Rebuilding after the tsunami: eco- or transition towns?
In the sphere of disaster recovery there is a term that we can expect to hear a lot in the coming months, even years — “build back better”.
Act: Inspiration
San Francisco passes progressive urban agriculture policy
This week, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed one of the most progressive pieces of legislation for urban agriculture in the nation. The new legislation has amended the zoning code to allow agricultural activities in all parts of the city, as well as defining the parameters by which urban agriculturists can sell their products.
The uses and abuses of ‘happiness’
One question that needs to be asked is – do the happiness proponents and their public spokespersons know what they’re doing?
Oakland lighting the climate path
Local initiatives like the Oakland Energy and Climate Action Plan aren’t enough to tackle the climate crisis. We need national and international regulations requiring deep, scientifically grounded emission reductions, and we need strict systems of enforcement. But before that can happen, people need to see that getting off fossil fuels isn’t a dour punishment. Done right, it can be a kind of gift. Oakland, once again, is leading the way.
The Law of Mother Earth: behind Bolivia’s historic bill
A new law expected to pass in Bolivia mandates a fundamental ecological reorientation of the nation’s economy and society.
Language, “promontory views” and American perceptions of the world
One no longer needs to go through the long and often arduous process of becoming a “person-in-the-foreign-culture” in order to spout off in public as an expert about its core realities. The new discourses about the other are predicated, more often than not, on an underlying belief in the essentially normative and universal nature of US cultural, political and economic behaviors.
Don’t get fooled again: Writing our own economic future
We have been told that the experts know best, and that even though they crashed the economy, they’re still the experts. We’re told that we should be patient, not question things we don’t understand, and by all means, keep shopping. “These kinds of messages work to keep us paralyzed and isolated, and keep us from seeing other possibilities,” says Linda Schmoldt, a Common Security Circle facilitator in Portland, Oregon. “We must envision a new economy and society based on real wealth, and create a new story about what is possible.”
Land of rising food anxieties
Most Japanese cannot remember the last time they had to think deeply about where their next meal would come from. Only the eldest of Japanese with memories of food rations and scarcity from World War II and its aftermath would possess experience from which to draw. But that has changed since the triple disaster of March 11 as citizens inside and outside the catastrophe zone became increasingly concerned about both food security (e.g., food shortages at local stores) and food safety (i.e., radiation contaminated agricultural products).
Super greens – April 22
– For those with eco-anxiety, it’s not easy being green
– NOVA: A Strict Carbon Diet (video and transcript)
– Photo journalist Ed Thompson visits Totnes
– Taking stock of that over which we have dominion
Edible seeds making a comeback
The Willamette Valley is famous for its grass seed production, and can even boast supplying the World Cup soccer fields in South Africa. The dominance of grass seed began to wane with the collapse of the housing bubble a few years ago. And while the major shift has been towards wheat, much more is going on.
It’s time to outlaw land grabbing, not to make it “responsible”!
Today’s farmland grabs are moving fast. Contracts are getting signed, bulldozers are hitting the ground, land is being aggressively fenced off and local people are getting kicked off their territories with devastating consequences. While precise details are hard to come by, it is clear that at least 50 million hectares of good agricultural land – enough to feed 50 million families in India – have been transferred from farmers to corporations in the last few years alone, and each day more investors join the rush.
Communicating energy issues: a psychological perspective
It’s tough to convince people that there is a need for radical change of their attitudes and behavior in relation to energy issues. Cognitive mechanisms that produce beneficial results under most circumstances can lead to an irrational resistance (if not immunity) to any kind of argument aimed at our own set of beliefs about peaking global oil production, renewable energy resources, and the continued viability of nuclear power.
