Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Public space is a literal commons: the common ground where people come together as friends, neighbors and citizens. Places we share together—parks, streets, sidewalks, squares, trails, markets, waterfronts, beaches, museums, community gardens, public buildings and more—are the primary sites for human exchange, upon which our communities, economy, democracy and society depend.
-The ‘Monsanto Rider’: Are Biotech Companies About to Gain Immunity from Federal Law?
-Revolutionary Plots
-Grow your own: making Australian cities more food-secure
-What’s Cooking? the UK’s potential food crisis
-Can food save the high street? (audio)
– Very Local Food at “Frau Gerolds Garten” in Zürich
A thousand-year-old tradition of farming commons in southern England may be jeopardized as housing prices drive out farmers and render the commoning rights moot. Yes, there are still self-identified commoners in England. BBC radio recently interviewed a handful of the remaining commoners who rely upon the New Forest in Hampshire to feed their cattle, sheep and chickens. The 23-minute radio report focused on how the farming commons is a way of life that has preserved the distinctive ecological landscape – and how this future is now in doubt.
– Debranding Movement Takes on Consumerism
– Transition 2:0 – A story of community and climate resilience in a time of global inaction (movie review)
– Archivists as Activists: Curating Social Movements
– The revolution will be organized
My new job is a little more than five miles from home, and I’ve started biking regularly. This is an extension of an already established habit, so every morning I must make the decision again: today I’m going to put my lunch and other necessities in my backpack, sling it on, put on my helmet, roll my bike out of the hall and through the door, carry it down the steps, get on and go.
While Tainter’s theory of social complexity has much to commend it, in this paper I wish to examine and ultimately challenge Tainter’s conclusion that voluntary simplification is not a viable path to sustainability. In fact, I will argue that it is by far our best bet, even if the odds do not provide grounds for much optimism. Moreover, should sustainability prove too ambitious a goal for industrial civilisation, I contend that simplification remains the most effective means of building ‘resilience’ (i.e. the ability of an individual or community to withstand societal or ecological shocks)
Grace Lee Boggs, a legendary figure in the struggle for justice in America, shrewdly assesses the current crisis—political, economical, and environmental—and shows how to create the radical social change we need to confront new realities. A vibrant, inspirational force, Boggs has participated in all of the twentieth century’s major social movements—for civil rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, and more. She draws from seven decades of activist experience, and a rigorous commitment to critical thinking, to redefine “revolution” for our times. The daughter of Chinese immigrants, she is 95 years old.
[Her ideas sound remarkably like Transition and similar movements.]
But the more I learn about plants, and the more I gain practical, first-hand experience of how they can support me in my dietary, nutritional, medicinal and even spiritual needs, the less I find myself caring about the big, worldwide questions or about driving at maximum speed towards 100% pure, personal self-sufficiency. I’m already on my way. I can intensify my efforts if I want to get there quicker, but really, what’s the rush? It’s unrealistic to expect somebody to turn all their inherited culture’s ways upside down in one lifetime. I do what I can in my given circumstances.
Several years ago I heard some words that would change the course of my life, both spiritually and in terms of values, ethics and morals. The words were “global crisis”. Being curious, a lover of nature and always in search of wisdom, I realised my inner compass was “guiding me” to something unknown, terrifying and chilling.
Last September, People & Planet — the largest student network in Britain campaigning to end world poverty, defend human rights and protect the environment — launched Scoop: a student food co-operative project in partnership with Food Co-ops experts Sustain. Scoops aim to help students and staff gain access to local, organic, sustainable, healthy food at affordable prices.
Brown rice diets, asceticism and vows of silence and/or poverty have much in common with marathons, martial arts, the Aboriginal walkabout, and boot camp. The common theme is ordeal.
Each time we resolve to “never again” punish ourselves with such sacrifice, pain, fatigue and sweat, we wipe all that resolution away in the instant that we reach our goal, when we have our moment of light and love and ecstatic remembrance that this is what life is all about.
Perhaps the pain and disappointment of Rio+20 and all the other conferences that promised so much and delivered so little are mere ordeal, the prelude to the ultimate awakening.
For many people, including the 24 dead, the storm was a disaster. Something good, however, can still come out of this — the realization that preparedness is not something you do occasionally when the weather forecasts a major storm, but something that becomes part of your life. Because otherwise, there is simply no way to be ready for the myriad of small disasters that happen in ordinary lives.
