Month: June 2019

Read We Can’t Do It Ourselves by Kris De Decker (LOW←TECH MAGAZINE)

How to live a more sustainable life? By placing responsibility squarely on the individual, attention is deflected away from the many institutions involved in structuring possible courses of action.

This is a very nice analysis of the shortcomings of behaviour change at the level of the individual.  Better to focus on systemic failings than guilt-tripping people for making a wrong choice, when it very often isn’t really a choice at all.

When the focus is on practices, the so-called “value-action gap” can no longer be interpreted as evidence of individual ethical shortcomings or individual inertia. Rather, the gap between people’s attitudes and their “behaviour” is due to systemic issues: individuals live in a society that makes many pro-environmental arrangements rather unlikely.

Read: We Can’t Do It Ourselves

Read Solidarity economy: Case studies from Rojava and Jackson, Mississippi by Anca Voinea (Co-operative News)

Sacajawea Hall from Cooperation Jackson and Huriye Semdin from Rojava shared their experience during a workshop at Ways Forward.

I’ve found Rojava and Jackson very inspiring movements over the past year or so.  Grassroots and built in areas of intense struggle, they both focus strongly on equality, economic justice and environmental issues.

There’s nothing really in-depth in this particular article, but I like the fact that representatives from both movements dialled in to a workshop in Manchester, England.  Being able to so easily communicate remote can help us build international solidarity.

Solidarity economy: Case studies from Rojava and Jackson, Mississippi

Two different sides of the same organisation…

On the one hand:

“How AI is helping make the world greener” <– article sponsored by Microsoft
https://www.charitydigitalnews.co.uk/2019/05/31/how-ai-is-helping-make-the-world-greener/

Microsoft is supporting organisations using innovative technologies to solve the world’s biggest challenges, empowering them to create a more sustainable planet through AI

On the other:

“How Google, Microsoft, and Big Tech Are Automating the Climate Crisis”

https://gizmodo.com/how-google-microsoft-and-big-tech-are-automating-the-1832790799

Microsoft Azure has sold machine vision software to Shell, and is powering its all-out “machine learning push.” It has helped BP build an AI tool to help determine how much oil in a given reserve is recoverable. And Microsoft’s data services are helping XTO, a subsidiary of Exxon, “to gain new insights into well operations and future drilling possibilities.”

Hmmmm.