Act: Inspiration

Transition Plymouth

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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.

Transforming Neighborhoods Through Guerrilla Gardening

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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?

Can Wee Little Businesses Save the Nation?

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Both political parties and both capitalism and socialism spout lots of support for “small business.” Maybe this is where we can bring the country back together again. But I put quotes around “small business” because the Census Bureau and the Small Business Administration have exceedingly murky notions about what “small” means.

Worldwatch Institute Symposium – April 2013 Is Sustainability Still Possible?

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On Tuesday, April 16, the Worldwatch Institute held its seventeenth annual State of the World Symposium to launch its latest book, State of the World 2013: Is Sustainability Still Possible? As contributors to the book, Pat Murphy and Faith Morgan were invited to attend the event, where Pat spoke on one of several panels. The complex topic of sustainability was addressed along with the need to measure it in order to prepare for the currently unsustainable future toward which we are making quick strides. The symposium was held in Washington, but an online live stream of the panels was offered for those of us who could not make it to D.C.

Transportation Profession as Visionary?

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Albert Einstein, known for his intellect, also possessed immense vision. He said, “If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got.” Doing what has always been done is the current MO for most professionals in the transportation industry. How many times have you walked into a room and people’s excitement deflates at the sight of you with your manuals and standards in tow. I think our profession’s image can change if we recognize where we need to go. After all, we are in charge of getting people from point A to point B. Can’t we also move our profession to a new, more visionary place?

Ready for Rationing? Why We Should Put the Brakes on Consumption If We Want to Survive

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It’s not clear whether Stan Cox is a plant breeder with a penchant for politics, or a political provocateur who finds time to do science. Whichever aspect of his personality is dominant, Cox artfully draws on both skill sets to make the case for rationing, perhaps the most important concept that is not being widely discussed these days. The power of his new book, Any Way You Slice It: The Past, Present, and Future of Rationing, comes from his blending of scientific analyses of dire resource trends with a compelling moral argument about the need to reshape politics and economics.

The future of business: what are the alternatives to capitalism?

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Evidence shows its very clear we have reached the safe limits to growth in terms of the most pressing threat to human civilisation – that of a stable atmosphere. Therefore, until we can find a way to decouple growth from carbon emissions and reach that mythical “dematerialised” economy, restarting global economic growth seems a dangerous folly. But what might the implications of this be for capitalism?

On Building a Better (and More Resilient) World: Complexity, Community, and the Precautionary Principle

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From the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami to Superstorm Sandy, the last decade has seen an incredible array of natural disasters…The proliferation of disasters is raising awareness about our collective need to minimize vulnerability and to bounce back afterwards – our need for greater resilience.  

Food & agriculture – April 30

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• The Trouble with Biofuels: Costs and Consequences of Expanding Biofuel Use in the United Kingdom
•Dance of the Honey Bee
•The benefits of alternative farming methods
•A Brief History of Our Deadly Addiction to Nitrogen Fertilizer
•Connecting the Dots: the Big Permaculture Picture
•YFF: Using the Sun to Empower Women and Help Family Farmers
•International Day of Peasant struggles
•Why Saving Seed and Growing Organic Food is a Powerful Weapon Against Corporate Tyranny
•Why farmers still struggle when food prices rise

The Democracy Project

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David Graeber, who was actively involved in the early days of Occupy Wall Street and continues to work to advance its principles, starts his new book The Democracy Project with a fascinating (if long) personal history of how OWS found its legs and what it had to deal with (notably the brutal suppression of November 2011 when the governments of the day decided to shut down the protest through a sustained, globally coordinated and ruthless operation, and the disgraceful behaviour of the media ‘covering’ the movement, and then abruptly not covering it at all).

How to build a cheap raised garden bed

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I’ve been advancing my guerilla gardening efforts recently, with a significant new raised bed now beautifying my nature strip, as seen in the featured picture. I thought in this post I could provide a brief overview of how to build a cheap raised bed, either for use on your nature strip or in your front or backyards. This overview might seem a bit basic for the handy builders among you, so I direct this post to those who are beginning their journey into guerilla gardening and urban agriculture.