In an op/ed in the Austin American-Statesman, Robert Jensen and Patrick Youngblood of Third Coast point out that while Texas politics is particularly reactionary, the deeper problem is a U.S. political culture that can’t face reality. We spend little time decrying the ideological fanaticism of Republicans but instead highlight differences between our work on global […]

Joshua Farley, a leading writer and teacher in the field of ecological economics, in this interview explains why conventional economic thinking is a dead-end: I found that economists either failed to test their models, or else when reality contradicted them, argued that we should reshape the world to conform to their assumptions. No matter how […]

Naomi Klein’s analysis “of how the disaster capitalists are buzzing around the latest natural/human disaster, “Superstorm Sandy — a People’s Shock?” is in the November 26 issue of The Nation. The whole piece is available on Alternet. Just how crass can the disaster capitalists get? Yes that’s right: this catastrophe very likely created by climate […]

Although there is still not nearly enough reporting on climate change in the corporate/commercial news media, important stories are appearing. The Los Angeles Times, for examples, reports that “Some climate scientists, in a shift, link weather to global warming“: a few prominent climate scientists now argue that there have been enough episodes of drought and […]

Despite overwhelming evidence of the depth of the ecological crises we face, mainstream political and theological institutions have avoided talking about the radical changes that are necessary. “The Apocalypse of the Teacher (The Book of the Great Divide)” is one writer’s attempt to present those questions in the form of a modern fable. The story […]

Summer 2012, like most summers in recent memory, has brought an assortment of extreme weather that is becoming familiar – record-breaking fires (this time in Colorado), an iceberg twice the size of Manhattan breaking off of Greenland’s Petermann Glacier, and June was the 328th consecutive month with a global temperature higher than the 20th century […]

Author and activist Raj Patel, who spoke in Austin at St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in 2009, is one of the most insightful critics of how capitalism distorts the world food system. In this new interview in Truthout, he explains: So it’s absolutely the case that we’re able to feed everyone if we wanted to, but […]

Sara Robinson offers “Six Reasons We Can’t Change the Future without Progressive Religion” on Alternet. One thing I’ve appreciated about the progressive church I attend, St. Andrew’s Presbyterian in Austin, is that people there are willing to confront the harsh realities of social and ecological breakdown. When the pastor there, Jim Rigby, takes a break, […]

Every day are more studies and more voices sounding a warning about the dire state of the living world and the need for humans to dramatically alter the way we are drawing down the ecological capital of the planet. Arne Mooers, an expert on biodiversity at Simon Fraser University, sums it up without sugar-coating in […]

Former Washington Post managing editor Steve Coll gave an excellent talk at BookPeople in Austin about his book on ExxonMobil, “Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power.” A video of that presentation is online. (Thanks to Jeff and Grace of ZGraphix.) As former ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond said, “Presidents come and  go; Exxon doesn’t come and go.” […]