Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
We’re committed and excited about our attempts at cooperation between academics, movement activists, creative thinkers, and practitioners of alternatives to challenge the ever-tightening grip of corporate fundamentalism on the economy and the environment.
The Green New Deal’s success depends on refashioning this common sense. To rewrite common sense is to unpick the alliances that the current bloc works to maintain, to find the fault lines that can pry that bloc apart, and to develop the organizational links that can build a counter-hegemonic bloc.
For nearly a decade, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy has been engaged in Farm to Early Care and Education (ECE) initiatives, helping connect young children with locally grown foods while fostering an awareness of the importance of healthy food for children, families, farmers and communities.
A global student uprising is underway, with youth worldwide demanding that adults face the climate crisis head on. They need a strong foundation in themselves and adult partnership for the challenges ahead.
Mushrooms have helped remove petroleum from soil everywhere from Orleans, California, where they cleaned up a small motor-oil-and-diesel-fuel spill at a community center, to the Ecuadorian Amazon, where they’re being used to clean up the largest land-based oil spill in history.
A conversation between Emanuele Di Francesco and Tim Jackson, discussing post-growth concepts of a circular economy, the limits of labour productivity and the dynamics of inequality.
Reading Jeremy Lent’s excellent post What Will You Say To Your Grandchildren? and seeing it so passionately take issue with Jem Bendell’s “dangerously flawed” calls for Deep Adaptation, I just felt deep solidarity with both.
We’re GOING to make the transition to renewable sources of energy. There is no scenario outside the dark mind of Dick Cheney where we continue to use depleting and polluting fossil fuels over the long run to power society. So how exactly are we going to make the transition?
Studies have shown that, once 3.5% of a population becomes sustainably committed to nonviolent mass movements for political change, they are invariably successful. That would translate into 11.5 million Americans on the street, or 26 million Europeans. We’re a long way from that, but is it really impossible?
The path of ‘deep adaptation’ to the imminent breakdown and the path to avoid short-term human extinction are one and the same: we need to restore healthy ecosystems functions and we need to redesign the human impact on Earth by engaging in regenerative bioregional development — everywhere!
Out in the field, Jon supports a farmer-led approach. “The fields here are full of worms and the soil is healthy and aerobic. Mike’s really showing what can be done, and the government should go with that. Here on the farm, this is where the action is, and this is where the decisions should be made.”
Here’s a fascinating sign that commoning is growing as a social and political form: new histories are being written to trace its recent evolution! The latest example is a new book released by The Institute for Political Ecology in Zagreb, Croatia, has recently published.
