Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
In September last year, I was very lucky and surprised to find myself in Taiwan for three weeks. I had two weeks free to travel wherever I wanted – so I put the word out for recommendations of permaculture projects, perhaps where I could volunteer and learn about the permaculture movement on another island (Taiwan is a bit bigger than Wales).
As the Climate Justice Alliance points out, “to truly address the interlinked crises of a faltering democracy, growing wealth disparity and community devastation caused by climate change and industrial pollution, we must reduce emissions at their source.
So how do we aim for appropriate participation by designing for positive emergence? How do we design for human and planetary health? To do so in ways that are elegantly adapted to the bio-cultural uniqueness of place will require us to pay attention to the qualitative aspects of interactions, relationships.
What happens when an illegally logged tree falls or poachers kill endangered brown bears in the forest, but there’s no journalist to report it? That’s the situation in the Republic of Georgia, which faces challenges that include poaching, deteriorating air quality, habitat disruption from new hydropower dams, illegal logging and climate change.
It was a delightful taste of what the climate emergency will look, feel, taste and sound like if we get it right. It was the future. It was common sense. And I can tell you, it smelt, tasted and looked absolutely fantastic.
What’s not so simple are the connections between environmental factors and our mental and physical wellbeing. Air pollution and an excessive exposure to toxins have been found to affect the brain not only in adults but also in children,
We had no illusions about the futures imagined by status quo institutions and actors — but we also left grounded in the knowledge that our vision seeds are rooted 5,000 years deep in the soil already, and roots that deep might just be resilient and resistant enough to create a new abundance for all.
Episode 13, Band-Aid Town, returns to the premise of the show: the absolute batsh*t-crazy (lack of) response to the enormous, urgent challenges of the climate emergency, the energy transition, an economic system that’s destroying the prospects of a viable planet, and the growing racial and wealth divide.
In fostering the creation of communities and workplaces driven by values of solidarity, cooperation, and justice, workplace democracy and worker ownership are crucial, powerful tools, and they can and should play an important role in the next economic system.
Car use may have risen enormously in the last 30 years in most countries, but some places have managed to get people out of motorised transport and on their bikes in huge numbers, reducing carbon emissions and increasing health and wellbeing.
The evidence is clear: Indigenous Peoples and local communities have long been the backbone of the world’s environmental protection efforts, safeguarding what remains of our planet’s precious forests and natural resources despite mounting threats to their lands and their lives.
The city is a hotbed for radical social enterprises, citizens’ initiatives and grassroots activism, each seeking to build alternative business models for a more sustainable and participatory future.
