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.

Philly Used Its Franchise Agreement To Win Internet Access For All

January 27, 2024 Cinnamon Janzer, Next City. Create! Comcast, digital equity, Internet Access, Philadelphia

How is it that internet carriers like Spectrum came to dominate service in New York City, while others like Xfinity reign supreme in cities like Minneapolis? While residents are familiar with the major internet providers in their cities, they’re less familiar with the agreements that brought them there. Across the country, internet access often reaches homes through the public right of way — the edges of privately owned land under which public lines are laid. Utility providers of everything from water to electricity and internet use these lines to deliver their services to customers. To use these public lines, internet providers from Comcast to Cox enter franchise agreements with local governments.

Hawaii School Employees To Get Up To 25% In Pandemic Hazard Pay

January 25, 2024 Kevin Dayton, Portside. Create! COVID-19, Education, Hawaii, Hazard Pay, Unions, Victory, Worker Rights and Jobs

An arbitration decision has determined public school employees in five bargaining units of the state’s largest union are entitled to back pay of up to 25% of their total salaries for as much as two years, according to the state’s largest union. The Hawaii Government Employees Association said the decision covers up to 7,800 Department of Education employees, including school nurses, office employees, and classroom educational assistants. “Those working in the DOE were some of the most exposed among public service employees, putting their own health – as well as that of their loved ones – at substantial risk to keep services running in Hawaii’s schools,” HGEA Executive Director Randy Perreira said Tuesday in a written statement.

Planning For Degrowth

January 22, 2024 Andrew Curry, Resilience. Create! climate crisis, Degrowth, Sustainability, Transformation

There was an article in Nature from late 2022 on degrowth that got some sudden attention over the holidays because economists and tech bros noticed it and turned out on social media to do some hating. In fact the lead author, Jason Hickel, claimed on Ex-Twitter that as a result the paper was the most-read on Nature during the break. Regular readers here will know that my main issue with the idea of “degrowth” is the name—that if you’re trying to change behaviour around an idea that is deeply culturally embedded in 250 years of modernity, it’s best (a) not to do it head-on, and (b) not to frame it as a negative. But I’ll park that for now.

Explaining The Commons Economy

January 21, 2024 Dave Darby, Resilience. Create! Commoning, Commons, Finance and the Economy, Local Economy

What Is The Commons Economy? It’s an economy in which the essentials of life – housing, energy, land, food, water, transport, social care, the means of exchange etc. are owned in common, in communities, rather than by absentee landlords, corporations or the state. Commons have 3 parts: a) resources / assets, b) ‘commoners’ – local people who control and use them, and c) a set of rules, written by the commoners, so that they’re not lost, by being sold or used up. We’re not talking about ‘open access’ public goods like the oceans, atmosphere, sunlight or rainfall or ‘anything to do with building community’, but commons based on the principles laid out by Elinor Ostrom in Governing the Commons.

EU Approves Law To Ban Greenwashing On Product Labels

January 19, 2024 Paige Bennett, EcoWatch. Create! European Union (EU), greenwashing, Labeling, Sustainability

The European Parliament has voted to adopt a law regulating sustainability claims on product labels. The law will prohibit retailers from making general environmental claims and sustainability claims without evidence. The law bans the use of terms including “eco,” “biodegradable,” “environmentally friendly,” “natural” and “climate neutral” without evidence. The EU will now require sustainability labels to be linked to official certifications or those established by public authorities, such as the the EU Ecolabel, the European Environmental Bureau reported. Further, the law addresses carbon offsetting, banning labels from noting that products have a “neutral, reduced or positive impact on the environment” because of companies’ participation in carbon offsetting programs.

The Biggest Universal Basic Mobility Experiment In The US

January 17, 2024 Maylin Tu, Next City. Create! Basic Income, Los Angeles, Low Income, Mobility Wallet, Transportation

In May, the Los Angeles Department of Transportation and LA Metro launched the biggest Universal Basic Mobility experiment ever attempted in the U.S., giving 1,000 South Los Angeles residents a “mobility wallet” — a debit card with $150 per month to spend on transportation. The catch? Funds can be used to take the bus, ride the train, rent a shared e-scooter, take micro-transit, rent a car-share, take an Uber or Lyft, or even purchase an e-bike — but they can’t be spent on the cost of owning or operating a car. The year-long pilot, ending in April, has the dual goals of increasing mobility for low-income residents and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Commons And Commoning: A Progressive Vision Of A Good Society

January 14, 2024 David Bollier. Create! Capitalism, Constructive Program, The Commons, Transformation

Established systems don't welcome fundamentally new ideas – even when they desperately need them, even if people are clamoring for them. Entrenched systems see new ideas and logics as disruptive. They see them as threatening and even incomprehensible. And yet, as Albert Einstein famously said, "Problems cannot be solved with the same mindset that created them." We're at an impasse today because contemporary institutions keep bringing the same mindset to solving problems that need some fresh and strikingly different approaches. The many problems afflicting agriculture and the food system today are fundamentally similar to those afflicting the rest of society. They are just another theater for rentier capitalism, which relies on market/state collusion, extractivism of nature, and systemic precarity for many ordinary people.

North Carolina City Takes First Steps Toward Cherokee Cultural Corridor

January 14, 2024 Brittany Moseley, Next City. Create! Indigenous culture, Indigenous People, North Carolina

For decades, the town of Franklin, North Carolina, owned Noquisiyi (later interpreted as Nikwasi) Mound. The mound is the only thing that remains of a Cherokee settlement that dates back to the 16th century. The town’s meeting hall once sat atop the mound. Now, the Nikwasi Initiative is working to protect and honor local sites that play an essential role in the heritage of a regional Indian tribe — including the Nikwasi Mound. The organization, which was founded in 2019, is the byproduct of a conflict that arose between Franklin city officials and members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, according to executive director Elaine Eisenbraun.

