Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Kathleen Nolan was a co-creator (with 5 others) of Bellingham Cohousing, based on a neighborhood design of private homes and shared buildings, managed by residents in participatory decision making. Their 5.74 acre plot originally had one farmhouse, which they modified to become the shared community building with dining, kitchen, laundry, craft, office, guest, and other rooms.
Landscape architect Owen Dell has a vision: transforming suburban neighborhoods into shared “foodsheds” with food-bearing and native plants, and even chickens. Neighbors can start by finding edible plants already growing in their yards, maybe remove fences, plant what works best in each location.
Wendy Siporen coordinates The Rogue Initiative for a Vital Economy (THRIVE), which helps small locally-owned businesses not just to thrive, but be more sustainable as well. A “Food Connection” directory enables local businesses to buy from one another.
Energetic Kris Holstrom is the first Sustainability Coordinator for Telluride and a smart Colorado county. The action plan she developed encompasses energy efficiency and renewables, green building, food and water security, economy, and recycling/resource recovery.
Marx on cover of Time (Europe)
Coming Chaos? Maybe Not
Slouching Towards the Barackalypse
Massive Corporate Layoffs Announced – Where Will New Jobs Come From?
The Transition Movement comes to America
Watch This Video: City-Based Ecovillages
Powerdown toolkit #1- climate and peak oil
This Great Squeeze: Surviving the Human Project is the latest film from Colorado-based Tiroir a Films. This sequel to their 2006 offering, Energy Crossroads: The Burning Need to Change Course, looks to dig deeper into how the concurrent processes of resource depletion, climate change, ecosystem destruction and our consumption-oriented economic model are threatening to destroy both our planet and possibly our very civilization. I would say in large part that it succeeds.
This past week the New Yorker published “The Dystopians” by Ben McGrath… Sitting with this piece for the past seven days has been unsettling, not because I personally wanted more air time, but because of the article’s paucity of references to the female perspective regarding the collapse of civilization
Climate adaptation for resilient communities
Controlling our history: encyclopedias vs Wikipedia
Powerdown toolkit
Gene Logsdon: Andrew Wyeth and the Percheron on the world’s most famous farm
Grow your own: The seeds of change
Foodie Food Storage
Monbiot: If the state can’t save us, we need a licence to print our own money
Russians hoard cash as fear of crisis takes hold
Financial crisis shows how economics can threaten democracy
Social Movements 2.0
One cord per acres: thoughts on sustainability
How the city hurts your brain
