Act: Inspiration

A right-brained business plan??

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So you’ve made the big jump. You’ve left the conventional business world behind and you’re starting a business of the new future. Maybe you just launched your town’s first rickshaw taxi. Maybe you sell vegetable seedlings at farmers market or you’re pioneering urban goat cheese production. Perhaps it’s a social enterprise or a nonprofit. At any rate, you’re still going to need a few of the tools that conventional businesses use, like business plans and accounting systems.

“Earthship Biotecture”: Renegade New Mexico architect’s radical approach to sustainable living

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New Mexico residents are trying to a break free from Los Alamos’ nuclear legacy by creating more environmentally sound ways of living. At the forefront of this struggle is renegade architect Michael Reynolds, creator of radically sustainable living options through a process called “Earthship Biotecture.” Reynolds’ solar homes are created from natural and recycled materials, including aluminum cans, plastic bottles and used tires. These off-the-grid homes minimize their reliance on public utilities and fossil fuels by harnessing their energy from the sun and wind turbines. In Taos, New Mexico, Reynolds gives us a tour of one of the sustainable-living homes he created.

Food & agriculture – Oct 11

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-How Not to “Feed the World”
-These grassroots heroes are fighting for food democracy
-The year the grains failed: Why poorer countries are scheduling ‘food-free days’
-Global Grain Production at Record High Despite Extreme Climatic Events
-Cash-strapped farmers feed candy to cows
-Biofuel policy change strands EU farmers
-Vote for the Dinner Party

In Praise of Anarchy, Part II

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When confronted with an increasingly despotic régime, the good people of almost any nation will cower in their homes and, once they are flushed out, will allow themselves to be herded like domesticated animals. They will gladly take orders from whoever gives them, because their worst fear is not despotism–it is anarchy. Anarchy! Are you afraid of anarchy? Or are you more afraid of hierarchy? Color me strange, but I am much more afraid of being subjected to a chain of command than of anarchy (which is a lack of hierarchy).

Green infrastructure and food

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A late-summer conference that brought city gardeners and construction developers from around the world to Toronto has just issued a declaration. The statement calls for a new generation of living infrastructure that’s built in partnership with what’s conventionally thought of as urban agriculture.

A school of apples

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At Green Drinks we are looking at a map. It’s no ordinary map of roads and houses and municipal buildings. It’s a map of a community orchard, showing 100 fruit trees – apple, pear, quince, plum, cherry, damson, medlar – that were planted two years ago in the village of St James in Suffolk. Rob Parfitt who helped create the orchard is describing how a group rented the land (originally an over-grazed part of the common) and planted the trees, set around a restored shepherd hut which serves as an information centre and informal gathering space. The hardest thing, he said, was not the thistles in the ground, or raising the funds, but persuading the village to agree.

Beyond Occupy: progressive activists in Europe

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Occupy is part of a wide range of subterranean movements that explore ways to complement representative democracy and empower citizenship. Some citizens want to build stronger democratic institutions: others don’t trust elected representatives any more and promote a change that starts at a local level and in daily life.

Mike Freedman on his new film Critical Mass

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Unsung Films watched Mike Freedman’s Critical Mass this year when it screened at the Biografilm Festival in Bologna, Italy. On approaching the filmmaker with a short review of his documentary, we ended up with a great deal more: a 3000-word interview taking readers deep into the story of how Freedman’s film came together, how it affected him – both personally and professionally — and what we should expect in the years to come.

A true economics (book excerpt)

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The central thesis of my book The Possibility of Progress is that progressive social change requires not only the internalization of universal moral principles by many people, but also that they behave in accordance with those principles, and find the collective strength to overcome the many obstacles to change. Thus far, too few people have succeeded in this difficult task; and those that have, finding themselves in the minority, have struggled to convert their convictions into real progress.