Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Joel Stronberg When the Department’s report was finally released, it admitted the rise of increasingly cheap and available solar and wind were not the culprits condemning coal and nuclear to the slag heap of U.S. power supplies. Still, the report suggested—strongly—the nation needed to prop up the two sectors the market was otherwise turning away from–for reliability and security reasons.
I am in no position to understand contemporary high level Brexit debate, argument and ultimately the compromises that will need to be made, but I do want to spend a little time drawing together some thoughts, reflections and evidence on the place of farming and gardening in feeding us into the future as our government negotiates on our behalf in these central areas of policy making.
Before Irma’s and María’s devastating pit stops in the Archipelago, Puerto Rico was (and still is, even more so now) undergoing one of the most detrimental financial and socio-political crises of its contemporary history. With an unaudited $74 billion debt under its belt, and $49 billion in pension obligations, with decades of illegal bond issuances and trades and an overly-advertised tax haven, Puerto Rico was/is almost literally drowning.
Of course, GPS is a remarkable technological feature. It gets us to a destination without getting lost, without having to wonder where we are. Yet, cocooning ourselves in a cushion of geographical illiteracy also breeds a listless lack of awareness, demanding nothing more from us than an abiding self-interest.
The commons have been defined as a shared resource, which is co-owned and/or co-governed by its users and/or stakeholder communities, according to its rules and norms. It’s a combination of a ‘thing’, an activity, commoning as the maintenance and co-production of that resource, and a mode of governance. It is distinguished from private and public/state forms of managing resources.
What has been left to a new generation of younger scholars and activist intellectuals is to trace the contours of the new field we need going forward: a sociology of the climate crisis, and a sociology of climate justice, alongside the movement that bears that name.
Due to editors’ holiday, there will be light posting from October 2-10. Regular posting will resume on October 11th. In the meantime, why not peruse our article archive, learn and act resources, sign up for the Think Resilience self-guided course, or pre-order a copy of our soon-to-be-released Community Resilience Reader? Teaser Photo by Bruno Ramos … Read more
Industrial Hemp is being grown in North Carolina for the first time in nearly 80 years. For the land, its farmers, and its people, this is good. The first — to our knowledge — organic variety trial of the crop in the state, this hemp trial has set ground in Northeastern North Carolina next to a field of fresh tobacco.
The savings groups they nurture are encouraged to federate, enabling them to have more influence over city and national governments in ways that are grounded in real experience. Members survey, map and profile their neighbourhoods, turning invisible challenges into concrete evidence and locally-proposed solutions.
At a recent forum at Oakland City Hall, experts from the public banking and community energy sectors explored how the creation of a public bank could help communities transition to clean energy while creating economic opportunities.
Tropical forests now emit more carbon than they are able to absorb from the atmosphere as a result of the dual effects of deforestation and land degradation, a new study says. The research challenges the long-held belief that forests act as “carbon sinks” by storing more carbon than they emit due to natural processes and human activity.
[Jamies’] paper suggested that growing up in poverty can result in decrements in attentional processes, working memory, and a measurably smaller hippocampus. In an exploration as to the reasons why, as a culture, we might be less able to constructively imagine the future, Jamie felt like an important person to talk to.
