Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
From the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami to Superstorm Sandy, the last decade has seen an incredible array of natural disasters…The proliferation of disasters is raising awareness about our collective need to minimize vulnerability and to bounce back afterwards – our need for greater resilience.
David Graeber, who was actively involved in the early days of Occupy Wall Street and continues to work to advance its principles, starts his new book The Democracy Project with a fascinating (if long) personal history of how OWS found its legs and what it had to deal with (notably the brutal suppression of November 2011 when the governments of the day decided to shut down the protest through a sustained, globally coordinated and ruthless operation, and the disgraceful behaviour of the media ‘covering’ the movement, and then abruptly not covering it at all).
Transition culture may be flourishing in the south of my county – Devon, we have Totnes there after all – but how is it progressing in the seemingly distant and rather overlooked north? Well, I offer the following sketch perspective.
“Beware the scale trap”. In a recent Letter To Philanthropists Parker Mitchell, a former CEO of Engineers Without Borders in Canada, advises potential donors that “scale is important, but don’t rush it. Most good ideas take time – to iron out the details, to bring down the costs, to be tested in different environments”. It takes time to focus on the little, programatic details, adds Mitchell. “Organic demand-driven scale will happen in time – – if you have the patience to find the right elements of a solution”. These lessons are exemplified by the 14-year story – so far – of The Nubian Vault Association. The writer spoke with is co-founder, Thomas Granier.
Years of contact with the Roma, whom we also call "Gypsies," have changed in many ways my view of the world… Perhaps, from them we can learn something useful for the hard times that are coming.
What’s it like, living in an urban ecovillage? Barbara Ford finds that this size community enables people to contribute while doing what they love.
The majority of the roads and highways built in America are simply bad investments. Continuing this pattern will only ensure that wasteful projects consume larger chunks of our federal, state, and local budgets, without addressing the real need for transportation options.
Electric bicycles are already popular in Europe and in China, which has more e-bikes than cars on its roads. Now, manufacturers are marketing e-bikes in the U.S., promoting them as a "green" alternative to driving.
It’s been said that a man’s religion is the thing he can’t bear to have questioned. If there’s any truth in that old saying, the idea that faith in progress is a religion has a great deal going for it.
How manufacturers, retailers, restaurants, and others are doing business the cooperative way.
True resilience does not result from artistic metaphors, or by sticking veneers over the same failing industrial model.
There have been a lot of talks about banks lately in France, both because of the Cypriot debacle and because the minister in charge of the French IRS has been caught red-handed hiding a substantial amount of money in some Swiss bank.
