Communities #187
Summer 2020
Note: You can order a copy of this issue here.
Climate disruption, global health crises, and social/racial injustice are all intertwined. In our “Climate Justice through Community” issue, created mostly before the COVID-19 pandemic and then systemic racism surged to the front of collective attention, authors nevertheless discuss all three and examine ways in which community in its various forms can help address this “triple threat” to the well-being of our species and our planet. With global perspectives and local solutions, authors suggest practical ways forward in a world in need of radical transformation.
CLIMATE JUSTICE THROUGH COMMUNITY
Letters; News from Our Partners
Readers reflect on issue #186; Paul Freundlich shares the latest Notes in Passing, “CERES, For a Living Planet.”
Transition Times on Planet Earth by Chris Roth
This magazine, our personal and collective lives, and the climate are all changing. Fortunately, we’re in this together.
Modeling Urban Homesteading for Climate Resilience in Portland, Oregon by Rachel Freifelder
Blueberry’s mission is to model a way of living on this land, in this bioregion, and in this city, that keeps our footprint small and our own survival more likely.
On the Road to a Solar Future by Debbie Piesen
The challenge of a sustainable future lies not in the technology itself, but in finding the willingness to use it. Living Energy Farm’s innovative solar installations are welcomed on the Navajo and Hopi Reservations.
Kinship and Climate Justice by Hilary Giovale
The Paradigm of Colonial Control is at the root of climate change. It also marginalizes Indigenous communities and communities of Color, who can offer us much-needed solutions.
How to Live Collectively in a World without Balance by Else Marie Pederson
The COVID-19 pandemic lends even more urgency and relevance to the Richmond Vale Academy’s climate compliance program in St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Community on Turtle Island by Paul Chiyokten Wagner
We will forever have a difficult time creating harmonious and peaceful community in the human realm if we continue to believe that we are separate from the community of nature.
The Resilience of Traditional Unintentional Communities by Colin Doyle
Traditional societies are inherently more ready for the disruptions of climate change than intentional communities and others in tenuous industrialized societies.
● Counterpoint
From Five Earths to One by Jan Spencer
Many people assume that we can make the current economy and our lifestyles green and life will go on pretty much as we know it without too much disruption. That is wishful thinking.
Ecological Sustainability in Community: Lessons from COVID-19 by Graham Ellis
Ecovillages such as Bellyacres, through their own radical sustainable experimentation, can and will be a huge source of guidance to rural and urban communities as the future unfolds.
Crafting a Verdant Future by Shaelee Evans
Climate justice is bought with our time and dollars as we invest in practices and products that are designed with earth stewardship in mind. Local food systems show the way.
Rural Report: Community Inventory in Transition Times by Tomi Hazel and Megan Fehrman
The Dakubetede were right to call themselves “the people of the beautiful valley.” Local organizing helps create resilience among southern Oregon’s Little Applegate residents.
When Love Ignites a Creative-Waste Revolution by Rob Mies with Cara Judea Alhadeff, Ph.D.
A family creates a tiny home from a school bus, with minimum expenditure and maximum repurposing, reuse, and eco-creativity, building community and connection in the process.
One Step at a Time by Chuck Durrett
In cohousing neighborhoods, people want to do the right thing when presented with questions about more sustainable alternatives one at a time, instead of being guilt-tripped or talked down to.
A Community Approach to the Climate Crisis by Annik Trauzettel
The ZEGG community in Germany asks itself: amidst climate collapse, is it still okay to sit around in circles and put time and energy into someone’s relationship troubles?
In the Balance by See
In a world that’s beyond my control in so many ways, in an environment that is starting to dry out, shift, destroy, and burn, what am I left with? What can I do? So little…yet so much.
Rethinking Community: Bioregional Reinhabitation by Nat Taggart
“Deep adaptation” means an intentional collapse of the modern globalized industrial economy, and its replacement by a breakaway economy that is globally connected, yet rooted locally.
Centering Blackness in Our Soils and Our Souls to Promote Climate Justice by Melanie Rios
Biochar, terra preta, social justice and climate justice issues, the unsheltered, Communities of Color, and a journey to dismantle racism all intertwine.
● The Chronically Under-Touched Project
Ring of Fire by Daniel Greenberg
Like inevitable climate catastrophes, coronavirus has catalyzed a truly global experience of our essential vulnerability and interdependence. The time has come for us to join the global family.
Common Community Quirks by Amber Jones
Toilets, tubs, sinks, counters, floors, pantries, porches, and that place in the yard where all things go to mold are all ticking time bombs. Quirks precipitate guidelines for successful community living.
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Dianne in the Lion’s Den: Life Inside a Fenced-in Enclosure with a Pride of Seven Wild White Lions by Dianne G. Brause
A month spent within a lion conservancy in the South African bush imparts lessons in community, leadership, and climate resilience.
The Virtue of Virtuality: DNE Is Still Dancing by Paul Freundlich
What to do with a community that is defined by physical contact, at a time when physical distance is the law of the land and possibly a matter of life or death?
Excerpted from the Summer 2020 edition of Communities (#187), “Climate Justice through Community.”