Resilience

A Desire Named Streetcar

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:13:00 GMT

Twentysomethings are eschewing their cars in never-before-seen numbers for alternate forms of transit...

Don't Trust Your Stone Age Brain: It's Unsustainable

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:37:00 GMT

Humans have evolved to feel a single sense of self, but our emotional brain is encouraging us to pursue perceived self-interest even if it means trashing the planet, leaving our rational brain to try and justify our actions. Why are our intuitions so poor, and how might we engage rational thinking?

Deep Green Jobs

Fri, 17 May 2013 10:18:00 GMT

America's green jobs movement parades as many green hues as our national parks, ranging from deep green work to pale green employment.

Why I’m marking passing 400 ppm by getting back on an aeroplane

Thu, 16 May 2013 14:47:00 GMT

I refuse to accept that the lurch to 500ppm, 600ppm, 800ppm is an inevitability. I refuse to accept, as Nigel Lawson tried to argue in his debate with the remarkably patient Kevin Anderson on Jeremy Vine’s radio show recently, that doing anything about climate change would impact on economic growth so we shouldn’t bother. I refuse to agree with Peter Lilley that the only way to preserve our economy is to allow unfettered gas fracking anywhere the gas industry decides it wants to drill because “there are simply no affordable renewable technologies available to replace fossil fuels”. I refuse to accept that we can’t do any better than what we have now, and that communities have only a passive role to play in doing something about this with the real work being done by governments and business. I refuse to give up while there’s still a chance.

The Pleasures of Extinction

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:08:00 GMT

The latest apocalyptic fad is near-term human extinction, or NTE for short: the claim that humanity, along with most other life on Earth, will inevitably be extinct by 2030 at the latest.

"Apocalyptic Journalism" and Why We Need Reporters to Face the Reality of Our Crumbling Society

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:06:00 GMT

We have no choice but to deal with the collapse of journalism, but we also should recognize the need for a journalism of collapse.

Reexamining Rationing

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:23:00 GMT

Recent interviews with Stan Cox author of Any Way You Slice It: The Past, Present, and Future of Rationing and book excerpt.

The NR35 Dead-Hedgers Society

Wed, 15 May 2013 12:46:00 GMT

It just so happened that the five of us who turned up at Richard’s on Wednesday morning in Bungay to learn how to do dead-hedging with Paul were all over 50, and so the ad hoc name we came up with for that morning’s grouping was the NR35 Dead-Hedgers Society - the Over 50s Contingent!

Sail Transport for New York City Takes Shape

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:18:00 GMT

The idea for the Harbor and River Vessel Transport Company (HARVEST) came from a discussion I had a few years ago with Christina Sun an artist who blogs about things maritime at Bowsprite, and Will Van Dorp who photographs everything about New York Harbor. Will blogs at Tugster. I shared a presentation I had given on sail freighters at a Working Waterfront Conference in Maine with them, and I believe Christina came up with the acronym. I also became aware of two government-supported Hudson River "foodway" projects and the idea clicked. Learning about Erik's Vermont Sail Freight Project provided the inspiration to develop the "business plan" for HARVEST, and the blog post that has gotten some traction.

The Economy of Wastefulness: The Biology of the Commons

Wed, 15 May 2013 11:02:00 GMT

There is an all-enclosing commons-economy which has been successful for billions of years: the biosphere. Its ecology is the terrestrial household of energy, matter, beings, relationships and meanings which contains any manmade economy and only allows for it to exist. Sunlight, oxygen, drinking water, climate, soil and energy – the products and processes of this household – also nourish the Homo economicus of our time who, despite all his technological and economical progress, still feeds on products of the biosphere.

Governance in the Long Emergency

Tue, 14 May 2013 13:25:00 GMT

It is time to talk about important things. Why have we come so close to the brink of extinction so carelessly and casually?

Scarcity-mind or Eco-mind: Where Do They Lead?

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:41:00 GMT

Humans see the world through largely unconscious frames that determine what we believe our nature to be and therefore what we believe to be possible. To address our biggest global challenges, we can shed this non-ecological mental map—what the author calls “scarcity-mind”—based in lack and fear. Locked in scarcity-mind, we remain blind to our own power and end up creating together a world that none of us, as individuals, would choose. But humans can actually change how we see, moving from a frame of lack and limits to one of alignment with nature. Based on research in neuroscience, psychology, and anthropology, this article explores a world seen with the emergent “eco-mind” in which possibility is all around us. Thinking like an ecosystem, no one is bereft of power.

Making the Journey a Destination: Indianapolis’ Cultural Trail Debuts

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:11:00 GMT

Back in 2007, we highlighted the Indianapolis Cultural Trail project in Bold Moves, Brave Actions, a feature that looked at five cities on five continents making exceptional strides toward becoming more people-friendly places. Indy, we wrote, was “taking what may be the boldest step of any American city towards supporting bicyclists and pedestrians” – an especially exciting thing to see happening in a city that may be most famous for speeding cars.

