Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Change doesn’t come easy to us humans. We like to know what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next year. Sudden change can be severely upsetting; a death, unemployment or illness has the ability to turn our lives upside down for weeks, months or even change it completely. Most of these unexpected and unplanned changes are therefore unwelcome and a lot of people would find it difficult to discover silver linings in these kinds of challenges.
Across the nation, a robust and inspiring local food movement is gaining momentum but faces critical challenges of overwhelming demand, limited production capacity, lack of infrastructure, and limited access to capital. Meanwhile, as the unsustainability of the industrialized corporate food system becomes increasingly evident, a global food crisis threatens to land on our own shores. Our communities are food insecure.
If you’re working to make it easier for children to walk and bike to school in your community, Ian Thomas is a name that you should know! Ian is currently serving as the Executive Director of the Pedestrian and Pedaling Network of Columbia, Missouri (PedNet). As he prepares to step down from this position to run for the Fourth Ward seat in City Council in Columbia, MO, this April, we spoke with him recently about the lessons that he learned in setting up the organization’s Walking School Bus program, a nationally-recognized Safe Routes to School success story.
Here is a short overview and strategic assessment of the green economy movement, including its organizational makeup. It concludes with recommendations for transitioning from a double bottom line movement to a triple bottom line one: being more inclusive of historically marginalized communities.
As a member of Occupy Winnipeg, and a long-time activist and academic with an interest in social movements, what is most striking to me about INM is how it has been able to galvanize people from across the nation in a way that was lacking during the many Canadian occupations during the latter half of 2011.
I have long wanted to write a book on the subject of “enough” but never did. Now I don’t have to because Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill have done it in a clearer and more accessible way than I could have. Therefore it is a special pleasure for me to write a foreword calling attention to their important contribution.
“We’ve been wrong for the last 67 years,” Mark Gorton, founder of OpenPlans, announced in his closing address at last month’s Pro Walk/Pro Bike: Pro Place (PWPB) conference. “Ok. Time to admit it, and move on! We have completely screwed up transportation in this country. We can never expect to see the legislative or policy change until people understand the fundamental underlying problem. Asking for 20% more bike lanes is not enough.”
Can a community print its own money? The short answer is a resounding YES and for many this has become a symbol of a Transition town taking the local economy into its own hands. We are very used to using money for exchange and will likely still need it in some form, but ideally one that reduces the problems with conventional money.
“Quick test: Could you, for a full month, eat exclusively what’s grown within ten miles of your home? What would you eat? Would you survive? Would you suffer? Would you even want to run the experiment given you can run to your grocery store for a cornucopia of delights?"
Asheville North Carolina is situated in the Southern Appalachian mountains, a region with a wealth of sharing traditions. Historically, the relative isolation of the mountains and the necessity of making do with less have meant that relying on community is a means to survival. Regardless, it has never gone out of style to share music, food, stories and medicine. As one native Ashevillian says "We help each other out. It’s not complicated." These days, Asheville’s sharing culture is a healthy mix of the traditional and the cosmopolitan. The economic downturn in the past half-decade has spurred an abundance of community activities and projects for which dollars are not a requirement.
Mourid Barghouti, the Palestinian poet, once said that a writer’s task in a world ruled by tyranny and abstractions, is to praise the real and the ordinary. The people in the room, the earth outside your door, the things you hold beloved in your hands. I’m remembering those words as I wrap this Dark Mountain anthology in its brown paper jacket and head out down the frosty lane towards the post office.
How many times a day do we say or think "I’m comfortable with this" or "I’m not comfortable with that"? How often is it a way to avoid looking at what’s going on and our part in it, as much as a valid expression of something really being not quite right?
