Building Community

Preventing the Fall of Rome

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One thing is certain: traditional liberalism, dependent on expensive federal policies and strong labor unions, is moribund. The government no longer has much capacity to use progressive taxation to achieve the goal of equity or to regulate corporations effectively. Congressional deadlocks on such matters are the rule, not the exception. At the same time, ongoing economic stagnation or mild upturns followed by further decay, and “real” unemployment rates in the 15 percent to 16 percent range appear more likely than a return to booming economic times.

The Bullseye Diet

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This was an important discussion back when I wrote it in 2007, and somehow, I’ve never re-run it (although it does appear in Aaron and my book _A Nation of Farmers_). It is definitely time to talk more about this model, and I’m hoping to enlist many of you in doing an evaluation of the real productivity of our home gardens and farms – using this as a model. So time to run it again, as a starting point for seeing how much progress the local food movement has really made in the years since it began!

Reflections on Energy Descent Action Plans: a response to Vera Bradova

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A fascinating post over at Leaving Babylon by Vera Bradova called Tedium and black magic: the trouble with Energy Descent Action Plans (EDAPs) raises some interesting questions about Transition and planning, and EDAPs in particular. The version published at EnergyBulletin.net pulls out some of the most salient comments. It offers a very good opportunity to revisit the role of the EDAP in Transition, and how that has changed over time, an issue I am very grateful to her for raising.

And now what? Greece after its official creditor-led default

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Following Greece’s recent mammoth 206-billion-euro bond swap, people wrongly believe that the private bondholders of the Greek debt lost money and that the country is on a path to recovery. The only solution for Greece remains a debtor-led default and exit from the euro-zone under the leadership of a radical democrat political movement.

Power to the people; citizen and energy independence

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I’m a great supporter of community energy generation, but I want to talk about another form of energy, one which I consider to be an essential component of our future energy economy, and perhaps more importantly, one which could affect our fundamental sense of wellbeing.

I’m talking about food: human fuel.

A loyal customer

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This is a post about shopping and a conversation we’ve been having for three years now in my Transition initiatives about relocalising food culture in East Anglia. Because when you’re discussing supermarkets you are really discussing the industrialised food system and the producerist society we live in. It’s a massive topic and one we will return to in our Diet and Environment Week in April, when I’m hoping to write about disentangling ourselves from Big Ag on the micro-level. Right now I’m looking at the macro-level and how there is life after supermarkets. Really.

It’s not just the bags

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Adelia Borges’ new book Design + Craft: The Brazilian Path contains a glorious array of artefacts collected in every Brazilian region…But this important book is not just about desirable souvenirs. On the contrary, Borges’ commentary breathes new life into discussions about the relationship between designers, and artisans in the south. in particular, she is worried about “how many persons want to help us in the Southern hemisphere, but with lack of respect for local knowledge”.

Here are three ingredients. Now form an initiative

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I seem to have done rather a lot of talks in schools recently. I did one last week which included showing clips from the film ‘In Transition 2.0’ and talking about all kinds of stories from Transition initiatives around the world. It was also the first one I have done yet where no-one was texting at the back of the room, which was a nice change (might one assured way to raise educational standards in schools be to make sure none of them have a mobile phone signal? Bit radical.) One of the questions I was asked was about how Transition got started, a question I am asked with alarming regularity still). It got me thinking about the whole question of getting things started.

Risk, or why competition is bad for us

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I’m not saying that there is no place for competitive systems in society – there are times when a free market is the only way of reaching an equilibrium of resource distribution within a particular closed system, but at the same time, shouldn’t society recognise the flaw in competitive systems as a means of distributing resources, and instead look at ways in which benefit is felt by all, whether or not they have a competitive advantage?

Contamination fears linger for Japanese children, workers one year after Fukushima meltdown

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We go to Japan to speak with Aileen Mioko Smith, executive director of the Kyoto-based group Green Action, as Japan marks the first anniversary of the massive earthquake and tsunami that left approximately 20,000 dead or missing and triggered a meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. It was the world’s worst nuclear disaster since Chernobyl…We also speak with Saburo Kitajima, a contract laborer and union organizer from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. “The workers at the Fukushima plant are currently working under extreme circumstances.”