ACTIVE HOPE with Mary Stringer (she was on zoom) Words from Mary: Mary: For decades I’ve been distressed about the Industrial Growth Society that we seem to be trapped in. I came across the work of Joanna Macy in the 1980’s, went to her workshops in Sydney in the 1990s and trained with her…
Photo credit: @manic_seeds_media I was half asleep when the massive Kenworth Forestry Tasmania log truck rolled up to the gate of a logging coupe in the highlands of Lutruwita (Tasmania). We had set up camp under the cover of darkness. I shared a tent with a schoolteacher, while five others slept in their swags or…
We in the Transition movement in Australia pay tribute to Joanna Macy whose life and work continues to have a profound influence on many thousands of people in many continents over many decades. She was one of the great wisdom teachers of our time. The concepts and practices Joanna gave us are central to the…
– notes from participants Chiara and Kit at Guest Dinner 19 June, 2025 We were honored to have Veronica (Vonnie) Pinniger give a talk on ‘Seeing Whiteness’, a way of focusing on the way Indigenous people and perspectives have been subjugated, in the face of what is commonly felt to be the ‘normal’ condition of…
ByKit
The month seemed jam-packed with events: Climate Action Week (the second year, a Sydney festival) with many, many events.Ones I attended were: Psychologists for a Safe climate. https://www.psychologyforasafeclimate.org/A talk with Richard Denniss (Australia Institute and Kumi Naidoo Amnesty International)about their work on a non-proliferation Treaty for Fossil Fuels “Discover the Big Picture” (looking at systems)…
ByKit
Mark Diesendorf (Honorary Associate Professor of Environment & Society at UNSW) presented a broad strategy for transitioning from the present collapsing civilisation to an environmentally sustainable, fairer and more peaceful one. His recent book “How to Create a Sustainable Civilisation”, shows that technological change alone will not be sufficient for achieving such a transition; that we…
ByKit
I hadn’t been to a long festival before, and this one – a Protestival – got me in. And it was a terrific! Rising Tide is a highly functioning mass movement, with a long history, and following in the tradition of other non-violent social change activism (see below). My main interest was to see how…
By Jillian Blackall 2023 The year was 1976. The day was 29th December. The yachts had been racing in the Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, beginning at midday on Boxing Day. The yacht Ballyhoo crossed the finish line and won line honours with an elapsed time of 3 days, 7hours and 59 minutes. As the…
Carl Jung allegedly said, ‘The way of nature will bring you back quite naturally wherever you have to go’, and Charles Massy brings us example after example of the truth of this, in his 2017 book ‘Call of the Reed Warbler’. He talks about the way our current agricultural system evolved, naming its driver the ‘Mechanical…
Why are we scared of Degrowth? Degrowth surrounds us, yet we struggle to see it. For those unfamiliar with degrowth, we can refer to Jason Hickel’s quote: “Degrowth is a planned reduction of energy and resource use designed to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a way that reduces inequality…
