Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
In the Q&A section of public presentations we often get asked “How do you tell people about Transition …” Then the questioner launches into a vivid description of how his attempts have failed to get through to his Hummer-driving brother-in-law, or his boss who vacations in the Bahamas, or his fellow churchgoers who rhapsodize over malls and “bargains” at big box stores, or his neighbor with the pristine, overwatered chem-lawn.
For many decades, America’s global leadership success has been attributed to its robust and rigorous public higher education system. The business model upon which U.S. public higher education is built has rendered it unaffordable to students, and it is in fragile fiscal health. There is little accountability. This article discusses that transition and offers a solution: an online education environment that capitalizes on the power of digital technologies, rich content, open learning systems, and the sharing of capabilities across campus boundaries to engage students already comfortable with online interactivity.
– Paolo Bacigalupi’s SHIP BREAKER: YA adventure story in a post-peak-oil world
– New issue of Transition Voice: Holiday of crumbling cash
– Thank You for Seven Years of Worldchanging (a farewell)
– Transitions Towns and the Post-Carbon Future of Albury-Wodonga (podcast)
– Code Green Communities – radio interview
If you found yourself on the southern shore of False Creek at Westminster Avenue (now Main Street) on Saturday, Aug. 15, 1908 you would happen by opening day of Vancouver’s City Market. The grand building with dual bell towers and a generous waterfront promenade is plastered with signs advertising retail and wholesale “farm products” for sale and a restaurant serving “meals at all hours.” Could B.C.’s biggest city today bring back to life so vibrant a public space, building a key component in what could be one of North America’s most robust local food economies?
-Report calls for radical redesign of cities to cope with population growth
-Part 5: White Horse Village turns into a modern city
-Russia considers biggest population redistribution since Stalin
This episode #193 marks the final broadcast of Deconstructing Dinner before we embark on a much-needed break. Producer & Host Jon Steinman speaks about the need to step away from producing new shows and what future might lie ahead. Jon also shares some reflections on the past 5 years of producing this weekly one-hour radio show and podcast, and offers suggestions to those involved in the responsible food movement – a movement which this show has helped track its evolution and certainly one that this show has in many ways been a part of.
In India, 72 percent of women are involved in agriculture. But often, these small-scale farmers confront numerous economic barriers, including lack of access to training, markets and productive inputs. In a society where gender biases are deeply ingrained, women farmers also lack access to bank accounts and land tenure. And, women are also underrepresented in farmers groups and associations, making it harder for their voices to be heard.
Rainey Hopewell’s crazy idea has ended up feeding a neighborhood and creating community. She and Margot Johnston planted vegetables in the parking strip in front of their house. They offer them free for the taking — to anyone, anytime — with messages chalked on the sidewalk noting when particular vegies are ready to pick. Neighboring children and adults are joining in to work on the garden, harvesting fun along with food, and even handing fresh-picked vegies to passers-by.
I’m not a patriot in the political sense, but I derive a great deal of attachment to the material reality of my country, to the literal earth in which I am embedded.
Considering climate change, Copenhagen, Cochabamba, the coming calamity, and most controversial: capitalism.
How do we transition a city? The answer to that is perhaps, simply, for each of us look at a size that is manageable, and I don’t for one second mean by this that a city is too large, not at all, but what I do suggest is that we each ask ourselves a question; “What size of place feels manageable to me, personally?”
A response to a response that Dmitry Orlov has also chimed in on. The immanent end of Western industrial civilization–the Industrial Growth Society–isn’t equivalent to collapse. I tend to think of collapse as something bad. Western civ is causing collapse in many areas, such as with the rampant biodiversity loss that’s breaking numerous links in the food chain, so I find it difficult to put it in the category of collapse.
