Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Will my food stay local in hard times? Will we feed our community? Or will the bind that farmers live in – the need to feed the more affluent – continue to constrict my community. This is something I simply do not know. I tend to think, however, that the degree to which the community can support and build a network of intertwined food systems, and intertwined people, will in some measure define this.
Sheep, pigs and cows do not belong to massive agribusiness factories here; they often belong to smallholders, and you will see them in the space of a backyard.
Want to encourage the local economy? Try printing your own regional money.
A weekly free bike coop where you can use mechanic’s tools and expertise to fix your bike? Free clinics where schoolkids or neighbors learn to maintain or build their own bikes from used parts? While Chauncey and Dash Tudhope-Locklear make a living repairing bicycles, volunteer projects support their mission of empowering “social change through bicycles.” With an eye to local food self-reliance, they even repair farmers’ bicycles for free.
What are we for? What do we desire? While I acknowledge my own distasteful and ill-designed dependence on fossil fuels, I can heartily say I’m for community gardens, walkable and bikable cities, local economies that are (shockingly!) based on a currency besides money, and for vacant land and homes being available to those who need them or will make use of them.
The 2010 International Conference on the Future: Energy, Economy & Environment examines deflation, collapse, and the transition to sustainability. It features extended keynotes and extensive interaction with Nicole Foss, Joe Tainter, Richard Douthwaite, Steve Keen, David Korowicz, Steve Keen, Chris Bedford, and Aaron Wissner. The conference comences on Friday, Nov. 12 and runs through Sunday, Nov. 14 in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Early bird 50% off registration is open through Thursday, Oct. 21.
As the world faces recession, climate change, inequity and more, Tim Jackson delivers a piercing challenge to established economic principles, explaining how we might stop feeding the crises and start investing in our future.
– How fear of bias dominates the climate change debate
– Is Social Networking Useless for Social Change?
– Monbiot: The Values of Everything
– The Money Fix – documentary now online
– Tim Jackson’s Economic Reality Check
– Currency wars are necessary if all else fails
– In Los Angeles, people come out to play when streets are closed to cars (video of CicLAvia)
– There’s safety in numbers for cyclists
– 7 Rules for Sustainable Communities – British Columbia edition
In an age when wealth and power present a more diffuse and benign face to the world, the soft authority of knowledge is ever more important as a force for social change. The politics of knowledge – how ideas are created, used and disseminated – represents a key issue for the social change community.
A new book by longtime bioregionalist Stephanie Mills tells the story of one of our forerunners in relocalization’s long history. Bob Swann may be the most important pioneer for a just world whom you’ve never heard of. He worked tirelessly over a long life to bring together practical structures for economic justice, land reform, rural investment and credit, complementary currencies, and education.
