Resilience

TEDxManhattan - Brian Halweil: From New York to Africa, Why Food is Saving the World

Mon, 20 May 2013 16:35:48 GMT

Brian Halweil, publisher of Edible Manhattan, was on track to become a doctor until he realized that repairing the global food system could help to conserve people’s health and wellbeing more. Halweil believes that the local food movement is a truly powerful medicine.  

Share Spray: A New Way To Do Everything

Tue, 14 May 2013 10:04:22 GMT

With creativity, charm, and a bit of fun, Share Spray explores how sharing could transform our lives and neighborhoods.

Supply Shock: Economic Growth at the Crossroads and the Steady State Solution

Thu, 09 May 2013 21:00:12 GMT

The steady state revolution - navigating the end of economic growth

The Five Stages of Collapse: Survivors' Toolkit

Thu, 09 May 2013 20:51:17 GMT

A user's guide to economic, political, social and cultural collapse by Dmitry Orlov

Cold, Hungry and in the Dark

Thu, 09 May 2013 20:41:19 GMT

What the frack - exploding the myth of the natural gas "100-year supply"

VIDEO: Organizing a Cash Mob

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 20:11:41 GMT

Join New Dream as we visit a cash mob for a local shop in Roanoke, VA.

How To Manual for The Gross National Happiness Index

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 02:54:21 GMT

A quick how to guide for using The Gross National Happiness Index for transformation of our economy and society.

Staying Green and Growing Jobs: Green Infrastructure Operations and Maintenance as Career Pathway Stepping Stones

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 08:04:42 GMT

The operations and maintenance of green infrastructure represents a significant opportunity to create entry-level jobs in the green sector for individuals from disadvantaged communities. In the coming years, thousands of new green infrastructure projects will be installed throughout the country. They will require a workforce trained to maintain and monitor the projects.

Democracy at Work: A Cure for Capitalism

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 14:30:20 GMT

A new historical vista is opening before us in this time of change, Wolff writes in this compelling new manifesto for a democratic alternative based on workers directing their own workplaces.

Financing our Foodshed: Growing Local Food with Slow Money

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 17:12:02 GMT

In towns and cities across North America, a quiet revolution is underway. Fed up with sending their money off to make a fast buck in faraway markets, people are putting their money to work where they live, in markets they trust and understand - starting with food.

Everyday Revolutions

Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:21:13 GMT

In the wake of the global financial crisis, new forms of social organization are beginning to take shape. Disparate groups of people are coming together in order to resist corporate globalization and seek a more positive way forward. These movements are not based on hierarchy; rather than looking to those in power to solve their problems, participants are looking to one another. In certain countries in the West, this has been demonstrated by the recent and remarkable rise of the Occupy movement. But in Argentina, such radical transformations have been taking place for years. Everyday Revolutions tells the story of how regular people changed their country and inspired others across the world.

Totnes and District Local Economic Blueprint

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 17:00:59 GMT

"Today sees the publication of what may well turn out to be one of the most important documents yet produced by a Transition initiative...The Blueprint is the first attempt that I am aware of to map in detail a local economy and to put a value on the potential benefits of an increased degree of localisation. If you like, it identifies “the size of the prize” of Transition." Rob Hopkins

Gross Domestic Problem

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 18:58:54 GMT

Gross domestic product is arguably the best-known statistic in the contemporary world, and certainly amongst the most powerful. It drives government policy and sets priorities in a variety of vital social fields - from schooling to healthcare. Yet for perhaps the first time since it was invented in the 1930s, this popular icon of economic growth has come to be regarded by a wide range of people as a 'problem'. After all, does our quality of life really improve when our economy grows 2 or 3 per cent? Can we continue to sacrifice the environment to safeguard a vision of the world based on the illusion of infinite economic growth?

What is Permaculture?

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 11:20:03 GMT

Permaculture is primarily a thinking tool for designing low carbon, highly productive systems but its influence can be very pervasive! What can start as a journey towards living a more ecologically balanced lifestyle can go far deeper, even transforming our worldview and radically altering behaviour.

Creating Sustainable Societies: The Rebirth of Democracy and Local Economies

Mon, 18 Mar 2013 18:30:53 GMT

Creating Sustainable Societies: The Rebirth of Democracy and Local Economies first pinpoints the central problems within our monetary, financial, and corporate systems that have led to underemployment, debt, environmental degradation, climate change, and hyper-inequities of income and wealth. The book then proposes a bold yet practical blueprint for developing and implementing local monetary, financial, and corporate systems that address these concerns and speed the transition to a sustainable society.

