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Localism

How To Build The Future In Place: Taking The First Steps

September 23, 2023 Patrick Mazza, Resilience. , , ,
Building the future in place envisions bringing together an ecosystem of community-based institutions and public policies that meets human needs and balances our relations within the natural world. It involves weaving together community initiatives and advocacy campaigns that now often operate in separate compartments to create a coherent politics, built around deep-rooted, place-based movements informed by comprehensive visions for transformative change at local and bioregional scales. It starts where markets and the system are failing, prioritizing communities and people who are being failed the most. In the process, it fills the greatest need now existing in our society, for community. In a fractured world where increasing disruptions can be expected, we need to somehow find our way back to human social solidarity, to being good neighbors. It’s not just climate. We face a profound crisis of global ecosystems.

No Parties On A Dead Planet: It’s Time We Reimagine Burning Man

September 10, 2023 Corinne Loperfido, In These Times. , , ,
For the past 37 years, people have flocked to Burning Man to celebrate art, radical self expression and community. The first iteration of Burning Man began in 1986 when a small group of friends met on a San Francisco beach with an eight-foot statue of a man they built with scrap lumber. They soaked the statue in gasoline and burned it, symbolizing the destruction of the powers that be. The world does not look today as it did in 1986: As about 72,000 ​“Burners” lined up in their cars and campers to take reprieve from the grind of capitalism and attend this year’s Burning Man, which now convenes in Nevada’s Black Rock Desert, a group of climate activists from Seven Circles Alliance blocked the road.

The Liberatory Potential Of Local Action

September 23, 2019 Brian Tokar, The Great Transition Initiative , ,
We are seeing an inspiring resurgence of progressive action at the local level, even as reactionary nationalist movements in Europe and beyond seek to position themselves as the true voices of a renewed localism. What are the prospects for such locally centered political engagement in a time of rising political polarization and conflict? How can local action help advance personal liberation and social justice? More broadly, how can it further our goals for global transformation? The current upsurge of local action by both progressives and radical municipalists is fueled by several complementary impulses.

Think Globally, Act Locally?

August 23, 2019 Brian Tokar, Greattransition.org
Today we are seeing an inspiring resurgence of progressive action at the local level, even as reactionary nationalist movements in Europe and beyond seek to position themselves as the true voices of a renewed localism. What are the prospects for such locally centered political engagement in a time of rising political polarization and conflict? How can local action help advance personal liberation and social justice? More broadly, how can it further our goals for global transformation?

Local Resistance Can Overthrow Our Political Masters

October 6, 2015 Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com ,
By Chris Hedges for Truth Dig - SANTA ANA, Calif.—All resistance will be local. We will have to dismantle the corporate state, piece by piece, from the ground up. No leader or politician is going to do it for us. Every community that bans fracking, every university and institution that embraces the boycott, divest and sanctions (BDS) movement, every individual who becomes vegan to thwart the animal agriculture industry’s devastation of the planet and holocaust of animals, every effort to build self-sustaining food supplies, every protest to halt the use of lethal force by police against our citizens, especially poor people of color, every act of civil disobedience against corporate power and imperialism will slowly transform our society. Those who rebel, once they rise up, will build alliances with other rebels.

Mountain Valley Pipeline Opponents Want Local Say

February 14, 2015 Duncan Adams, www.roanoke.com , , ,
The dominant message was that local governments and citizens should have the power to embrace or reject an energy infrastructure project planned by corporations for private gain. As proposed by Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC, a joint venture of EQT Corp. and NextEra Energy, the 42-inch diameter, 300-mile buried pipeline would transport natural gas at high pressure from West Virginia to a delivery point in Pittsylvania County, Virginia. Mountain Valley has consistently emphasized that the pipeline could yield economic benefits for communities along its route, as well as the state and nation.

Next Phase In The Venezuelan Revolution Announced

September 7, 2014 Staff, www.telesurtv.net , , , , ,
In declarations to the country on Tuesday night, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro announced what he described as "five revolutions", as part of a need to "improve our service to the people." Maduro said the revolutions would be a "a new way of functioning" for the government, and emphasized the need for a more "efficient" government. Maduro described five specific next steps for the Bolivarian Revolution. He explained that it was about consolidating the communal model, and creating a "new eco socialist model". "It´s not about environmentalism, its about ecosocialism, environmentalism isn't enough," Maduro stated. The following five revolutions, he said, "should be united, and should define the government policies, giving power to the people, it will be the people who push government policy."

Building Local Economies

February 27, 2014 Richard Moore www.cyberjournal.org ,
Activists are leading the initiatives, and early-adopters are participating, but most people are not typically getting involved. Without widespread participation in these initiatives, at the local level, the benefits to the community remain marginal. The fact is that most people are not willing to spend their time with idealistic pursuits, and most people don’t think it’s realistic to expect to change society by our own grassroots efforts. If we want to get more people involved in our initiatives, we’ve got to find a way to offer people a reason that appeals to their immediate self-interest. If our localization initiatives could offer significant economic benefits, we can bring in those who aren’t motivated by idealism.

Local Currency, Berkshares, Gets International Attention

November 12, 2013 Jonathan Betz, www.america.aljazeera.com , ,
“They’re beautiful,” she coos as she shows off the colored bills, which are unlike any other. “You can take pride in spending them.” Maggio frowns on dollars, preferring something else, called a BerkShares. The currency is available only in the Berkshires region of western Massachusetts. The area, which long ago embraced the organic and shop-local movements, decided in 2006 to take it a step further by creating its own currency. Town leaders hoped it would encourage people to shop only in stores in Berkshire County. “When you have BerkShares in your pocket,” Maggio said, “you might not go to McDonald’s. You might choose to go to a locally owned restaurant.”

Rob Hopkins Of Transition Towns Making The New Economy Happen

October 15, 2013 Tara Lohan, www.alternet.org , , ,
In late 2006, Hopkins, who taught permaculture, came up with the seed of an idea that has grown into something wild and beautiful: the Transition Network. It started as one Transition Town in Totnes, England and the concept has replicated across 44 countries and thousands of towns and neighborhoods. The initial idea is simple: “To support community-led responses to peak oil and climate change, building resilience and happiness.” The organization now helps communities connect with each other, learn how to reduce CO2 emissions and decarbonize, and implement plans for a whole new kind of economic development. That’s where the idea of resilience comes in. According to the Transition Network: ‘Resilience’ has been defined as “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change, so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks.”

Report: 8 Ways Local Energy Policies Can Boost the Economy

October 8, 2013 Staff, www.ilsr.org , ,
The economy has stalled and so has the war on climate change. But a new report from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance describes how dozens of cities are boosting their local economies while dramatically reducing greenhouse gases. City Power Play: 8 Practical Local Energy Policies to Boost the Economy reports on how Chattanooga, TN, is adding over $1 billion to the local economy in the next decade by implementing one of the most advanced smart grids while delivering the fastest internet service in the country. Sonoma County, CA, has created nearly 800 local jobs retrofitting over 2,000 properties for energy savings with city financing. Babylon, NY, repurposed a solid waste fund to finance retrofits for 2% of the city’s homes, saving residents an average of $1,300 a year on their energy bills at minimal cost to the city.
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