A situation overview by Encounters, the e-newsletter of the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns’ Faith Economy Ecology Program. “Increasing efficiencies in energy storage and transmission combined with falling prices for renewable energy technologies are creating a profound transformation of energy systems around the world. Massive utility companies using fossil fuels are facing increasing competition from… Continue reading
Date archives "December 2014"
Video: Neal Gorenflo on Why No One Will Buy Tourism in the Future
From a keynote by Neal Gorenflo at the Buy Tourism Online conference in Florence, Italy about the sharing economy and travel: ““The gist of the talk is that the rise of net culture, with it’s emphasis on collaboration, peer relationships, and social good, is changing the habits of the next generation of travellers. A large… Continue reading
Students, why not be your own landlord?
Extract from an article by @NikiSethSmith ‘You be the landlord this time.’ ‘Yeah, all right then.’ I’m visiting student flats in Edinburgh and the new residents are signing their contracts. On first glance, it looks like an average beginning of the academic year, but there’s something special going on here. This 106-bed property in the… Continue reading
Establishing the Main Center of the Neighborhood
By Christopher Alexander. Original text here. Assume now that a rough area for your neighborhood has been established, and its boundary is clear. The area may be part of an existing city, in need of new life or refurbishing. It might equally well be a green field site near a town, or on the edge… Continue reading
Project of the Day: Defining the Commons
Project by the Remix the Commons video collective, wherebyt one-sentence definitions of the commons were given in their own language by attendees of the Economics and the Commons Conference which took place in Berlin in May 2013. For example, Define the commons #5, is the fifth serie of short videos of definitions of the commons,… Continue reading
Network-based work is about tasks and interdependence between people, NOT jobs
Excerpted from Esko Kilpi: “The factory logic of mass production forced people to come to where the machines were. In knowledge work, the machines are where the people are making it possible to distribute work to where they are. The architectures of work differ in the degree to which their components are loosely or tightly… Continue reading
Co-operative and community owned enterprises: resisting or reproducing the neoliberal consensus?
Co-operative and community owned enterprises: resisting or reproducing the neoliberal consensus? Co-operative (co-op) and community-owned enterprises (COE) can be understood as alternatives to dominant models of business ownership and control. We seek to explore, through the perspectives of these alternatives, whether they resist or reproduce the neoliberal consensus, and how and to what extent they… Continue reading
Democratic Housing in Edinburgh
“We were fed up with extortionate rent, exploitative landlords, dodgy letting agencies, and substandard housing. We wanted to increase the amount of affordable housing for students and create a sustainable, non-exploitative, community-led housing co-operative as an alternative to the private rental market.” Edinburgh student housing cooperative is an inspiring initiative. The video here is a… Continue reading
Video Explains the Importance of Subsistence Land Commons
Participants in a workshop hosted by the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) and the German Institute for Human Rights are featured in a nicely done five-minute video, “A Commons Conversation.” (Tip of the hat to Silke Helfrich.) It’s a thoughtful introduction to subsistence and traditional commons, especially in Africa. The focus is on secure… Continue reading
Project of the Day: Robin Hood Asset Management Cooperative
The Robin Hood Asset Management Cooperative defines itself a counter investment cooperative of the precariat: “Our business is minor asset management” They explain: “How is it done? Very simply. By understanding that knowledge (immaterial and affective elements, the ability to learn, think, create and relate to the presence of others) has became a means of… Continue reading
Surveillance and spying is not a bug, it’s THE business model!
Excerpted from a really great Indie Summit keynote presentation by Aral Balkan: “The problem is that we keep getting shocked; we keep getting surprised. We keep thinking this is a bug, and it’s because we don’t understand the problem. Some of us still harbour the misunderstanding that Web 2.0 for example was about freedom. Remember… Continue reading
Why sharing is a common cause that unites us all
Given that a call for sharing is already a fundamental (if often unacknowledged) demand of engaged citizens and progressive organisations, there is every reason why we should embrace this common cause that unites us all. Across the world, millions of campaigners and activists refuse to sit idly by and watch the world’s crises escalate, while… Continue reading
The Nature of Order: Unfolding a Sustainable World
Stuart Cowan is the co-author of Ecological Design and participates in the rich culture of sustainability emerging in Portland, Oregon. His review of The Nature of Order, was first published in Resurgence, 2004. THE UNIVERSE IS abundantly filled with living structure at every level of scale. Energy, matter, and information cascade from vast sheets of… Continue reading
German utility E.ON confirms irreversible distributed energy revolution
We may be about to witness one of the most profound transitions ever to occur in the utility industry. Challenged by the surge in distributed renewables and a strong decline in revenues, one of Europe’s largest largest utilities, RWE, is reportedly planning to completely transform itself from a traditional electricity provider into a renewable energy… Continue reading
New Film Documents Commons-Based Peer Production in Greece
As one of the countries hardest hit by austerity politics, Greece is also in the vanguard of experimentation to find ways beyond the crisis. Now there is a documentary film about the growth of commons-based peer production in Greece, directed by Ilias Marmaras. “Knowledge as a common good: communities of production and sharing in Greece”… Continue reading
In praise of Russell Brand’s sharing revolution
For all of Brand’s joking and braggadocio, a sagacious theme runs through his new book: that a peaceful revolution must bring about a fairer sharing of the world’s resources, which depends upon a revelation about our true spiritual nature. The political conversation on sharing is growing by the day, sometimes from the unlikeliest of quarters…. Continue reading