Changing Bike Culture in the Eternal City
When I first came to Rome as a student, in the fall of 2009, I saw few bikes on the streets.
Society
How It Could Happen, Part Five: Dissolution
This final part of a five-part series uses the tools of narrative fiction to explore some of the ways in which America’s global empire might come apart. The crisis of legitimacy driven by the nation’s cascading military political and economic failures finally takes shape in political action. Amid the tramp of marching feet and the echoing slogans, the one question left is whether anything can still be salvaged from the American experiment.
Three Behaviors That Can Save Us
We face a wicked predicament. Global climate disruption threatens the existence of civilization as we’ve known it.
Ten low-tech responses to storms and emergencies
We live in a world dependent on electricity and we forget that being dependent on something — however wonderful that thing is — makes you vulnerable.
A Sobering Report from the Eco-Summit
We now face an incredibly important juncture in human history where a choice must be made…
Our Words Are Our Weapons
In ancient China, the arrival of a new dynasty was accompanied by “the rectification of names,” a ceremony in which the sloppiness and erosion of meaning that had taken place under the previous dynasty were cleared up and language and its subjects correlated again. It was like a debt jubilee, only for meaning rather than money.
From Autobahn to Bioregion
Considering that forty percent of the time we spend traveling, across all cultures, is spent walking or waiting, the challenge was stark: that the car is complicit in a wildly inequitable use of space.
Walk this way
We all know that walking is good for us. It sheds calories, tones muscles, and clears our minds. But taking a regular walk is also important to our understanding that we share a common life with others–the psychic foundation of the commons.
Electric velomobiles: as fast and comfortable as automobiles, but 80 times more efficient
The velomobile offers a more interesting alternative to the bicycle for longer trips.
A time of gifts
I am in the woods outside Norwich on a January day with a gang of kids from Catton Grove, a huge primary school in a rough-and-tumble part of the city. I’m here as part of an arts and Transition teach-in, exploring peak oil and honey bees, reconnecting with nature and planting some of the apple varieties that used to grow in the Grove before it was tarmacked over.
Ralph Nader- The 17 Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future Q&A
I’ll be talking with Nader about the critical ideas in his wonderful new book, The 17 Solutions: Bold Ideas for Our American Future.
How it could happen, part four: crossing the line
This fourth part of a five-part series uses the tools of narrative fiction to explore some of the ways in which America’s global empire might come apart. As the multiple impacts of American defeat in the East African War come home to roost, a leadership vacuum made worse by partisan gridlock pushes the United States deeper into crisis — and efforts by the political establishment to evade that crisis without dealing with America’s systemic problems unleashes a backlash that might bring the American experiment to a sudden close.
