Plastics have become an essential part of our modern lifestyle. They are lightweight, durable and cheap. But here’s the thing...though they offer numerous benefits, plastics originate as fossil fuels and emit greenhouse gases from cradle to grave. Perhaps once we add in their environmental costs, they aren't a bargain after all.

Despite the worldwide downturn of energy use due to Covid-19 in 2020, global renewable energy capacity set a record and 2021 is expected to be even better.  

Richard Matthews is the owner and principle writer of The Green Market Oracle, covering the convergence of sustainable capitalism and the global environment. Richard's articles have been featured in over 50 publications including a United Nations Development Programme report, Scientific American, ENN, and CleanTechnica.

As we look forward to a more just, equitable future can we shift our economic model away from merely continual growth to incorporate both a social foundation for all peoples as well as an ecological ceiling? 

British Economist Kate Raworth has created Doughnut Economics as this future looking model, now being adopted in progressive cities around the globe.

"We call for the protection of Mother Earth, and we envision a healthy, thriving, just world for current and future generations. This moment must be a turning point, there is no other option."

Osprey Orielle Lake and Katherine Quaid ofWomen's Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN) make the case that climate justice cannot be achieved without women's leadership, particularly the leadership of women of color and Indigenous women. Originally published on CommonDreams.org.

Every dollar we spend creates the world we live in. Creating change can be as simple as reallocating those dollars. By shifting our investments can we fuel the world our hearts know is possible?

Christine and Rose are joined by Dr. Craig Jonas, founder of CoPeace, who believes it is possible to grow your money for good.

In Chapter 8 of The World We Have, Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us of our inter-being with all of Nature, while emphasizing that as we kill off our natural environment we are essentially bringing about our own demise.

Thich Nhat Hanh is a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, poet scholar and human rights activist. He has traveled the world for over 50 years speaking about the need for peace.

Bob Koehler, an author and self-described peace journalist, talks with Rose and Christine about how the current chaos may be just the thing we need to spring us forward into action and evolve into a more peaceful, just, and renewable society.

"As the New Year asserts itself — a year that begins in global lockdown and political shock-and-awe — an extraordinary question emerges: Are we on the brink of real change?"

Robert Koehler, a self-described "Peace Journalist" and author of Courage Grows Strong At the Wound, looks at whether there is a possibility of true evolutionary change at this moment in history.

Happy New Year! In the first Eaarth Feels conversation of 2021, Rose talks about gardening in the increasingly dry and hot southwestern United Stations, with Arizona-based public health nurse and avid gardener Ronda Seifert*.

Note: *Ms Seifert is sharing her own views, not those of her employer.*

The costs of climate crisis reach beyond mere property values and infrastructure systems.   Will shifting the focus to the significant human dimensions of the climate problem motivate more aggressive policy responses to avoid the worst costs to public health? 

ViJay Limaye,  climate and health scientist in NRDC's Science Centers, makes the case.