Building Community

Monday Mayhem: Local, Organic Government

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In an ongoing series called “Monday Mayhem,” radio host with a pragmatic view of tackling the challenges of energy, food, and the local economy at the end of the age of oil goes head-to-head with a radio host who promotes free-market solutions. In this edition, Carl Etnier and Rob Roper discuss what it looks like to apply the principles of local, organic food to the functions of government.

Your renewable energy path

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Get energy independence (and help the climate too!) Two interviews with off-grid authors who have walked the walk, living outside the power grid, with a minimum of fossil fuels. Where to start with solar, heat pumps, hot water heat, wind or wood. Cam Mather from aztext.com, living in comfort – off grid 14 years. From the UK, Nick Rosen author of “Off the Grid” at off-grid.net.

The holistic flower

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I’ve found a wonderful flower; I discovered it not long ago. Still, it’s not so much what I know about it that touches me, I’m just drawn to its colors. This flower is unique, it thrives in every country and climate, and adapts very well to the specific conditions of culture and place. Its colors, smell and form is therefore of unlimited variety and complexity, yet it is the same flower. It is the permaculture flower.

Report: Public banking can democratize the economy

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In the wake of the financial crisis that the U.S. is still clawing its way out of, a handful of ideas have begun to surface that might actually shore up our still-floundering economy and, potentially, avert future devastation. (No, not the eminently gutless Dodd-Frank bill.) Rather, public banks– also known as state banks or partnership banks–provide a path for the people to harness some economic power of their own in order to build a broad-based, ground-level prosperity which is rooted in their community.

Ask me about my agony and despair!

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Often is the question posed to me, maybe over on my Facebook page or via email after someone has made it through the messier parts of my book, but also in sundry sweaty nightclubs or boutique SF coffeeholes and therefore almost always fully clothed but almost never in a state of calm emotional stability: Mark, how the hell do you do it?

How do you avoid becoming horribly soiled and tainted, downtrodden and depressed every single day by the relentless onslaught, the endless horrors and bleakness hurled forth by the blood-soaked and desperately panicky mainstream media, inside of which you apparently still writhe and (mostly, sporadically, drunkenly) thrive?

Building resilience: The new economy in the shell of the old

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In Resilience Circles, we say three things need to happen to make a transition to a new economy: we need a new story about the economy that dismantles the myth of “recovery;” we need stronger communities; and we need new “rules” – i.e. new policies befitting a democracy instead of rule by a corporate elite. To make this happen, Resilience Circles learn together, engage in mutual aid, and take social action.

The French Connection: a report on the acceleration of Transition in France

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You can get a sense of where Transition in France is heading; quite rightly so. You can taste the cultural identity of France embodied in Transition in France; something José Bové and Pierre Rabhi – and the Colibri folks would be proud of. France is the last major European country to take up Transition, just ahead of Albania, and about at the same stage as Portugal. Why has it taken so long?

Rise of commons transforms a rust belt city — Report from the future: South Bend, Indiana, in 2035

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As much as anywhere in the United States, South Bend has prospered by capitalizing on the promise of the commons — which means assets belonging to all of us, from water and wilderness to the Internet and cultural treasures. The commons also refers to a new ethic of sharing and cooperation that can help solve pressing problems of the 21st century, advocates say. This ethic has come to influence decision making at all levels in South Bend, bringing big changes to city hall, businesses and neighborhoods.