labingi: (Default)
[personal profile] labingi
The newsletter is here.

Here's an excerpt:

Welcome to the coronavirus edition. I hope you are safe and well, and I’ll spare you the advice to wash to hands and socially distance because you’ve heard it. But with the hope of better societies at the back of my mind, I want to talk about the social fissures this pandemic exposes. It’s been great for our global emissions, but we will lose all those gains when industry starts up again. The fact that plunging the world into a catastrophic economic downturn is the best thing in living memory for our short-term emissions ought to be a wake-up call. Pitting our economic system against ecological reality is a lose-lose proposition, leading to mass extinction, starvation, disease, war, xenophobia, etc. Our current rupture in the capitalist economy is an ideal time to start planning for sustainable systems to replace it—not to replace all private enterprise, mind, but to replace a system that values only growth of capital at any cost. Christopher Wright and Daniel Nyberg offer some alternatives (summed up here in book review form), as does this article from Deutsche Welle. Let's move forward now to a more stable, livable future.

Also my spring term Writing to Sustain Hope class in Portland should go forward, but it might be postponed or moved online. More info. to come.

Date: 2020-03-19 11:13 pm (UTC)
vilakins: Vila with stars superimposed (Default)
From: [personal profile] vilakins
I like that! I posted elsewhere that the world could well end up a better place.

Date: 2020-03-21 01:30 am (UTC)
vilakins: Vila with stars superimposed (Default)
From: [personal profile] vilakins
Sorry, it was just a comment on FB so not really worth it. I was fed up with people saying everything was bad and would get worse, and pointed out that the ecosystem would recover well during enforced travel restrictions and industries closing down.

Who knows, some countries could learn to look after their citizens*, and maybe people could, you know, rethink the whole capitalism thing.

* NZ Aotearoa is doing well under the leadership of our Jacinda Ardern, with an economic package to help people (which of course the right wingers won't like) and strong measures before they're needed. She says, be strong, be kind.

[edit] And I see looking at your post, you're with me on the capitalism.
Edited Date: 2020-03-21 01:32 am (UTC)

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