Create!

Along with direct action and other forms of resistance, a transformational movement must also have a constructive program that builds new institutions based on the values that the movement aspires to achieve. These may eventually replace the old systems. From small, worker-owned cooperatives to national advocacy groups, hundreds of thousands of people around the country are working to create democratic and sustainable systems that meet the basic needs of all people.

The Three Key Messages From St. Petersburg To The Global Majority

June 12, 2024 Pepe Escobar, Orinoco Tribune. Create! BRICS, Global Economy, Russia, Vladimir Putin

President Putin, a “European Russian” and true son of this dazzling, dynamic historic marvel by the Neva, delivered an extremely detailed one-hour speech on the Russian economy at the forum’s plenary session. The key takeaway: as the collective West launched total economic war against Russia, the civilization-state turned it around and positioned itself as the world’s 4th largest economy by purchasing power parity (PPP). Putin showed how Russia still carries the potential to launch no less than nine sweeping – global – structural changes, an all-out drive involving the federal, regional, and municipal spheres.

Safe Abortions Everywhere, Regardless Of The Law

June 11, 2024 Naomi Braine, In These Times. Create! Abortion Rights, Abortions, Global South, health, Supreme Court, Women's Rights

In 2008 in Quito, high in the Andes Mountains, a group of young feminist activists dropped a banner from the top of an enormous statue of the Virgin Mary that towers over Ecuador’s capital city. “Aborto Seguro,” the banner read, alongside the number for a new hotline that offered callers information on safely using medication to end a pregnancy outside the medical system. In a country where abortion access is extremely restricted and the majority of the population is Catholic, the Ecuadorian “safe abortion hotline” was a bold declaration of women’s bodily autonomy. It was also the beginning of what has since become a transnational movement that is increasingly relevant far beyond the region where it was born.

Towards Democratic And Ecological Cities

June 11, 2024 Yavor Tarinski, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cities, Democracy, Ecology, Energy, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Urban Design

Cities are an integral part of human history. With their creation a public space emerged, which allowed their inhabitants to experience true political freedom. The city gave birth to direct democracy and the concept of the polis – both based on the idea that citizens can and should collectively and equally self-manage their common urban life, in all its spheres. Such free cities networked with each other into democratic confederations. Their relation with the countryside was one of symbiosis and mutual aid. With the expansion of empires, nation-states and capitalism, cities were submitted to the paradigms of political oligarchy and unlimited economic expansion.

Study Finds Indicators Of Economic Growth Without Environmental Harm

June 10, 2024 Diego Ramos, Scheer Post. Create! China, Environment, Industrial Area, Report, Sustainability

A recent study conducted by researchers from China, France, the Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Britain, and South Africa has found evidence of separation between economic growth and environmental degradation in China’s most economically significant lake basin. The Yangtze River Delta, which was studied by the team, accounts for only 4 percent of the country’s land area but a quarter of its gross domestic product (GDP). Some of China’s major industries, including chip, electric vehicle, robot and battery manufacturers and developers in software and artificial intelligence are concentrated in the delta.

For The Rich, One Nation Isn’t Rolling Out The Red Carpet

June 10, 2024 Sam Pizzigati, Inequality.org. Create! Norway, Taxes, wealth inequality, Wealth Tax

So you think the rich have life easy, do you? Just try telling that to the deep pockets who’ve spent tens of millions buying condos at 432 Park Avenue, the 11-year-old Manhattan luxury tower that once rated as our hemisphere’s tallest residence. Condo owners in the tower have had to put up with “faulty elevators, leaky plumbing, and noise issues.” They’re now suing the building’s operator. Or consider the plight of those fabulously wealthy souls who’ve had to pay millions to move their mansions off the sandy coast of Nantucket, the one-time hippie refuge that’s become a summer “holiday hot spot for billionaires.” The problem?

What Paris Can Teach Other Cities About Removing Roads

June 10, 2024 Thalia Verkade and Marco te Brömmelstroet, Next City. Create! Environment, France, Paris, Roads, Transportation, Urban Design, Walkable Cities

Can removing a road make it easier to drive more freely elsewhere? A major study of 63 roads and squares closed to motor traffic in various European cities (mainly in Britain and Germany) suggests that it does. In many cases, cars disappeared altogether, rather than being displaced into parallel streets, lessening the dreaded congestion. Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, made the same claim, but the court disagreed, holding that the research was inadequate. However, actual measures of traffic levels before and after the road closure along the Seine, announced the week the court handed down its decision, indicated a reduction in motor traffic in nearby areas.

A Rochester Credit Union Wants The Local Government To Create A Bank

June 9, 2024 Oscar Perry Abello, Next City. Create! Credit Unions, New York (NY), Public Banks, Rochester, Small Business

Melissa Marquez inherited her mother’s deep desire to make the banking system work for those whom it has long excluded. At 14, she saw her mother break down in tears again and again after coming home from work as a loan officer at a bank. The bank refused to lend to their community in Barrio Logan, an epicenter of Chicano culture in San Diego, her mother told her. Barrio Logan residents would come in, make their deposits and stay faithful customers to the bank, but still couldn’t get access to credit. That memory from 1974 has driven Marquez to help lead a coalition of tenant organizers, community land trusts, community development lenders and elected officials that has spent the last few years calling for more government-owned banks across New York.

Announcing The Launch Of The Online Popular University For Gaza

June 7, 2024 Open Letter, Mondoweiss. Create! Gaza, Higher Education, Israel, Palestine, Popular University

As the death toll rises in the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza, San Francisco State University (SFSU) has once again decided to cancel its only Palestine course that Dr. Rabab Abdulhadi was scheduled to teach during this summer school. This abrupt and irrational decision seeks to criminalize the Palestine curriculum while dismissing and ignoring popular student demand to learn a critical Palestinian perspective that has been absent on U.S. college campuses. Over the last month, hundreds of students, academics, community leaders, and organizers called on SFSU administrators to urgently reverse their decision to cancel Dr. Abdulhadi’s popular and unique course.

