Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
-France’s small-scale organic farmers celebrate 10 years of boxing clever
-‘Food Forward’ PBS Series Debuts With ‘Urban Agriculture Across America’ Episode
-Motown hopes food will spur rebirth, growth
-Move over cotton, hello hemp
-‘No-till farming’ revolution grows in Indiana
Okay I admit it upfront. I do have a Transition initiative. In fact, I’m involved with two. Sustainable Bungay and Transition Norwich. So why don’t I just get out of here and let the Transition individuals without an initiative get on with the week? The thing is, I live in neither of the places where the initiatives are. So in my transition beginnings in 2008 I was very glad of the introduction to the 12 original key steps, with its idea of Transition Anywhere-You-Find-People.
Considering the fundamental changes in human civilization that are forecast for the coming decades, are these urban-rural migrants the proverbial canaries in the coal mine, or just exceptions to the prevailing rule? And what role can these urban-rural migrants potentially play in supporting ecosystems and fostering resilience?
As Greece continues to search for solutions to its national economic crisis, the port town of Volos has adopted an old-school barter system to help its citizens muddle through. Five years into their recession with 21 percent unemployment, some Volos residents who were short on Euros but long on other resources created a local currency (called TEMs in Greek) that is traded based on non-monetary contributions into the online system…TEMs can be used for everything from bakers to babysitters, teachers to technicians. In theory, the value of one TEM is equal to the value of one Euro.
Philosopher, author and lifelong activist Grace Lee Boggs encouraged…women to re-imagine education, work and the things they do to care for each other and their families.
“All over the planet more and more people are thinking beyond making a living to making a life, a life that respects Earth and one another,” she said. “This is the next American revolution.”
Once seen as the Main Street backbone of American communities, banks today are now often lumped together with other institutions that have been the focus of the anger voiced by the Occupy movement.
“Thank God for this job, otherwise I’d be in jail or dead, at the rate I was going.”-Chris, age 17
With peak oil moving closer globally and with oil prices spiking yet again (bouncing around over US$100 per barrel), subsidies become economically unsustainable. So the question becomes: at what point should a government begin to decrease an oil subsidy and how, if ever, can this be done without severely impacting the poorest?
Now, living with a family in my own house-castle, the only limitation to delving into energy efficiency is our budget (and of course, the kid’s willingness to turn off the lights. Except that our Edwardian townhouse also happens to be located in an official historic district. That’s good news for aesthetics and for property values. But it turns out that historic districts are bad news for clean energy.
According to the United Nations, access to reliable and sufficient sources of energy will be critical to meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of reducing poverty and hunger by 2015. Many of the world’s poorest people are rural farmers with no connections to power grids or large-scale energy sources. Most of their day-to-day energy currently comes from the burning of wood and charcoal, practices that contribute to air pollution, deforestation, and the loss of precious time and energy collecting firewood.
Today, Nourishing the Planet introduces five sources of renewable energy that are meeting the demands of poor farmers and allowing them to improve their harvests and their lives.
Interview with David Holmgren, co-originator of permaculture. Holmgren traces the path of permaculture from its roots in the 1970s to its potential, in the future, to reshape how humans interact with the planet. He explains how its premise—working with nature rather than against it—will help us adapt to and survive in a resource-scarce world.
Ever since the beginning of man’s oral history, our cultures have taught lessons, stored memories, and guided group values through stories. Stories are a safety valve, and the linchpin of civilization, according to Bradbury…I’ve recently encountered stories with an Alaskan theme of opposing sides–environmentalist vs. resource extractor–told at three different scales of global, national, and local scales. These stories serve as excellent reflections on how we relate as people within nature and what we need to relocate in terms of connecting with nature and with our community. I will share them below in my own crude attempts at storytelling.
