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.

How US Governments Could Crack Down On Greenwashing

August 22, 2024 Emily Sanders, DeSmog. Create! Fossil Fuels, greenwashing, Media, United States

“Experts agree: [carbon capture and storage] is one of the most important low-carbon technologies required to achieve societal climate goals.” So says ExxonMobil, in a Facebook ad targeting hundreds of thousands of people across the United States. The ad, which launched last October and ran most recently this month, leads viewers to a 30-second video with computer-generated models and captions describing a seemingly idyllic process. “The CO2 is safely and permanently stored beneath impermeable rock,” one says. Exxon has pledged to invest billions of dollars in CCS, a technology aimed at capturing and sequestering carbon emissions (much of which is used to recover more oil).

Los Angeles Has A Climate Crisis And A Housing Crisis

August 22, 2024 Awoenam Mauna-Woanya, Christopher Rhie and Christopher K. Tokita, Next City. Create! climate crisis, Housing, infill housing, Los Angeles

Since taking office, Mayor Karen Bass has rightly focused on housing and homelessness in Los Angeles. But given the growing climate crisis, it’s crucial to maintain this focus while empowering our city to take effective climate action. Already, the City and County of Los Angeles have committed to an ambitious goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. To reach this critical target, we must make serious changes — especially in how we build our cities and suburbs. This fundamental factor in our carbon footprint is so often overlooked in climate action plans. It’s also the key to tackling both our environmental challenges and our city’s housing affordability crisis simultaneously: infill housing, or the practice of building new housing on vacant or underused land in cities.

Aligning Our National Organizations With Co-Op Principles

August 20, 2024 Rebecca Kemble, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cooperatives, Democracy, Self-Determination, Worker Rights and Jobs

In his 2010 Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO) article “What should our movement look like in 2040?,” John McNamara, past president of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC, “the Federation”) and current Co-Director of the Northwest Cooperative Development Center, used the metaphor of building a house. He saw the first four years of the USFWC (2004-2008) as the foundation laid by the cooperation and collaboration amongst three democratic regional formations: the Western Worker Cooperative Conference, the Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy and the Midwest Worker Cooperative Conference.

How Should Cities Use The Land Freed Up By Highway Removal?

August 19, 2024 Morgan Florsheim, Next City. Create! carless community, Highways, Urban Design, Wisconsin

The 20th-century era of urban planning saw highways carving scars across the landscapes of many American cities, leaving in their wake a legacy of displacement and destruction. Today, removing freeways seems to offer a path to repairing some of this harm and moving away from car-centric infrastructure. But highway removal alone is not enough. Whether removal projects make good on their promises to mend some of the damage caused by freeway construction and redesign cities at a more human scale depends entirely on two questions: Who controls the reclaimed land when a freeway comes down, and how will those decision makers use it?

The Path For Abolishing The Police Already Exists

August 18, 2024 Joe Mayall, Scheer Post. Create! Accountability, Community Safety, Defund the police, Police, State Violence

America watched in horror this spring as armed phalanxes of police assaulted peaceful pro-Palestine protesters on campuses across the nation. The raids on student encampments ranged from dubious arrests to snipers on campus rooftops. This most recent episode of widespread police aggression only reinforced Americans’ belief that law enforcement is quick to violent escalation. Last year, a nationwide ABC News-Washington Post survey of 1,003 adults found that only 39% of Americans polled were confident police were adequately trained to avoid excessive force, and only 41% believed they treated Black and white people equally.

Unlocking Community Energy Democracy

August 17, 2024 Nick Pearce, Resilience. Create! Cooperatives, Energy, Energy Democracy, United Kingdom (UK)

‍The UK Labour Party’s overlooked Local Power Plan could be an ambitious force ushering in a new generation of renewable energy by handing power to the people. Although the possibilities for local energy democracy abound, public detail on the plan is scant. Labour is promising a £3.3BN fund to support community ownership of renewable generation. This would offer grants and loans to local authorities and communities to “create one million owners of local power,” according to the plan. The proposal would be for Great British Energy (GBE), “a new, publicly owned clean generation company”, to partner with councils and community co-ops to develop 8 GW of clean power by the end of the decade.

2024 Roadmap For Opioid Settlement Funds

August 14, 2024 Mariah McGough, VOCAL-US. Create! Drug War, Harm Reduction, Opioid crisis, Public Health

Unfortunately, since we released our inaugural Roadmap last year, the overdose epidemic has only gotten worse. In fact, we are in the midst of an unprecedented overdose epidemic, with more than 220 people each day dying from opioid-related drug overdoses. Rather than focus on proven solutions —such as supportive housing, services and care — state lawmakers across the country are instead trying to “ticket and arrest” their way out of the problem. These punishing measures are torn directly from the well-worn pages of failed Drug War and “tough on crime” playbooks, which for decades have failed to get people off the streets and into stable housing.

The Government Spends Millions To Open Grocery Stores In Food Deserts

August 14, 2024 Molly Parker, ProPublica. Create! Food Deserts, Government Subsidies, Grocery Stores, Illinois

Cairo, Ill. — More than 100 people congregated in the parking lot of Rise Community Market on its opening day a little over a year ago. As they listened to celebratory speeches, the audience erupted into joyful exclamations: “Mercy!” “Wonderful!” “Wow!” “All right!” Colorful homemade signs raised by local leaders beckoned the crowd to join in: “We!” “Are!” “No!” “Longer!” “A!” “Food!” “Desert!” For most American cities, the opening of a new grocery store barely warrants a mention. But in Cairo, the government seat of Illinois’ poorest county and the fastest-shrinking one in America, business openings are rare. And for residents who for years had to travel long distances to buy food, it was a magical moment.

