Society

Peak Moment 197: Portable House, Simple Life

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Embarrassed by her middle class affluence after a visit to Guatemala, Dee Williams grabbed her hammer, built a tiny house on wheels, downsized to less than 400 possessions, and parked her house in a friend’s yard. Her living arrangement then blossomed into a multi-generational family/community. Dee shows us her warm and comfy 7 x 12 foot house, how she meets city codes, and some unusual ways this life has affected her. Her advice to wannabe tiny home builders: Take on the experiment. Just do it!

Green is the new red: An interview with Will Potter

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For centuries, the arbitrary use of power by the state against dissidents has been a key threat to freedom. More recently, the concentrated wealth of corporations has emerged as a major impediment to democracy. When those two centers of power decide to come after people, not only do the individuals suffer, but freedom and democracy take a beating. In his debut book, Green Is the New Red: An Insider’s Account of a Social Movement under Siege, independent journalist Will Potter details one such assault on freedom and democracy, the targeting of environmental and animal-rights activists.

What happens when you open the streets for people

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The streets are commons that belong to everyone. So imagine diverting traffic from a major street in your neighborhood, then welcoming families on bikes, families on foot, babies in strollers, people in wheelchairs, toddlers on training wheels, grade schoolers on skateboards, teenagers on single-speeds, hipsters on fixed gears, grandparents on recumbents, couples arm-in-arm and even yoga classes in the middle of the road. What would happen? If your neighborhood is anything like mine—which I am sure it is—get ready for a massive outbreak of smiles.

Liberation from civilization!

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For many years the thesis of this blog has been: Our civilization is in its final century, and there is nothing we can do to prevent its collapse. When I began writing this, I was largely dismissed as a defeatist and a depressed “doomer” (or worse). As awareness has grown about the now-inevitable end of (a) cheap energy, (b) stable climate and (c) the growth economy, there is a growing acknowledgement that the collapse scenario I have written about is at least conceivable.

Starting down the permaculture path: Thoughts from a PDC student

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People come to permaculture for all different reasons, but all through some shared understanding that we live in a world full of disconnects. Many of us feel disconnected from the sources of our food, water and energy, and equally as disconnected from our neighbors, our communities, and our government. We know about the problems and we think there must be solutions. But what draws people to permaculture (as opposed to other approaches) is that its solutions fit together. In a world full of disconnects, permaculture shows us how to make connections.

Uncivilisation 2011 – Looking for hope in the dark

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Ever since Paul Kingsnorth and I published Uncivilisation: The Dark Mountain Manifesto, two years ago this month, I’ve found myself struggling to explain exactly what Dark Mountain is about. There was never a slogan or an action plan – by contrast, the Transition movement does a brilliant job of distilling important messages into simple suggestions that people can put into practice. And yet I have come to see the difficulty of summing up Dark Mountain as part of what it has to offer: an invitation to slow down, to step out of the rush of answers and actions for a while, and dwell with the puzzle of living in these strange times.

The power of protest tactics: ‘Just Do It’

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Non-violent direct action is not the most glamorous occupation in the world. Unpaid overtime, long hours, maligned by a biased mainstream media, widely misunderstood by the middle classes and opposed by a heavy state apparatus, who could be blamed for thinking environmental activism to be a mugs game. But when the audience at a London preview of “Just Do It: A Tale of Modern Day Outlaws” was asked if they had been inspired to take up direct action after watching the film, many hands waved in the air.