Produce Less – Exploring Degrowth

A larger question, for building an ecological civilization is: “Do we want the future of the Earth to be simply sustainable or genuinely flourishing?”

Blocking the internet on your smartphone for just two weeks can lead to better mood and mental health—and may significantly improve your attention span, even making you feel as if you’re 10 years younger, new research suggests. Those effects continue even after internet access is restored.

Chemicals found in common food packaging plastics like cling film and snack pouches may interfere with the body’s natural 24-hour sleep-wake cycle, increasing the risk of sleep disorders, diabetes, immune problems, and even cancer, new research shows. Published this month in Environment International, the study from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology is the first to show that everyday polyurethane (PUR) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastics contain compounds that can disrupt the body’s internal clock (circadian rhythm) by quickly interfering with a specific cell signal (A1R) linked to sleep and light.

Rural communities depend on strong connections between neighbors, local businesses, nonprofits and local government. Public schools are the glue that holds these connections together. However, instead of investing in our students’ futures by fully and fairly funding the public schools that more than 90% of rural students attend, a national movement to privatize education through a voucher system is sweeping the nation, backed by Trump administration and anti-public education legislators in states across the country.

Convincing rural voters to walk away from public schools could be a greater obstacle than expected for the GOP. Traditional voucher programs allow parents to spend public funds on private schooling. Education savings accounts, meanwhile, function more like an education debit card loaded with tax dollars, which parents can use on a variety of education-related expenses. Whatever the specifics of the program, the goal is the same: to move students away from public schools and into private religious schools and to subsidize parents whose kids already attend them.

In the 19th century, Britain used more wood annually just to shore up the shafts of coal mines than the British economy consumed as fuel during the 18th century….Without wood, there would be no coal, and therefore no steel and no railways either. So different energy sources, materials and technologies are highly interdependent and everything expands together. ndustrial revolutions are certainly not energy transitions, they are a massive expansion of all kinds of raw materials and energy sources.

Projected to be the largest wind farm in the country, it would indeed make a bundle of electricity, just not for transmission to any homes in Rawlins. The power produced by that future 600-turbine, 3,000 MW Chokecherry and Sierra Madre wind farm, with its $5-billion price tag, won’t flow anywhere in Colorado, even though it’s owned by the Denver-based Anschutz Corporation. Instead, its electricity will travel 1,000 miles southwest to exclusively supply residents in Southern California. Despite being one of the country’s most conservative states (71% of its voters backed Donald Trump this year), Wyoming is going all in on wind energy. “The climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis are of equal importance to humans and every other species with which we share this globe, and it would be foolhardy to ignore either in pursuit of solutions for the other.” These large wind farms are more than just an eyesore and will negatively affect wildlife in Wyoming. Raptors, eagles, passerines, bats, and various migrating birds frequently collide with the blades, which typically span 165 feet. Places with consistent winds also happen to be prime wildlife habitats. Golden eagle populations in Wyoming are on the decline as such projects grow.

Reckless pursuit of economic growth has become society’s “most dangerous game.” It keeps us trapped on an island of inequality, environmental degradation, and corporate power, all while convincing us there’s still a chance we can win if we continue to play. But there is no “winning” in a game dependent on the exploitation of people and nature. As long as “growth” is defined by profits and production, people and the planet will always lose.