Act: Inspiration

Occupy World Street – a global roadmap for radical economic and political reform: review

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This book by Ross Jackson, published in March 2012 by Green Books, asks a good question: what can we do about the fact that we live in an unacceptably unjust and hopelessly unsustainable world? We know there are many useful things that can be done at home or locally, and by corporations or governments. Lots of examples were suggested by contributors to Fleeing Vesuvius. The trouble is that not nearly enough individuals, local communities, corporations or governments do these things. To reverse current trends the system as a whole has to change. But how? It’s such a huge question that few, if any, other writers have tackled it head on, which is what this book does.

Commentary: I. Collapse? Really?

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Collapse is a scary word, and some people doubt it is even relevant to us. Obviously we are facing some major challenges in this century. Does that mean collapse? What is collapse, exactly? When societies have collapsed, what actually happened? How bad is it? Are there ways of reducing the badness? While historic events can’t give a totally accurate picture of the future, they can at least give us some ground to stand on.

Getting Connected!

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Nature is big and encompasses so many things. Forest, ocean, whale, field, meadow, sky, bird, flower, cow, river, mountain, sun, tree. Human too, though we often don’t think of ourselves as part of the natural world. That’s a big part of the problem. It means we don’t truly see that the havoc we wreak on the living systems of the planet, on all our fellow creatures and plants, we wreak on ourselves, connected as we are in the web of life.

Towards a new model of health and well-being

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The good life is not about consumption, but rather about connection and engagement. Focal practices require work and commitment; however, they offer as their reward spaces and occasions to nurture our health, talents and relationships in the context of an engaged and healthy life.

Sandhill Cranes!

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Good flying weather it was that scherzo of a morning, sunny, blustery, the sky a brilliantly clear blue vault, rare in our hazy, cloudy metropolis with its often dull light. They rode the strong south wind and sailed along, glittering and flashing in the sun. The heart does leap at such a sight and sound, and even now, typing these words, at the memory. Having come back from the edge of extinction, those big, elegant birds are a symbol that conservation efforts can work, do work, should work, a sign that if we care enough and work at it enough we can bend the grim line way from environmental catastrophe, help it arc toward sustainability and environmental regeneration.

The challenges and rewards of local production

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Just fifteen minutes from my front door, mills used to transform locally-grown fiber into beautiful fabric. All that capability is gone now, off-shored in the 1990s. As someone who is interested in local sourcing, I had to ask the question, “Is it still possible to dress locally?” So I decided to see for myself what it would take to make a garment – a little black coat – from resources right in my own area.

Nuclear – Mar 16

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-Older nuclear plants pose safety challenge: IAEA
-Protesters link arms around the world to decry nuclear power
The Fukushima Nuclear Disaster – One Year Later – Radio Ecoshock
-No Primrose Path
-Australia passes controversial nuclear waste bill
-IAEA: “significant” nuclear growth despite Fukushima

Giving up your bank for Lent

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On Ash Wednesday, churches in San Francisco announced they were removing $10 million from Wells Fargo and called on the bank, as per the advocacy group Faith in Public Life, “to put an immediate freeze on its foreclosures and repent for their misconduct.” The March 9 New York Times reported that, “The Rev. Richard Smith of St. John the Evangelist, an Episcopal church in San Francisco, likened the divestment campaign and public protests to early Christianity’s ritual of ‘reconciliation of the penitents’.” Far from taking place in the private sanctity of the confessional, that rite occurred in public, with the penitent overseen by a priest and required to present himself before a bishop.

Public Sector Banks: From black sheep to global leaders

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Public sector banking is a concept that is relatively unknown in the United States. Only one state—North Dakota—owns its own bank. North Dakota is also the only state to escape the credit crisis of 2008, sporting a budget surplus every year since; but skeptics write this off to coincidence or other factors. The common perception is that government bureaucrats are bad businessmen. To determine whether government-owned banks are assets or liabilities, then, we need to look farther afield.

Preventing the Fall of Rome

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One thing is certain: traditional liberalism, dependent on expensive federal policies and strong labor unions, is moribund. The government no longer has much capacity to use progressive taxation to achieve the goal of equity or to regulate corporations effectively. Congressional deadlocks on such matters are the rule, not the exception. At the same time, ongoing economic stagnation or mild upturns followed by further decay, and “real” unemployment rates in the 15 percent to 16 percent range appear more likely than a return to booming economic times.

The Bullseye Diet

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This was an important discussion back when I wrote it in 2007, and somehow, I’ve never re-run it (although it does appear in Aaron and my book _A Nation of Farmers_). It is definitely time to talk more about this model, and I’m hoping to enlist many of you in doing an evaluation of the real productivity of our home gardens and farms – using this as a model. So time to run it again, as a starting point for seeing how much progress the local food movement has really made in the years since it began!