Activities

Feasta has been involved in a variety of multiannual projects. These currently include Smart Taxes, which has the aim of developing policy options to reform fiscal and other financial and monetary mechanisms in Ireland so as to deliver environmental, social and economic sustainability, and Carbon Cycles and Sinks, whose goal is to develop policies which will enable the Irish land mass to become a carbon sink rather than a source of greenhouse emissions. The Liquidity Network aims to address the current liquidity problem – the slow-down in economic activity triggered by the credit crunch.

Feasta’s Climate Group has developed the theoretical underpinning for the Cap and Share campaign, which is proposing a system for cutting greenhouse gas emissions that should be reliable, equitable and bring about a reduction in global poverty.

In the years since its inception, Feasta has organised a wide range of events, including seminars, international conferences and workshops. You can read about these in more detail on our events section. You can also download videos of many of our lectures and seminars from our multimedia page.

We have also published various books and briefings concerning the environment and economics. These are all available for free download from this website, as are a series of submissions we have made to the Irish and UK governments.

In memoriam: Richard Douthwaite

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.

Events

“And The Heat Goes On”: radio documentaries on climate change in East Africa

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.

From crisis to resilience: rethinking Ireland’s economic future

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. [...]

Key Topics

Climate
Collapse
Commons
Debt
Democracy
Economy
Emissions
Energy
Food Security
Growth
Health
Land
Money
Peak Oil

Stories We’ve Found

Latest paper on climate change by Jim Hansen

Jim Hansen’s latest paper, shortly to appear in Proceedings from the Natural Academy of Sciences, is comprehensive and well argued. His discussion of the possibility of taking a legal approach to tackling greenhouse gas emissions, taking into account the rights of young people and future generations, ties in with the Feasta climate group’s ideas as described in Sharing for Survival.

The Centre Cannot Hold!

On April 8, Feasta’s David Korowicz was the featured guest on From Alpha to Omega, a weekly podcast by Tom O’Brien. He spoke about the likelihood of economic collapse and what to expect in the coming years. You can listen to it here.

New book by the New Economy Working Group: How to Liberate America from Wall Street Rule

This report’s primary author is David Korten, who also authored the book When Corporations Rule the World. He is a former Feasta lecturer. The new book “spells out how Wall Street dominates virtually every aspect of our lives through its control of the creation and allocation of money and how we can strip Wall Street of that control.” You can read and discuss it online here.

Debt Crisis Conference

National strategies for dealing with Ireland’s debt crisis: exploring the options – September 22-23 2011

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.

Conference videos.

Conference programme (pdf)

Recent forum posts

Michael Layden posted about The "demise" of the motorised vehicle

Kontrei posted about A South African contribution to Sustainability

Project Feeds

Ronan Lyons’s Irish Times Opinion Piece on Site Value Tax

A good property tax is about getting land used well and financing local services and amenities. A RESIDENTIAL property tax in Ireland is a key part of fixing the gap between public spending and public revenues. [...]

Dr Constantin Gurdgiev “Water and Property Taxes”

Years ago, I quipped that Ireland doesn’t do evidence-based policies, instead we do policies-based evidence. Current whirlwind of taxation initiatives is the case in point. These include [...]

A useful resource to learn about Land Value Tax from Scotland

Here are some links from a website of Andy Wightman, a Scotish supporter of LVT [...]

Fleeing Vesuvius comments

Comment on Will New Zealand be the first developed country to evolve a steady-state economy? by WideAngleVision

The New Plymouth area alone has enough energy to last so far into the future that this kind of fear mongering analysis is worthless, to say nothing of the other discovered but untapped on and offshore sources [...]

Comment on Busy doing nothing – seven reasons for humanity’s inertia in the face of critical threats and how we might remove them by Floro

My apologies Brian. My criticism was clearly aimed at Mark’s “Reason for Inertia 6: Our brains are maladapted to modern life”, and, due to my haste, I made the mistake of putting your name. I quite agree with your reply. May I also add that I’ve just read your “Changing the Lifestyle Package” at Opeindemocracy.org and I found it enlightening and inspiring. Thanks for including a link to Paul Hawken’s “Blessed Unrest”–the best commencement address I’ve read so far. Keep up the good work!

Comment on Busy doing nothing – seven reasons for humanity’s inertia in the face of critical threats and how we might remove them by Brian Davey

I’m not sure why I am critised at the beginning of this comment. The evolutionary psychology, if such it is, was by Mark Rutledge. I made clear that I had differences with him.