MFTN: Our Way Of Life Must Die — Another World Is Possible

Image by The All-Nite Images via Flickr

The Essays of The Man From the North by Rivera Sun
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Originally published Nov. 25, 2018
December 8, 2025

Greed is an addiction. Like lab rats choosing pain to get doses of opium, the greed that underlies our way of life is killing us — and make no mistake: our way of life must die. Pathological consumption is no more acceptable in human beings than in locusts. It will die or we will die. The question is only: will we go down with the sinking ship of our culture or will we evolve again, past the folly of homo sapiens’ dubious wisdom into a species willing to live in balance with our one and only planet?

When America Was “Great”… by Paul Street + Indigenous Peoples’ History is More Complicated Than a Holiday Myth

Image by Daniel Lobo via Flickr

by Paul Street
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Originally published November 21, 2018
November 22, 2023

“Your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings… are… a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.” – Frederick Douglass, July 4th, 1852

Chris Hedges and Roger Hallam: The Climate Crisis Calls For Revolution + Extinction Rebellion Promises ‘Greatest Acts Of Civil Disobedience’ Unless Tories Meet Its Demands, by Sophie Squire

Image by Steve Eason via Flickr

Dandelion Salad
April 21, 2023

with Chris Hedges

TheRealNews on Apr 21, 2023

Roger Hallam, the co-founder in 2018 of Extinction Rebellion, was recently released after nearly four months on jail. He was imprisoned for making a 20-minute speech on zoom. He was arrested and jailed because he called for civil disobedience by climate activists, specifically the blocking of major road networks in London.

Peter Carter: There’s No Incentive To Use Warfare If You Have A Renewable Energized Planet

Image by Stephen Melkisethian via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

theAnalysis-news on Mar 10, 2023

Why net zero commitments are empty and dangerously misleading if we continue to burn fossil fuels. Talia Baroncelli speaks to retired physician and IPCC climate expert Peter Carter about how ongoing wars, illegal mineral wealth extraction in active conflict zones, and the plunder of resources by transnational corporations are literally killing the planet.

I Can’t Imagine Maine Without Moose, by Rivera Sun

Image by Dana Moos via Flickr

by Rivera Sun
Writer, Dandelion Salad
April 5, 2023

At the post office, my neighbor rolled down the window of his pick-up truck to chat. As is typical in Northern Maine this time of year, we praised the sunlight, warmth, bare patches of ground, and eyed the shrinking snowbanks with delight.

Hope is the Thing with Feathers: A Meditation about Empathy on a Dying World, by Kenn Orphan

Image by Tanya Hart via Flickr

by Kenn Orphan
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Halifax, Nova Scotia
March 29, 2023

Recently, I’ve been listening to The Lost Birds: An Extinction Elegy, by American composer Christopher Tin. [Video below] It is an arrangement based on the poems of Emily Dickinson, Sara Teasdale, Edna St. Vincent Millay and Christina Rossetti. It is sung beautifully by Voces8 with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. Tin composed this marvelous arrangement as a memorial to various bird species that have been driven to extinction by habit loss, pollution and encroachment. The pieces soar and dive in a powerful rollercoaster of emotion, especially when one has been a student of extinction for as long as I have.

The IPCC’s “Final Warning,” by Andy Worthington

Image by Matt Hrkac via Flickr

by Andy Worthington
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Andy Worthington’s website, Mar. 22, 2023
March 25, 2023

On Monday, the frenetic gossipy world of nonsense and distraction that, rather sadly and shamefully, constitutes most of what passes for news and culture these days paused for a moment to reflect upon the publication of the most significant document that will be published this year — the latest climate change report prepared by the climate scientists of the IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), the United Nations body founded in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to provide “regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and future risks, and options for adaptation and mitigation.”

Ralph Nader and Dahr Jamail: We Are the Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth

By Ernest Smith via Wikipedia, Public Domain, Link

Dandelion Salad
March 13, 2023

with Ralph Nader

Ralph Nader Radio Hour on Mar 11, 2023

In a jam-packed program full of abundant insight, Ralph first welcomes back Dahr Jamail to discuss his work We Are the Middle of Forever: Indigenous Voices from Turtle Island on the Changing Earth about what we can learn from indigenous people who have survived incredible disruptions to the climate to their families and to their way of life.

Behind California’s Extreme Weather Emergency, by Scott Scheffer

Image by CAL FIRE Official via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

by Scott Scheffer
Struggle ★ La Lucha, Mar. 6, 2023
March 7, 2023

March 3 — While the giant U.S. energy corporations and banks seek out every way to profit from the climate change emergency that they inflicted on the world, extreme weather events are becoming the new normal.

Toxic Forever Chemicals Found in More Than 330 Animal Species, by Kenny Stancil

Image by Aidan via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

by Kenny Stancil
Common Dreams, Feb. 22, 2023
February 23, 2023

More than 330 animal species around the world are at risk of harm from exposure to toxic “forever chemicals,” according to an Environmental Working Group analysis published Wednesday.

10 Ways the War in Ukraine Threatens Our Environment

Image by guano via Flickr

Dandelion Salad
February 22, 2023

Codepink on Feb 16, 2023

The war in Ukraine is not only a human tragedy, but an environmental disaster with exploding chemical plants spewing toxins into the air, rockets increasing greenhouse gasses and warships killing marine life.

Larry Wilkerson and Paul Jay: US Navy Puts Climate Change at Top of Threat List

Image by Stephen Melkisethian via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

theAnalysis-news on Jan 24, 2023

Larry Wilkerson reports on a webinar where the U.S. Navy described climate change as an existential risk. Will the civilian leadership finally take urgent action?

Kill Capitalism Before It Kills Us, by Paul Street

by Paul Street
Writer, Dandelion Salad
The Paul Street Report, Jan. 24, 2023
January 26, 2023

“It seems to be easier for us today to imagine the thoroughgoing deterioration of the earth and then of nature than the breakdown of late capitalism.” — Fredric Jameson, The Seeds of Time, 1994

Exxon Got Rich. We Got Played, by Rivera Sun

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

by Rivera Sun
Writer, Dandelion Salad
January 21, 2023

When I was a teenager, I knew global warming was caused by fossil fuels. So did Exxon.

Nuclear Fusion Hype: A Boost For U.S. Armaments, Not Clean Energy, by Scott Scheffer

Image by Duncan Rawlinson – Duncan.co via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

by Scott Scheffer
Struggle ★ La Lucha, Jan. 7, 2023
January 8, 2023

Jennifer Granholm, the U.S. Secretary of Energy, led a press event on Dec. 13 to announce a major scientific breakthrough at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.