A report for the Bertelsmann Foundation has shown plummeting support for TTIP in Germany and in the US – down to 17% in Germany and 15% in the US, with 18% of Americans and a full third of Germans saying that it is ‘a bad thing’. Read more

There’s clever and there’s clever. There’s clever like a computer or a calculator, and then there’s clever as in wise. The first kind of cleverness is the technical type, that can work out how to build nuclear weapons, or to genetically modify food crops, or to cut through the branch that we’re sitting on Read more

Here’s a very interesting opportunity for a budding smallholder – either paid work or farm share, near Totnes in Devon. Over to Richard: Read more

Just listened to a ten-minute advert for Tesco on ‘You and Yours’ on Radio 4, masquerading as news. I have some questions: Read more

I don’t believe that any ethnic group anywhere in the world can truthfully claim that they have never carried out atrocities against another group. Every nation has been victim and perpetrator at some time. Read more

There’s an organisation based in Brussels called the European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT). It’s a club – invitation only, not transparent, not democratic – just a private club. Read more

There is a simple conception of the banking system – that banks look after money for savers, and pay them interest. They then loan out that money to other people and charge them a slightly higher rate of interest, and that’s where they make their profit. Read more

It’s a tricky one. The argument for the licence fee (and one that I used to subscribe to until I watched the Panorama corporate propaganda piece – see below) is that the Beeb produces drama of a quality not found anywhere else. Read more

We’ve got a referendum coming up in June that Cameron didn’t want, but was forced to promise at a time when it looked as though votes lost to UKIP might have cost him the election. His arguments now are largely based on the number of jobs that could be lost if we leave. Read more

I have a special interest in this book. As a young man in the 1980s I’d read Julius Nyerere’s Ujamaa (Swahili for “togetherness”, “unity” or “familyhood”). I was inspired by his vision of a co-operative, non-hierarchical society based on sustainable villages Read more

Thought you might like this. Just came across an old photo of a simple biogas digester built by Lowimpact.org co-founder Phil when we were based at Redfield Community in Buckinghamshire. Read more

We’ve just been approached by someone running ‘sustainable living apprenticeships’ in Peru, asking if there’s anywhere to promote them on our site. This sort of thing happens all the time, by the way – yoga retreats in India, conferences in Malaysia, meditation on Greek islands etc. Read more

There are lots of ideas for changing the world – from voting to demonstrations, petitions, lifestyle change, incremental change, revolutionary change, or more of the same, only harder. The problem with many of them is that they are either ineffective or not implementable. Read more

EU Trade Secrets legislation will criminalise whistleblowers and journalists who expose corporations and their products or services. It’s another in a long list of steps aiming to put corporations above the law, but the rest of us very much under it. Read more

Do you have any idea of the value of all the Bitcoins in the world, compared to, say, the value of all the silver in the world, or compared to the wealth of Warren Buffet, or compared to the amount of global debt etc.? Read more

So, you all know about TTIP? Here’s a link if you don’t, plus see the posts to the right. It’s a proposed ‘trade deal’ that is designed to give more of our economy to the corporate sector. It’s supposed to be ‘transparent’, but of course it’s completely secret. Read more

I bought a packet of custard creams the other day, and saw that they were made by a company called Crawfords. I wondered who Crawfords were and who ultimately owns custard creams. I have a general feeling that a small cartel of giant corporations owns more-or-less everything branded Read more

Here’s a story. Only a minority understand this story (although I think that minority is growing), which is surprising because it has enormous importance for the way the world works.  Read more

This is a new book by our partner Sally Morgan of Empire Farm. It’s a comprehensive guide to starting and running your own micro-smallholding. Read more

Just allow a few seconds for that to sink in. Simon Stevens was Vice President of UnitedHealth Group, the largest health insurer in the US. He was in charge of global expansion of their business. Now he’s Chief Executive of the NHS. Read more