I wake up in the middle of the night to read Suzanne Simard. So, it seems, does Coach Beard, the sleeper fave character on the charming and messy TV show, Ted Lasso. By Sarah Lazarovic Minimum Viable Planet From the CBC : The character of Coach Nate, played by Nick Mohammed, is complaining he never gets credit for his tactical […]
My delightful friend Oonagh recorded a little video for our climate education experience that explains how I felt about the climate crisis, and all the other wicked problems of the world, for most of my life. In it, she asks the $64,001 question that allows us to make the climate crisis OPP (other people’s problems): If it was really bad, wouldn’t […]
Everyone hates the preachy envirotwerp. When someone annoying says you can’t eat steak or fly to Bora Bora or buy the double-decker limited edition Yeezy Hummer, the backlash effects are profound. Eco-Insufferables make you want to buy two tickets to Bora Bora (Bora Bora Bora Bora?) just to spite them. By Sarah Lazarovic Minimum Viable Planet My […]
Last weekend I girded. I encircled myself with mental armor in preparation for the latest IPCC report, over which climate twitter was already angsting. I told myself I would just read the toplines, and leave it to colleagues to go deep on the policy. I told myself I wouldn’t dwell. There was nothing new except further conclusivity […]
Hello! Penumbra is a neat word, isn’t it? It sounds like Harry Potter spellery, a tiny incantation that Hermione would utter to make writing implements appear. Pen…umbra! By Sarah Lazarovic Minimum Viable Planet Beyond its original, shadowy definition, the academics Andrew Gelman and Yotam Margalit propose a fresh meaning for this excellent word: The political influence of a group […]
There were two huge stories that overwhelmed my news feeds on Tuesday. By Sarah Lazarovic Minimum Viable Planet Pop quiz: Which one would you read? This one: Or this one: If you chose 1: I get it. I read it. I saw the words “tipping point” and my heart did that making-popcorn on-the-stove thing it […]
Here’s the scenario: I want to run a marathon. Do I launch my training regime by running 42.2 kilometres on day one? Of course not. I drink copious amounts of orange Gatorade (the best kind), I make increasingly fussy horn-heavy running mixes, I dawdle and futz and delay and double-knot my laces thrice. And then […]
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a nightmare for all of us. As vaccines are deployed across the world, many hope we’ll soon be able to return to our previous lives. But before we rush to resume ‘business as usual’, we should pause to consider where COVID came from. By George Monbiot open Democracy Like many […]
“Let’s use up the planet and bless the future with its corpse.” If politics involved speaking the truth, those words could well be the core slogan of mainstream politicians and their media cohorts, with the purpose of the election process (you know, democracy) being, simply, to choose the specific ways in which we continue exploiting […]
We’re all going to die. This is the repeated warning about climate change in some media: if we don’t change our ways we face an existential threat. Barbara Jane Davy, University of Waterloo The Conversation So why haven’t we got a policy solution in place? Reducing emissions is in our best interest, but despite widespread […]
Remember when I said we should make Drake drag around a balloon the size of a blimp to illustrate his carbon emissions, in order to see, in living bling, his invisible carbon footprint? Of course you don’t because it was a muddy and vague visual. Barry Saxifrage has conveyed this idea so much more brilliantly […]
If you are feeling up, down, or somewhere in between, by the time you finish this episode, you will feel encouraged in the great work you are doing. This month, we hear from Dr. Krista Hiser and Sarah Jaquette Ray on managing our emotions about climate change, so we can stay engaged without feeling overwhelmed. […]
Jewish families will gather for Passover this year in circumstances that will, like the celebration itself, reflect on dark times while holding out for better to come. As a scholar of the Bible and ancient Judaism, I believe Passover is a particularly poignant time to recognize the tragedies of the past year and offer hope […]
I think about this short little piece by the lovely Edith Zimmerman about once a fortnight because it introduced me to a simple concept I hadn’t known: Interoception. Or, the sense of the internal state of the body. It’s so obvious and yet so often missed, even among those of us (me!) who like to think we know how to […]
A society based on natural ecology might seem like a far-off utopia—yet communities everywhere are already creating it. By Jeremy Lent Yes! magazine Read the full series, What Does An Ecological Civilization Look Like? 1 Diversity – 2 Balance –3 Fractal Organization – 4 Life Cycles – 5 Subsidiarity – 6 Symbiosis Relationships that work for mutual […]