An Array of Utopian Flowers
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What Every SoCal Beach Town Suffers: Parking
Posted on May 23, 2013 | No Comments -
Wildlife Crossings: Animals Survive with Bridges and Tunnels
Posted on May 19, 2013 | 1 Comment -
Henry Miller’s Free Association into the Surreal
Posted on May 19, 2013 | No Comments -
La Loba: Wild Woman, Luminous Wolf
Posted on May 15, 2013 | No Comments -
Vandana Shiva: Maintaining Biodiversity and the Seeds of Freedom
Posted on May 11, 2013 | No Comments
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WilderUtopia in 64 Languages
Chasing Ice: The New “Inconvenient Truth”
Arctic Melting Before Our Eyes - In his new film on the disappearance of Arctic glaciers, “Chasing Ice,” author, award-winning photographer and reformed climate-change denier James Balog used time-lapse photography to capture global warming in progress.
Read MoreEcological Urbanism
A City Green Re-Imagination - We must demand an ecological retrofitting of our urban environments to live together more efficiently, giving credence to community, allowing space for the open wild.
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International Issues Archive
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African Garden Cities: Urbanization Without Planning for People
Posted on May 7, 2013 | No CommentsMaster planned, self contained New Cities have appeared all over Africa. Emulating models from the global north, private-sector boosters advance them without considering factors such as environment, economy, context and even poverty. Nairobi-based urban practitioner Jane Lumumba argues they might only make social and economic problems worse. -
Edison’s Reef: A Not So Glowing Report — By Jerry Collamer
Posted on April 27, 2013 | No CommentsWhile large fish fail to thrive at Southern California Edison's artificial reef off the coast of San Clemente, California, mitigation mandated by the California Coastal Commission to repair destroyed kelp beds at their San Onofre Nuclear Plant (called SONGS), a wider marine mammal crisis is ongoing. Could radiation released from SONGS be the culprit in both cases? -
Uganda: Coffee Farmers Sing Delicious Peace
Posted on April 12, 2013 | No CommentsA community of coffee farmers in Uganda has formed the Peace Kawomera Fair Trade Cooperative, focused on people of different faiths putting aside their differences to overcome generations of conflict and poverty. Now a Smithsonian Folkways recording has been released to celebrate their achievements. -
Operation Condor: Eradicating South American “Communism” at Any Cost
Posted on March 14, 2013 | No CommentsIn the name of the struggle against terrorism, a special operation -- code named CONDOR - was conducted in the 1970s and 80s in South America. Its targets were left wing political dissidents, the organised labour and intellectuals. Condor soon became a network of military dictatorships, supported by the US State Department, the CIA and Interpol. A trial began in early March in Buenos Aires to attempt to bring to justice former dictators and military officers. -
Honduras: Neoliberal Utopias Advance on Indigenous Land
Posted on February 23, 2013 | 1 CommentThe government of Honduras plans the creation of neoliberal free-market enclaves, unaccountable to national laws and governed by foreign corporate interests. Stipulated for territory inhabited by Garifuna people and campesino farming communities, with propaganda about democracy, economic innovation and humanitarian justice, "President" Pepe Lobo should first refrain from presiding over the coup-backed "illegitimate regime." -
The Battle of Algiers: A Brutal Portrait of Urban Guerrilla Warfare
Posted on January 26, 2013 | 1 CommentGillo Pontecorvo's 1966 masterpiece, "The Battle of Algiers," as a study of the brutality of urban guerrilla warfare, serves an Arab-street-level counterpoint to Kathryn Bigelow's US-imperialism-centered, torture-driven war propaganda film, "Zero Dark Thirty." -
Overcoming Cultural Colonialism: Journey to Understand “Ikland”
Posted on January 12, 2013 | No CommentsIkland recounts a quest to re-connect with the Ik people. For producer Cevin Soling, they represented the last outpost of imagination in a world devoid of myth. Soling and his crew risked their lives by traveling through war-ravaged northern Uganda to reach them. Their experience was alien and surreal in ways only Jonathan Swift might have imagined... -
Papua New Guinea: Rainforest World of Sustainable River Guardians
Posted on January 9, 2013 | 1 CommentThe Sacred Land Film Project captured a revival of a canoe ceremony with feasting, dancing and carving, honoring their sacred Ramu River. The region is part of the third largest intact rainforest ecosystem left on earth, where sustainable agriculture and forestry practices have allowed societies to thrive for thousands of years, now threatened by multinational logging interests and corrupt governmental entities. -
China’s Urbanizing Utopia: Ghost Cities and Propaganda Theme Parks
Posted on December 19, 2012 | 2 CommentsChina has been building ghost towns for years, and like a never-ending vaudeville show, the bizarre overbuilding never stops. Here are four of 2012's most eyebrow-raising developments. -
Bolivia: Global Warming Endangers Kallawaya Healers
Posted on December 13, 2012 | 1 CommentThe Kallawaya cosmovision is based upon thousands of years of experiential knowledge about their environment and shared among many other communities across the High Andes. At the center of the cosmovision is the notion that humanity must live in harmony with the environment. Illness is the result of a spiritual dissonance caused by some sort disconnect between a person and his or her environment. One of the main tenets of the Kallawaya cosmovision is an ethic of reciprocity that is applied equally to people, communities, and the environment. -
