Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Our national obsession with home ownership is absolute. It’s so entrenched that we accept, without question, that those who own their home should enjoy a greater access to democracy. But in a property-owning democracy, what happens to the rest of us not lucky enough to own our home? In the wake of the entirely preventable fire at Grenfell Tower, this question demands an answer.
“Going to school together helps children feel like part of a group”, says Antonio Moya, an architect by profession. He is one of the four masterminds behind the Pas a Pas (Step by Step) project in Jávea, which aims to give children an active role in urban life. Since April 2016, more than 100 children from four primary schools have been walking to school together in this town on Spain’s East coast. They have been joined in autumn by students from another two schools.
It’s high time we think in terms of sustainability report cards on food issues, because report cards bring responsibility and agency into our mindset. Responsibility and agency are the missing ingredients in most reports we get on global warming, the environment and social trends. It’s as if these results are just facts, not results that were caused by someone, or the responsibility of someone.
Last month, California’s politicians agreed a new cap-and-trade bill to help curb the state’s emissions. This week, governor Jerry Brown signed it into law, representing a major step forward in the state’s effort to combat climate change. “Cap and trade” requires large emitters such as power plants, refineries and factories to buy permits for the greenhouse gases they release.
An old housemate introduced me to the concept of gin o’clock, and it’s stayed firmly on the schedule ever since. The rise of the micro distillery has been a wonderful thing to watch over the past few years, and Bristol a pretty splendid place to watch it from. My interest was particularly piqued when I discovered that a new distillery had popped up, mere metres from where I worked. Yes, under the Rummer hotel, there lies a still producing some really rather splendid spirits.
In fighting for science against religious superstition and climate deniers, Richard Dawkins deserves some of his popular acclaim. However, rational as they appear at first, Dawkins’ ideas are based on delusions of their own. The flaws implicit in his own belief system may be less obvious than those of monotheism, but they are at the root of much that is wrong in the current mainstream worldview.
“I ask the groups that hire me to pay me what feels good and right and fair to them, an amount they can afford, and that they can give joyfully… I basically trust them. And it works out really well.” Freelance group facilitator Tree Bressen has made her livelihood in the sharing economy for over a decade. She has also participated in a neighborhood Gift Circle and an online version called Kindista.
The US economy’s deep systemic inequalities of income, wealth, power, and opportunity are part of global inequality trends, but US-style capitalism and public policy make inequalities more acute. Their observable and felt harm to our civic and economic life is corroborated by research from many disciplines. Yet, by the same token, moving toward a more egalitarian society would realign most aspects of economic and social life for the better. So how can we bring these changes about?
The Trumpster’s place at the bottom of the list of Green Presidents is pretty much assured should he do nothing more than he already has. It is hard to imagine he will see a light anything like Saul saw on his fateful way to Damascus. Although, the world will undoubtedly continue to hope.
Many people (even if only on a subconscious level) are waiting for technology to rush in like a superhero to vanquish these crises and lead the way to a sustainable future. But technology won’t be our great green savior, at least not without first wrestling with the tough moral dilemmas of our time. In a new manifesto, #NoApp4That, I question the pervasive belief that technology alone will save us.
Wendell Berry’s astute statement that “eating is an agricultural act,” uncontrovertibly connects food back to the land and back to the soil. As he reminds us elsewhere, the soil is where we begin in the most fundamental way: it is “…the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all… Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life.”
Environmentalists are hypocrites, right? They condemn all sorts of behaviours like driving cars or taking plane flights in which they themselves indulge, and they want to deny poor people the right to the same luxuries by saying that the economic growth which promises to widen access to such luxuries is unsustainable.
