Toward an Ecological Civilization

Very much worth watching and hearing: civilisational systems have their stories and narratives, and they matter as these patterns of meaning drive our reactive capacities to challenges. Which new one do we need now ? Toward an Ecological Civilization: A talk given by Jeremy Lent at the Parliament of World Religions, Toronto, November 2018Part of… Continue reading

Transition to a Political Economy for People and Planet

In the summer of 2017, Synergia launched its first Summer Institute, an intensive two week program at Monte Ginezzo in Tuscany. Entitled Transition to Political Economy for People & Planet, the program involved twenty seven people – activists, scholars, policy makers, and practitioners from around the world. This video documents their experience and insights. Synergia… Continue reading

Economic Growth in mitigation scenarios: A blind spot in climate science

Kai Kuhnhen, Heinrich Böll Foundation : Climate change mitigation scenarios are important instruments for developing pathways towards a climate-friendly world. They form the basis for political and social negotiations regarding the climate protection measures to be adopted. Unfortunately, current mitigation scenarios follow a path of economic growth because underlying socioeconomic assumptions assume further economic growth,… Continue reading

Michel Bauwens on Technological Sovereignty in the Transition from a Marxist Capitalism to a Proudhonian Capitalism

Michel Bauwens: My keynote presentation for the platform cooperativism conference in Hong Kong, an argument that technology is NOT NEUTRAL, but the result of human design and therefore, to the values and interests of human groups Today, four socio-technical systems are competing for dominance, two of them extractive towards communities and resources, two of them… Continue reading

PIGS, from crisis to self-organisation

This article by Tiago Mota Saraiva is an excerpt from the book Funding the Cooperative City: Community Finance and the Economy of Civic Spaces. Reposted from cooperativecity.org Southern European countries were among the hardest hit by the 2008 economic crisis. In response to the economic pressure, declining public services and drastic unemployment situation generated by the… Continue reading

Let’s train humans first…before we train machines

Reposted from Hazel Henderson’s blog Hazel Henderson: Billions are spent by governments, corporations and investors in training computer-based algorithms (i.e. computer programs) in today’s mindless rush to create so-called “artificial” intelligence, widely advertised as AI. Meanwhile, training our children and their brains (already superior to computer algorithms) is under-funded, schools are dilapidated, sited in run-down,… Continue reading