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YES! Magazine reframes the biggest problems of our time in terms of their solutions. Online and in print, we outline a path forward with in-depth analysis, tools for citizen engagement, and stories about real people working for a better world.

A world without landfills? It’s closer than you think

By April 26, 2013
Nohra Padilla at a recycling facility

Two recipients of this year’s Goldman Environmental Prize are working to abolish the practice of sending trash to landfills and incinerators. And the idea is catching on. There is a growing global movement to significantly reduce the amount of trash we produce as communities, cities, countries and even regions. It’s called the zero-waste movement, and it received a major boost this week as two of its leaders were awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize. Nohra Padilla and … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Transition Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

The endangered repairman

By November 27, 2012
repair workers

Getting your stuff fixed instead of throwing it away is good for the environment as well as for your bank balance. So why is this craft dying out in America? If there is one piece of electronic equipment in our house that every member of the family equally enjoys, it is our stereo. Listening to music and radio is one of our greatest pleasures. Bob and I purchased it shortly after we got married with gift money we’d received. We chose carefully, selecting a system that had been manufactured … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Consumerism, Economy Tagged With: , , , ,

Green Party’s Jill Stein: A missing voice in presidential debates

By October 22, 2012
Jill Stein at Occupy Wall Street anniversary rally

Transition Voice has re-posted the article below from YES! Magazine. -- Ed. Like many of us here at YES!, medical doctor Jill Stein has been frustrated by the narrowness of this year's campaign for president of the United States. Crucial issues such as climate change, poverty, and the cost of war are completely left out of the conversation. No one tackles this problem as directly as Stein, who is running for president on the Green Party ticket. On Tuesday, she and her running mate, Cheri … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , ,

The rain on our parade: a letter to my dismal allies

By October 1, 2012
Photo: Krug6/flickr.

Dear Allies, Forgive me if I briefly take my eyes off the prize to brush away some flies, but the buzzing has gone on for some time. I have a grand goal, and that is to counter the Republican right with its deep desire to annihilate everything I love, and to move toward far more radical goals than the Democrats ever truly support. In the course of pursuing that, however, I’ve come up against the habits of my presumed allies again and again. O rancid sector of the far left, please stop … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , ,

Manifesto for a post-growth economy

By September 25, 2012
sunset with kite

Editor's introduction: Gus Speth has been a co-founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advisor to presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, the head of the United Nations’ largest international assistance program, and Dean at Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. “Right at the time I should be settling into a rosy retirement,” Speth says, “I find I am instead quite alarmed about the appalling future we’re on track to leave our … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Economy Tagged With: , , ,

Five issues this election should be about, and one to drop

By September 17, 2012
Ohio Cooperative Solar workers

Cutting through the campaign rhetoric and attack ads, here are five issues we believe should be at the center of the 2012 election, plus one that has no place in the public sphere. Every election year, the two parties choose the agendas and issues to highlight and ballyhoo. Often it feels as though we citizens have little power to turn the conversation to the issues we want addressed. But that’s not as true as it seems. Conversations around the water cooler or over the picket fence … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Politics Tagged With: , , , , ,

After the drought: Will climate reporting take off?

By September 4, 2012
GMA Heat Advisory screen

After the release of a report on links between extreme weather and climate change, Americans may get what polls show 80 percent of us want: more environmental reporting in mainstream news. Environmentalists have been dismayed for years to see mainstream media in the United States, especially television news, failing to convey the reality of climate change and the urgency of an official response. But there may have been a breakthrough in broadcast television news halfway through this … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Climate Tagged With: , , ,

The dark side of the “Green Economy”

By August 24, 2012
protesters reject greed economy

Everywhere you look these days, things are turning green. In Chiapas, Mexico, indigenous farmers are being paid to protect the last vast stretch of rainforest in Mesoamerica. In the Brazilian Amazon, peasant families are given a monthly “green basket” of basic food staples to allow them to get by without cutting down trees. In Kenya, small farmers who plant climate-hardy trees and protect green zones are promised payment for their part in the fight to reduce global warming. In Mozambique, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Economy Tagged With: , , , , ,

The story of change

By July 24, 2012
Story of Change

Can shopping save the world? Put down your credit card and start exercising your citizen muscles with Annie Leonard’s new film. I used to think the truth would set us free. Like many who care about the environment, I spent years thinking that information would lead to change. If only people realize the mess our planet is in, I thought, things will change. So I wrote reports, gave speeches, even testified before Congress. Some things changed. Sadly, the big picture didn’t. For a long … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Films Tagged With: , , , ,

How to keep your cool without air conditioning

By July 9, 2012
man jumping into a lake.

The torrid summer of 2010 will cap off the hottest decade ever recorded on our planet. American households have responded to the heat by doubling our consumption of electricity for air-conditioning since the mid-1990s. Our A/C use has, in turn, boosted greenhouse gas emissions from power plants — helping to speed global climate change and to ensure that future heat waves will be even more frequent and intense … and that we’ll soon be cranking up the air-conditioning yet another … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy Tagged With: ,