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  • Dave Darby

    Dave Darby bio

    Dave Darby founded Lowimpact.org in 2001, spent 3 years on the board of the Ecological Land Co-op and is a founder member of NonCorporate.org and the Open Credit Network.

    Articles by

    Dave Darby

    Monopoly and capitalism: why you’ll lose at both if you try to play nice

    Dave Darby 18-Dec-2016

    Monopoly is obviously based on capitalism, but the biggest difference between Monopoly and real-life capitalism is that Monopoly is just a game. Whatever happens in the game, it doesn’t mean that in real life Read more

    Companies like Fairphone, Ecotricity etc. are doing great things, but could easily be picked off by the corporate sector; why aren’t they co-ops?

    Dave Darby 15-Dec-2016

    Body Shop, Green & Blacks, Ben & Jerry’s and Innocent Drinks represented a Brave New World when it came to doing business – Fair Trade, sustainable, (slightly) less hierarchical, informal, friendly. Read more

    Review of ‘Extinction: A Radical History’ by Ashley Dawson

    Dave Darby 11-Dec-2016

    I tend to look out for new books on extinction – I think species extinction is the clearest indicator of what’s happening to ecology, and the thing that will precipitate its collapse unless we stop it. Read more

    Dear Fidel Castro…

    Dave Darby 08-Dec-2016

    I believe that you were a great man – whatever you did, you did because of passion and integrity, not because of a thirst for money or power. But you had the wrong plan. Read more

    What good might come from a Trump presidency?

    Dave Darby 04-Dec-2016

    Donald Trump says that when men get together in locker-rooms (or on buses), they ‘talk like that’ with each other. But they don’t – I have male friends, and if one of them talked to me ‘like that’, it would be the end of our friendship. Read more

    New York Times: GM crops require more pesticides and don’t increase yields

    Dave Darby 27-Nov-2016

    I’ve been saying for a long time that GM crops do not increase yields and they don’t reduce pesticide use – because that’s not what they’re designed for. This report in the New York Times shows that I was right. Read more

    The US presidential election is a circus, and the sooner we realise that power lies elsewhere the better

    Dave Darby 08-Nov-2016

    As Adam Curtis recently explained, governments are no longer for deciding how we live, or for building a better society – they have slowly morphed into institutions for managing the affairs of the finance sector. Read more

    Review of Adam Curtis’s new movie ‘Hypernormalisation’

    Dave Darby 26-Oct-2016

    Adam Curtis has a new movie out – Hypernormalisation, about how, due to ‘perception management’, what we see as ‘normal’ is anything but – and you can see it for free on BBC iPlayer. Read more

    Promoting public transport – how to travel by train more cheaply (without breaking the law)

    Dave Darby 20-Oct-2016

    A way to reduce our impact on the environment is to increase the number of journeys made on public transport relative to the number made by car. So we’re doing this to encourage you to take the train rather than drive. Read more

    Low-impact & the city 5: if a non-techie like me can switch to open source, so can you

    Dave Darby 12-Oct-2016

    I’ve found that learning about how to change to open source software can be difficult for non-techies. Yes, you can easily find the websites that contain the information you need, but it’s almost never written in a style that non-techies can understand. Read more

    How to quit the rat race to go WWOOFing for 3 years (even with young children) as a gateway to a new life

    Dave Darby 08-Oct-2016

    This is an interview with Mariann and Gabor, a Hungarian couple with 2 young children, who left their jobs to go WWOOFing. We wanted to show that WWOOFing is a route out of the ‘rat race’ Read more

    The power of doing things ourselves using recycled materials: the Permaculture Book of DIY

    Dave Darby 06-Oct-2016

    This is a radical new book – not because the ideas within it are going to change the world, but because it contains funky little DIY projects that could make a lot of people think ‘hey, I’ve always wanted one of those, but was put off by the cost – but actually, I could do… Continue reading The power of doing things ourselves using recycled materials: the Permaculture Book of DIY Read more

    How CETA will allow TTIP (RIP) in through the back door, and how you can help the Austrian Chancellor block it

    Dave Darby 03-Oct-2016

    Here are two sources of information about CETA (Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement) – and both of them are completely biased. They are biased against the interests of the corporate sector and in favour of the interests of ordinary people and communities. That’s the kind of bias we like. Read more

    David Fleming’s ‘Lean Logic’ and ‘Surviving the Future’, and why they’re important

    Dave Darby 23-Sep-2016

    I attended the launch of two books at Daunt Bookshop in Chelsea on Wednesday evening. David Fleming died in 2010, and now his friend Shaun Chamberlin has edited his magnum opus, Lean Logic, and Chelsea Green have published it. Read more

    Should the NHS be allowed to sack doctors who work for the private sector ‘on the side’?

    Dave Darby 20-Sep-2016

    There was a story on Radio 4 this morning about NHS doctors who work in private healthcare ‘on the side’ now having to declare their income from private work under plans from NHS England to ensure that they’re not short-changing taxpayers. Read more

    Low-impact & the city 4: front gardens – concrete or plants?

    Dave Darby 16-Sep-2016

    My partner’s mother lives in Hounslow, under the Heathrow flight path and next to a dual carriageway. But she has filled her front and back garden with flowers, trees, bushes and vegetables. When she visits, she often brings pears, plums, spinach, tomatoes or flowers from her garden. Read more

    Revisiting my old university economics textbook – how did I ever fall for this nonsense?

    Dave Darby 08-Sep-2016

    I haven’t opened my old university economics textbook (Economics, by David Begg, Stanley Fischer and Rudiger Dornbusch) since the 1980s, so I was curious to see how I would respond to what I was taught 30 years ago. Read more

    Ecological Land Co-op are looking for an operations manager – might it be you or someone you know?

    Dave Darby 02-Sep-2016

    I am privileged to be a director of the wonderful Ecological Land Co-op, and we are currently advertising for an operations manager. Read more

    A brief history of philosophy, part 15: what next?

    Dave Darby 24-Aug-2016

    This is the final article in this series. Over the past 15 weeks I’ve tried to highlight the times in history where philosophy has helped, along with technology and events, to change the direction in which we’re moving. Read more

    A brief history of philosophy, part 14: the rise and fall of postmodernism

    Dave Darby 16-Aug-2016

    By the 1980s, a new way of thinking began to be applied to academic philosophy with almost a religious fervour that caused quite a bit of acrimony within academia, but which has now faded. Read more

    There’s a crash coming – a slap from Mother Nature. This isn’t pessimistic; it’s realistic.

    The human impact on nature and on each other is accelerating and needs systemic change to reverse.

    We’re not advocating poverty, or a hair-shirt existence. We advocate changes that will mean better lives for almost everyone.

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