Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) is one of those rare ideas which combine transformative potential with an elegant simplicity. The CSA model of funding and sustaining locally-rooted agriculture has grown exponentially around the globe over the past four decades. …

With growing news of war and conflict, ecological and climate catastrophe, stark inequalities, health crises related to both poverty and affluence, the authoritarianism of governments, and the increasing stranglehold of mega-corporations in all aspects of our lives, it is understandable that there is deep anxiety about the present and future…

“Attention discourse” is my term for the proliferation of articles, essays, books, and op-eds about attention and distraction in the age of digital media. I don’t mean the label pejoratively. I’ve made my own contributions to the genre, in my newsletter and elsewhere, and as recently as May of last…

A controversy has erupted over who feeds the world. It has been general accepted knowledge that small-scale farmers, fisherfolk and pastoralists feed the vast majority of the people on earth. This was recognized by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and many other international agencies. But now the FAO…

In 2017, the people of Zagora, Morocco, took to the streets in what became known as the ‘ thirst revolution’. They were demanding safe drinking water and an end to the excessive use of water by big agricultural companies. In an already arid area experiencing frequent droughts and heatwaves due…

The most recent topic explored by the thinkers and activists who make up the Great Transition Network was “Technology and the Future”. As writer after writer posted their thoughts, it was heartening to see that almost all recognize that technology cannot provide real solutions to the many crises we face…

Capitalism in its earliest incarnation dates back to the end of Europe’s medieval period. ‘Growth’, such as it was, first manifested itself in the innovation and creativity of the Renaissance, while economic expansion in the commonly understood sense was to come later. …

Since the heyday of technological determinism in the 1960s, many authors have written eloquently about how developments in technology are more typically the outcome of particular social and economic arrangements. Some contributions that have significantly shaped my own thinking include: * Lewis Mumford’s observation that inventions like glass and steam…

Ask not for energy or goods that depend on international supply chains. Ask not for solar power, wind power or battery electric storage (BESS). Ask not for e-vehicles (EVs) or smartphones. These can’t be manufactured without fossil fuels, extractions, deforestation, greenhouse gases, toxic waste and international supply chains. They can’t…