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
Low-impact & the city 10: how to install Linux on your hard drive (alongside Windows)
This is the latest in a series of articles intended to help you become Windows- and corporate-software-free.
Low-impact & the city 9: learning to use Linux
Remember the previous two blog articles about switching to open source / free software? The first was about switching to free / open source programmes whilst still using Windows, and the second was about downloading the Linux operating system onto a datastick so that you can play with it and familiarise yourself with it, but …
How to misrepresent Adam Smith: review of P. J. O’Rourke’s ‘On the Wealth of Nations’
I don’t know if you’re familiar with P. J., but he’s an excellent writer, and he’s extremely, acerbically funny. With this book, as with his Give War a Chance, several times he made me spit my tea out and have to stop to wipe tea off the page.
Why we’d be better off living like the Saxons (with a few mod cons)
If you spend your life trying to promote low-impact living, you sometimes get asked the most ridiculous questions. More than once I’ve been asked something along the lines of: ‘you want to take us back to the Middle Ages, don’t you?’
Is a Permaculture world achievable, and if so, why are we moving in the opposite direction?
Every species has to live in harmony with nature, and humans are no exception. The alternative is gruesome and very short-term. Our ultimate and most valuable treasures are the soil and the sea. They provide all our food
Part-time work available in the Lowimpact.org team
We’re looking for a somebody to work with us – from home, part-time, to market our activities and our publications to more people.
Low-impact & the city 8: how to test drive Linux from a datastick, but keep Windows for the time being
A while ago I blogged about the various open source programmes I’m using. I’m absolutely non-techie when it comes to IT. I have no interest in the technical underpinning of what I want to do with my computer, and this makes it difficult for technical people to explain things to me.
What to do if you want to build your home on a spot occupied by an ancient tree
We’ve been contacted several times by people who ask why we’re promoting the building of timber homes and the burning of wood in wood stoves or biomass boilers. Their argument was that timber building and the production of firewood require the felling of trees
Ecology as theology: religion must oppose the destruction of nature
The vast majority of the world’s population subscribe to a religion. According to Pew Research, although the number of people unaffiliated with a particular faith will increase by 2050, as a percentage, this group will fall from 16% now to 13% in 2050
What are the roots of right and left thinking, and can we unite left and right against corporate power?
Why do people who consider themselves ‘left-wing’ seem to embrace a raft of policies that appear unrelated? For example, if you’re of the left, and you believe in (say) progressive taxation, why should that also mean that you believe in gun control, or
Low-impact & the city 7: our experience of a local fishbox / community-supported fish scheme
You may remember that we blogged an interview last summer with Guy Dorrell, who set up a ‘fishbox’, or ‘community-supported fish’ project, called ‘Faircatch‘. After interviewing him, my partner and I signed up to his scheme to try it out. I’m now reporting on how the idea worked for us
Reasons not to buy from Amazon
In 1983, Richard Stallman launched the GNU free software project, on which many people could collaborate, and in 1985 he founded the Free Software Foundation, to promote and assist the development of free software. Here is a page from his website
Is the quest for perpetual economic growth the witch-burning of our times, and could this be the year we start to challenge it?
Johannes Kepler was one of the major figures in the 17th century Scientific Revolution. In his day, people were grappling with the question of whether the earth was the centre of the universe, as the Church said it was, or whether it was just another planet, revolving around the Sun
Monopoly and capitalism: why you’ll lose at both if you try to play nice
Monopoly is obviously based on capitalism, but the biggest difference between Monopoly and real-life capitalism is that Monopoly is just a game. Whatever happens in the game, it doesn’t mean that in real life
Companies like Fairphone, Ecotricity etc. are doing great things, but could easily be picked off by the corporate sector; why aren’t they co-ops?
Body Shop, Green & Blacks, Ben & Jerry’s and Innocent Drinks represented a Brave New World when it came to doing business – Fair Trade, sustainable, (slightly) less hierarchical, informal, friendly.
Review of ‘Extinction: A Radical History’ by Ashley Dawson
I tend to look out for new books on extinction – I think species extinction is the clearest indicator of what’s happening to ecology, and the thing that will precipitate its collapse unless we stop it.
Dear Fidel Castro…
I believe that you were a great man – whatever you did, you did because of passion and integrity, not because of a thirst for money or power. But you had the wrong plan.
What good might come from a Trump presidency?
Donald Trump says that when men get together in locker-rooms (or on buses), they ‘talk like that’ with each other. But they don’t – I have male friends, and if one of them talked to me ‘like that’, it would be the end of our friendship.
New York Times: GM crops require more pesticides and don’t increase yields
I’ve been saying for a long time that GM crops do not increase yields and they don’t reduce pesticide use – because that’s not what they’re designed for. This report in the New York Times shows that I was right.
The US presidential election is a circus, and the sooner we realise that power lies elsewhere the better
As Adam Curtis recently explained, governments are no longer for deciding how we live, or for building a better society – they have slowly morphed into institutions for managing the affairs of the finance sector.