Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Years on from the early days, one could argue that the world looks more or less as Transition visioning sessions then might have imagined – climate change more evident, energy descent and peak oil important topics albeit discussed differently, and economic relocalisation a front burner issue. Loosely accurate forecasts of the realities we’re living now, but lacking the immediacy and urgency of the current moment.
California has often led the nation on environmental issues and California’s communities of color are implementing effective climate change responses that address social equity concerns while also building political momentum that can catalyze broader policy change. With the future of the planet at risk, it may be time to support these efforts and forge a bottom-up approach to tackling both climate change and the climate gap.
New Mexico residents are trying to a break free from Los Alamos’ nuclear legacy by creating more environmentally sound ways of living. At the forefront of this struggle is renegade architect Michael Reynolds, creator of radically sustainable living options through a process called “Earthship Biotecture.” Reynolds’ solar homes are created from natural and recycled materials, including aluminum cans, plastic bottles and used tires. These off-the-grid homes minimize their reliance on public utilities and fossil fuels by harnessing their energy from the sun and wind turbines. In Taos, New Mexico, Reynolds gives us a tour of one of the sustainable-living homes he created.
It’s been interesting lately to hear voices from the mainstream questioning our growth-obsessed capitalist economics and calling up Karl Marx from his grave.
So you’ve made the big jump. You’ve left the conventional business world behind and you’re starting a business of the new future. Maybe you just launched your town’s first rickshaw taxi. Maybe you sell vegetable seedlings at farmers market or you’re pioneering urban goat cheese production. Perhaps it’s a social enterprise or a nonprofit. At any rate, you’re still going to need a few of the tools that conventional businesses use, like business plans and accounting systems.
Forest gardening is about as close as any strategy comes to addressing all of the most pressing needs of humans in one great sweep. Climate change, peak oil, poverty, extinction, and civil strife — all are rooted in the ground, and in most cases, those roots belong to trees.
-How Not to “Feed the World”
-These grassroots heroes are fighting for food democracy
-The year the grains failed: Why poorer countries are scheduling ‘food-free days’
-Global Grain Production at Record High Despite Extreme Climatic Events
-Cash-strapped farmers feed candy to cows
-Biofuel policy change strands EU farmers
-Vote for the Dinner Party
When confronted with an increasingly despotic régime, the good people of almost any nation will cower in their homes and, once they are flushed out, will allow themselves to be herded like domesticated animals. They will gladly take orders from whoever gives them, because their worst fear is not despotism–it is anarchy. Anarchy! Are you afraid of anarchy? Or are you more afraid of hierarchy? Color me strange, but I am much more afraid of being subjected to a chain of command than of anarchy (which is a lack of hierarchy).
A late-summer conference that brought city gardeners and construction developers from around the world to Toronto has just issued a declaration. The statement calls for a new generation of living infrastructure that’s built in partnership with what’s conventionally thought of as urban agriculture.
The truth is, locals have been working hard for years to uplift the common good in Detroit, which drew the interest of outsiders. And newcomers aren’t the only ones stirring up excitement around town.
At Green Drinks we are looking at a map. It’s no ordinary map of roads and houses and municipal buildings. It’s a map of a community orchard, showing 100 fruit trees – apple, pear, quince, plum, cherry, damson, medlar – that were planted two years ago in the village of St James in Suffolk. Rob Parfitt who helped create the orchard is describing how a group rented the land (originally an over-grazed part of the common) and planted the trees, set around a restored shepherd hut which serves as an information centre and informal gathering space. The hardest thing, he said, was not the thistles in the ground, or raising the funds, but persuading the village to agree.
Occupy is part of a wide range of subterranean movements that explore ways to complement representative democracy and empower citizenship. Some citizens want to build stronger democratic institutions: others don’t trust elected representatives any more and promote a change that starts at a local level and in daily life.
