By Tracy L. Barnett, YES! magazine
Food security, traditional agriculture, and local self-reliance are key to regenerative societies of the future, say water protectors taking the movement’s lessons forward.
By David Bollier, Great Transition Initiative
So today, various relocalization movements need to develop a cultural analog of TCP/IP to help local actors interconnect and inhabit a common space.
By Aaron Vansintjan, Great Transition Initiative
In general, the power of the elite cannot be confronted by timidly asking or jumping to compromises. It can only be confronted by hampering the source of their power in the first place: the ability to make a profit.
By Helena Norberg-Hodge, Great Transition Initiative
As the fault lines in the global economy continue to grow, and the desire for genuine human connection becomes ever more keenly felt, these existing initiatives will provide direction as well as inspiration, and stand as a compelling alternative to the faux-localist path of violence, fear, and hate.
By Alex Bauman, Samuel Alexander, The Conversation
There is a very powerful reason we are currently unable to move toward a simpler and sustainable society: the costs of securing access to land for housing often mean only the relatively affluent can afford such “green lifestyles”. In response to this problem, we offer some ideas to show how public land could be used for sustainable forms of community-led development.
By Richard Heinberg, Great Transition Initiative
Our current global society appears to be in the conservation phase of its adaptive cycle: it is at a peak of scale and integration. If the cyclical behavior of past societies is repeated in ours, recent trends toward globalization and urbanization will reach natural limits and be reversed.
By Brian Tokar, Great Transition Initiative
The odds may be diminishing with each passing year of climate inaction, but it is more necessary than ever to sustain a hope that humanity can unite to reject authoritarian false solutions to the climate crisis and social inequities, embrace the potential for an enhanced quality of life beyond fossil-fueled capitalism, and begin to realize the dream of a liberated and truly interdependent global community of communities.
By Nikki Sanchez, Intercontinental Cry
At the base of Mauna Kea, the world’s tallest mountain and the first point on earth where raindrops touch the earth, the largest land defense action in modern Hawaiian history is currently in taking place and the entire movement is being guided by love.
By Aditya Chakrabortty, The Guardian blog
The spirit we need is that summed up by the librarian who rhapsodises to Klinenberg about his branch: “The library really is a palace. It bestows nobility on people who can’t otherwise afford a shred of it. People need to have nobility and dignity in their lives. And, you know, they need other people to recognise it in them too.”
By Kester McLennan, Bristol Pound blog
While local currencies more generally see such vast application and have the potential to help the lives of such diverse groups, there’s evidently a lot of questions still to be answered when it comes to the function of local currencies in slum settings.