Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
There is no ‘one size fits all’ solution to ending world hunger, and the pathways to reform are many. Collaboration between diverse stakeholders, integrating technical innovations, crop-livestock rotations, improving access to markets, pricing ecosystem services and supportive policy developments are all part of the answer.
A newly released report of the New Economy Working Group, coordinated by the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC, goes beyond the current debate to call for a deep restructuring of the institutions to which we as a society give the power to create and allocate money. How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule spells out the steps required to rebuild a system of community-based and accountable institutions devoted to financing productive activities that create good jobs for Americans and generate real community wealth.
The UK desperately needs a new energy strategy based on a realistic assessment of its assets, its needs and the options available to it. Unfortunately, its freedom for technical and financial manoevre is deeply restricted by its self-imposed Climate Change Act and its commitment to the EU’s 20-20-20 targets.
“Transition is much more powerful for not being explicitly political,” Rob Hopkins told a conference call of American Transitioners yesterday. “It’s better when Transition avoids associating itself with either the left or the right.” But in the US, where climate denial has become an article of faith for the right wing, can a movement committed to cutting greenhouse pollution community by community hope to stay under the political radar for long?
“Transition towns, recycling, alternative power, enduring design; they are just attacking the symptoms. They are merely allowing us to continue living the way we are. They are buying us time. They are not embracing the root cause — our psychology.” Evolution and psychology explain our urge to consume, argues a new documentary film from the United Kingdom entitledConsumed — Inside the Belly of the Beast.
I am a happy poor person. There are many things I have had to give up and get adjusted to, going from a comfortably middle-class, corporate-suburban existence to living a lifestyle far below the poverty line. But make no mistake: I’m happy. Extraordinarily so. More than I have ever been. I’m not sure I talk about that enough. It’s time to rhapsodize.
Rebecca MacKinnon describes the expanding struggle for freedom and control in cyberspace, and asks: How do we design the next phase of the Internet with accountability and freedom at its core, rather than control?
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-the Middle East
-Global energy shortages
-China
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
The two big issues raised by the Murdoch furore are the plurality of our media and the quality of our journalism. Both these issues must be seen in their social, economic and cultural context.
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.
Today there is widespread awareness of the food challenges posed by a growing global population and exacerbated by ecological problems resulting from the industrialization of the world’s food system and the changing climate. But academics and policymakers are increasingly finding hope in local knowledge, looking to ingenious agricultural systems that reflect a profound relationship with nature and have played a role in the evolution of humankind.
Because growth has been with us for “countless” generations—meaning that everyone we ever met or our grandparents ever met has experienced it—growth is central to our narrative of who we are and what we do. We therefore have a difficult time imagining a different trajectory. This post provides a striking example of the impossibility of continued growth at current rates—even within familiar timescales…We will begin with semi-practical assessments, and then in stages let our imaginations run wild—even then finding that we hit limits sooner than we might think. I will admit from the start that the assumptions underlying this analysis are deeply flawed. But that becomes the whole point, in the end.
