Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Brian Miller When a young person talks to me about his dreams for a good life, my first instinct is to interrupt, to tell him the planet has determined that our good life is no longer viable, dreams or not. Instead, I tell him about lambs. The promise of birth and death and birth again. I believe in both narratives, and I don’t want to burst his bubble, so I tell only the one story.
You are not likely to encounter a more welcoming set of texts and infographics to introduce the commons and peer production than the Commons Transition Primer website. The new site features four types of materials suited different levels of interest: short Q&A-style articles with illustrations; longer, in-depth articles for the more serious reader; a library of downloaded PDF versions of research publications by the P2P Foundation; and a collection of videos, audio interviews and links to other content.
Spirituality came easy for me, being “normal” was hard. As a child I was allowed to wander alone in the woods, old farm buildings, pasture, and along the creek. We lived in the small house on my grandparent’s farm, while my grandmother and uncle lived in the big house. I would tell my mother I was going over to Grandma’s house and head off exploring.
Biogas is produced when organic matter biodegrades under anaerobic conditions (that is, in the absence of oxygen). This process produces a mixture of gases – primarily methane, some carbon dioxide and tiny portions of other gases such as hydrogen sulfide.
Judith Plant’s memoir Culture Gap is concerned with describing how that isolated commune of sixteen people—more or less—survived and often thrived in the Bridge River Valley. Given that there are few too few books on the counter-culture, back-to-the-land movement of B.C. in the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties, hers is a very necessary and fascinating document.
People yearn for alternatives to industrial agriculture, but they are worried. They see large-scale operations relying on corporate-supplied chemical inputs as the only high-productivity farming model. Another approach might be kinder to the environment and less risky for consumers, but, they assume, it would not be up to the task of providing all the food needed by our still-growing global population.
The already established field of Cultural Evolution seeks to integrate the theory of evolution with the studies done by the social sciences in order to understand the change of social phenomena over time. Within this context, the field of Cultural Design presents itself as a scientific area interested in applying the findings of Cultural Evolution.
El BANCO hosts workshops, film screenings, community festivals and concerts by local artists. Families and youth can participate in yoga classes and guitar workshops; they can paint, perform martial arts and practice Aztec dance. Some activities, like African dance, show the group’s interest in exploring other cultures.
Why does nature need half the planet? To maintain a highly functional system of plants, animals, and their habitats. And we need such a functional ecosystem to support our own species. Nature is ourhabitat. No nature means no economy, no national security, and no international stability.
Perhaps from living in a non-disaster-affected context for a while; perhaps from taking systematic action to reduce my emissions, so an action-oriented perspective has come out naturally; or perhaps, simply from talking more about it, and connecting back into local loves. Good conversation needs laughter too.
I still believe in solutionary approaches, but I now have to concede that food is one tough issue to move in the right direction. There are more forceful barriers than I first imagined, and more tricky tripwires.There’s many a slip twixt the cup and the lip, my mother warned me whenever my enthusiasm was too boyish.
Sadly, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things replaces concrete analysis with an artificial schema that reduces the complex organic relationship between society and the rest of nature to “cheap things.” It misrepresents or ignores ecological science. The programme it promotes is so vague that it can scarcely be called liberal.
