Sustainable cities and local power.
L’Internationale de Science Populaire studies options for Norrebrø

The DSB Fragtmandshallerne in outer Norrebrø is a 1000 square meter dinosaur of a building surrounded by a weedy field and bounded by the DSB commuter line, commercial shopping and high-density public housing. It is in a neighborhood composed of immigrants, ethnic minorities, families, youngsters, students, and lower income resident. The city is now scrutinizing the area as a candidate for that cynical form of urban revitalization that favors aestheticized commercial occupancy over local control. Some residents believe the task of revitalizing the Freighthalls area should be granted to grassroots groups as a means of building community agency. These voices, composed of the artist group YNKB and several local associations, have initiated a drive to replace this district’s spatial vacuum with gardens, workshops and play areas. They propose to fill the warehouse with an interlocking cluster of projects that would share knowledge, skills and energy to open up new recreational, creative and educational opportunities to neighborhood residents. The coalition has submitted a plan for an Activity Park and Cultural Center to the city’s planners. This report sketches out how an integration of projects responding to the social, cultural and spatial needs outlined by Norrebrø’s community groups makes an elegant structural contribution toward Denmark’s stated Local Agenda 21 sustainability objectives. continue

Posted: December 13th, 2009 under news.
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Posted: September 20th, 2009 under landscape, energy, art, wood.
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Conference at Berkeley: “Human society is at a crossroads. Todays decisions will determine if human culture will continue to impose catastrophic effects on the earths climate, oceans, and ecosystems. While scientists explore the technical approaches to the environmental predicament, the humanistic fields of inquiry have a critical role to play in helping society face the challenge of climate change. Explore the role that the humanities can play in the transformation of society towards one that can sustain the planet. [2/2009] [Humanities] [Show ID: 15519]”

Caroline Merchant, Tim Morton. Morton especially effective I think, speaking about climate change as a reality shift, yes!

Posted: July 26th, 2009 under news, energy, art.
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Letter from the parents of the Tarnac nine

When all the media come together in a cacophony of lies to slander a handful of young people currently languishing in jail it is very difficult to find the right tone with which to call an end to this racket and make room for a little truth.

Many journalists bent over backwards to confirm the statements of the Minister of the Interior, even while the raids were still taking place. Those arrested were assumed to be guilty from the outset.

No one could miss the sensationalist reality cop show that our children have been forced to star in throughout the last week. The anguish, fear, and tears have submerged us and continue to do so. But probably what has hurt us the most, destroyed us the most, is the flood of lies that have been let loose. Today it was our children, tomorrow it could be yours. We are still stunned, but we are no longer paralyzed. The various facts which follow are an attempt to reestablish the truth and to silence the public condemnation.

Our children have evidently benefitted from a special treatment, locked in darkness for 108 hours, some of them without any charges, and to justify this we are told that they must be very special people, the kind that one doesn’t find on any street corner. Yet at the same time we are reminded that they are actually very normal, for everyday they become more numerous, and take up positions at every one of your street corners.

Posted: January 26th, 2009 under news, landscape.
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the farmer-authors of this website promote the idea, circulated by Michael Pollan in an Oct 9, 2008 New York Times article, that 1600 Pennsylvania Ave should have its own farm– producing food for the residents of the white house and for local food banks and nutrition programs. they list a number of great agriculture projects, from family farms to places like Growing Power in Milwaukee that blend farming, gardening, food education and community organizing. Investigate white house farmer

Posted: January 24th, 2009 under news.
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Students at the New School University in New York have occupied the graduate faculty building to push their long-standing grievances with the direction of the university to a head. Faculty have already voted ‘no confidence’ in President Bob Kerrey and Vice President James Murtha; students, who have no procedural voice in business, are following up with action. New School in Exile Yay! For a long time there has been discontent at New School over the way Kerrey has run the school in a way more resembling a business, while wreaking havoc with the progressive ideals that drew students to the school in the first place. Student Occupation of The New School

Posted: December 18th, 2008 under news.
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Posted: November 30th, 2008 under news.
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Worker housing in the parking lot behind the new construction in Lijiang City

Posted: September 3rd, 2008 under news, landscape, field visits.
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Singaporean citizens and visitors to the country sit on the grass! A public gathering to discuss advantages and limitations of non-profit organization’s cooperative ventures with the government. Hooray to the Singaporeans for freely sitting down where it is soft and green! may they continue to do so many years into the future!

Posted: September 1st, 2008 under news, landscape, field visits, projects, energy.
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Very common here to find rows and rows of bags in the grocery store containing various goodies and kinds of “junk food,” (dried bbq’ed yak meat, tamarind jellies, choco-cakes). These bagged treats are additionally wrapped in individual bite-size pieces. “Gift sets” are wrapped even more elaborately; packages with tea, booze, dried meats, fruits and candies, wrapped up in paper, then plastic, then formed plastic, and finally a gigantic gift box.
Here is a great short illustrative video here about the over-packaging of processed food in China. Read more »

Posted: August 31st, 2008 under news, china, energy.
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