Electric Trains Are The Powerhouse Electric Vehicles

June 4, 2024 High Speed Rail Alliance. Create! climate crisis, Electric Vehicles, Energy, Railroads, Trains, Transportation

Lawmakers and business leaders alike are touting electric cars as a game-changer for climate change. And it’s true that cutting carbon pollution from vehicles is critical. The transportation sector accounts for about 29 percent of greenhouse-gas pollution in the US. The on-road emissions in Texas alone account for nearly ½ of 1 percent of all carbon-dioxide pollution globally. But the hype around electric cars is misplaced. Electric trains are the true powerhouse EV in the fight against climate change. And it’s not even close. Data from the UK shows that the national rail system is about 25% more energy efficient than electric cars, and London’s subway system is about 40% more efficient.

New Bill In Honduras Seeks To Rectify 1980s Human Rights Violations

June 3, 2024 Michael Fox, Resumen English. Create! History, Honduras, Human Rights, Reparations, State Violence

In Honduras, family members of the victims of state violence in the 1980s have been marching for 40 years to demand justice for the disappearance and death of their loved ones. Now, there’s a chance they may see reparations. An unprecedented bill that would provide compensation for the family members of the victims is working its way through Congress. In June 1981, Bertha Oliva was three months pregnant and had only been married for four months when she witnessed the kidnapping of her husband by the country’s death squad. “I was there when they took him away from me,” she said, adding, “I am a witness to the brutality. I am a survivor of that moment.”

Texas Needs Radical Solutions For Water Conservation

June 3, 2024 Martin Castro, Next City. Create! climate crisis, Drought, Environment, Recycling, Texas, Water

South Texas is facing a water crisis decades in the making. Much of the region’s growing population relies on the Rio Grande as its sole source of drinking water. Yet in recent years, as climate change has gripped Texas and caused hotter, drier summers, the river’s flow has diminished to a trickle in some areas. This year, months before summer has officially set in, major reservoirs on the Rio Grande are nearly empty after reaching historic lows last year. Falcon Reservoir is less than 15% full as of mid-April, and Amistad Reservoir hovers below one-third full. Last month, Hidalgo County issued a disaster declaration as a binational agreement with the Mexican government fails to deliver water from the Rio Grande, as it is obligated to do under the terms of a 1944 treaty. Farmers fear losing their crops.

Philadelphia’s Reforestation Hub Isn’t Just Diverting Tree Waste

June 2, 2024 Cinnamon Janzer, Next City. Create! Carbon sequestration, Circular Economy, Jobs, Philadelphia, Reforestation

Each year, U.S. cities lose an estimated 36 million trees to development, disease and old age, many of which ultimately end up in landfills. Losing these urban trees – known to help cool their neighborhoods, lower carbon emissions and improve mental health, among other benefits – costs an estimated $96 million annually. In Philadelphia, a partnership is giving the City of Brotherly Love’s fallen trees new life. Philadelphia Parks & Rec joined forces with Cambium Carbon, a Washington, D.C.-based startup that repurposes waste wood, and PowerCorpsPHL, a local nonprofit that creates job opportunities for unemployed and under-employed 18- to 30-year-olds, to launch the Reforestation Hub in late May.

Camila Vergara’s Bold Vision For A Plebeian Constitutionalism

June 1, 2024 David Bollier. Create! Chile, oligarchy, Participatory Democracy, People's Assemblies

Systemic corruption is not about a few venal politicians who take bribes or bureaucrats who collude with wealthy corporations. It's about the systemic oligarchization of power within a general respect for the rule of law. Elites come to dominate the state political apparatus and warp the law to suit their interests and desires, betraying the promise of democracy. That's why plebeians must have explicit constitutional powers, says Vergara. In Systemic Corruption, Vergara opens up a new kind of conversation that I have never heard before in political circles or the news media. She proposes new types of constitutional power for plebeian institutions so that the interests of ordinary people will be baked into modern constitutional systems.

Power Plants To Parklands

June 1, 2024 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. Create! Coal, Community, Michigan, Parks, Power Plants

There are currently more than 200 coal-fired power plants in operation in the United States, but the country has been scaling back since reaching its coal generation peak in 2011. By the end of 2026, the U.S. is projected to have retired half of its coal capacity. Coal plants emit toxic pollutants into the air, water and soil, leaving a legacy of contamination that must be cleaned up after their decommission. But what happens to coal plants after they shut down? Michigan’s Environmental Law & Policy Center (ELPC) sees retiring coal plants — once viewed as industrial scars on the landscape — as “canvases for the creation of new greenways, parklands, wildlife habitat, and clean energy development,” a press release from ELPC said.

Nepal’s Self-Managing Forests And The Duck That Dares To Love

May 31, 2024 Ryan Jones, Resilience. Create! Community, Environment, Forests, Nepal, Water

Nepal’s unique approach to community-based conservation means the country’s 118 different ecosystem variants are very much alive. The country boasts more than 950 species of birds, 13,067 species of plants, and 17,097 species of animals, including one-horned rhinos, Bengal tigers, Asiatic elephants, gaurs, and red pandas. Thanks in part to 22,500 forest community user groups, forest cover in Nepal has risen from 25% to 45% since the 1990s, making it one of the few developing countries to expand its forest cover. Nearly 40% of Nepali households are involved in some way. This is supported by the fact that now more than 23% of Nepal’s land is protected by the government.

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