According to the Huffington Post, the 2013 hurricane season looks just as worrisome as the 2012 season: nine hurricanes predicted, four of which will be major, and 18 named storms. Meanwhile according to Bill McKibben, people’s refusal to accept to climate destabilization is finally taking on storm proportions in the form of a fossil fuel … Continue reading »
In “Fighting Time”, BK Loren describes a visit to a Chinese acupuncturist who she hoped would give her a diagnosis for the bizarre, debilitating, frightening symptoms that had suddenly overtaken her body, symptoms like intermittent speech loss, radical sleep disruption, and–strangest of all given that she had not recently given birth–lactation. “The wind enjoys your … Continue reading »
When I think about the climate crisis, and the movement experiencing successes and setbacks in an attempt to rally the world to do something about it, I find myself thinking about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Many scholars acknowledge that King and other civil rights leaders who supported the sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis in … Continue reading »
When I first moved to the Amazon in 2007, I would sit out on my balcony at the end of the day and watch the birds divebomb the exotic fruit trees or dance in the sky, doing their usual noisy evening rituals that I, not being even an amateur birder, didn’t understand. But I could … Continue reading »
Thanksgiving, for all its complex and controversial history, is one of my two favorite American holidays, and the official act of giving thanks is something that I think shouldn’t be restricted to one day a year. So putting that in practice, I started free writing on gratitude. Here is a partial list of what and … Continue reading »
Closing in on the end of a year of zombies, Mayan prophesies, dramatic elections, and abundant natural disasters and scandals, not to mention a cluster of unforeseen personal crises swirling in and around the lives of my friends and family (as well as my own), I’ve been thinking about the nature of fear. There seems … Continue reading »
While debate moderators may not have seen fit to ask the presidential candidates how they’ll deal with climate change, Hurricane Sandy, which has already killed 69 people in the Carribean at the time of writing, will give them another chance. I doubt they’ll take it, just as George Bush refused to seize the opportunity after Hurricane Katrina, … Continue reading »
Casting about on the interwebs on an entirely different task the other day, I came across this thought-provoking post by Lara Galinsky of Echoing Green on social entrepreneurship. Given the immense popularity of social entrepreneurship and Echoing Green’s role in promoting it, I was intrigued that Galinsky took on the task of examining its shadow … Continue reading »
On Jennifer Lentfer’s blog on international development, a discussion is under way about “how our own personal approach affects the relationships and processes of which we are a part,” or as I interpret it: how our own baggage helps or hinders our efforts to make the world a better place. Of the many questions up … Continue reading »
For many of us working in the non-profit sector, internationally and domestically, the power of learning is not just a slogan. It’s the value that undergirds the programs that we help deliver, programs designed to support people in discovering their own talents and skills to better their well-being, their environment, and their society. It’s a … Continue reading »
