Solutions & sustainability – June 25

Neighbourhood green spaces turned into affordable ‘edible’ landscapes / Greenpeace launch new film on decentralised energy / Bryant Terry, food-justice activist, answers readers’ questions /
“EcoCities: Rebuilding Cities in Balance with Nature” – new edition / “Gardening When It Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times” – new book

Fuel tax magic

A heavy carbon tax means enormous revenues, enough to eliminate not just workers’ social security payments but, most likely, all federal income taxes on everyone’s first $100,000 of income, and state sales taxes to boot. Most important, the carbon tax could revitalize our society.

Our black future

The biggest problem with our bounty of coal is not what it does to our mountains or the atmosphere, but what it does to our minds. It preserves the illusion that we don’t have to change our lives. Given the profound challenges we face with the end of cheap oil and the arrival of global warming, this is a dangerous fantasy.