No Is Not Enough

It has given us a rare moment to look at what we have become—and decide to change.

We call for an end to all trade deals that interfere with our attempts to rebuild local economies, regulate corporations, and stop damaging extractive projects.

The money we need to pay for this great transformation is available—we just need the right policies to release it. Like an end to fossil fuel subsidies. Financial transaction taxes. Increased resource royalties. Higher income taxes on corporations and wealthy people. A progressive carbon tax. Cuts to military spending.

Moving to a far more localized and ecologically based agricultural system would reduce reliance on fossil fuels, capture carbon in the soil, and absorb sudden shocks in the global supply—as well as produce healthier and more affordable food for everyone.

The new iron law of energy development must be: if you wouldn’t want it in your backyard, then it doesn’t belong in anyone’s backyard.

The latest research shows it is feasible for Canada to get 100 percent of its electricity from renewable resources within two decades; by 2050 we could have a 100 percent clean economy.

Caring for one another and caring for the planet could be the economy’s fastest-growing sectors.

If this sounds overly optimistic, remember: in the United States, the number of people showing up to join political movements is swelling to levels beyond anything organizers say they have seen before. Marches—for women’s rights, against deportations, and in defense of Black lives—are seeing record numbers. Progressive political meetings, lectures, town halls, and assemblies are experiencing beyond-capacity participation.

What for decades was unsayable is now being said out loud by candidates who win millions of votes: free college tuition, double the minimum wage, 100 percent renewable energy as quickly as technology allows

Western culture’s equation of a “good life” with ever-escalating creature comforts inside ever-more-isolated consumer cocoons, never mind what the planet can take or what actually leads to our deepest fulfillment