Sustainability Doings

A time to celebrate. A time to mourn. President Obama announced his rejection of the Keystone XL pipeline on November 6. Calls to celebrate the victory are in from 350.org; Sierra Club; CREDO Action; Berks Gas Truth; NRDC; and others. More than 200,000 people have been killed in the four-and-a-half-year Syrian civil war. The linked September 14, 2015 New York Times … [Read more...] about Sustainability Doings: November 27, 2015 – “Best/Worst of Times?”

Participatory Budgeting Starts at Home The Alliance has come into some unexpected funds recently. We've gotten an anonymous contribution of $10,000. Holy cow! Another $1,300, so far, has come from the estate of Janet Goloub and considerably more is expected. We thank them humbly. To honor their gifts, we'd like to use these funds in the best ways we can. We think it's a grand … [Read more...] about Sustainability Doings: July 27, 2015 – “Bottoms Up”

Democracy: Easier Said Than Done Naomi Klein's This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. Climate Change, while wonderfully thoughtful, insightful, and useful-information packed book, is weak in several areas one of which is the pivotal one of engaging, empowering, and enabling people, communities, NGOs, to take action via democratic organizational structures. She says, after … [Read more...] about Sustainability Doings: June 22, 2015 – “Doing Democracy”

Sustainability Doings is the semi-monthly e-newsletter published by the Alliance. Sign up to have them sent to you. … [Read more...] about Sustainability Doings newsletter

The system IS working?! In the last issue of Sustainability Doings, dated 1/5/15, I blithely asserted: "The system is broken. Everyone knows that." But then, bright and early on 1/6/15, Karen Henninger responded: . "I do not agree that the *system* is broken. I believe that understanding is a lack of understanding [of] the system.   "The system IS working for what it was … [Read more...] about Sustainability Doings, 3 February 2015: ‘It ain’t broke?!’

How is capitalism like an elephant? The system is broken. Everyone knows that. But do you know that no one knows what te hell the system is? We may be missing the obvious, like the proverbial elephant in the room, that we’re blanking out to, as if it weren’t there or was invisible to us. Or perhaps each of us is touching on only a small part of the whole system from our limited … [Read more...] about Sustainability Doings – 5 January 2015 – “Riddle”

A lot of us are agreed that the system we're living in is dysfunctional. The question is, "How do we get a divorce from it?" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From the Files of Peter Crownfield. . . Styrofoam Containers & Plastic Bags – People in the U.S. and around the world use billions of plastic containers, … [Read more...] about Sustainability Doings – 20 December 2014 – “Divorcing the System?”

Common question to poker players mulling over whether the hand they were dealt merits the risk of putting some of their hard-earned sheckels in the pot. But "You In — or You Out?" here refers to . . . well, it's probably easiest to just take a look at what the deal here is . . . Some Notable Doings This Week: Wednesday, 12/3/14, 7-9pm, at the Forks Township … [Read more...] about Sustainability Doings – 29 November 2014 – “You In – or You Out?”

Words as hindrance to thinking . . . We seem to be overrun by Madison-Avenue-push-button-unthinking-out-of-context-Pavlovian-branding words that get us to react often in ways that are inimical to our own interests. They don't spend all those big bucks on campaign advertising without a whole cache of potent words to draw upon, do they? Words and ideas and thinking and … [Read more...] about Sustainability Doings – 10 November 2014 – “Words Abound, Ideas Scarce”