Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
People working in the City of London have played a starring role in creating the global economic crisis. Since our representative institutions have thus far failed to address this crisis in a way that is both sensible and just, it is only fitting that we should use the City as a place in which work on solutions ourselves.
For centuries, herders have roamed the grasslands “following our animals,” as the herders’ adage goes, building, packing, and rebuilding their traditional gers, or tents, to make their living from nature’s bounty…A decade ago, herders first observed the impacts of climate change with the increase in severe weather events like storms, droughts, and extremely harsh winters, known as zud. The 2010 zud was one of the worst ever, resulting in the death of approximately 8.5 million livestock or 20 percent of the 2009 national herd.
Some are now arguing for a radical change in policy and practice: breaking down enclosures; terminating intensive land use (for example, for crop production); and reopening the grassland to collectively managed practices. Comanagement takes time and effort to become operational but, once established, becomes a driver of innovation.
-How India squared up to Monsanto’s ‘biopiracy’
-Study debunks myths on organic farms
-Planning reforms will threaten Britain’s ability to grow food
-Bitter harvest: migrant workers on UK farms ‘still exploited’
-Trees ‘boost African crop yields and food security’
-A New Approach to Feeding the World
This mini-doc shows in some detail how the general assembly – the heart of the occupy movement – operates. They make decisions by consensus and anyone can join the assembly. Through this process, the occupy movement models its own radically inclusive political economy and thus demonstrates that it’s more than a protest movement. It’s many things, but what may be overlooked is that it’s a social process through which people can experience being a fully heard citizen, and maybe for the first time. It gives an opening through which people can experience first hand what’s possible when a diverse citizenry works together.
– Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” played for 500,000 in Spanish protest
– From the Heart of Liberty Plaza
– Ben Zolno “End of Growth” Street Seminar
– US Marine tells off NYPD
The #OccupyWallStreet movement continues to spread with more than 1,500 sites. More and more people are speaking up for a society that works for the 99 percent, not just the 1 percent.
Here are 10 recommendations from the YES! Magazine staff for ways to build the power and momentum of this movement. Only two of them involve sleeping outside.
Something special is happening in France. A nationwide campaign will be launched next week by the Colibris movement for the 2012 Presidential Elections – but without a charismatic leader. The campaign, instead, is for everyone to be a candidate – for a new kind of politics.
In their language and tone-of-voice Les Colibris are like the Transition Movement, but different. They are like Occupy Wall Street but different, too. This is surely healthy. The movement for a global democracy is an ecology, not a single homogeneous movement.
“We know that an election won’t change society” says the Colibris manifesto [colibris is the French for hummingbird]. “For a real transformation, things have to change at the bottom and involve everyone amongst us.”
– Facing Eviction, Protesters Begin Park Cleanup
– Occupy Wall Street: More popular than you think
– Occupy Wall Street protests reveal liberal tensions
– Lech Walesa, former Nobel Prize winning and Polish president, warns of ‘revolt against capitalism’
– Mr. Walesa goes to Wall Street
– Bloomberg vs Occupy: tactical suggestions from John Robb (Global Guerrillas)
– Matt Taibb’s Advice to the Occupy Wall Street Protesters: Hit Bankers Where It Hurts
– Dave Winer: Did politics just change?
– Pham Bihn: Wall Street occupation ignites mass movement
The world has recently seen protests on Wall Street, rioting in London, and tension in other parts of Europe as it deals with insolvent debtor nations. Mass confusion is in the air.
…Among all the mass confusion, steady-state theory might help us account for not only the the economic problems, but also the ideological divide.
Farmer Managed Natural Regeneration is a cheap and rapid method of re-vegetating deserts and restoring climate balance to below 350 ppm. Vast areas of cleared agricultural land in arid lands retain an “underground forest” of living stumps and roots. By simply changing agricultural practices, this underground forest can re-sprout, at little cost, very rapidly and with great beneficial impact. In other words, in many instances the costly, time consuming and inefficient methods of raising seedlings, planting them out and protecting them is not even necessary for successful reforestation.
I’m setting off today, catching an early train. I’m leaving Bristol Temple Meads, London Liverpool Steet, Macynlleth. I’m leaving Darsham by the marshes of my own home territory, crossing the city, negotiating bridges, underground tunnels, standing on a platform with schoolchildren, city commuters and old ladies going to the sea for a holiday. I’m on my way to visit the social reporters who live in different corners of the country, to meet the people I’m working with to create this new Transition communications hub. To find out how the places we live in influence our everyday lives and our initiatives, and how we all connect on a national scale.
