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Greater Fools and Bigger Liars
Greater Fools and Bigger Liars Societies in decline have no use for visionaries – Anaïs Nin The moment we heard that John Boehner would resign, the first thing that came to mind was: the next one will be a Greater Fool and a Bigger Liar. For all of his obvious faultlines, Boehner is human. As was evident […]
Long Time Coming, Long Time Gone
Long Time Coming, Long Time Gone Puyé Cliff dwellings, Santa Clara Pueblo, New Mexico. On the day Pope Francis released his encyclical on the fate of the Earth, I was struggling to climb a near vertical cliff on the Parajito Plateau of northern New Mexico. My fingers gripped tightly to handholds notched into the rocks […]
Does Capitalism Cause Poverty?
Does Capitalism Cause Poverty? Capitalism gets blamed for many things nowadays: poverty, inequality, unemployment, even global warming. As Pope Francis said in a recent speech in Bolivia: “This system is by now intolerable: farm workers find it intolerable, laborers find it intolerable, communities find it intolerable, peoples find it intolerable. The earth itself – our sister, Mother […]
Pope Francis’ Appeal for the Future
Pope Francis’ Appeal for the Future Pope Francis is pleading for world leaders to defend the rights of mankind and the future of nature against the power of corporations and the pillage of “free market” dogma, a warning about the planet’s survival that vested political and media interests reject out of hand, writes Daniel C. […]
The Transformative Power of Climate Truth: Updated w Encyclical Material
The Transformative Power of Climate Truth: Updated w Encyclical Material I published “The Transformative Power of Climate Truth” 3 months ago. This updated version addresses, Laudato Si Pope Francis’ recent Encyclical, which is one of the most profound, and sure most powerful, statements of climate truth that has ever been made. This version also includes The Climate Mobilization’s […]
After the encyclical, lessons for climate activism?
After the encyclical, lessons for climate activism? Note: This blog is based on and extends a short presentation at aLighter Footprints climate action group monthly meeting in Melbourne on 24 June. Washington Post advertisement When I first heard early this year about the forthcoming papal encyclical on nature and climate change, my first reaction was that this […]
The Pope’s Letter: Neoliberalism and Fukushima
The Pope’s Letter: Neoliberalism and Fukushima Japan’s Social Disintegration Japanese sociologist and Tokyo Metropolitan University professor, Shinji Miyadai argues that European nations progressed from the communal self-governance of food to the communal self-governance of energy after World War II. Miyadai compares Europe’s post-war developments with those of post-war Japan in his article entitled ‘Pitfalls of […]
Earthcare, Literally Speaking
Earthcare, Literally Speaking A version of this essay appeared in the May-June 2015 edition of BeFriending Creation, the newsletter of Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW), with the title “An Earth Testimony.” In light of the Pope’s climate encyclical, it seems appropriate to share more widely. From the beginning, care for the living Earth and all its creatures has been woven […]
Beyond the Real Time Catastrophe of Capital
Beyond the Real Time Catastrophe of Capital Dystopia Now A Pundit Takes on the Pope: “Dynamists” and “Catastroophists” In a recent column on Pope Francis’ latest encyclical, Laudato Si, the conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat says that “After this document, there’s no doubting where Francis stands in the great argument of our time….But,” Douthat elaborates, “I don’t mean […]
The Delusion of Control
The Delusion of Control I’m sure most of my readers have heard at least a little of the hullaballoo surrounding the release of Pope Francis’ encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si. It’s been entertaining to watch, not least because so many politicians in the United States who like to use Vatican pronouncements as window dressing […]
How Pope Francis’s climate encyclical is liberating the world
How Pope Francis’s climate encyclical is liberating the world In my life there are two things that have the effect of at least somewhat isolating me from others. The first is being a writer on climate change, peak oil, and the economic crises bound up with those modern predicaments. The other is being a Christian […]
Peak oiler? Not Catholic? You should still stand with the pope on climate
Peak oiler? Not Catholic? You should still stand with the pope on climate I get it, you believe in peak oil. So do I, despite gas at $2.50 a gallon. But peak oil is no excuse for either you or me to just sit around waiting for the final oil crash to make the climate problem moot by […]
