Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The latest episode of the Upstream podcast takes a deep dive into the worker cooperatives movement: a broad selection of organizations, activists, and cooperatively-structured workplaces that advocate for and embody workplace and economic democracy.
Collecting first into bands, then villages, then cities, then states, now humans form a single, giant creature – the superorganism – which is literally devouring the planet to keep itself growing. I
These debates are precisely what makes the Anthropocene so valuable as an idea. It stops us short. It buttonholes us. It head-butts us. Then it asks us really, really hard questions while we’re reeling. I think that’s where its value lies.
Platform cooperatives that are member owned and democratically controlled – allowing everyone that is affected by the business, be they customers, suppliers, workers or investors, a say in how the business is run and managed.
But transitioning beyond a growth-dependent industrial economy will require a multidimensional transformation, not just outward political and economic change, but radical cultural and psychological change as well.
It was a fenced-off World War II bomb site that had rewilded, and a team of London artists decided it was the perfect place to grow a medicine garden. The site is in the middle of a social housing complex in the Bethnal Green neighborhood of Tower Hamlets, a London borough that has become the U.K.’s second most densely populated local authority, the basic unit of local government.
One of the biggest challenges faced by any Transition Initiative is that they are largely non-hierarchical, volunteer-based organizations.
While awareness of soil health is increasing, current global agricultural regulations and policy and market incentives do not lead agriculture toward a sustainable future.
The journey towards an Earth jurisprudence economy, rather than being seen as an insurmountable challenge, can serve as a uniting force in our defense of the global commons.
This is localism, a bottom-up, practically oriented way of looking at today’s biggest policy dilemmas. Instead of always or only seeking to fix municipal issues through national policy, localism suggests that communities can and should find solutions to their own particular problems, within their own particular contexts.
McGuire’s book is an adventure that scores on every front, from its tense action scenes, to its finely realized characters and emotionally involving drama, to its richly rendered settings, to the intriguing irony of its double-entendre title.
The U.S. Congress will be considering renewing the Farm Bill before the current authorization expires on September 30, 2018. As Feasta members commemorate 20 years of innovative policy ideas, sustainable food policy will continue to be a top priority.
