Act: Inspiration

Addressing the Systemic Challenge at the Heart of Escalating Inequality and Environmental Destruction

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The inconvenient truth is that we face a problem beyond politics and reform, beyond good projects and initiatives and campaigns – ours is a systemic crisis at the very heart of our 21stcentury political-economy.

Minnesota Court Says Activists can Use Climate Change as a Defense in Trial

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Does climate change pose such an imminent threat to the planet that it’s okay to break the law in order to stop it? Four climate activists currently awaiting trial in Minnesota for shutting off a tar sands pipeline think so — and on Monday, the Minnesota Court of Appeals agreed that they should be allowed to make that argument before a jury when their case goes to trial.

Guess Who’s Coming for Dinner

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We have proposed a policy that would allow more sales of fresh homemade foods made in home kitchens with reasonable food safety requirements (such as safe food handling training, kitchen inspections, sanitary standards) and with the important condition that only certain types of legal entities could operate a web application or web platform that promotes sales of homemade food and takes a cut of each transaction.

Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder and the Imagination

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I was intrigued as to what impact living in a state of ‘Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder’ might have on the human imagination, on its ability to flourish, and to imagine the future in positive ways.  Are we all, to one degree or another, living in a state of ‘Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder’?

Designing for a Better Society: How Tiny Houses can Have a Huge Impact

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With IMBY we wanted to answer the question of how, starting from design and production methods, we could build a house that could foster social integration and civic engagement in a sustainable model. And this can only be done by empowering the people.

Cultivating Place: Refugees and Urban Gardening in Baltimore

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There’s a difference between simply settling somewhere and finding a home. Refugees are faced with this reality every day — among new neighbors in a new city, building a sense of belonging is no small task. Working to create a place for oneself is a bold act of hope for a new life. So, what can public spaces do to help create a sense of place for refugees?

Hierarchy, Climate Change and the State of Nature

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We briefly mentioned the problem of hierarchy as the shared root of many systems of oppression in our first column two weeks ago.  In this article, we want to expand on the meaning of hierarchy—a system of obedience and command backed by the threat of force—and ground it in history.

The Power of Cooperative Economics

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The Solidarity Research Center based in Los Angeles, California, was established in 2014 by a group of researchers and academics with roots in organized labor. Now they are working on projects across the country, linking the ethos of the labor movement and the dynamics of the cooperative economy to build and promote cooperatives across a wide range of sectors.

Sustainable St Albans Week 2018

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Sustainable St Albans Week  – a Transition St Albans initiative – does make steps to get the mainstream to engage with climate change – but we came at it, not from science, but from necessity, borne out of our personal motivations about climate change; tiredness and frustration that we couldn’t get more people on board.