Closing the Gap between the Science and Politics of Progress
Global politics is based on an outmoded and increasingly destructive model of human progress and development. Can science change a dire situation?
Featured
Dark Kitchen: Making Friends with Microbes
For thousands of years the arts of fermentation have transformed and preserved raw food in cultures across the world. Yet even though some of our strongest and most loved flavours – coffee, chocolate, cheese, salami, olives, as well as soy, miso and tempeh, wine and beer – are still alchemised via the life-death-life process of bacteria and yeasts, live, fizzing vegetables can be a challenge.
Why ‘Urban Villages’ are on the Rise around the World
Among those who focus on sharing and the commons, an urban village is a term that refers to a collaborative way of life — a relatively small, place-based urban community where people cooperate to meet one another’s many needs, be they residential, economic, governmental, or social. In the process, they wind up transforming their own experience of that community.
Drill, Baby, Drill: The U.S. Added 38 Percent More Oil and Gas Rigs Last Year
The number of oil and gas rigs in the United States has increased an astonishing 38 percent over the past year. That’s according to S&P Global Platts Analytics, which reported this week that the country had 1,070 rigs at the end of January, up from just 773 a year earlier.
‘We are Sick of It!’ Where is the European Agrifood Movement?
A Europe-wide movement is an opportunity to pool resources and learn from each other. Reaching across national and disciplinary borders is a way to reach a critical mass in terms of size, attracting the attention of regional, national and international policymakers to ensure socially and environmentally ambitious reform.
Devil’s Bargain
When most people hear “climate change,” they think of greenhouse gases overheating the planet. But there’s another product of industry changing the climate that has received scant public attention: aerosols.
Avoiding Anomie
It is only in the telling of a new story that we will find a way of avoiding anomie; derangement caused by an insatiable will and desire without limit that can never be fulfilled.
Libertarian Municipalism: Networked Cities as Resilient Platforms for Post-Capitalist Transition
As Michel Bauwens puts it, the commons paradigm replaces the traditional Social Democratic paradigm in which value is created in the “private” (i.e. corporate) sector through commodity labor, and a portion of this value is redistributed by the state and by labor unions, to one in which value is co-created within the social commons outside the framework of wage labor and the cash nexus, and the process of value creation is governed by the co-creators themselves.
Incredible Edible Todmorden Gives Free Access to Locally Grown Food to Everyone
The Incredible edible Todmorden movement has turned all the public spaces, from the front yard of a police station to railway stations, into farms filled with edible herbs and vegetables. Locals and tourists pluck fruits and vegetables for free.
Long-term Climate Variability ‘Could Fall’ as the World Warms
Long-term climate variability is the range of temperatures and weather patterns experienced by the Earth over a scale of thousands of years. New research suggests it could fall as the world warms.
Three Acres and a Cow
In later posts, I’ll discuss the sociological aspects of what such low energy post-capitalist farm societies might look like. But here I want to revisit my Peasant’s Republic of Wessex analysis and consider what such a society might look like out in the fields. Somewhat like three acres and a cow, as it turns out. Or at least three acres and a quarter of a cow.
Why the Time-Honored White House Protest Needs Defending
There is a lot for us to do, and unless we have public space — unless we push back against all the ways that politicians at all levels try to privatize, monetize or securitize space — we can’t do the work of building a different kind of society and a different kind of world.
