— 19 November 2024 —

Mike Davis, California’s ‘prophet of doom’, on activism in a dying world: ‘Despair is useless’

For decades, the southern California writer Mike Davis has obsessively documented the dark side of the Golden state – its wildfires, earthquakes, megalomaniac real estate developers and violent police departments.

In essays like The Case for Letting Malibu Burn, Davis has argued that California’s natural disasters are not really natural at all, but the result of greed, racism and lack of foresight from the region’s power brokers. In City of Quartz – published in 1990, two years before the Rodney King uprising – he depicted Los Angeles as a white supremacist police state that had successfully marketed itself as paradise.

Lois Beckett 

Read full article in The Guardian by Lois Beckett 

More articles

Jul 22 2025

We are the great turning

by Joanna Macy and Jess Serrante on Sounds True Podcast Network…We are the great turning takles Love, Courage, and Connection in the Climate Crisis.

Jul 18 2025

What this climate scientist wants you to know about human nature

by Kate Marvel in Atmos…I don’t know which of these worlds is more likely. Science says that as long as human beings emit greenhouse gases by cutting down trees...
Jul 15 2025

Experts: Which climate tipping point is the most concerning?

from Carbon Brief…I am particularly worried about tipping points that involve the biosphere and humans due to breaching thresholds for heat or drought that then...
Jul 10 2025

Global drought hotspots report catalogs severe suffering, economic damage

by United Nations press release…Food, water, energy crises, human tragedies in 2023-2025 detailed in sweeping analysis by U.S. National Drought Mitigation Center...
Jul 09 2025

Droughts worldwide pushing tens of millions towards starvation, says report

by Fiona Harvey in The Guardian…Water shortages hitting crops, energy and health as crisis gathers pace amid climate breakdown

Jul 08 2025

Thinking long-term about infrastructure

by School of International Futures…75 years is a long enough period of time for the world to change in ways that are unanticipated. For this reason, scenarios...
Jun 16 2025

Global wheat yields would be ‘10%’ higher without climate change

by Orla Dwyer in Carbon Brief…Climate science has “done a remarkable job of anticipating global impacts on the main grains and we should continue to rely on this...
Jun 10 2025

‘All of his guns will do nothing for him’: lefty preppers are taking a different approach to doomsday

by Aaron Gell in The Guardian…Liberals in the US make up about 15% of the prepping scene and their numbers are growing. Their fears differ from their better-known...
May 09 2025

The planetary politics of everyday life

by Nils Gilman in Small Precautions…In conclusion, the analysis provided by La Fabrique Écologique powerfully argues that the ecological transition in France, and...
May 01 2025

Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism, warns top insurer

by Damian Carrington in The Guardian…Action urgently needed to save the conditions under which markets – and civilisation itself – can operate, says senior...