A certain woman named Martha welcomed Him into her house… The silence is all-consuming as I work with spade and hands. As if from far away, I hear my own breath deep in my body, deep in the caves of woodland braided with the smell of sea. Waves nearly splash on their shadows. I […]
Environment
Posted inEnvironment, General
Will “Blockadia” help, or “Is Earth F**ked”?
One of the most revealing threads running through Canadian investigative journalist and tireless anti-capitalism activist, Naomi Klein’s rivetting book, This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate (Alfred A. Knopf, 2014), concerns what she terms the “new climate warriors”, or in one word, “Blockadia”. This unlikely-sounding word names a movement which has arisen in the shape […]
Posted inEnvironment, General, Health, News/Politics
People of colour carry the burden of environmental racism in a post-racial era
Videos depicting the senseless murders of unarmed people of colour have given birth to a new social movement, #BlackLivesMatter, while bringing to light a reality incomprehensible to white communities: the lives of people of colour have systemically been deemed disposable. To collectively realise the inherent value of black life we must think locally and globally, […]
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, Gender violence, Media, News/Politics
Raising hair, crowning glory: A poem to thank Pretoria Girls High
By Thirusha Naidu Raising Hair, Crowning Glory Thank you Pretoria Girls High You have introduced us To future heroes. Yesterday, asleep In the soft arms of their mothers Now roused. Coldly, by bleached fingers, from childhood sleep. Dragged by the hair, Protesting, into womanhood . Thank you Pretoria Girls High By your Amazing Grace Africa’s […]
Posted inEnvironment, General, News/Politics
The follies of humankind, through the eyes of a young girl
In this time of economic and ecological uncertainty, which has, tellingly, given rise to the philosophical genre of “extinction studies” (see http://thoughtleader.co.za/bertolivier/2014/06/30/human-extinction-its-not-just-science-fiction/), it may be wise to remind ourselves that the human folly which has given rise to the fraught state of the present, globally, is nothing new. Human history is littered with such follies, […]
Posted inBusiness, Environment, General
Ubuntu and eco-feminism as an antidote to neoliberalism
How many people have noticed that neoliberal capitalism undermines the values of ubuntu (“I am because others are”) as a traditional African practice? And how many know that ubuntu and ecofeminism share some fundamental principles and values? I know of at least one such person, and her work in this regard is extremely significant. In […]
Posted inEnvironment, General
Ecosocialism can rescue us from ecocatastrophe
In Ridley Scott’s recent film, The Martian, there is a scene near the end that sums up the often ignored value of the earth. Astronaut and botanist Mark Watney (Matt Damon) is sitting on a bench in a park, shortly after having been rescued from a very lonely existence on the red planet, Mars. He […]
Posted inEnvironment, Equality, General, Lifestyle
Lessons on language while in Beijing
By Curwyn Mapaling Naturally, when you attend a symposium or a conference in another country, you expect to learn, to share, to travel, and to explore. There’s so much to learn when entering a foreign country for the first time – everything is new, everything is interesting. I was recently selected to attend the Yenching […]
Posted inEnvironment, Lifestyle
Transport, an existential question
We spend a large portion of our lives moving about, a significant percentage of our income too, and it directly affects the future of our planet. So how come we don’t think of transportation as a fundamental life issue in the same way we consider our personal health, financial stability and self-realisation? More than 17% […]
Posted inBusiness, Environment, News/Politics
Alternatives to coal-fired electricity exist but there are no alternatives for water
By Penny-Jane Cooke The last quarter of 2015 saw five out of the nine provinces — KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, the North West, including the breadbasket of the country, the Free State — declared as water disaster areas and by extension disaster areas for agriculture. Somehow, the linkages between how the intensive water use for coal-fired […]
Posted inBusiness, Environment, News/Politics
We need to break the one sacred rule of the global economy
Scholars are still trying to figure out why the society on Easter Island collapsed, ending the people famed for their construction of towering stone heads. One interesting theory holds that it had to do with the heads themselves. Somehow, the islanders decided that the giant heads represented power and success, so different groups competed to […]
Posted inEnvironment, Health, Lifestyle
Pedalling our way into a sustainable future
This weekend I’m sure I wasn’t the only one imagining what the M3 and other major routes around the Cape Peninsula would be like if hordes of people ditched their cars and cycled to work on Monday morning. I took part in the Cape Town Cycle Tour, which is one of those eye-opening experiences that […]