to zero out our carbon emissions, and to rethink the systems that shape our lives, including the economy, food and power. It calls us to fundamentally transition from a world of domination and extraction to a world of regeneration, resilience, and interdependence. Read the full article >>

REN With national policy likely to compound the income and wealth gap in the coming years, states and localities are fighting back. Across the country, local jurisdictions aren’t waiting for federal action or corporate governance reforms to close the wage gap. In December, for example, the city of Portland, Oregon, passed an ordinance to raise the business tax on companies with CEOs who earn more than 100 times the median pay of their workers. Portland officials said the ordinance is the first of its kind in the country. And now, more cities and states are poised to follow suit. Read more >

We are just beginning to understand one further dimension of toxic inequality: a devastating emotional and physiological phenomenon we might call “toxic inequality syndrome.” Thomas Piketty’s best-selling 2014 book, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, brought attention to a different kind of inequality with a focus on capital. Yet many popular and academic accounts of inequality, spurred by media coverage and the emerging national discourse, continued to focus on income disparities, economic class, and the mega-rich. A preoccupation with income led to an insufficient understanding of the new inequality that left wealth out of the picture. President Barack Obama provided perhaps the crowning moment in this new public attention to economic inequality when he proclaimed in a December 2014 speech that inequality “is the defining challenge of our time.” But the president’s speech referenced income inequality eleven times and wealth inequality once. Leaving wealth out of the conversatio

The Green movement is above all about leading social change, writes Greenpeace co-founder Rex Weyler. While facts and arguments are important, the main task is to replace mainstream justifications of the status quo with new, compelling narratives of a higher moral order. And the most powerful means of achieving this is by symbolic, non-violent direct action. Read more >

Source: Shutterstock If you came into a windfall, would you be more enthusiastic about buying yourself something big or giving to charity? If honest, most of us would admit that buying ourselves something big would be the more motivating prospect. Direct benefit to ourselves is generally more motivating than distributed benefit to others. Apply this to large institutions and you’re confronted with a fundamental feature of capitalism. In a competition between for-profit and non-profit campaigns, the for-profits have a motivational advantage. They’re buying themselves something big. Their campaigns reward directly. Wealthy individuals and corporations serving self-interest will generally prevail against non-profit campaigns in the public interest. A self-funding campaign beats a charity-funded campaign almost every time. Libertarians recognize this. It's why they say that for-profits are so efficient. But efficient at what? Not promoting general welfare. Read more >

Source: Waking Times In recent years, aid organizations and companies working to extract resources from the vast wilds of the Amazon rainforest have reported a number of sightings of uncontacted tribes, the last remaining holdouts of a simpler time. While fascinating to see human beings still living in such a natural state, many of these tribes simply do not wish to assimilate into Western culture, and activists are working to preserve many areas of the rainforest, preventing their lands from being turned over to oil and gas exploration. While success stories are few and far between, a recent announcement by a Canadian energy company is positive news, as they have agreed to withdraw initiatives to drill for oil in a region of Peru inhabited by uncontacted members of the Matsés tribe. The effort to convince Pacific Rubiales E&P to withdraw from Block 135 was led by Survival International, a “global movement for tribal peoples’ rights.” This particular area of rainforest in

Source: Shutterstock This May, the Navy will again sail its warships into the Gulf of Alaska.  There, they will engage in military maneuvers and possibly drop bombs, launch torpedoes and missiles, and engage in activities that stand a significant chance of poisoning those once-pristine waters, while it prepares for future battles elsewhere on the planet. Think of it as a war against wildlife, an assault on the environment and local coastal communities. Read more >

Sperm cells have one job in their short 5-day lifespan — to reach and fertilize the female egg cell. If pregnancy rates and birth control failures are any proof, sperm are pretty good at their job. However, sperm may soon have a new skill to add to their resume. According to new research, scientists in Germany…

As a means of encouraging healthier eating habits in the province, this group of south Pacific Islands are issuing a ban on the import of western junk food. The Torba area of Vanuatu has a population of roughly 10,000 people – many of which are farmers. The local government believes that by prohibiting islanders from having…

We recently marked the 14th anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq. Given the outcome of Operation Iraqi Freedom, the milestone passed almost completely without comment among the many who led the charge to Baghdad in 2003. There are soldiers of all ranks who went into battle carrying copies of Ibn Khaldun’s “The Muqaddimah,” Hans Wehr’s Arabic-English Dictionary and other works that might help explain the land and region to which they were ostensibly bringing liberty. Many of these honorable men and women are wiser and more in touch today with the history, politics and culture of the Middle East than when the invasion order came. The same cannot be said for America’s political leaders or Americans more generally. Read more >

They say money can’t buy you happiness, but a new study indicates that it can definitely buy you a longer life. Published in British medical journal The Lancet, the report shows that the wealthiest Americans outlive the poorest by about 10 to 15 years. Despite medical and technological advancements as well as the push for healthcare…

Here in California, we know a thriving economy and forward-thinking clean energy policy go hand in hand. An important way for us to do this is to keep using cost-competitive renewable sources of energy to power our economy. Transitioning California to a clean energy economy is good for our wallets, our lungs, and our workforce. Today,…

Quietly and behind the scenes, a front group funded by the Koch family fortune has lobbied and advocated for the soon-to-be-operating Dakota Access pipeline, a project in which a Koch subsidiary stands to profit. A DeSmog investigation reveals that the group, the 60 Plus Association, pushed in recent months for Dakota Access both on the state…

WASHINGTON, April 5, 2017 - Every university graduate program should have one of these mottos over its doors: "Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch' intrate." "Arbeit macht frei." The tension in my den is seeping into the kitchen, the living room, and every other corner of the house. My wife is on the search committee for a…

Arizona native Marla Wentz has been devastated by Donald Trump's presidency since Day 1. "During the campaign, I said, halfway joking, if Trump won, I would go into mourning and wear black for as long as he is president," she told AlterNet. "I [also] decided to cover my face and count the days." After the election, she was moved to go through with her protest promise. She has recorded each day of her resistance in stunning photographic self-portraits.  Read more -

AngloGold occupied the town of Cajamarc, Colombia for nearly ten years, simply in anticipation of moving forward on their billion-dollar project, but have been surreptitiously denied with a single vote among 22,000 locals.  Read more -

By Samy Felice   A smartphone, in the glove of your pocket or a couple of meters away from your view, doesn’t just lie between you and your peace of mind, focus, and awareness. It also lies between you and which direction you go. Because more time spent in front of your screen’s phone means less time doing what you truly want to do in life. By implementing the steps below, I was able to cut the amount of time I spend in front of my smartphone by half and radically improve my peace of mind and productivity. 1. Don’t use your phone as an alarm clock. Many of us habitually use our phone first thing in the morning. Doing so means we start our day with other people’s agendas instead of our own. 2. Put your phone on flight mode every night, ideally at the same time. You’ll avoid getting your sleep interrupted, and you’ll be less tempted to go on the Internet first thing in the morning if it’s already in flight mode. That means better rest and a calmer morning. 3. Turn off your

Texas Representative Jessica Farrar (D-Houston) has written a bill that mimics the intrusive laws generally written by males that hurt women's freedom of choice and control of their bodies. Will this bill become law in Texas? It is clear that if men could get pregnant, there wouldn't be the constant attack to take their freedom of…