franker

By Miranda Phillips With artic ice melting at great speed, and climate disruption happening a hundred years sooner than expected, climate change is promising to be the biggest challenge of the 21st century.  Not often talked about, at least in mainstream media, are the psychological and spiritual aspects of this challenge – among them, fear, […]

 Fracking: We Know What We’re Against. What Are We FOR? by Maura Stephens As antifracktivists, we are often accused of being against fracking but not offering any alternatives to “natural” gas. That’s completely wrong. Our NO message is adamant and comprehensive, to be sure:

by Derek Cabrera What is the Crisis? My colleagues and I surveyed the faculty of Cornell University to identify how scientists from different disciplines thought about the most pressing crises facing humanity[1]. Respondents brainstormed 116 diverse crises, sorted, and ranked them in terms of importance and solvability. We applied multidimensional scaling and cluster analysis to […]

If you sit by and wait for others to stop the industrialization of New York State, we’ve already lost. by Maura Stephens 17 August, 2012 A recent thread on a sustainability list-serve ended with the words: “Gratitude to those in direct actions to keep attention on fracking issues.” I think it’s safe to speak for […]

by Miranda Phillips One goal of meditation or “mindfulness practice” is to promote wise action: that is, to help us act constructively despite certain common mind states (e.g. fear, anger, sadness). This in mind, mindfulness strikes me as a great potential support to sustainability activism, where fear in particular can hinder constructive action. We live […]

Are We Nearing the Peak? Sustainable Tompkins Blog Richard W. Franke 19 May 2012 Hi everybody, welcome to the Sustainable Tompkins May 2012 Blog. The ST Board is attempting to provide monthly opportunities for community discussion and May is my month. I would like to share some information and a few thoughts on the topic […]

Young Farmers Find Huge Obstacles to Getting Started http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/13/us/young-farmers-face-huge-obstacles-to-getting-started.html?_r=1&ref=us By ISOLDE RAFTERY Published: November 12, 2011 Emily Oakley, who had worked on an organic farm in California, moved with her husband, Mike Appel, to Oaks, Okla., in pursuit of cheap farmland. But even though they had $25,000 saved, the couple could not get a bank […]

Thank You, Rachel Carson By Richard W. Franke Professor Emeritus of Anthropology: Montclair State University, New Jersey Resident: Ecovillage at Ithaca; Board Member: Sustainable Tompkins October, 2012, will mark the 50th anniversary of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, published in 1962, just a year and a half before her untimely death from breast cancer and other […]

I’ve been pondering my reticence to get more involved in political action in the face of our myriad challenges, from local fracking to global climate change. In part, I think it comes from a feeling of pessimism about many political efforts that inherently seek to educate the public or political leaders. It seems to me […]