Act: Inspiration

The simpler way: a practical action plan for living more on less

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The Simpler Way consists of a website and booklet which provide detailed practical advice on how to live a ‘simpler life’ of reduced and restrained consumption. More importantly, it invites readers to contribute their own thoughts, experiences, and practical tips, so that we can all share and expand upon our collective wisdom.

The Simpler Way represents a life with less clutter, less waste, and less fossil fuel use, but also a life with more time for the things that truly inspire and bring happiness.

Climate and the psyche

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“I’ve been concerned by the extent of ‘burn-out’ I’ve come across – in particular states of exhaustion, the development of cynicism and despair. But also the opposite of these in the form of a kind of ‘pollyanna-ish’ defensiveness where people convince themselves that all is solvable, either through technology or through local community action. “

“Both of these tendencies have increased post-Copenhagen, along with a tendency for campaigners sometimes to blame each other rather than the powerful actors in the political system. This is a common response amongst groups experiencing failure – you begin by minutely examining the reasons for the lack of success and end by attacking each other or alternatively withdrawing altogether.”

Book Review: Urban Homesteading

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Want to grow food and live the sustainable lifestyle but lack the space? Urban Homesteading: Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living, by Rachel Kaplan with K. Ruby Blume, a glossy bible for self-sufficiency in the city, will have you tearing out your driveway to sow a garden, and diverting gray water to irrigate it. The book’s beautifully presented and amply illustrated projects are all geared toward typical city-sized lots, and interspersed with case studies of actual homesteads and working urban farms, like the two-acre rooftop farm in Brooklyn, where greens grow amid rooftop vents.

Peak Oil and the Importance of EROI (review of Fleeing Vesuvius, Part 2)

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Obviously getting by without fossil fuels (owing to impending shortages of oil, natural gas and coal) will be an incredibly rude shock for all of us. Our current telecommunication, transportation and retail infrastructure, as well as our current system of industrial agriculture, are based on the abundant availability of cheap fossil fuels. On the plus side, Fleeing Vesuvius is full of a number of specific strategies, currently being tried in Ireland and elsewhere, for building resilient communities to withstand this transition to a non-fossil energy society.

The challenge of re-localisation

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Re-localisation is often cited as a primary objective of local currencies. The recently launched Bristol Pound state their key objectives as: to support local independent traders (“keep our High Street diverse and distinct”), and to boost the local economy “spending Bristol Pounds stops money leaking from the area”. These are objectives shared by all local economies (and arguably by any sub-economy with an identifiable identity such as a developing country).

David Graeber: anthropologist, anarchist, financial analyst

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After all, no one needs to understand why US firms are shedding jobs, or take a sober look at the current financial regime in the light of the 5,000-year history of debt. Students should just put their heads down and do the sorts of degrees that will give them technical jobs. Pay no attention to The Man behind the curtain!

‘Breathing new life into the concept of resilience’: the notes from my ‘Four Thought’ talk

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I wondered whether in seeing resilience just as something we do in order to be prepared for a crisis, we were missing a trick: that we might instead see it as an opportunity. How might our settlements look if we began to think in terms of resilient food, resilient energy, resilient economies? Might this shift in thinking actually contain the potential for an economic and cultural renaissance for the places we live? It felt to me to be a powerful question.

Biketopia exists!

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I like to think of utopia as the space where idealism meets reality. Over the years, I have found few radical social change projects that met reality without failure or conflict, especially within a capitalist economy. Transformative projects often fail to take off and end up disillusioning their founders and volunteers. The Bike Kitchen model is one of those unique exceptions that we can try to learn from.

5 ways to make your dollars make sense

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Americans’ long-term savings in stocks, bonds, pension, life insurance, and mutual funds total about $30 trillion. But not even 1 percent of these savings touches local small businesses, the source of half the economy’s jobs and output. Is it possible to beat Wall Street’s 5 percent long-term performance by investing in your community? The answer is a resounding yes!