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    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.

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    Dave Darby

    Low-impact & the city 8: how to test drive Linux from a datastick, but keep Windows for the time being

    Dave Darby 17-Jan-2017

    A while ago I blogged about the various open source programmes I’m using. I’m absolutely non-techie when it comes to IT. I have no interest in the technical underpinning of what I want to do with my computer, and this makes it difficult for technical people to explain things to me. Read more

    What to do if you want to build your home on a spot occupied by an ancient tree

    Dave Darby 15-Jan-2017

    We’ve been contacted several times by people who ask why we’re promoting the building of timber homes and the burning of wood in wood stoves or biomass boilers. Their argument was that timber building and the production of firewood require the felling of trees Read more

    Ecology as theology: religion must oppose the destruction of nature

    Dave Darby 13-Jan-2017

    The vast majority of the world’s population subscribe to a religion. According to Pew Research, although the number of people unaffiliated with a particular faith will increase by 2050, as a percentage, this group will fall from 16% now to 13% in 2050 Read more

    What are the roots of right and left thinking, and can we unite left and right against corporate power?

    Dave Darby 08-Jan-2017

    Why do people who consider themselves ‘left-wing’ seem to embrace a raft of policies that appear unrelated? For example, if you’re of the left, and you believe in (say) progressive taxation, why should that also mean that you believe in gun control, or Read more

    Low-impact & the city 7: our experience of a local fishbox / community-supported fish scheme

    Dave Darby 06-Jan-2017

    You may remember that we blogged an interview last summer with Guy Dorrell, who set up a ‘fishbox’, or ‘community-supported fish’ project, called ‘Faircatch‘. After interviewing him, my partner and I signed up to his scheme to try it out. I’m now reporting on how the idea worked for us Read more

    Reasons not to buy from Amazon

    Dave Darby 03-Jan-2017

    In 1983, Richard Stallman launched the GNU free software project, on which many people could collaborate, and in 1985 he founded the Free Software Foundation, to promote and assist the development of free software. Here is a page from his website Read more

    Is the quest for perpetual economic growth the witch-burning of our times, and could this be the year we start to challenge it?

    Dave Darby 01-Jan-2017

    Johannes Kepler was one of the major figures in the 17th century Scientific Revolution. In his day, people were grappling with the question of whether the earth was the centre of the universe, as the Church said it was, or whether it was just another planet, revolving around the Sun Read more

    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

    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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