The Earth is precious, we have no other home. The people of the Earth are one people.
2011
A Climate for Wisdom?
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“Why don’t researchers ever ask us about wisdom?” Almost a year after I began talking with Jaypeetee Arnakak about Inuit ways of thinking about northern warming, he asked me this question. From his position as an Inuit policy worker and philosopher, Arnakak stressed to me that wisdom, or “silatuniq” in Inuktitut, should be of central importance to anyone concerned with climate change.
2011
The Evolutionary Roots of Morality
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When most people think of evolution, the first thing that comes to mind is either survival of the fittest or selfish genes. Yet the psychologist and system theorist David Loye argues this is a misreading of the gist of evolutionary theory and the intent of that theory’s founder. Moreover, misreading Charles Darwin has severe social consequences: it fosters the belief that the worst side of humanity is bound to win.
Articles
Obama’s Deregulation of GMO Crops
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Early this spring, while the world was distracted by Egypt’s uprising, President Barack Obama pushed the Secretary of Agriculture and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to deregulate genetically engineered alfalfa and sugar beets in the United States. The USDA came through as he directed, totally deregulating these Monsanto-patented genes in early February.
Editorials & Actions
Noam Chomsky on the Environment
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Noam Chomsky offered some interesting reflections on the environment during a speech at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, last September.
Food/Hunger
Reclaiming the Sacred in Food and Farming
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Farming is fundamentally biological. The essence of agriculture begins with conversion of solar energy through the living process of photosynthesis. The food that sustains our lives comes from other living things. If life is sacred, then food and farming must be sacred as well. Throughout nearly all of human history, both food and farming were considered sacred.
Articles
The Empty Pulpit: The Obama Problem
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In the absence of a progressive voice resonating from the White House, the radical Right continues to dominate the political noise, forcing its policy narratives into the media and policy decisions.
Editorials & Actions
Japan’s Nuclear Meltdown
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There is no justice in the fact that one group — the Japanese people — has so disproportionately suffered the consequences of the sinful arrogance of those who have recklessly taken the atom and misused it for war and for profit. On the face of it, there was nothing inherently wrong with the human race considering atomic energy as one possible source of energy among others. But that consideration should have taken place in the context of a deep religious and spiritual recognition that these forces are so enormous and their use such a powerful transformation of nature that they have to be approached with reverence, awe, and a sense that we are dealing with the sacred powers of the universe. We should have been willing to consider the possibility that splitting atoms may have potential consequences so beyond our capacity to rationally predict that atomic energy shouldn’t be tapped at all. And the choice should have been made by people filled with humility and a desire to benefit everyone on the planet not just in this generation but in millennia to come.
2011
Tales of Morality and Meaning in an Age of Global Warming
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Some years ago I met a man who, over a single cup of ginger-mint tea, shook my deepest assumptions about the process of moral conversation. His name was Samuel Prana.
2011
Overcoming Despair as the Republicans Take Over: A Conversation with Noam Chomsky
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How are national initiatives built locally? Can we push Obama leftward in 2012? Chomsky calls for small steps toward confronting global capital.
Archive Highlights
Environment Highlights from the Tikkun Archive
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Environment Highlights from the Tikkun Archive
The Tikkun print archive goes back twenty-five years. We are hugely grateful to a team of volunteers and interns who have been putting the archive online over the last two years, a task now near to completion. You can explore it here. In the next phase the team will create more pages like this selecting archived articles on particular themes. This one was created by one of our interns and doesn’t necessarily reflect official editorial choices: there will be time for that later, we hope!
2011
Shasta and Goliath: Bringing Down Corporate Rule
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Mt. Shasta, a small northern California town of 3,500 residents nestled in the foothills of magnificent Mount Shasta, is taking on corporate power through an unusual process — democracy.