"Fast Fashion" Isn't Just Trendy and Glamorous: It Has Consequences

Tue, 14 May 2013 09:41:00 GMT

If you’ve followed the news in the past few weeks, you’ve probably seen the headlines about the factory collapse in Bangladesh.

Rethinking hot dinners and cold drinks

Mon, 13 May 2013 15:21:00 GMT

Data sometimes hurts, especially when it hits home. Just when it seemed like we could blame the farmer, the processor, and the distributor for our food energy woes, lo and behold, our constant culinary vacillations between hot and cold have conspired to put the American kitchen in the crosshairs of our food energy hunt.

Financialized Education

Mon, 13 May 2013 13:55:00 GMT

In Extraenvironmentalist #59 we speak with critical theorist Max Haiven about the financialization of higher education and how it has limited our imagination...Then, we talk to Kio Stark about her recent book Don’t Go Back to School: A Handbook for Learning Anything

The speech Obama needed to make

Mon, 13 May 2013 13:50:00 GMT

I’ve stayed away from politics pointedly in posts, because voting for either party is still just voting for growth, with different labels applied. I do not believe that the current corporate giveaway that we call a political system is fixable unless we elect a leader who is ecologically and energetically literate. I doubt that will happen. That said, here is an earth day wish for real servant leadership which would fix our problems. The post is directed at a specific leader, Obama, since the United States is the worst offender in terms of extreme behavior and unsustainability.

Lost in Transition

Mon, 13 May 2013 11:19:00 GMT

This is a story about Transition Bath, from the eyes of two Transitioners – Nathan and Iva – as they become lost in Transition: moved, inspired and empowered by the achievements and possibilities, but also confused and challenged by the complexities of working with voluntary projects taking on a huge and pressing task.

Notre-Dame-des-Landes and the risks of activism

Mon, 13 May 2013 09:47:00 GMT

Even if it is hardly a priority, I suspect that a significant minority of my readers have heard about the Notre-Dame-des-Landes question. For those who haven’t, I will summarize it. Notre-Dame-des-Landes (Our Lady of the Moors in English) is a rather unremarkable village in the southern Breton countryside, which happens to have been chosen as the location of a future airport. Locals have predictably been upset about that choice and saying that the project has met with some resistance is the mother of all understatements. Things have turned even more messy when Jean-Marc Ayrault, mayor of nearby Nantes, has been appointed as Prime Minister of France with clashes between protesters and the anti-riot police making the headlines of the national papers.

WEBINAR: ‘Local Economic Blueprints: pioneering or pointless?’

Sun, 12 May 2013 22:28:00 GMT

Join Rob Hopkins, Molly Scott Cato, Tony Greenham, Fiona Ward and Nigel Jump for a live discussion.

Sharing as a Subversive Activity

Sun, 12 May 2013 17:17:00 GMT

The sharing movement looks so benign and innocent! Who could object to someone sharing their tools or a ladder? It doesn’t look revolutionary.

Food ENERGY: Processing

Fri, 10 May 2013 09:06:00 GMT

It is difficult to say whether our eating habits are driven by changes in the food system or vice versa.

Bike-Sharing Programs Hit the Streets in Over 500 Cities Worldwide

Fri, 10 May 2013 07:52:00 GMT

Politicians, lobbyists, and tourists alike can ride bicycles along a specially marked lane between the White House and the U.S. Capitol, part of the 115 miles of bicycle lanes and paths that now crisscross Washington, DC. In Copenhagen, commuters can ride to work following a “green wave” of signal lights timed for bikers. Residents in China’s “happiest city,” Hangzhou, can move easily from public transit onto physically separated bike tracks that have been carved out of the vast majority of roadways. And on any given Sunday in Mexico City, some 15,000 cyclists join together on a circuit of major thoroughfares closed to motorized traffic. What is even more exciting is that in each of these locations, people can jump right into cycling without even owning a bicycle. Welcome to the era of the Bike Share.

The Song Remains the Same

Thu, 09 May 2013 14:20:00 GMT

If you always do what you’ve always done, a popular saying nowadays has it, you’ll always get what you’ve always gotten. Most people accept that readily enough in the abstract. It’s when they attempt to apply this logic to their own lives and thinking that they get tripped up...

The global land grab: The new enclosures

Thu, 09 May 2013 13:54:00 GMT

Consider this. It is 1607. The English have been taking lands in Ireland for several centuries. First written down in the 7th century, Irish customary law is sophisticated and still administered by trained traditional magistrates (Brehons). Now rulings in the English courts on Gavelkind (1605) and Tanistry (1607) finally deny that customary law delivers property rights. Family holdings are made tenancies of by now well established Anglo-Irish elites, and the commons, crucial to grazing and hunting, are made more absolutely the property of the elites and new waves of English and Scottish settlers. Irish communities may use the commons at the will of these new owners.