Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
-Growing Cities Movie
-Something’s Growing at Riverpark
-Picturing World Agriculture
-National Farmers Market Week: Why the Feds Should Support Family Farms
-Creating a sustainable world: An interview with Barton Seaver
-“And The Echo Follows” Brings the Food Sovereignty Movement to Life
An explosion of unrest and looting by young people that began in London and spread to other cities is a particular case of a global pattern with shared roots.
-An open letter to David Cameron’s parents
-Why we need to stop trying to ‘save the planet’ and just realise our place in it
-New Zealand quake: Christchurch ‘to be garden city’
-Riots are no reason to surrender our rights
-Shopocalypse Now
-The moral decay of our society is as bad at the top as the bottom
-Can the Aftermath of Disaster Be Beautiful?
In these difficult months following the 11 March quake and tsunami, it has been a time for reflection and an opportunity to ponder what the future holds in store for Japan. Some hints of what a better future may look like can be found just a short train ride from Tokyo, in a place called Fujino.
Until millions of Natural Enterprises exist as models that we can visit and learn from to create our own enterprises, we need extensive programs for online and in-community study and for young people to learn hands-on in secondary school. These programs need to be developed cooperatively with local Natural Enterprises in each community — because this learning needs to take place in the community, not in the classroom.
England’s cities burn, the financial system continues its inexorable slide towards the pit, taking the real economy with it, socio-economic chaos stalks the declining West, and I am reading a poem.
Dmitry Orlov scares me. But it would be a shame if his fearsome reputation as a relentless doomer scared others off from reading the revised edition of his book that came out this year, Reinventing Collapse: the Soviet Experience and American Prospects. As a foreign-born analyst of the American scene, Orlov is as prescient as Alexis de Tocqueville. But Orlov, of course, is edgier, just like that other analyst of the American character: Gallagher. Yes, that Gallagher, the prop comic we loved in the 1980s for smashing watermelons on stage.
Even when manufacturers purportedly “hold the line” on prices, inflation wins. The hoe you buy today for nearly the same price as the one you bought fifteen years ago will need repair or replacement twice as soon which means that the inflation occurs not only in your wallet but in the increasing height of the landfill. Or, what is very prevalent right now, the manufacturer holds the line on the price, but when you check the package, it holds somewhat less than it did previously.
What we need are stories about how people are not only avoiding hunger but are living well. Such stories are myriad. Physically joining our own lives to such stories can help us see the abundant way of living we’re each called to embody.
Young people in Greece and Spain are worried, angry, and questioning the financial power structure that is causing economic hardship in their countries. The financial system has shown over the last few years that it has the potential to wreak havoc in all of our lives. How do we make sure that we find good ways to talk about this topic, especially as it is so timely and important, so that it becomes part of the Transition message?
Frequent guest Sharon Astyk declared a “riot for austerity” in 2007, which isn’t a riot at all. She led people from around the world in a voluntary effort to reduce their resource use by 90%. She is now starting up the “riot” again, and she invites you to join her in saving resources, saving money, and–perhaps surprisingly–having fun.
Peter Adamczyk, Energy Finance and Development Manager at Vermont Energy Investment Corporation (VEIC) talks about how the state’s newly revised PACE program can help towns help their home owners save money through energy efficiency and renewables.
Standard & Poor’s announced Friday it has downgraded the U.S. credit rating for the first time in history. The move by S&P, one of three leading credit rating agencies, came just days after Congress approved a $2.1 trillion deficit-reduction plan. “In some ways, that is in another world from most Americans and their day-to-day struggles. What is it going to mean to you if you have no job now?” says our guest, Barbara Ehrenreich, who has just published the 10th anniversary edition of her book “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America.” In the book, Ehrenreich tells the story of life in low-wage America and tries to earn a living working as a waitress, hotel maid, nursing home aide and Wal-Mart associate. Ten years later, she compares the current situation of low-income U.S. workers to “third-world levels of poverty.”
