Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
– 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.
I’ve received a number of queries from young moms and others who want to know what they can do to support the #OccupyWallStreet movement even though for logistical reasons — particularly having little kids —they can’t get to New York, D.C. or even a local event. The rising tide of sympathy for good old fashioned, red, white and blue American protest is a refreshing addition to our national conversation. It’s great to know how many people back the protests, how many more are finding ways to actually physically be in one location or another to lend their voice to the chorus, and how many will do what they can from the sidelines.
I believe the key to resilience in the coming decades will be our ability, in the moment, to imagine ways around the crises we cannot prevent, predict or plan for.
I haven’t journeyed down to OccupyLA myself. In part that’s because it is quite a distance from me, and I have kids’ schedules to uphold. But deep down, those are simply excuses; really, my heart’s not in it. I see the Occupy movement as an outbursting of emotion, expressing that the existing System is horribly broken, a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree. But the protests, now shifting to from Wall Street to upscale neighborhoods, are a gigantic “blame game” which cannot possibly fix anything real.
I must own up to something at the start of this: I have a bias. I have an agenda. I am not impartial. I see things through a complicated lens of culture, class, and gender. I am a mature male of African, Native American and European heritage, a son of the Americas. I decided at an early age that all of that, despite what was happening in the outside world, would be at peace with me.
[The author is a writer, educator, activist, poet – and a Transition trainer.]
Food planning can play a lead role in ensuring that food provides what’s needed to stick to the ribs of city cohesion.
He and the people in his church are part of the new “food hub” wave, although he didn’t call it that. He just wants to encourage the people in his church to start asserting their food independence. But instead of going the usual route of venturing forth and trying to teach the people how to grow food, Mike decided to ask the parishioners themselves how to go about it.
We’ve just seen how the economy could be put on the right track. But sorting out the economy is not enough to save the world; that would be just the first step.
