Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
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.
Can we just agree from the beginning that there are no small or trivial freedoms? Every declaration of independence from old choices and worn out ways of being is equally powerful and profitable in making a new world.
People use drugs, legal and illegal, because their lives are intolerably painful or dull. They hate their work and find no rest in their leisure. They are estranged from their families and their neighbors. It should tell us something that in healthy societies drug use is celebrative, convivial, and occasional, whereas among us it is lonely, shameful, and addictive. We need drugs, apparently, because we have lost each other.
~Wendell Berry~
Even Forbes is jumping on the bandwagon of the “sharing economy” with a recent article on AirBnB. This closely follows Van Jones’s CNN article about the “sharing economy,” but the push to transform our broken economy isn’t just about sharing, though; it isn’t even just about renewable energy, energy efficiency, public transportation, and the other elements of the green economy movement. There is a “new economy movement” that’s pushing for a fundamental shift away from the neoliberal policies that have dominated our economy and society for decades.
Here is a short overview and strategic assessment of the green economy movement, including its organizational makeup. It concludes with recommendations for transitioning from a double bottom line movement to a triple bottom line one: being more inclusive of historically marginalized communities.
We are in the early stages of a great unraveling, an epic collapse of the largest human civilization this planet will ever know. How are we to make sense of it? Maybe this little diagram can help.
The wealth gap in this country is huge and growing larger. What surprises me is that we’re not looking more deeply into the issue. We don’t really understand how big the wealth gap is and what wealth inequality does to us.
*Big Tobacco lawyers target food industry
*How To Compost In Your Apartment
*Why Caring About Food Isn’t An Option, It’s a Responsibility
*Food price crisis: What crisis?
*New EU biofuel proposals inadequate, warns ActionAid