The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 16:56:46 GMT

The one percent have pulled off an economic and political revolution. By offshoring manufacturing and professional service jobs, US corporations destroyed the growth of consumer income, the basis of the US economy, leaving the bulk of the population mired in debt. Deregulation was used to concentrate income and wealth in fewer hands and financial firms in corporations “too big to fail,” removing financial corporations from market discipline and forcing taxpayers in the US and Europe to cover bankster losses. Environmental destruction has accelerated as economists refuse to count the exhaustion of nature’s resources as a cost and as corporations impose the cost of their activities on the environment and on third parties who do not share in the profits. This is the book to read for those who want to understand the mistakes that are bringing the West to its knees.

Peak Oil and Economic Contraction

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 20:41:34 GMT

With the last gasp of the oil age, an ‘Apollo-style’ push to confront the energy issue should be front and center as the challenge of our generation.

Energising Money

Thu, 28 Feb 2013 18:07:50 GMT

The world is facing an ecological crisis. Our economic system fails to properly account for the natural resources on which human prosperity depends. But attempts to remedy the problem, for example through environmental taxation, fail to address an elephant lurking in the room: the monetary system. Energy-related money offers a means to improve the qualities of the monetary system, while also stimulating the low-carbon energy transition we urgently need.

Owning our Future

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 16:18:04 GMT

Looking around at the wreckage left in the wake of the world economy’s latest crisis, veteran business journalist Marjorie Kelly noticed that some institutions were left relatively unscathed. What did they have in common? The key, Kelly realized, is seemingly obscure: ownership. Prominent among the survivors were organizations that combined the flexibility of traditional private ownership with a focus on the common good.

Your Delightful Day

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 17:41:19 GMT

I am happy today to bring your attention to Ted Trainer’s new Simplicity Institute Report, called ‘Your Delightful Day: The Benefits of Life in the The Simpler Way.’ In this report Trainer highlights the many benefits that would come – individually, socially, environmentally – if communities embraced a culture of simple living and restructured their societies according to those values. It is an important reminder that, however great the world’s problems may be, transitioning to a just and sustainable world does not need to imply hardship. In the developed nations, at least, there is much room to “live better on less.” This report fleshes out in more detail the evidence I reviewed last year on the weak relationship between income and happiness.

Back to Full Employment

Wed, 13 Feb 2013 17:00:10 GMT

Full employment used to be an explicit goal of economic policy in most of the industrialized world. Some countries even achieved it. In Back to Full Employment, economist Robert Pollin argues that the United States–today faced with its highest level of unemployment since the Great Depression–should put full employment back on the agenda.

Modernising Money

Tue, 12 Feb 2013 17:18:29 GMT

As the title suggests, the book explains why the current monetary system is broken, and explains, in more detail than ever before, exactly how it can be fixed. The product of three years of research and development, these proposals offer one of the few hopes of escaping from our current dysfunctional monetary system. Detailed but accessible to non-economists.

Thriving Beyond Sustainability

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 18:31:24 GMT

Thriving Beyond Sustainability draws a collective map of individuals, organizations and communities from around the world that are committed to building an alternative future - one that strives to restore ecological health, reinvent outmoded institutions and rejuvenate our environmental, social and economic systems.

Nonprofit Social Enterprise: Models and Funding

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 15:44:11 GMT

Leaders in the non-profit community are increasingly embracing social enterprise models in order to create opportunity in the green economy. Their growing use of market-based strategies is driven both by of the success of socially responsible business models and by the recent downturn in philanthropic funding. Green For All’s brief, “Nonprofit Social Enterprise: Models and Funding” provides an introduction for non-profits who are considering adopting social enterprise strategies, including a frank discussion of opportunities and challenges associated with this model. The brief highlights key questions to consider before deciding to create a social enterprise. It provides case studies of successful green social enterprises, and examples of organizations which provide capital to social enterprises.

Transforming Urban Environments for a Post Peak Oil Future

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 20:17:19 GMT

The Post Peak Oil Vision Plan analyzes probable implications of Peak Oil on the City of San Buenaventura and the surrounding region, and describes a vision for Post Peak Oil planning that responds to these implications by building upon positive trends that are already taking place. This vision is supported by planning and design guidelines as well as a phased implementation plan. The regional vision emphasizes preservation of natural resources, concentration of the developed footprint, and intra-regional collaboration.