Author Archives: John Halstead

How Everything Can Collapse Book Discussion Tomorrow @ 7:30pm(ET)/6:30pm(CT)

I hope you will join us (even if you haven’t read the books) tomorrow (Tues Oct. 6) at 7:30pm(ET)/6:30pm(CT) for an engaging conversation about collapse. Erik Assadourian’s Gaian book club will discuss two books that grapple with collapse, both the possibility of collapse and living through it as well as we can. One of theContinue reading “How Everything Can Collapse Book Discussion Tomorrow @ 7:30pm(ET)/6:30pm(CT)”

“Why activism isn’t really the cure for eco-anxiety” by Britt Wray

Saying that activism is the cure for eco-anxiety or eco-grief is a shortcut–a too-quick move from pain to action—and it threatens to leave people far less resilient and capable of facing the ecological crisis than they ought to be.

An Open Letter to My Activist Friends

We need to start organizing–really organizing, not just mobilizing. Mobilizing is short-term, high-energy, and tends to focus on self-expression and symbolic action. Organizing is long-term, harder, and not as sexy. Mobilizing creates spectacles. Organizing creates community.

Animism for the Religious Naturalist

Animists see a world that is full of other-than-human persons, including salmon persons, tree persons, and even rock persons. It is difficult for many Westerners to understand the concept of other-than-human persons, especially when talking about (seemingly) “inanimate objects” like rocks. But for the animist, there is no such thing as inanimate matter, because it is all a part of the complex self-regulating living system called Gaia. Animism is not about the projection of consciousness or agency onto non-human things, but about respect and reciprocity within a more-than-human community that transcends the subject-object dichotomy.

“Preparing for the end of the world as we know it” by the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures Collective

“If we do not learn the lessons of our current system, nor learn to face its death in a generative way, then we might refuse to let it go when its time comes, holding on to it at any cost and possibly leading to further violence. What’s more, we might continue to repeat the mistakes of this system in the context of whatever comes after it.”

What Jeff Gibbs Should Have Said in ‘Planet of the Humans’

Solving climate change alone will not save us—especially when the so-called solutions involve ramping up technologies that are decimating the biosphere. Nothing can make a difference unless we find a way to end our fatal addiction to economic growth.

Naomi Klein: “Big green groups are more damaging than climate deniers”

“I think the Big Green groups are becoming deeply irrelevant. Some get a lot of money from corporations and rich donors and foundations, but their whole model is in crisis.”