Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
As Trump’s Iran war devours billions, a Connecticut town closes a public school and shuffles vulnerable kids to plug a budget gap. Drawing on Eisenhower’s warning about “guns” stealing from the hungry and cold, the piece exposes how runaway U.S. militarism quietly wrecks local lives and communities.
In Copenhagen, everyday biking isn’t just transport, it’s a multisensory antidote to screen-bound, AI-driven life. Safe, ‘8–80’ cycling infrastructure fosters real-world connection, community, and a deeper human intelligence rooted in place.
Open, transparent debate is essential for the cooperative movement. Yet in many co-ops, criticism stays private, and praise goes public, leaving members in the dark, weakening collective decision-making, and enabling bad ideas and bad actors to proliferate.
Good Food For All!, a European Citizens’ Initiative supported by a coalition of more than 300 civil society organisations across Europe, including ARC2020, is making important strides in amplifying the messages of the food sovereignty and agroecology movements. But the battle for hearts, minds and policies is still far from won.
Nordic countries used an education system rooted in human ecology and civic formation to build high‑trust, more equal democracies. Could similar changes in U.S. schools help confront inequality, polarization and the climate crisis?
Elections and protest movements may shift public attention, but systemic change depends on building resilient economies capable of replacing the structures now driving inequality and social fragmentation. The solidarity economy, an evolving network of post-capitalist worker-driven coalitions, is what we need.
The border between the human and the non-human is far less clear than we once believed. How might this impact the way we relate to the Earth?
Maybe we are just Irish monks in a new dark age emerging, copying texts for a future generation to decipher. Yet involvement in where we live is the tapestry of who we are.
I recently took up the challenge to talk about inner transition in the garden of an eco-village project in Värmland County, Sweden. A lot of sun, beautiful place, no flip-chart or power points. Here is a short account of what I talked about.
Most people know that there’s a huge wealth gap between the industrialized and so-called ‘developing’ worlds. But there’s another gap, one that’s rarely discussed in the media, or even by NGOs. It involves changing attitudes to farming, to the land and the soil.
The cast of heroes and villains in Greece’s ongoing battle to save its economy varies depending on who’s telling the story.
Curtailers are different from consumers or conservers, consumers being those who are blithely devouring and polluting the planet and conservers being those who want to pull back a bit but avoid making big changes in the way they live. Being a curtailer in America is not a popular occupation or avocation. The very use of the word in ordinary conversation typically elicits a response that is one of shock or a low level of hostility.
