Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
That title was a tease. I have not made nor will I ever make full sense of me, but I want to connect the dots of my disparate – sometimes desperate – projects over many years and reveal the wholeness and practicality that links them all.
I think it’s because the challenges are so great that the need to fundamentally reset the relationship between business, government, and local communities and place them on a more equal footing, transferring not just responsibility but genuine power, is increasingly not a choice but an imperative.
Creating an alternative economy and organization of production implies a transformation of the relations and ways of inter-personal functioning that have been inculcated into hierarchy culture and the capitalist system.
For the past two years, the Climate Action Tracker has been producing a series of memos that look at the decarbonisation required in high-emitting sectors to meet the Paris Agreement’s 1.5˚C warming limit.
The technique, called hugelkultur (HOO-gul-kul-tur), has the advantage of being simple to understand and easy to make, and lasting a long time. Hugelkultur beds basically involve piling wood – usually dried logs of various sizes – into a single ridge, piling vegetation, cardboard or newspaper over that, and finally a layer of soil on top.
Transition Marlborough wanted to help save the bees so they started joining up landscapes to connect pollinators and people.This is the story of a small, local project to help bees.
In the past eight years, City Growers has expanded their opportunities and reach, offering Summer Camp, professional development, and free workshops. However, it is the child’s newfound understanding and curiosity that truly helps measure progress.
Big challenges require big solutions. After decades of serving the few, it’s time that development in Britain started to meet the needs of the many. Only then can we fix Britain’s broken housing system, and start to build a fairer and more sustainable economy.
One of the protesters called out to the crowd gathered on Waterloo Bridge, “If you’ve ever wondered what you would have done during the Second World War, this is your answer.” Fighting evil in the 1940s was not a peaceful, niche enterprise. Doing so today must not be either.
The outcome of the indigenous struggle is important to all of us. A Guarani person recently put it this way: ‘If indigenous peoples become extinct and dead, the lives of all are threatened, for we are the guardians of nature. Without forest, without water, without rivers, there is no life, there is no way for any Brazilian to survive.
Yes, the way of life we’ve known is coming to an end. Yes, civilizations fall. I for one will fight for our species and our planet’s survival until I can no longer do so.
These proposals, we hope, will make the UK a more equal, inclusive and generous-spirited nation, characterised not by private enclosure and public squalor, but by private sufficiency and public luxury. Our land should work for the many, not just the few.
