Investor-state dispute settlements (ISDS) have been around for over fifty years. Originally meant to protect investors from losses due to government actions – what may have seemed a good idea at the time has spiralled out of control Read more

Not far from Worcester is a stunning Grade II mansion house, 50+ rooms, stable blocks, 2-bed detatched gatehouse, 21 acres of woodland plus huge walled garden. Lowimpact.org, plus other like-minded organisations, would like to secure it as an intentional community Read more

How to hitchhike / A guide to hitchhiking for beginners (anybody) / The rules of hitching. Call it what you will, this post is intended to provide useful advice for anybody who wants it. Read more

Sometimes, when I’m sitting in front of my laptop screen, I forget how many great people there are out there doing wonderful things, and it’s easy to believe that we’re never going to get rid of this damaging system, and that it will eventually damage ecology so much Read more

I’m at the Real Farming Conference in Oxford, and I’m writing this as a session on GM food is taking place. I’m sorry to have missed it, but I fell into a conversation until it was too late to join the session. However, I know someone who attended that session, and she’ll hopefully write a… Continue reading Live from the Real Farming Conference: why genetically-engineered food is about politics not science Read more

I’m blogging from the Real Farming Conference in Oxford, in Oxford Town Hall. This is the seventh annual conference, set up as a counter to the corporate farming conference running at the university in Oxford. I wasn’t expecting such a huge affair – 850 attendees, with some fantastic sessions. Read more

A new report from the US Department of Agriculture assesses the potential effects of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership on farmers. It’s pretty difficult to decipher, but our position is that we don’t want an increase in Transatlantic trade when it comes to agriculture. Read more

This was a very challenging and thought-provoking read. Mark lived without money for three years, and wrote the Moneyless Manifesto, published in 2012. This is his latest book about the corporate ‘Machine’ and appropriate responses to it. Read more

We bought a house with a demolition order on it, not something that many people will do, then we rebuilt it, not something many people will do, and we always repair stuff, not something that many people will do – you get the idea. Read more

Ah, Žižek – he’s so weird, often quite inaccessible and yet so right about almost everything. Below is a video in which he is very accessible, and as usual, right. Read more

Recently I hosted a radio show where I asked the question What Does Your Allotment Mean to You?, what was interesting was just like the many approaches to growing your own, there were just as many reasons for doing so. Read more

Promoters of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) claim it’s good for all business, but is this really true?  The European Commission (EC) and the USA say it will especially help SME businesses (small and medium-sized enterprises), not just multinationals. Read more

Have we all suffered equally since the crash of 2008? Have we all shared in the austerity? Well, no – the gap between the rich and the poor is widening in the UK, the US and in fact, in the OECD. In the US, Robert Reich reports that 95% of economic gains since 2009 have… Continue reading How has the 2008 financial crash affected the wealth of the rich and the poor, and what can we do about it? Read more

Today, Christians all over the world celebrate the birth of their prophet. We’re not sure of the date of Jesus’s birth or even whether he definitely existed – but that’s not the important point. The important point is his message of anti-imperialism and love. Read more

This is the publication that inspired me to visit intentional communities, eventually join one – Redfield Community in Buckinghamshire, where Lowimpact.org was founded. It’s a handy directory of communities / communes / co-operative living in the UK and elsewhere Read more

After a number of incidents where our hens ran riot through the vegetable garden, we realised that a permanent barrier was the only way to keep them at bay, and so looked around for a solution. Inspiration came when we visited the Ulster American Folk Park, and saw a woven birch fence. Read more

Last minute Christmas shopping? Well, this is our last-minute plea for you not to do it. I was recently invited to a party with a ‘secret Santa’ that invited people to buy presents for less than £5. It’s a nice thought, but it inevitably resulted in a barrage of plastic trinkets that won’t last until… Continue reading 3 shopping days to Christmas – a plea not to buy any more tat Read more

Yesterday’s general election in Spain ended the domination of Spanish politics by the Popular Party (PP) of the ‘right’ and the Socialist Party of the ‘left’, who between them have formed all the Spanish governments of the last 30 years. Read more

Twentieth-century homes tend to contain a lot of non-breathable materials – cement, metal, plastics, impervious paints and renders. Damp-proof barriers prevent rising damp, but the sealed, waterproof, non-breathable approach of modern building brings its own problems Read more

A report by the National Retail Planning Forum (partly financed by supermarkets) found that in a catchment of 15km around 93 new superstores, around 10,000 new retail jobs were created and 35,000 destroyed – a net loss of 25,000 retail jobs (full-time equivalent). Read more