Showing 35 articles
Urban Wildlife
Author: Miha KosirSeptember 7, 2016
At the beginning of the 19th century three out of four Britons lived in the countryside, where they worked the land. By the end of the 19th century three out of four lived in the city. This was a result of the industrial revolution, which marks a turning point in history. The speed of urbanisation [...]
FARMAGEDDON
Author: Julian ScottSeptember 7, 2016
Apologists of industrial farming often claim that this soulless and inhumane way of producing food for human consumption is the only viable way of feeding the world in these times of overpopulation. However, although the deceptively named ‘green revolution’ (the conversion to industrial farming after the second world war based on pesticides, artificial fertilizers and [...]
Gaia (Gaea), Mother Earth
Author: Pinar AkhanAugust 22, 2016
In many cultures, the concept of Mother Earth, the Great Mother existed and was worshipped in various ways. In Egypt she was represented as Isis nursing Horus, in Mesopotamia as Cybele, a seated figure with a lion on each side and large breasts symbolising the fertility and protection of the harvest and grain; while in [...]
Recycling the Planet Earth
Author: Istvan OrbanAugust 22, 2016
The recently released Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster, Interstellar, which is about the possible future of mankind, has a strong premise that staying on the Earth is senseless, because natural disasters will make impossible to sustain life here. So the heroes of the film set off to find another galaxy where humanity can carry on (presumably a [...]
The Anthropocene Age
Author: Istvan OrbanMay 17, 2016
More than 40 years have passed since the original report of The Club of Rome entitled The Limits to Growth was authored by Meadows et al. The book demonstrated that an economy built on the continuous expansion of material consumption is not sustainable. It opened the eyes of many people to the environmental problems created [...]
Could geodesic domes be the homes of the future?
Author: Istvan OrbanMay 13, 2016
They look weird, but cool. Even film-makers are inspired by them: in the famous James Bond movie You only live twice the world leaders gather in a building that has a geodesic dome shape. But what are they like? According to mathematicians, the geodesic dome is a triangulation of a polyhedron to form a close [...]
Changing the World by Changing Consumption
Author: Dilip JainMarch 23, 2016
One of the world’s leading voices on the issue of climate change and protecting the environment at the 2015 Paris Climate Conference was Dr. Jane Goodall, a renowned primatologist. In one of her interviews, she explains that she came to Paris for the UN climate summit “to save the rainforests” from corruption and intensive farming. [...]
Sacred Groves
Author: Ubai HuseinMarch 23, 2016
“The forest is not merely an expression or representation of sacredness, nor a place to invoke the sacred; the forest is sacredness itself. Nature is not merely created by God, nature is God. Whoever moves within the forest can partake directly of sacredness, experience sacredness with his entire body, breathe sacredness and contain it within [...]
The true power of water
Author: Florimond KrinsMarch 2, 2016
Made of 70% of it we all know that water is crucial to our own survival as we can’t live without it, literally. It will only take a couple of days for our body to stop functioning properly without drinking water. But the importance that water plays in our bodies goes beyond the simply physiological, [...]
We Need More Activism and Philosophy
Author: Sabine LeitnerFebruary 26, 2016
It is often said that by changing ourselves, we can change the world, and I believe that is true. However, is individual change sufficient? Is it enough to try to behave in a responsible and conscious way in order to bring about the collective change that is so urgently needed? Let’s look at some examples: [...]
The Mystery of Animal Migration
Author: Julian ScottAugust 8, 2014
The world record for animal migration is held by a bird called the arctic tern; its journey, starting within weeks of hatching, will take it from northern Greenland, down the western coasts of Europe and Africa, across the Antarctic ocean to the south pole – a total of around 11,000 miles. Less than a year [...]