Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
A ‘successful’ Common Agricultural Policy reform thus defined, however, can come and go without any meaningful progress in addressing the challenge of building sustainable food systems in Europe. The problem with the CAP is not only what it does, but what as an agricultural policy it does not and cannot do. Europe urgently needs a food policy (or a ‘Common Food Policy’). There are five key reasons why this shift is required, and why the time is now ripe for it to occur.
Eticom is a member of mésOpcions, an “intercooperation” project that bundles together the goods and services offered by a number of cooperatives – in addition to Eticom, including Som Energia and Fiare – and which, according to its coordinator, Jordi Rojas, “seeks to provide access to social market services. For just six euros a year, you can access the services of all the projects without having to become a member of each one of them.”
We inhabitants of industrial civilization still live inside a human-centered story. The story articulates itself in the ways we speak, what we think, how we listen, what we hear. It expresses itself in the physical forms of our life-worlds, in our legal, political, and economic institutions. It gives structure to the way we conceive of and inhabit both space and time. It shapes our encounters with other-than-human living creatures, as well as with the larger planetary presence. This is the story of the human as a separate self.
As a result of my participation in an organizational context whose mandate is the promotion of worker cooperatives, I have realized the great unease of some worker-cooperators with the notion of entrepreneurship. This reaction is shortsighted and represents a failure to be fully cognizant of the business environment in which worker cooperatives must operate.
Here’s the hard bit. It’s just not possible to achieve emissions reductions of 8-10 per cent per year by decarbonising the economy. In fact, there is a strong scientific consensus that emissions reductions of this rate are only feasible if we stop our mad pursuit of economic growth and do something totally unprecedented: begin to scale down our annual production and consumption. This is what ecologists call ‘planned de-growth’.
Prompted by the sense that we are living through a moment of transition, George’s latest book, ‘Out Of The Wreckage: A New Politics for an Age of Crisis’, attempts to sketch a way forward. Most important to this project, he argues, is a political ‘narrative’ that can gain traction as the new ‘common sense’, carrying within it our values and the society that we want live in. But the book is also full of practical proposals, from land value taxes and community land trusts, to democratic reforms and ‘Big Organizing’.
“Resilience” is a key word for a spectrum starting with collapseniks all the way to big city Mayors and regional planners. But what is it? Has anybody thought this through? Enter The Community Resilience Reader from the Post Carbon Institute. It’s billed as “Essential Resources for an Era of Upheaval”. We’ve certainly got the upheaval.
Southern West Virginia nonprofit Coalfield Development runs Refresh, Reclaim, and a family of three other social enterprises. In an environment where finding secure employment is hard, Coalfield offers low-income residents a two- to two-and-a-half-year contract to undergo training in sustainable construction, solar technology, and artisan-based entrepreneurship.
The drive toward a basic income isn’t new. It’s a 100-year-old movement that has gotten stronger each time inequality has returned to the public discussion. Support for unconditional basic income (UBI) has grown so rapidly over the past few years that some might think the idea appeared out of nowhere. In fact, activists have been floating the plan – and other forms of a basic income guarantee (BIG) – for over a century.
Strength in community building is different from the strength that is talked about by blowhards, who brag about strength as physical toughness needed to conquer and overpower opposition. I am talking about the strength of character and conviction that enables and empowers others, including the weak and vulnerable.
“48 millones” is an initiative designed to make visible and connect regional leaders in Colombia, thereby strengthening their efforts to rebuild the country after the long awaited end of the armed conflict
The next economy will have to balance the needs of Earth’s expanding population with the shrinking level of resources which are available to everyone. This dynamic equilibrium is called carrying capacity.
