SANE Almanack

08/25/2024

New post up at the blog, SANE Almanack!

THE PROBLEM: Progressive, Moderate, Centrist, and Independent American voters don't know how to get together in a unified cause. WHO'S ALREADY ON IT: 'Nuff said? I feel SANEr already!

07/18/2024

Another new post is up at the blog!

THE PROBLEM: Fight, Flight, Freeze. Analysis Paralysis. How do we as individuals really stand still and look at the long-term changes we must make address climate change? How do we discover not just an aspiration, but a goal with a strategy underneath it? What gets us moving creatively, rather than

07/08/2024

New post up at the blog!

THE AVENGERS shout to one another in LAKOTA!

THE PROBLEM: One of the most awful chapters of Real American History is the government policy of "assimilating" indigenous tribes by removing children from their families and stripping away their languages via cruel punishments in boarding schools. This has meant the extinction of hundreds of unique...

03/10/2024

Finally have a new post up! I can count on 's work in bioregional activation and restoration to keep me SANE!

I can't help it, the work of Joe Brewer and The Design School for Regenerating the Earth lifts and opens my heart into a SANE state like no other information I've ever found. This conversation between Joe and Don Longboat of the Mohawk Nation, a Professor at Trent University in

01/31/2024

How about something FUN for a change? Now up at the blog!

THE PROBLEM: Everything is so goddam serious! Like, YIKES and YIKES every minute! WHO'S ALREADY ON IT: Science Fiction & Fantasy writer O. Westin started this fun thing a few years ago on That Social Media Site which I now call Xitter. Westin accepted the challenge of 142 characters per tweet

01/15/2024

Quickie new post at the blog - no feature image ...

This is an addendum to the previous post about climate fiction that keeps me SANE. You know how I raved about by Kim Stanley Robinson? And linked to a YouTube video of Robinson speaking at an event? Well, I went looking for more videos of Robinson speaking about the effect

12/26/2023

New post up at my blog, SANE Almanack!

What books of fiction tackle climate change's realities in tales that can keep us SANE?

THE PROBLEM: Climate change and the resulting disasters disrupting our lives are crises so dire and complicated and interconnected that it's a headache to try to fit them all into one skull. It's just too big to grasp. WHO'S ALREADY ON IT: Storytellers! Got a problem? Tell a story! Okay,

11/26/2023

Up now at SANE Almanack: The extraordinary work of one guy connecting communities in a bioregion - Cascadia - over one month!

THE PROBLEM: Although a few small, determined groups around this North American Turtle Island are already succeeding at regenerating watersheds and rivers, there are many other groups that look at the challenges of their particular river and wonder how to proceed. The succeeding and struggling group...

11/23/2023

"Sunflowers have the power to naturally extract pollutants caused by plastic like arsenic, lead, zinc, copper, and more other toxic materials through their roots. The power of nature🌻🌻🌻" This group in Bali turned an illegal dump into a sunflower garden.

10/11/2023

New post up at the blog! What's got people so positive and investors so invested in fungi and mycelium?

THE PROBLEM: We think the processes that will save us, or at least make us rich for a short spasm of time, are the big tech-y technical things we can hold in our hands, put on racks, send into orbit, etc. etc. etc. The bigger and tech-ier, the better! So

09/17/2023

New post up at SANE Almanack! Who do you read, to keep yourself SANE? Here are three picks from me!

THE PROBLEM: Who do we trust for information? Who is really seeing things as they are, and telling it like it is – and they’re not on YouTube? The breakdown of trust in information and information-bearers has thrown us back on our hearts and guts, memory, critical thinking, and common

08/28/2023

New post up at SANE Almanack blog! Got water quality? It's a complicated issue.

THE PROBLEM: The Great Lakes of North America hold the largest amount of fresh water on the planet - and they face crises of pollution and climate change affecting wildlife and human life in the water and on the shores. "Residents in communities along the shores of the Great Lakes

08/13/2023

New post up at SANE Almanack! SANE reading for your down and downer times.

THE PROBLEM: I'm waiting to hear back from a subject source about permission to use images from their website. WHO'S ALREADY ON IT: Me, and (I presume) them. So, while waiting, here are some resources for further discovery of projects and people to keep you SANE during these times. People

07/29/2023

New post up at SANE Almanack:

THE PROBLEM: Suburban neighborhoods in America have become stereotyped as lonely, sterile places of perfect lawns and people who only meet on the NextDoor app. The chemicals in lawn care have also contributed to pollution of local groundwater, and the streets are all about cars. WHO'S ALREADY ON IT:...

07/15/2023

Next up: Omega Center for Sustainable Living deals with some radical sh*t.

THE PROBLEM: Every human poops. And pees. Billions of us. And what do we do with that? Well, for the past 200 years or so, we send it down a pipe with a couple of gallons of perfectly good potable freshwater, and forget about it. Sewers, septic systems, let the

07/07/2023

Next post is up at SANE Almanack on ghost . io publishing platform!

I moved house from the mainland to an island a few days ago, so have needed a few days to recover and get reoriented. THE PROBLEM: Industrial agriculture, forestry, and urban design have devastated soil quality in urban and rural spaces. Deforestation has limited the amount of carbon that can

06/27/2023

New post up at SANE Almanack:

Ursula K. Le Guin gave us a calm, wise-voiced quote to call upon in anxious times: "We live in capitalism, its power seems inescapable – but then, so did the divine right of kings.' Bam. "Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings," she went on. "Resistance

06/20/2023

My 2nd post:

THE PROBLEM: Bioregions are vast and difficult to identify, much less organize the scattered people who live there into a coordinated force for practical change. WHO'S ALREADY ON IT: The bioregion stretches from northern California to southern Alaska, united by the native being Salmon, which has fed...