Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Peter Lipman is the former (founding) chair of Transition Network and Common Cause Foundation. He also chaired the UK government’s Department for Energy and Climate Change’s Community Energy Contact Group. He addresses the question of “What Could Possibly Go Right?”
The principle in Transition of focusing your energy on what you are passionate about is beautifully captured in the work of Transition Toronto in Canada.
I am confident that this civilisation is coming to an end. It will be replaced by a civilisation, in all likelihood, that is much better at grounding itself in the Earth and much more attuned to that natural world.
To not manage land involves letting go, giving that control and responsibility back to nature and instead adopting an approach to work with it – a fundamental shift in practice and mindset.
Taken beyond the law, recognising the rights of nature opens up the possibility of articulating Indigenous worldviews of nature as a living being, even within formal institutions; and of creating a mutually flourishing future for humans and more-than-humans, where people’s lives are rooted in territories that do not have arbitrary militarised borders but are ecologically and culturally defined, open and connected.
A socialist-feminist approach cuts through this technical complexity by demanding that the work of reproduction, of caring work and domestic responsibilities, typically undertaken by women and girls, be recognised and valued in equal measure to that of production.
The book Ecobarrios en América Latina: Alternativas comunitarias para la transición hacia la sustentabilidad urbana (Ecobarrios in Latin America: Community Alternatives for the Transition to Urban Sustainability) is an exploration of the committed and valuable work of a movement of people throughout the continent.
With national and international laws designed to privilege such harmful activities in the name of so-called development and progress, it is vital to celebrate the milestones of people fighting against all odds to protect their lives and lands from such threats.
Helena Norberg-Hodge is a linguist, author, filmmaker, the founder of the international non-profit organization, Local Futures, and the convenor of World Localization Day. She addresses the question of “What Could Possibly Go Right?”
If we are honest, it’s not the term “degrowth” that people don’t like, it’s what it means: we must reduce our material footprint so that we are no longer living as though we have two, three, four or five planet earths.
Though a global pandemic and ease of technology has sent millions of grocery shoppers online to order from Instacart and Amazon, the most grassroots and socially connected form of grocery shopping has been surprisingly untouched.
Gaps under boundary fences, known as “hedgehog highways”, are being heralded as a key driver in this improvement for hedgehogs in cities and towns.
