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Less of What We Don't Need

Stories about Less of What We Don't Need.

Where’s the “eco” in ecomodernism?

By: 
Aaron Vansintjan

If you hadn’t heard, despair is old hat. Rather than retreat into the woods, now is the time to think big, to propose visionary policies and platforms. So enter grand proposals like basic income, universal healthcare, and the end of work. Slap big polluters with carbon tax, eradicate tax havens for the rich, and switch to a 100% renewable energy system.

But will these proposals be enough? Humanity is careening toward certain mayhem. In a panic, many progressive commentators and climate scientists, from James Hansen and George Monbiot to, more recently, Eric Holthaus, have argued that these big policy platforms will need to add nuclear power to the list.

I Want to Ride My Bicycle: Urban Planning and the Danish Concept of ‘Hygge’

By: 
Colin Todhunter

Indian cities are in crisis. Spend any length of time in a large city there and you will notice the overcrowding, the power and water shortages and, during monsoon, the streets that transform into stinking, litter-strewn rivers. At times, these cities can be almost unbearable to live in. Little wonder then that the concept of ‘smart cities’ is taking hold among policy makers, however fundamentally flawed or cynical the strategy to implement the notion seems to be.

Meet the people building alternatives to mining in Colombia

By: 
Hannibal Rhoades and Benjamin Hitchcock Auciello

On the 26th March 2017, citizens from the mountainous municipality of Cajamarca, Colombia, voted, with a 98% majority, to ban South African miner AngloGold Ashanti’s vast La Colosa gold mining project, in a ‘popular consultation’ led by grassroots youth activists and small-scale farmers.

One year on, and Cajamarca’s victory has helped inspire a much wider movement of citizens and municipalities exercising their democratic right to participation. 9 other municipalities have held consultations, each rejecting planned mining, gas and oil projects with majorities above 90%. More than 70 others have indicated their intention to do the same.

Thousands March Against Sterlite Plant In Tuticorin

By: 
Arun Kali Raja

The Proposed expansion of the Sterlite copper smelting plant in Tamil Nadu has renewed protests among the people of Tuticorin district. Protests are continuing for over 45 days, till date in the district demanding an immediate closure of the copper plant. On March 24, 2018, thousands of people marched against the decision to expand the plant which has been causing damage to life and environment.

Facebook Turned Our Economy Into a Spying Operation

By: 
Thom Hartmann

George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton sold us on the idea that we no longer needed a manufacturing economy in the U.S. because the internet was coming and it would provide entirely new business models.

Now we’ve seen what that new economy looks like: spying for sale.

Varieties of Eco-Socialism: Comparing the thought of John Bellamy Foster with Saral Sarkar

By: 
Jonathan Rutherford

Sarkar challenged Foster to answer the following “straightforward question”: “Does Foster think that Eco-Socialism’s immediate goal should be to initiate a policy of de-growth, a contracting economy, and a contracting population? And the long-term goal a socialist steady-state economy at a low level?”

Sarkar then went on to argue . . . that it is not simply capitalism that is driving the ecological crisis, but also any kind of industrial society, whether capitalist or socialist.

Why I’m Giving Up on Preventative Care

By: 
Barbara Ehrenreich:

How Contemporary American Medicine is Testing Us to Death

In the last few years I have given up on the many medical measures—cancer screenings, annual exams, Pap smears, for example—expected of a responsible person with health insurance. This was not based on any suicidal impulse. It was barely even a decision, more like an accumulation of micro-decisions: to stay at my desk and meet a deadline or show up at the primary care office and submit to the latest test to gauge my biological sustainability; to spend the afternoon in faux-cozy corporate environment of a medical facility or to go for a walk.

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