Midway Atoll: The Plastic Plight of the Albatross – By Jack Eidt
Posted on October 9, 2012 | 16 CommentsThe Albatross journey across the sea takes them over the world’s largest dump: slowly rotating masses of partially-submerged trash. This is known as the Eastern Garbage Patch, part of a system of currents with light winds called the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre, between San Francisco and Hawai’i. -
Bangladesh: A Flooding, Mega-Urbanizing, Climate Trap
Posted on October 7, 2012 | No CommentsIn Dhaka, climate change refugees are moving from the countryside and into squalid slums due to repeated monsoonal floods that have rendered traditional farmland unusable. A new documentary by Ami Vitale from the Knight Center for International Media wades through the floods, looking for solutions. -
Honduras: Neo-Colonial “Free Market” Charter Cities, Democracy Not Included – By Annie Bird
Posted on September 25, 2012 | No CommentsFree marketeers and Libertarians advocate for the world's first Charter City, with authoritarian governance, facilitated by a military coup, coordinated using political sway with business partners, using public funds from the IDB for infrastructure plans, and built on land "purchased" from indigenous communities, small farmers and the state of Honduras. -
Stories of a Maya Rebirth: Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth
Posted on September 8, 2012 | No CommentsThe documentary "Heart of Sky, Heart of Earth" presents an alternative worldview to industrial capitalism consuming the earth, following six young Maya into their daily and ceremonial life, revealing their determination to resist the destruction of their culture and environment. -
Ecuador: Battle Between Living Systems and Oil at Yasuní National Park
Posted on September 4, 2012 | No CommentsA plan to preserve the most biodiverse region on Earth from oil exploitation has put Yasuni national park at the frontline of a global battle between living systems and fossil fuels. But the financing and land details have put the project in doubt, with wildlife and uncontacted tribes at risk. -
Space Exploration: Ray Bradbury and the Mission to the Red Planet
Posted on August 30, 2012 | No Comments“The Martians were there—in the canal—reflected in the water.... The Martians stared back up at them for a long, long silent time from the rippling water....” --Ray Bradbury, "The Martian Chronicles" -
Beasts of the Southern Wild: Bayou Culture Sinking into the Gulf – By Jack Eidt
Posted on August 28, 2012 | No Comments"Beasts," a hard-knock ecological fairy tale about the disappearing Louisiana bayou coastline, highlights the fragility of the region's hurricane defenses and the resulting devastation of communities and cultures living on the flooding margins. -
Chinese Mega-Cities Contrasted with Calvino’s ‘Invisible Cities”
Posted on August 13, 2012 | No CommentsRapid industrialization in China has caused a massive migration to crowded, faceless and polluted urban mega-cities of 10 million residents or more. They should consider Italo Calvino's utopian "Invisible Cities" to rethink the role of imagination in urban planning. -
Chiapas: Freedom and Justice for Zapatista Communities
Posted on July 28, 2012 | No CommentsThe Zapatista community of San Marcos Avilés, composed of Tzeltal indigenous people, calls for international solidarity in their struggle for autonomy and natural resource protection from oppressive and violent forces of Mexico's entrenched neoliberal economy. -
Central America: Indigenous Targeted in US-Sponsored Counterinsurgency
Posted on May 31, 2012 | No CommentsA US-taxpayer-funded war on drugs in Central America is expanding with "Counter Terror Squads," targeting indigenous people, citizen activists, and even independent journalists. It must be stopped. -
Model Cities: Neo-Colonialists Seek Submissive Wild For Capitalist Utopia – By Jack Eidt
Posted on May 15, 2012 | 2 CommentsNeo-colonialism in Honduras: Paul Romer's Charter Cities movement advocated suspension of sovereignty and democracy in the service of unfettered capitalism. Unfortunately, the enabling legislation was deemed by the Honduran Supreme Court as unconstitutional. While the coup-backed government of Honduras presses the issue forward, resistance members and indigenous and labor organizations continue to fight this libertarian dream on the Coast of Trujillo. -
Sustainable Biofuels? From Agro-Fueled Land Conflicts to Algae – By Jack Eidt
Posted on April 28, 2012 | 1 CommentCan scientists engineer a biofuel that will replace the environmental and climate destroying and evermore expensive fossil fuels central to the functioning of our urbanized civilization? The answer is no and yes. -
Panama Hydroelectric “Clean Energy”: Village of the Dammed
Posted on April 13, 2012 | No CommentsHuge new hydroelectric dam projects now underway call for damming pristine rivers and flooding virgin rainforest, home of the Ngäbe People. The Panamanian government deems it vital for economic growth, with multinational corporations cashing in. Even the UN has awarded carbon credits predicated on "sustainably" produced energy. -
Papua New Guinea: Logging’s “Big Damage” to Forests and Humanity
Posted on January 19, 2012 | 2 CommentsA documentary from David Fedele allows Papua New Guinean villagers to tell their own story of broken promises and destruction from Malaysian companies logging of their forests. -
Chiapas: Corporate Polluters Lust for Trees
Posted on December 10, 2011 | 2 CommentsREDD purports to combat global warming by saving rainforests without reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and without putting the capitalist system and its excesses—the real causes of environmental disaster—on the table.