On A Rural Hawaiian Island, Solar Provides A Path To Energy Sovereignty

August 13, 2024 Naoki Nitta, Resilience. Create! Energy, Energy Sovereignty, Hawaiʻi, Solar Energy

Like many homesteaders on the island of Molokaʻi, Kailana Place grew up off-grid, on 40 acres of family land designated for Native Hawaiians. Living in repurposed school buses surrounded by fields of red volcanic clay and kiawe trees “was a glamping lifestyle,” joked the social worker and mother of three. Three years ago, the fuels that power buses like Place’s — kerosene and propane — sparked a devastating fire. Neighbors helped Place and her husband, Ikaika, build a new house with rooftop solar and a battery. Even now, the buzz of constant, reliable power has yet to wear off. Beyond ensuring continuous internet access and a freezer for fish and venison — most residents depend upon subsistence fishing, hunting, and farming — their asthmatic son no longer relies on a generator to power his inhaler.

Introduction To DES: Solidarity Economy Districts

August 12, 2024 Tamat, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Finance and the Economy, New Economy, Solidarity Economy, Transformation

In today's video, we bring you an in-depth interview with representatives from the Verona Solidarity Economy District (DES). We will discover how the movement started, its roots in the Lilliput network in Varese, and how it has grown over the years to become an established reality in the field of solidarity economy. Topics covered in the video: - The origins of the DES: The history of the movement, from its early steps taken over 20 years ago thanks to the Lilliput network, to the founding of the DES in Varese and Verona. - The Lilliput network and the G8: How awareness of global dynamics, such as those of the G8, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank, influenced the birth of the DES.

Rural ‘Buffer Ring’ Can Reduce Urban Heat Island Effect

August 11, 2024 Ada Carpenter, Resilience. Create! climate crisis, Global heating, heat islands, Urban Design

Rural land cover surrounding a city has the potential to reduce the “urban heat island” (UHI) effect and cool the city centre by more than 0.5C, new research shows. While heatwaves around the world are becoming more frequent and intense because of human-caused warming, they are made even more severe in cities by the UHI effect, which traps heat in urban areas and keeps them warmer than their rural surroundings. The study, published in Nature Cities, analyses 20 years of data from 30 cities in China and finds that a ring of rural land around a city can bring the urban temperature down. A buffer ring that is at least half the city’s width can have the biggest cooling effect.

Insights Into GAS: Solidarity Purchasing Groups

August 7, 2024 Tamat, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! New Economy, Organic Farming, Solidarity Economy, Solidarity Purchase Group

Discover what it means to be part of a Solidarity Purchase Group (GAS) through the interview with Vincenzo Vizioli, president of AIAB Umbria. With a journey that began in the late 1980s, Vincenzo explains how his choice for organic and biodynamic farming has evolved into a model of sustainability, cooperation, and mutualism. In the video, Vizioli tells the story of the Italian Organic Movement and the birth of GAS and IAP, highlighting the importance of sustainable agriculture and the need to promote social participation and community resilience. He then delves into the concept of GAS, explaining how these groups not only facilitate access to quality organic products but also promote a fair and solidarity-based economy.

How Unelected Regulators Unleashed The Derivatives Monster

August 4, 2024 Ellen Brown, Scheer Post. Create! Banking, Debt, Finance and the Economy, Regulation

While the world is absorbed in the U.S. election drama, the derivatives time bomb continues to tick menacingly backstage. No one knows the actual size of the derivatives market, since a major portion of it is traded over-the-counter, hidden in off-balance-sheet special purpose vehicles. However, when Warren Buffet famously labeled derivatives “financial weapons of mass destruction” in 2002, its “notional value” was estimated at $56 trillion. Twenty years later, the Bank for International Settlements estimated that value at $610 trillion. And financial commentators have put it as high as $2.3 quadrillion or even $3.7 quadrillion, far exceeding global GDP, which was about $100 trillion in 2022.

Why So Many Congestion Pricing Critics Change Their Tune

August 4, 2024 Akielly Hu, Next City. Create! Air Quality, climate crisis, Finance and the Economy, Fossil Fuels, New York City (NYC), Transportation, Urban Design

New York City’s plan to charge most vehicles $15 to enter downtown Manhattan would have eased traffic, cut pollution, and raised billions for mass transit. But Governor Kathy Hochul — in an 11th-hour reversal — placed congestion pricing on hold indefinitely, leaving a $15 billion gap in the city’s transit upgrade plans. Hochul, a Democrat, cited a slow economic recovery from the pandemic and the burden the tolls would place on low-income residents, but sources say she also feared upsetting swing district voters who could decide key elections this fall. Most people balk at the idea of paying more for anything, and congestion pricing plans are no exception.

Social Housing Isn’t Just A Vienna Thing

August 2, 2024 Leo Miranda, Next City. Create! Austria, Housing, New York (NY), Social Housing, Vienna

When it comes to housing people for highly affordable and highly livable homes for the long term, Vienna, Austria has no equal. The average Viennese pays a quarter or less of their post-tax income on rent and utilities and half of the city lives in public or subsidized housing. These buildings aren’t shabby or poorly-maintained either. “It looks like the housing we can’t afford in New York,” says Samuel Stein, housing policy analyst at the Community Service Society. Vienna prioritizes housing supply, subsidizing the construction of 7,000 subsidized units a year while maintaining over 220,000 city-owned units. As Vienna grows its social housing stock, it suppresses housing costs overall.

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