A Conversation with Jeremy Rifkin on His New Book The Third Industrial Revolution: How Lateral Power Is Transforming Energy, the Economy, and the World

The sun shines everywhere on the world, every day. The wind blows around the planet every day. Everywhere we check there is a geothermal core of energy, heat energy underneath the ground. And in the rural areas, we have agricultural foraging waste that can be converted to energy. On the coastal areas, the ocean tides and waves come in every day for energy. Wherever we have garbage, it can be bioconverted back to energy. So these are energies that are found literally in every square inch of the world in some frequency or proportion, enough to provide us till kingdom come.

Localization: The Economics of Happiness

One of the most destructive effects of globalization is that it eliminates diversity. In order to grow and to provide the “economies of scale” that huge transnational corporations require, whole populations are induced to want the same consumer goods. Economic localization has been described as the economics of happiness.

Finding Manna in the Age of Monsanto

I believe that ancient biblical wisdom can empower us to take on the high-tech and politically sophisticated iniquities of the Monsantos of the world. One story, in particular, offers a profound vision of economic and ecological justice: the famous account in Exodus 16 of God feeding the hungry, grumbling, newly liberated but still fearful Hebrews who were wandering in the desert.

Bill McKibben on the Weather and Global Warming

This week Jews celebrate our “Environmental Day–Tu B’Shvat. If you happen to be in Northern California, come to Beyt Tikkun’s environmental celebration on Saturday along with Torah study at 2115 Vine corner of Walnut St. from 10 a.m.-3 p.m.  Admission: a main course vegetarian dish to share with many others at a veggie pot-luck which will be part of the celebration. Meanwhile, please read Bill McKibben’s reflections below. The Great Carbon Bubble
Why the Fossil Fuel Industry Fights So Hard
By Bill McKibben

If we could see the world with a particularly illuminating set of spectacles, one of its most prominent features at the moment would be a giant carbon bubble, whose bursting someday will make the housing bubble of 2007 look like a lark.

Earth Democracy and the Rights of Mother Earth

The ecological and economic problems we face are rooted in a series of reductionist steps, which have shrunk our imagination and our identity, our purpose on the earth, and the instruments we use to meet our needs. We are first and foremost earth citizens.

The Loss and Recovery of Relatives

The headwaters of both the Mississippi and Red River watersheds emerge from our territory, here at Anishinaabe Akiing, and from these same waters come our sturgeon. The most majestic of fish lived well with our people, and sustained us through many of the coldest winter months. It was, however, not to last.

We Are All Facing Extinction

We live in a society that pits the needs of human beings against nature. Over and over again, through advertisements and public pronouncements, we’re urged to sacrifice forests, mountaintops, rivers, wholes species, or even the quality of the air we breathe so we can have energy, jobs, economic well-being. But the conflict that is conjured by corporate interests between what we need and the needs of the earth should not be confused with the human condition.

A Community Perspective on the Rights of Nature

Although we live two continents and nearly 11,000 miles apart, as community organizers, Desmond D’sa and I look at climate change from similar perspectives — with our eyes on the ground in the places where we work. From these places, we see the results of the market-based global economic system as it transforms our communities and ecosystems into sacrifice zones for corporate profit.

Extinction, Climate Change, and the Rights of Nature

Why Extinction Matters at Least as Much as Climate Change
by Allen Kanner

We Are All Facing Extinction
by Susan Griffin

Transforming the Economy: Linking Hands Across the Social and Environmental Divide
by Helena Norberg-Hodge

Earth Democracy and the Rights of Mother Earth
by Vandana Shiva

A Community Perspective on the Rights of Nature
by Shannon Biggs

The Loss and Recovery of Relatives
by Winona LaDuke

Why Extinction Matters at Least as Much as Climate Change

The center of the ecological crisis is not the weather but the ongoing and wholesale destruction of life. We are in the midst of Earth’s sixth mass extinction spasm, accompanied by unfathomable figures such as three to ten species, many of them millions of years old, being extinguished daily.