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Amazing stories from India’s villages

by Ashish Kothari for www.LocalFutures.org

Not so long ago, Dalit women farmers in Telangana used to face hunger and deprivation. Today, they have contributed foodgrains for pandemic relief. Farmers on the Tamil Nadu-Karnataka border have been sending organic produce to Bengaluru even during the lockdown. And Adivasi villages in central India are using community funds to take care of migrant workers who have returned home.

These inspiring stories show the potential of empowered rural communities to cope with crisis. And they expose the tragedy of a path of ‘development’ and governance that has not recognized or, worse, taken away the extraordinary agency of ordinary villagers to manage their lives.

Costa Rica pledges to eliminate all single-use plastics and fossil fuels by 2021

Author: Sara Burrows for www.ReturnToNow.net

Costa Rica is positioning itself to be the first country in the world to be totally free of single-use plastics and fossil fuels by 2021.

At his inauguration earlier this year, President Carlos Alvarado Quesada announced his initiative to ban fossil fuels and become the world’s first decarbonized society:

“Decarbonization is the great task of our generation and Costa Rica must be one of the first countries in the world to accomplish it, if not the first.”

While it may sound like a pipe dream, the country is already almost there.

Almost 99% of Costa Rica’s energy already comes renewable sources, such as rivers, volcanoes, geothermal, wind and solar power.

Wait-lists at hatcheries grow as Americans return to the tradition of raising their own eggs and chicken meat

www.ReturnToNow.net

There’s been a sharp rise in backyard chicken ownership, and rentals, in the wake of CoVid-19.

Hatcheries can’t keep up with orders for chickens and baby chicks, as people scramble for a more secure source of food.

“We are swamped with orders,” owner of Cackle Hatchery in Missouri Nancy Smith told NPR. “We can’t answer all the phone calls, and we are booked out several weeks on most breeds.”

“We’ve never seen anything like this and I’ve been here since 1964. Everyone is very anxious, and in some cases very impatient.”

Europeans are rapidly reforesting cities with tiny, dense patches of native forest with a Japanese method that makes them grow 10 times faster than normal

www.ReturnToNow.net

Japan’s most famous botanist Akira Miyawaki has inspired a fast-growing tiny forest revolution in Asia and now in Europe.

The goal is to restore a patchwork of native forests throughout urban areas, where they have almost entirely disappeared.

You’ve heard of ‘food deserts‘ in densely populated cities… hand in hand with this problem are ‘forest deserts.’

The vast sprawl of human development around the globe has disconnected wildlife from their natural habitats and hunting and grazing ranges so much that an alarming number of species is going extinct.

“To continue to throw money at an industry that is not only causing environmental destruction but also facing economic decline is as imprudent as it is indefensible.”

Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams

Recent efforts by oil and gas giants to project an outward appearance of financial stability amid the Covid-19 pandemic by selling off assets or accumulating debt to continue paying out steady shareholder dividends represent strong evidence that the fossil fuel industry has reached its “endgame” and should not be bailed out with taxpayer dollars.

That’s according to a new report released Thursday by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), a policy research and advocacy group based in Washington, D.C.

It may be best near-term way to remove CO2, say scientists, but cutting fossil fuel use remains critical

Damian Carrington, Environment editor, The Guardian

Spreading rock dust on farmland could suck billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide from the air every year, according to the first detailed global analysis of the technique.

The chemical reactions that degrade the rock particles lock the greenhouse gas into carbonates within months, and some scientists say this approach may be the best near-term way of removing CO₂ from the atmosphere.