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26 April 2024
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Low Cost Polluting: The Real American Dream?
by Jan Lundberg   
29 September 2017
It’s an open, dirty secret, swept under the rug by environmentally conscious and climate-denying consumers alike.  Rich and poor want the best deals on low cost polluting, whether it’s cheap air fares or a nice price on a Lear Jet.  Low cost polluting in myriad ways is ever-present, guaranteed to be easily available. Even though scarcely mentioned, it is a prime feature of democracy today.

The householder scrutinizes his or her electric utility bill, watching monthly costs. Typically people are oblivious to many energy costs when not labeled “energy,” as it is imbedded and hidden. Few are those who bother to counter it by creating passive solar heating or reducing costly waste by composting.  The average person especially watches costs at the supermarket, in effect to pollute most cheaply in the industrial food system.  Comparing phone-plan charges or cable TV packages, to pollute electronically, is considered far more important than planting a fruit tree.

 
World Wars I and II As Key to Waking Up to Our Culture
by Jan Lundberg   
16 January 2016
Image World Wars I and II could have taught us something that would have changed society fundamentally.  Very few people then could see the big picture: the near future would see us revving up the war on nature (e.g., the Sixth Extinction). What can we learn in retrospect about the social context of the two world wars of the 20th century, and apply to today’s challenges?  

The recently named Anthropocene is the new geological epoch driven by humans. The concept serves as a key lesson of 20th century “progress,” dating from first atomic bomb blast as kicking off the Anthropocene. But there is much more about our industrial culture to confront, if we are to step back from the ecological precipice on which we are teetering.

 
Challenging the Dominant Culture's Insidious "Screenism"
by Jan Lundberg   
25 January 2015
Image "Screenism" -- it is pervasive except among the very, very young, the very old, and the nature-dwelling primitive. It began with television over one half century ago, for those who had time for hours of passive entertainment. It was also for the electronically babysat, and still is. Except, now hand-held mobile telephones, "tablets," laptop and desktop computers are "essential," and billions of the most active people on the planet depend on them as well as upon digital technology in general. Everyone but a Rip van Winkle knows that far more kinds of imagery than TV, along with maximized communicating and information manipulation, have taken over society and lifestyles.
 
Before the Ebola Factor: Instability of Technological Infrastructure amidst Potential for Healing
by Jan Lundberg   
17 October 2014

Community resilience will be as important as personal health and natural immunity for preventing the worst Ebola scenarios or similar calamities. It is safe to count on some resilience in the face of Ebola, but this will ultimately be despite our vaunted technological prowess which, if enough damage has already resulted and ominous trends hold, has served overall to weaken our species. Ebola is certainly a wild card with death's face, but a disease-threat can also be mainly a symptom -- a symptom of our mistakes in the dominant culture, led by globalization for an unprecedented number of technologically dependent, overcrowded humans.

Introduction: Energy-industry infrastructure analysis as the origin of this exploration

 
Can We Win the War on Drugs by Ending the Fight?
by Adam Barney   
30 July 2014
Adam Barney's report from the front lines of drug rehabilitation, Florida Beach Rehab, takes a national policy view of main aspects of substance abuse. Culture Change's editorial commentary on healing and on hemp follows this post. - ed.

Uruguay made a groundbreaking legislative change in 2013 when the nation legalized the growth, sale, and consumption of marijuana all at once. That monumental change appears to have accelerated the legalization of the plant across parts of the U.S., which has subsequently reduced much of the stigma attached to marijuana.

 
Wild: What Is Sustainable
by Richard Adrian Reese   
02 February 2014
Image
Jay Griffiths
If you only have time for one sentence, hear this: Jay Griffiths’ book, Wild — An Elemental Journey, is one of the most powerful books I’ve ever read. Wild is a celebration of wildness and freedom. It celebrates societies that work, societies that have complete respect for their ecosystems, societies that have survived for thousands of years without suffering destructive whirlwinds of mass hysteria.

Griffiths is a brilliant heretic and a proud one. Her book shows us what happens when madness collides with wildness.

 
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