Carbon Farming: A Sustainable Agriculture Technique

January 14, 2024 John J. Berger, Resilience.org. Create! Carbon sequestration, climate crisis, Farming, Food and Agriculture

What if there were a way to safely pull billions of tons of carbon out of the atmosphere to substantially reduce or even eliminate global warming? What if this approach costs relatively little and could be used around the world? What if it also put billions of dollars in cash into the hands of countless working Americans and people worldwide? What if it even slashed fossil fuel consumption and made the world more resilient to climate stress? Well, it turns out there is a system that can do all that. It’s called carbon farming, and it just might be key to restabilizing the climate. In the process, it can revitalize rural economies while also producing healthier, more nutritious crops. And amazingly, it’s also low-cost, low-tech, and low-risk.

Wales Gets Its First ‘Dark Sky’ Community

January 13, 2024 Cristen Hemingway Jaynes, EcoWatch. Create! Infrastructure, Light Pollution, Wales, wildlife

Presteigne and Norton, a town and neighboring village in the Welsh county of Powys, have been announced as Wales’ first “dark sky community” by DarkSky International. Lights will be dimmed or turned off earlier in order to lower light pollution in the area, allowing residents to get a clearer view of the night sky, reported BBC News. “The Community has worked tenaciously over the last six years to highlight the benefits of becoming a dark sky community,” said Leigh-Harling Bowen, leader of the Presteigne & Norton Dark Skies Community, a press release from DarkSky International said.

Public Ownership Of Rail Is On The Agenda

January 11, 2024 Alex N. Press, Jacobin. Create! East Palestine, Ohio, Public ownership, Railroads

Nearly one year ago, on the night of February 3, 2023, a Norfolk Southern freight train carrying hazardous materials derailed in East Palestine, Ohio. Videos of the smoke and fire released by the nearly two-mile-long train went viral, and residents in the community reported severe health effects. The rail disaster triggered an outcry: Why did this happen, and what can any of us do about it? Soon, there were articles detailing the alarming state into which the country’s railroads have fallen: accidents are up, and oversight is hard to come by. Plus, there is a severe squeeze on rail workers, many of whom lack sick days of any kind and are effectively always on call.

Upcycling 101: Everything You Need To Know

January 11, 2024 LibLeonard, EcoWatch. Create! Circular Economy, Recycling, Sustainability, Upcycling

Many of us are familiar with the phrase, “Reduce, Reuse, Recycle” in terms of sustainability, but it’s become apparent that “Reduce, Reuse, and Repurpose” might be a smarter avenue in terms of reducing waste streams. Right now globally, 2.12 billion tons of waste is dumped annually. Many industries, particularly textiles, contribute not only to microplastic pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, but also poisonous gases in the atmosphere. Doubling down on not always purchasing new things helps to reduce waste and conserve valuable resources. Upcycling is the process of using items that might be discarded to create a new use for them, often one with higher value.

Community Economies: Reframing Wealth Building

January 11, 2024 Thomas Klaffke, Resilience. Create! Capitalism, Community Control, Local Economy, Wealth

Our current wealth-building system is based on individualism and therefore elitism. We’re totally focused on this idea of competition, on “beating” the opponents and gaining leverage against others to “win”. Those who outrun their competitors “lead” the race and therefore become the “leaders”. Society envies those who “made it”, who, through gaining competitive advantage, made a fortune and can now enjoy status, power, and independence points that seem almost unreachable for the ordinary person who feels stuck in the daily rat race. “The dominant narrative around leadership in many areas of the world centers individualism over solidarity.

This Emerging Green Technology Could Decarbonize Buildings

January 10, 2024 Sara Van Horn, In These Times. Create! Energy, Green Economy, Green Transition, Just transition

In early 2021, an award-winning design for a “thermal energy network” caught the eye of John Murphy. The design was part of a proposal to decarbonize Empire Plaza in Albany, N.Y., and it featured a series of underground water pipes that balanced the heating and cooling systems of adjacent buildings. As the International Representative of the New York State Pipe Trades Association, which represents around 25,000 workers across New York State, Murphy had been searching for an renewable energy solution for his members. In his seven years in the position, he has seen how some of the state’s current approaches to the clean energy transition — namely closing power plants without providing alternate jobs — have often left his members unemployed.

The Spectacular Failure Of The Zionist Project

January 9, 2024 Stefan Moore, Consortium News. Create! Israel, One Democratic State, Palestine, Two-State Solution, Wars and Militarism, Zionism

As a secular Jew raised in a fiercely anti-Zionist family, I grew up viewing the State of Israel as an unfortunate fait accompli and accepting that the two-state solution was probably the best that could be hoped for. Since then, I have come to the conclusion that the creation of a Jewish state was a catastrophic mistake and that Zionist Israel has relinquished its right to exist. What good could possibly have come from a project that handed a group of Jewish Europeans a land that for countless centuries was inhabited by Arab Palestinians? Not only did Palestinians have no say in the creation of a Jewish state on their homeland, but just at the time when other developing countries around the world were finally breaking free from the yoke of colonial rule Palestinians, like Native Americans and Australia’s First Nations people before them, became the victims of European settler colonialism.

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