Info, news & debate
Commons economy
The next great transition will be to the Solidarity Economy with a mutual credit exchange system
I’ve been working in the environmental field for over 20 years, and I believe, like the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, that we’re headed for ‘biological annihilation’, and like the good folk at the Dark Mountain Project, that a crash is coming that we may or may not recover from
Do you know anyone who might want to donate some land for a sustainable, affordable smallholding legacy?
The Ecological Land Cooperative has launched a campaign to ask landowners for donations of small parcels of land to create clusters of affordable smallholdings for new entrants to ecological agriculture.
How I built a Raspberry Pi Space Invaders arcade machine with my kids
This describes how my kids and I built an arcade machine, based on a Raspberry Pi. So, the first question many of you will be asking is….
![By Christopher DOMBRES (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons](https://www.lowimpact.org/wp-content/uploads/Shopper-e1516826078489.jpg)
Buying green: is ethical consumerism a perfect distraction?
Eco-consumption, ethical consumerism, sustainable shopping. Call it what we may, “buying green” has grown into something of a hot topic in the last decade. But is it the sustainable solution some claim it to be or is it in fact the perfect distraction? Lowimpact.org’s Sophie Paterson explores.
How you can help the Landworkers’ Alliance get more farmers and better food in the UK
All over Europe, for a long time there has been a trend towards larger, monoculture farms and industrial agriculture. Smaller farms have been swallowed up and farmers have been leaving the land in their millions.
How we got olive oil from a small farm in Portugal brought over in a sailboat by a co-operative based in Brighton – and how you can do the same
I recently interviewed Dhara Thompson of the Sailboat Project for our new sailboats topic introduction. He told me that they are one of many new organisations that are working to bring back sailboats for cargo and passenger transport – using the power of the wind to move people and goods around the planet.
The potential power of sharing: from Share Shops to Streetbank
In this post Sophie Paterson of Lowimpact.org explores the power of sharing in a growing movement including The Library of Things, Streetbank, Share Shops and more.
Want to help set up a community-supported agriculture scheme, Jan-Apr, and stay in a yurt next to a river?
Are you feeling like you need a change of scenery for a little while? Feel like you would like to be out in the countryside more? Well how about staying in a cosy yurt with a log burner by the river Avon
‘Investor protection’ in trade deals: why can’t multinational corporations take out insurance rather than have taxpayers underwrite them?
First some background: the Investor-state Dispute Settlement, or ISDS (new name – Investment Court System, or ICS) is a mechanism whereby corporations can sue governments that introduce legislation that they claim reduces their potential to make profit
GM is about corporate control of our food, not ‘feeding the world’: learn more at an event this saturday
Are you eating GM food? The fact that you are mostly* not is down to 20 years of inspiring direct action and pressure by anti-GM activists.
How the ‘One Planet Development’ policy is helping people get back onto the land in Wales
Something special is happening in Wales. The country is using legislation to shift itself into a very different direction from England. It wants to be more sustainable. It wants to reduce its ‘ecological footprint’ to a level that’s fair compared to the rest of the planet’s population and resources.
£30, credit-card-sized, non-corporate, low-energy computers set up to run Linux; any boxes not ticked there?
These are cheap (£30) mini computers that run Linux and will make a good second computer for children (for example), a media player in another room, or a data server. It might save people buying another laptop and it means you can reuse the peripherals of older PCs (screen, mouse etc).
Can you offer your IT skills to help build a website to challenge the pro-corporate bias in UK trade deals?
Website help needed: with Brexit, the UK will be heading into international ‘trade’ deals, which are likely to be as much about establishing corporate rights and diminishing democracy as the EU/US TTIP – a deal that is now on the back-burner.
Post-Brexit trade deals explained: how they will hand more power to multinational corporations – at our expense
With Brexit the main aim seems to be to have trade agreements with as many countries as possible and as soon as possible. Little attention is paid (none?) to the content or purpose of those post-Brexit trade deals – and for whose benefit they would be.
Why the banks have so much power and how we can take it away from them
I mentioned a while ago that I’m enrolled on a MOOC (massive, open, online course) about banking and the money system. As promised, I’m blogging about some of the things that I’ve learnt (we’ve covered the definition and history of money so far).
Should we be reliant on cheap foreign labour to work on our farms, or is there a better way to feed ourselves?
Recently The Guardian ran an article by John Harris called “They say after Brexit there’ll be food rotting in the fields. It’s already started.” To summarise, John is saying Brexit has made the UK look an unfriendly place to our European neighbours and with the increasing financial fortunes of eastern European nations, farm workers are …
It’s worse than you think: review of Douglas Rushkoff’s ‘Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus’
Here’s an article that’s part review of the latest book by Douglas Rushkoff (buy it – it’s excellent), part ramble about twenty-first century capitalism.
A matter of scale: how small farms provide more jobs and more food per acre
Our new report, “A Matter of Scale”, highlights how a diverse and vibrant sector of small farms is providing employment, attracting new entrants and incubating entrepreneurs.
Low-impact & the city 12: switching to the Phone Co-op (do it today!)
The Phone Co-op is the UK’s only co-operative telecoms provider. 100% member-owned, they have a democratic internal structure and no external shareholders. You can just become a customer, or you can become a member too, and have a say in the way the co-op is run.
Starting a market garden: Q&A with Chris Smaje of Small Farm Future
Chris Smaje of Small Farm Future kindly agreed to share with us a recent blog post of his own about starting a market garden, drawing on his experiences at Vallis Veg, a small farm on the outskirts of Frome in Somerset with a veg box scheme and much more besides. Covering 13 questions collated from …