Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
A while back a friend here in Totnes, after learning of my DoctorBike sessions in the market on a Saturday, asked me, “Why do you fix bikes for free?”. Sounds like a simple question, but it isn’t. And behind it is a whole lot of assumptions and prejudices.
What can we, the people, do to create a political movement that has Plan C as its core economic platform? While it is radical, it is not at all difficult to do. Of course it will be opposed by the 1%, but why are we so afraid of that, and so cynical that any political group could stand up to the 1%?
– Elinor Ostrom: Green from the Grassroots
– Reflections From Netroots Nation: Seven Years Later
– America’s Love Affair With the Motor Car Is Running on Empty
– IMF chief Christine Lagarde warns world risks triple crisis (falling incomes, environmental damage and social unrest)
– Remembering Elinor Ostrom, Nobel Laureate
– Elinor Ostrom Outlines Best Strategies for Managing the Commons
– 8 Principles for Managing a Commons
– World Naked Bike Ride – in pictures
– Not a Fairytale: America’s First Public Food Forest
– Sharon Astyk’s resolutions upon reaching middle age
– Interview with Eva Schonveld – Transition in Scotland.
Craft3 aims to build regional resilience in the Pacific Northwest by focusing investments in rural and urban centers, and in Indian country
Commons are not just common goods or assets. They are not “things” separate from us. They are not simply water, the forest, or ideas. They are social practices of commoning, of acting together, based on principles of sharing, stewarding, and producing in common. To ensure this, all those who participate in a common have the right to an equal voice in making decisions on the provisions and rules governing its management.
We ran our latest Transition Thrive in the Green Backyard which is an urban garden, meeting space and inspiration for the Peterborough in Transition (or PinT) project. Mandy Dean and I had the unusual but very welcome opportunity to work with the PinT group for two days. Our intention was to facilitate them to fulfil their wildest dreams, while keeping their feet firmly on the ground; to take their next steps in Transition. And to sprinkle some inspiration dust and enjoy our time together.
Growing food inspires all sorts of people and can really capture the imagination. At the Premier Inn site which has been going since last year, it’s rewarding to see how building the garden has deepened friendships, formed new ones and how the combination of Transition and food creates beneficial relationships on so many levels. And all in the corner of a hotel car park! Now we have the Royal Free Permaculture Garden above the hospital car park. It’s much bigger and feels more daring.
We believe that New Zealand, like all other countries, is about to enter a period of extended crisis. The severity and timing of the events that will unfold are uncertain, but the likelihood of major change is increasingly hard to refute.
We offer this list as a starting point for considering what strategies will best meet the challenges ahead, and invite the input of all concerned people to an ongoing conversation.
I am not sure whether the coincidence of the next critical phase in the global credit crisis with the celebration of the Queen’s jubilee is ironic or tragic, but it certainly gives me an opportunity to explore the real roots of the concept of jubilee, a concept whose real meaning could not be further from the spectacle of disempowered British citizens, burdened with the debts of their unaccountable elite, paying homage to the figurehead of the system of unequal power and property relations that oppresses them.
You could say this is the worst and the best of times to be publishing in print. Worst because we are in a recession, at the tail end of an industrialised civilisation, where “growth at all cost” has began to play out its consequences. Best because there is a whole new narrative out there, the happening story of Transition you might not see covered by mainstream media. That’s the story we’re aiming to tell.
