Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Every city has its graveyard of nonprofits, cooperatives, social clubs, and community centers. Without a strategic vision, local projects cannot possibly amount to a systemic alternative to capitalism.
When I made a case for a small farm future somewhere or other a while back, I got a tweeted reply “Your utopia is my dystopia”. I found this slightly odd since the case I try to make for small-scale farming isn’t that it’s the best of all possible worlds – more like the best of a bad job given the circumstances we face.
Around 11,000 years ago, as the last ice age ended, our ancestors – in no fewer than 5 locations around the world – took advantage of the new conditions and tried an agricultural way of life. Fast forward through two momentous phase shifts in human history (agricultural and industrial revolutions), and here we are: approaching 8 billion, seeking freedom, experiences, and material wealth all derived from physical surplus.
The food justice movement is one of the most promising political developments of the last generation. It has broadened and deepened environmentalism by knitting together concerns about economic inequality, labor rights, environmental health, and sustainable agriculture.
This is where large-scale regenerative land management comes into play: it is the most effective tool for carbon sequestration that presently exists. Carbon sequestration through natural means includes not only vitally important conservation and restoration, but necessitates incorporation into all landscape management.
An exciting food project called Grown in Totnes has started trading in this South Devon market town, selling processed grains, peas and flours to local shops, bakers and colleges.
Enter David Shepherdson and Lisa Bovill, from Kaini Industries, who launched Hullcoin which enables people who engage with charities and community groups across the city of Hull to earn digital coins by volunteering and undertaking activities that benefit themselves.
While many companies don’t question the practices employed by farms or source cheap materials from overseas, Abby and Matt have proudly kept their wool homegrown. And they haven’t stopped there. They’ve become one of several trailblazers for Fibershed’s new designation of wool altogether: Climate Beneficial Wool.
“Our Transition Initiative reminds us that our community doesn’t have to passively wait for a bleak future to crash down on us,” says Myles. “We are building a new cultural standard in our local area, of caring relationships with each other and our earth.
Subway systems, trams, Bus-Rapid-Transit, high-speed trains, cars – these can all play useful roles in well-designed transportation systems. But we must not forget what still is and what should remain the world’s most important transportation method: walking. That is one of the key messages of Beyond Mobility: Planning Cities for People and Places, a survey of urban planning successes and failures around the world.
David Holmgren’s new book is a fascinating, and intoxicating blast of ‘what if?’ which ought to be put through every suburban letterbox in the world, although given its size I have doubts that it would fit. I am a huge Holmgren fan.
Identifying where our campaigning aims overlap through a fossil fuel lens will enable us to expel the industry on a grand scale, and in turn enable us to transform our city on an equally grand scale- fairly, cleanly, and democratically.
