Building Community

Peak Moment 217: Portland’s backyard fruit – from waste to feast

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“We look forward to a time when we’re really able to harvest all of the fruit trees in the city that aren’t being fully utilized,” envisions Katy Kolker, founder and executive director of Portland Fruit Tree Project. Volunteer groups harvest trees whose fruit would otherwise go to waste. Half of the fruit goes to neighborhood food banks, and the remainder goes home with the volunteers….From harvesting 8000 pounds of fruit in 2008 to three times that in 2010, this growing project is bearing fruit and benefitting thousands.

The Main Street to recaptured capital

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As a former mayor of Santa Cruz, California, I have had a sustained interest in alternative investment strategies for local communities. Most of the proposals I’ve studied and worked on tend to be either unrealistic about the ability of local communities to function outside of the larger capitalist system, or overly optimistic about the likely economic success and impact of alternative community institutions.

Obols or No Balls

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While policy-makers struggle to increase the flow of money in stagnant national economies they fail to see that it is not the quantity of the money that is the problem but its quality. The imperialist currencies of dollar and euro were designed to serve the interests of elites, so we should not be surprised that they do nothing to support the livelihoods of citizens of countries the world over. In The Ecology of Money, Richard Douthwaite suggested a sophisticated multi-layered currency world, where different types of money played different roles. Although ignored at the time, this may be just the sort of proposal we need now to resolve the crisis in the global economy, and particularly the crisis in the Eurozone.

Great Real Food

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They say, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. Well, our food system is broken, and it does need fixing…fast. The cogs of the 21st century global food system turn, but are in need of (sustainable) oiling to help transition smoothly towards a viable and secure food future. The Real Food Store in Exeter, Devon, is helping to unstick some of the global food system problems at a local level.

Days of Future Past

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When modern people try to gauge whether climate change is real, they run into several problems. We no longer live with a sense of our surroundings as our ancestors did, but spend much of our time in a bubble of regulated temperature and lighting. Even when we allow ourselves to feel the elements, we do so for a narrow sliver of time; until recently most people only lived to forty years or so, and while we have almost doubled that figure lately, our lives still flicker on and off quickly compared to those trees or turtles.

The Dark Mountain Project: In search of a new narrative

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It started with a conversation that became a manifesto that became a book that became a festival that became a movement. Three years on the Dark Mountain Project is still hard to define. It is both a cultural response to a collapsing world, and a network of people who gather to makes sense of that collapse. At its core is a shared recognition that the stories we have inherited are are no longer making sense of our lives, and a new narrative for the times we are living in needs to be forged.

The Fossil Fuel Free Garden

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It’s the first season for our Transition group’s community garden, but already we’ve taken to calling it the Fossil Fuel Free Garden. The tagline is an easy way for us to make the point that not only do we expect our fellow gardeners to stay organic (no chemicals, please) but that we have the additional requirement that no power tools be used at the garden.

Commons: Alternatives to Markets and States

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Capitalism has failed. Leaving the care of society to the market has led to massive inequality, climate chaos and financial crisis. The system is indeed one of zombie economics, the doctrine is dead but the beast still walks amongst us. It reminds me of the cartoons where Bugs Bunny runs over the edge of the cliff but, not noticing that he has done so, continues to march on air until realization strikes and the silly rabbit plummets to the ground.

Why doesn’t more communication translate into greater consensus about the world’s problems?

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On the surface one would think that the revolutionary advances in worldwide communications–made possible first by the telegraph, then by the telephone, the radio, the television and now by the Internet–would lead to a broad consensus on such issues as climate change and resource depletion. Almost everyone now has nearly instant access to the latest scientific information on these issues. Yet, no consensus has emerged, at least not one strong enough to bring about definitive action.