Articles by Dave Darby
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.
Articles by
Dave Darby
Why the Real Farming Conference gave me grounds for optimism
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
Live from the Real Farming Conference: why genetically-engineered food is about politics not science
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 …
Live from the Real Farming Conference: Equality in the Countryside – a rural manifesto
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.
Review of ‘Drinking Molotov Cocktails with Gandhi’ by Mark Boyle – part 1: reformism and the Transition movement
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.
Slavoj Žižek and why local democracy is not enough when there are big decisions to be made
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.
What will TTIP mean for small companies and local economies?
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.
How has the 2008 financial crash affected the wealth of the rich and the poor, and what can we do about it?
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 …
It’s time to listen to the prophets
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.
3 shopping days to Christmas – a plea not to buy any more tat
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 …
Spain’s election means the ‘political landscape has changed forever’? No, not at all
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.
Unless your house is old, you probably don’t have rising damp, and if you do, modern damp-proofing methods probably won’t work
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
How superstores destroy jobs and local resilience
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).
Build your own top bar beehive
Here’s a woodwork project for you. If you want to know what a top bar beehive is, see our beekeeping topic introduction – but basically, it’s a relatively new style of beehive that mimics a space that bees would seek out for themselves naturally
The ridiculous (and hilarious) philosophy of Karl Lagerfeld
You probably don’t know who he is and to be honest, neither did I – I just came across his ‘philosophy’ (he calls his quotes ‘Karlisms’) and found it hilarious. He’s the head designer of fashion house Chanel, and so I don’t suppose you’d expect anything particularly deep from him.
Can constantly-moving livestock help prevent desertification?
Desertification is the process whereby grasslands slowly turn into deserts, and suggesting that we can help reverse this process with livestock sounds counter-intuitive, especially as livestock is usually named as one of the major contributors to desertification. In the video below, Allan Savory, who has spent a lifetime studying and working towards poverty eradication and wildlife conservation, …
Take back the city – if you’re not “proud that London is the natural habitat of the billionaire”
People of Britain, are you proud that your capital city is geared towards attracting billionaires (that’s a quote by Boris Johnson by the way)?
TTIP: investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) may be illegal under EU law
ISDS is a legal instrument within international trade treaties that allows corporations to sue elected governments if they introduce legislation that can be shown to be detrimental to the profits of corporations active in their country.
Corporate cruelty
This particular corporate cruelty is down to Hormel (industrial food corporation and makers of Spam) and highlighted in a secret video made by Compassion Over Killing. But Hormel are not the only corporation involved in these kinds of practices.
To all environmental groups: lifestyle change isn’t going to be enough to avert ecological catastrophe
Someone said to me the other day that he associated ‘low-impact’ with lifestyle but not with politics or economics. Someone else asked why we blogged about TTIP, economic growth or system change when we were ‘just’ an environmental organisation.
Sweden has ‘decoupled’ carbon emissions and economic growth? Why this is a lie
There was a report on the World Service this morning about how Sweden has decoupled carbon emissions from economic growth. Sweden’s economic growth in the last 25 years totals 60%. Its carbon emissions in the same time period are down 20%. So that’s it, isn’t it – the Holy Grail?