Info, news & debate
People & community
Interested in rural cohousing? Introducing the Agroecological Land Initiative
The Agroecological Land Initiative is an new organisation founded to advocate and implement agroecological methods in the UK to help secure food sovereignty, energy independence, and environmental regeneration in a way that is financially viable and socially just.
One Planet Development opportunity next to Lammas eco-village in Wales
Here’s an opportunity to you potential smallholders / rat-race escapees: A thirty acre field next to the Lammas ecovillage has come up for sale.
You can help a low-impact, off-grid community obtain permanent planning permission
This is an opportunity to represent and to support our friends at the Steward Community Woodland in their application for permanent planning permission. After 15 years of successful experimentation in sustainable living, they are now applying for permanent planning permission
Here’s our new ‘manifesto’. We’d be interested in your feedback
Our manifesto We now know that the richest 1% of the world own the same amount of wealth as the other 99%. But it’s worse than that.
New phone? Maybe it’s a Fairphone for you in 2015? Here’s why.
Dave of Lowimpact.org interviews Lucy Neal, Dave Mauger and Emily Oliver of Transition Town Tooting about Fairphone. Lowimpact.org is constantly looking for sustainable ways to provide the basic necessities of life
New website, new name & the power of networking
Goodbye old website (left), hello new website (right) – and with the new website comes a new name. Since we started in 2001, we’ve always had a bit of a problem with our name.
What is TTIP exactly, and what’s it for? Interview with the World Development Movement
You may have heard of a proposed trade deal called TTIP (generally pronounced tee-tip). You may also be aware of an awful lot of protest against it. Do you know what it is, and why there is so much opposition to it?
Is the global human population too high? Steady-state people as well as steady-state economics?
There is a long-standing case made for the benefits of a steady-state economy. With climate change, collapsing biodiversity and increasing pressure on key resources, that has to be the way to go.
Why Brian Cox is wrong about nuclear fusion
Who’s been watching ‘Human Universe‘ with Brian Cox? I’m especially talking about the last episode – ‘What is our Future?‘ Brian Cox is doing a great job popularising science – and science, as he says, is a ‘wonderful tool for making the darkness visible’.
Why Adam Smith, father of capitalism, would have hated neoliberalism
1776 was a very good year. The US declared independence and Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of Nations. Both of these events helped mark the transition to a new world; both have contributed enormously to human freedom, and have therefore been claimed by neoliberals as their own.
Are we ‘silenced by economic power’? Paris 2015 and the Hartwell Paper
In December 2011, South Africa welcomed the United Nations Framing Convention on Climate Change. The host city was Durban, where a number of years before, and just after his release from prison, Nelson Mandela had
Where do banks get the money for mortgages from?
The simple answer is that they don’t have it. They check your credit record, decide you’re OK, type some numbers into a computer and suddenly you owe them a significant portion of your income for 25 years, plus interest.
Size matters: why a big house can’t be a green house
The wonderful Art Ludwig of Oasis Design in the US was asked to design and build an ‘eco-home’ for a client. He wrote a letter to the client to explain that he couldn’t take on the project because green ‘add-ons’ aren’t green at all when tacked on to a house that is too big
What is human nature? Are we really a horrible species?
When discussing war, exploitation, wealth disparities, violence and the apparently uncaring nature of society, a common response is: ‘well, that’s human nature for you’. Is it? Really? Are we that bad? Are we inherently, intrinsically, irredeemably horrible?
Do you consider yourself left-wing or right-wing, and does it matter any more?
Do you label yourself ‘left’ or ‘right’, or somewhere in the middle? Do you think the Labour party in the UK or the Democrats in the US, are left-wing parties? Or do you have only a vague idea about what those labels mean?
Who runs the world?
It’s widely believed that we have democracies in the West. We’d like that to be the case, but it’s not – because ultimate power is corporate, not political. By ultimate power, we mean the ability to control the direction in which humanity moves.
It’s not possible to demonise people any more, in the age of the internet
Western populations have to kept in a state of fear, so that weapons corporations can continue to make huge profits. People of America – this is your latest enemy:
Opportunity for low-impact person in the Loire valley
We’ve been approached by a very nice man called Rod Harper, who has never used a computer in his life, and so asked us for help in finding someone to rent his property in the Loire Valley.
Could you explain Mercantilism, if you were asked?
If you were asked, could you describe Mercantilism? I dare say you could have a good go at Capitalism and Feudalism. But Mercantilism? And is it worth finding out? I think it is, because it tells us a lot about the system we live under now
Can we have multinational corporations and democracy?
Up until this moment in human history, power has always been abused. By ‘power’ I mean ‘the ability to make decisions that affect the direction in which humanity moves’. Ultimate power in other words, rather than local power.