Act: Inspiration

The commons as an antidote to relentless growth

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Commons reduce money-induced growth because they make us more independent of money. The more we produce commons, the less we or the state has to pay for goods.

Commons reduce population-induced growth because they are associated with a multiplicity of sufficiency strategies which create prosperity by sharing.

Commons escape the growth compulsion, because all those things that are produced as commons, do not have to be made artificially scarce. And there is no incentive for artificial scarcity because commons are not produced as goods to be exchanged but they foster and maintain social relationships, satisfy needs and solve problems. Directly.

The commons offers hope for healing America’s racial & class divide

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Our nation needs to make a dramatic re-investment in broadening wealth and opportunity for Americans who have been historically left out of prosperity. Massive government investments of the past that helped reduce the income gap, such as the 19th Century Homestead Act and post-World War II veterans and housing benefits were effectively “whites only.” Since the end of legal discrimination in the 1960s, there has not been a similar mass investment in economic opportunity that African-Americans and other people of color could benefit from as equal citizens.

On an ordinary summer’s evening in a Transition town . . .

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It was the fact that when we met up as a group in these public spaces something happened between us. Something we held in common. We understood implicitly what we were doing and why — sharing stuff, organising events, going through the agenda. When I looked at this working-together in the visioning it looked like an energy field, the kind of energy field you sense when you stand by a hive humming with bees. A hum of warmth and intelligence that allows people to naturally collaborate and make that low-energy downshift happen….You just need to tune in and act.

Design for social innovation: An interview with Ezio Manzini

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When I use the words small, open, local and connected, this is my way of telling the story. People can tell it in another way, but the result is similar. Of course it’s a metaphor: having small entities that when connected, become bigger entities. It’s evident that it comes very strongly from the network. But once it appears, it’s not only related to what you can do, strictly speaking, in the network and technologies. It’s a way to imagine the way in which the social services are delivered in society and the way in which we can imagine economies that are at the same time rooted in a place and partially self-sufficient but connected to the others and open to the others.

Fish fresh off the hook from community-supported fishers

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In many parts of the world, it is hard to find fresh fish to buy, even if you live next to the ocean. In Halifax, the largest city in Nova Scotia, a Canadian province known for its fishery, it takes at least six days for local fillets to make it from the fishing boats to the supermarket. With almost a week from sea to fork, the fish can hardly be called fresh. Now that’s changing. A group of five fishers have founded Off The Hook in a rebuke to the way fish have been bought and sold in Atlantic Canada. They call it a community supported fishery — a nod to the local food movement’s community-supported agriculture (CSA) direct marketing programs whereby farmers sell directly to customers.

To touch a future sky: Raising children in changing times

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We have received a tremendous gift – to be alive at the edge of these changing times. It’s not an easy gift, if we look open-eyed into possible futures. Yet within this gift lies the tremendous opportunity (and yes, responsibility) of crafting tools to place in the hands of those who come after, to enable them to shape the world in which they live through their own vision.

‘Totnes: what the past can teach us about the future’: a new film

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I have had the great pleasure over the past few months to work with Susana Martinez and Emilio Mula to create a new short film about oral history and Transition. It emerged from the oral histories we did in preparing the Totnes EDAP, interviewing some of those people in more depth. The resultant film, premiered on Thursday night in Totnes, is one I very much hope you enjoy.

Whispers of a gentle species

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Believed to be a gift from Pachamama, the sacred earth mother, alpaca have been present during the rise and fall of many human civilizations from the point of their domestication 6,000 years ago. As the lives of the alpaca and humans became increasingly and intricately woven within ancient South American culture, they became revered and honored for their integral place in pre-Colombian society. The people of the Andes developed an exquisite language of gratitude for the animals who became a vital source of food, fiber, fuel and skins.

Review: The End of Growth by Richard Heinberg

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In the several years or so since peak oil began generating significant literature and debate, it has attracted a diverse array of thinkers. To name a few, there are insiders like Colin Campbell and Ken Deffeyes who sounded the first warnings; a clinical psychologist in the field of “peak oil blues,” Kathy McMahon; an archdruid practiced in nature’s less readily perceptible energies, John Michael Greer; and a couple of highly engaging social critics, Jim Kunstler and Dmitry Orlov. Richard Heinberg’s distinction is that he’s hands-down the most prolific peak oil author, now having written half a dozen books on the subject and a few others touching on it tangentially. His latest, The End of Growth, is yet another grand performance.

Surviving the heat when the power or the A/C is out

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As most of the country slowly roasts in one of the worst heat waves so far, I thought it was worth reminding people that one can stay safe in the heat, even without air conditioning. This is important now for the millions of people who don’t own air conditioners, who don’t want the environmental impact of an air conditioner, or who find themselves for various reasons, without power in the hot weather. As we all know, this is peak season for brown and blackouts.

Peak Moment 197: Portable House, Simple Life

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Embarrassed by her middle class affluence after a visit to Guatemala, Dee Williams grabbed her hammer, built a tiny house on wheels, downsized to less than 400 possessions, and parked her house in a friend’s yard. Her living arrangement then blossomed into a multi-generational family/community. Dee shows us her warm and comfy 7 x 12 foot house, how she meets city codes, and some unusual ways this life has affected her. Her advice to wannabe tiny home builders: Take on the experiment. Just do it!