Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The UK Government is committed to cutting 80% of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 – since 50% of our energy is used by our buildings, and 25% by our homes, the target is for every home to be ‘carbon neutral’ by 2050. In Shrewsbury this equates to 2,000 homes being refurbished each year for the next 37 years, saving 60,000 tonnes of CO2e each year in the process.
Open source hardware could be a revolutionary tool for unlocking the shackles that currently tie us to profit motivated, proprietary innovation. The concept springs from a vision to alleviate poverty through empowering decentralized and affordable, small-scale production. Participants anywhere in the world can use the internet to access, improve, or adapt designs for local manufacturing and drastically increase the rate of innovation.
In the 1950s Father José María Arizmendiarrieta, the village priest of Mondragón in the Basque region of Spain, inspired the development of a series of cooperatively owned industries to employ youth in his parish. His vision was that, through ownership by the workers, the wealth created by new industries would be distributed to the workers and to the larger community that nourished and supported them.
Is this “the most exciting time to be alive in human history”? The economists and scientists interviewed in this film think so, and the reasons are all about the chance to create a more fair and sustainable global economy.
There are now just over six weeks until the publication of The Power of Just Doing Stuff: how local action can change the world. I thought this would be a good opportunity to tell you a bit more about it and why you might want to start building into a fever pitch of excitement. It will be published second week of June, will have 160 pages, will sell for £7.95, will be a thing of great beauty, and an inspiring introduction to what Transition is and the ‘Big Idea’ that it represents.
“In these times of ever more blatant marketing of public space, the aspiration to plant potatoes precisely there – and without restricting entry – is nothing less than revolutionary,” writes Sabine Rohlf in her book review of Urban Gardening.1 Indeed, we can observe the return of gardens to the city everywhere and see it as an expression of a changing relationship between the public and the private. And it is not only this dominant differentiation in modern society that is increasingly becoming blurred; the differences between nature and society as well as that between city and countryside are fading as well, at least from the perspective of urban community gardeners.
Many of us have resigned ourselves to domination in the workplace. This is an outrage. ‘Meaningful work’ is not only an achievable goal for all, a socialised mutual economy is beginning to emerge that may be one step towards this ideal.
It’s hard to overestimate the importance of food. Yet, sometimes it appears just as hard for food writers to avoid hype.
In ways both scientific and pragmatic, there can be no resilience without transformation.
The economy is big news, and a big worry. But there are as many economies as we need. There are global, national, regional, and neighborhood economies. There are economies for greed, destruction, and exploitation, as well as for generosity, creativity, and love. And there are as many types of money as we need to operate these economies.
Some of the most extreme weather patterns – the driest, wettest, hottest and coldest months ever recorded – have occurred in recent years. The Arctic is warming dangerously, much quicker than scientists predicted, weakening, and changing the course of, the Gulf Stream bringing Britain erratic weather and disrupting agriculture. It has brought home to all, except the most head in the sand sceptics, the urgency of cutting greenhouse emissions. But, paradoxically, it has occurred at a time of heightened economic crisis when the resolve of governments and corporations to act to avert global warming is diminishing. Since the collapse of the Intergovernmental talks on climate change in Copenhagen 2009 all pretence at tackling climate change at an international level has been dropped.
Imagine what your community would look like if the vacant lots, patches of half-dead, boring old lawn, and sidewalk beds were thriving, beautiful gardens filled with veggies, flowers and herbs. Doesn’t that sound nice? Want to get involved with making it happen? Welcome to the world of guerrilla gardening. The practice of planting on land that does not legally belong to you, guerrilla gardening is, on the one hand, not as rebellious as its name suggests. We’re talking about introducing seeds and plants to neglected land; a pretty harmless act. On the other hand, however, a guerrilla garden can radically transform a junky lot full of trash into the showpiece of a neighborhood. It can provide food, create beauty where there was none, draw attention to areas that need cleanup and bring a community closer together. In times of isolation and concrete over-growth, this really is an act of revolution. Not bad for a few little plants, eh?
