You can download our latest Annual Report from this website now. It describes the wide range of projects and other activities that Feasta was involved with in 2011.
Nick Bardsley, a Feasta member and lecturer in climate change economics at the University of Reading, has prepared a slideshow presentation for the recent Feasta Climate Group weekend which is now available for download. In it he discusses the problems associated with a biofuel-based economy, drawing on the work of energetics analysts Mario Giampietro and Kozo Mayumi. Nick also discusses his own challenges as a lecturer in ecological economics.
“Those few weeks in jail were stark and I never want to go back, but it opened my eyes to a world I had never seen, a world occupied mostly by society’s rejects: Maori, Polynesian, the poor, drug addicts, prostitutes, gangs. My sheltered little self-righteous activist world seemed a joke” writes Tuhi-Ao Bailey in the New Zealand edition of Fleeing Vesuvius.
This essay by Brian Davey forms part of a Nottingham University open source radical engineering course. It explains where economic growth comes from, rival understandings of it in economics and what problems it causes. It also introduces “ecological economics” which is a concept system that recognises these problems and seeks solutions to them within the bio-physical carrying capacity of the planet.
Joanna Santa Barbara writes about Atamai Village, in New Zealand: a new community that attempts to respond intelligently to the need to mitigate climate change and adapt to low or zero fossil fuel use, the constraints of sea-level rise over the next century, the need to step outside, as much as possible, the mainstream financial system and the importance of a local steady-state economy within the biophysical limits of the region. From Fleeing Vesuvius.
The nitrogen cycle is one of our human life-support systems, supporting human life and life on our planet. Our disruption of the nitrogen cycle is a public health issue of profound importance.
We’re delighted to announce the publication of Feasta’s new book, Sharing for Survival: Restoring the Climate, the Commons and Society, a 200-page collection of essays by nine Feasta Climate Group members, edited by Brian Davey. Its authors explore climate policy in a way that ensures social justice and equity matter, recognising that the UNFCCC process is going nowhere. The concluding chapter, by our much-loved late colleague Richard Douthwaite, presents reasons for optimism about the climate crisis.
by Sharon Te Apiti Stevens, from Fleeing Vesuvius. We are called to prepare urgently for Transition. We are reminded by Rob Hopkins and other movement leaders to motivate one another by sharing our visions of a positive future, a future made from well-connected communities taking time to laugh together in a garden paradise. Or something like that.
Smart Taxes made the submission to the special Expert Group set up to deliver a Property Tax for Ireland. It is by no means a done deal that we will get a Site Value Tax for Ireland, but it is looking more and more likely. Lets allow ourselves to hope that one lasting and transformative ‘good thing’ comes out of the financial and fiscal debacle.
This book is a clearly thought out and well written analysis of the extremely grave state we are in and it offers some clear proposals about what could and should be done to change the system as a whole.
The Currency Group is a primarily online Community of Practice for local currency advocates (and would-be advocates) to share experience and information around the development and implementation of local currencies – initially via a Facebook Group and a group email list.
Before industrialisation, economy mainly referred to local economy and household economy, based on cooperative and competitive processes. How can we shift from today’s centralised and global economy to a resilient local economy? Bryan Innes provides some suggestions in the New Zealand edition of Fleeing Vesuvius.
Reading The Affluent Society is a revitalising and empowering shot in the arm for anyone
questioning in any way what JK calls the ‘conventional wisdom’. The book, first written in
1958 and then reissued as a new edition in 1998 is an astonishing tour de force, debunking
and deconstructing the tenets of the ‘central tradition’ of economics.
Richard Douthwaite, co-founder of Feasta and much-loved colleague and friend, died on November 14th 2011 after a long illness. We will miss his unique and far-ranging intellect, the clarity of his thought and writing, his warmth and his laughter. Tributes to him have come in from around the world and you can read them here.
In line with his wishes, we are continuing with our scheduled events and publishing of articles.
Independent radio producer and Feasta member Mary Phelan travelled to Tanzania and Zanzibar earlier this year in order to make two radio documentaries on the effects of climate change in East Africa. The first programme, which focuses on the impact climate change is having on Zanzibar, will be broadcast on Saturday 5.3.2012 on Newstalk 106-108fm at 7am. The second programme, looking at the situation in northern Tanzania and Mount Kilimanjaro, will be broadcast the following day, 6.3.2012 at 8am.
Schumacher Ireland Summer School
Exploring the transition to a sustainable society on the island of Ireland
Schumacher College is organising its first Summer School in Ireland from 11th to 15th June 2012, in conjunction with Queen’s University Belfast. Feasta members Jonathan Dawson and Peadar Kirby will be among the course teachers. [...]
Feasta’s Autumn conference examined measures that this country could adopt to secure its economic future which would not leave it reliant on external factors largely outside of its control. Scenarios explored included the potential collapse of the eurozone. The conference featured prominent international and Irish economists and was aimed at economists, politicians, policy-makers, business people, social partners, and other key decision-makers.
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