Act: Inspiration

Our Bodies Are Made for Walking

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 The first-ever report card on walking and walkable communities was announced at the Summit, underscoring the importance of the emerging walking movement.  The United States as a whole gets a failing grade in the following subjects: 1) pedestrian safety; 2) pedestrian infrastructure; 3) walking opportunities for children; 4) business and non-profit sector policies; and 5) public transportation, which is a key factor in walkable communities. We earned a D for public policies promoting walking, and a C in walking opportunities for adults.

How to Run the Economy on the Weather

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Before the Industrial Revolution, people adjusted their energy demand to a variable energy supply. Our global trade and transport system — which relied on sail boats — operated only when the wind blew, as did the mills that supplied our food and powered many manufacturing processes. The same approach could be very useful today, especially when improved by modern technology.

A Green Wave for a Better Quality of Life

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What can be done to protect this forest and improve the life of this community that is so marginalized by public power? With this question in mind, the ecologist Hélio Vanderlei founded the socio-environmental NGO Onda Verde (“Green Wave”) in 1994. “When I started the NGO, I thought: I have to go to Tinguá to protect the rainforest. There are 25,000 hectares there that produce 170 million liters of water per day,” he says.

Honoring the Past and the Lessons we Learned

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Humans haven’t always been ignorant of how our world and our civilization worked.  I was intrigued by this image of a church in Houston Texas recently flooded during Hurricane Harvey.  The picture above is of the old First Baptist Church of Orange, Texas completed and dedicated on September 14, 1915.  What I found striking about this picture was the main floor was well above the flooding from Hurricane Harvey because it was built well above flood levels.

No Elitist Farmers Markets Here—Free Healthy Food and Profits for Farmers

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“Farmers markets have the reputation of being somewhat elitist, not open to all,” she says. “That is the opposite of here. The intent was not to be a poor person’s market, but to be a market for everyone. There are folks with money who come, but our market board has said if rich folks want this to be an experience for them, they may have to go somewhere else for that.”

Cooperative Economics in African-American Communities

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n her engrossing TED Talk, business owner Niki Okuk explores three key themes: racism, economic oppression, and privilege, and how they relate to cooperate economics. Okuk, who runs tire recycling company Rco Tires, shares her personal story of starting the business, but puts it in larger, historical context.

Learning the Language of Plants with Local Dialect

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“I don’t create complicated fiber art. My pieces are simple, natural and classic. They’re wearable and not at all fussy. I want my customers to use and enjoy my clothing for a long time. For it to be part of their identity.” It’s slow fashion at its core.

Eroles Project – Deepening Citizenship

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What is the Eroles Project? I could give several answers. It is a network of change-makers connected through a set of evolving principles, annual learning-for-action residencies, an online community platform and a library of resources. It is a threshold marked by a cobalt blue door. It is a small core team of organisers, a growing number of alumni and an advisory board. It is projects and workshops that root around the world. Mostly though, in whichever form, I feel it is an opportunity to inquire.

A Society beyond Consumerism

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Post-purchase dissonance is an expression psychologists use to describe the disappointment we sometimes feel on realizing that our latest consumer purchase does not fulfil the promise we bought it on. At first sight it’s a curious anomaly. On deeper reflection, it turns out to be the structural basis for the entire edifice. The engine of consumer society is discontentment. This is more than a rhetorical claim.

7 Inspirational Quotes to Make You Feel Better about Climate Change

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It’s easy to get struck by existential dread when you’re reading about climate change. Personally I think there hasn’t been enough attention on the psychological effects of this. Although you can find a few fantastic articles on the subject – such as this one from Grist. My personal favourite antidote for climate fear is to throw yourself into pragmatic climate action.

Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution

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Beautiful Trouble lays out the core tactics, principles and theoretical concepts that drive creative activism, providing analytical tools for changemakers to learn from their own successes and failures. In the modules that follow, we map the DNA of these hybrid art/action methods, tease out the design principles that make them tick and the theoretical concepts that inform them, and then show how all of these work together in a series of instructive case studies.

How a Universal Basic Income could Fire the imagination

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UBI is basically an idea that says everybody, simply by virtue of being alive, gets an income that gives them enough to survive, if not thrive, and that’s one of the debates.  There are lots of different people talking about it right now from across the political spectrum.  This is one of the things that makes it an interesting idea, or an idea that’s worth engaging with right now, because it’s an idea that’s emerging.  It’s formulating, so it’s not settled.