Category: Rethinking money
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I was at Copenhagen but didn’t do anything
Now, in the wake of COP 15 at Copenhagen, as the waves of commentary die down to a gentle swell, I continue my uneasy reflections. I was there, not for COP15 but on other business for the Water and Food Award. Copenhagen was a changed city – police and road blocks everywhere – but also…
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Local food can restart economic growth
New report says consumers should view local food enterprises as profitable startups that are key to economic growth and recovery.More than a dozen studies have shown that every dollar spent at a locally owned business generates two to four times the income, wealth and jobs than at an equivalent nonlocal business. Read the article from…
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Can this be right? Two simple factors solve emissions riddle?
Doing beta-testing of a business simulation game on pollution fee systems I discovered the answer to getting reductions and maintaining economic stability is easy: you just need two factors in place. I’ve just completed the first step of an assignment for a Swedish Foundation to create a business simulation game that informs people about the…
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Updates to Units of Trust with Slow money
One thing I just realised about the UNITS OF TRUST scheme that I have been promoting, and am working on here in Sweden, is that is promotes the idea of slow money. One way of thinking about resilience in the local economy is to consider the Permaculture approach where the idea is to slow down…
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How Flexible Emissions Fees Can Drive Sustainable Development
ONE APPROACH TO CLEAN-TECH: TAKE EXISTING TECHNOLOGY AND ADD LAYERS OF CONTROL AND CLEANING Volvo engineer Anders Höglund managed to make a diesel engine burn clean by adding sophisticated control technology, thanks to advanced sensors and electronics. To make it even cleaner he added a catalyst converter to the exhaust. The story of the clean…
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UNITS OF TRUST
As populations grow, and less and less oil is being found, the fossil fuel-dependent global supply chains and the banking system that supports them are becoming less functional. Relocalizing production and sales of daily needs reduces fuel dependence, waste, and increases local employment and community resilience. However, today’s financial system is more geared to large…
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We really do have simple choices to make
We find ourselves in the aftermath of a giant financial meltdown. Yet few really understand the seriousness of the situation. Faced with the choice of either (a) reforming the economic system and ripping from the hands of the banking system its iron control of societies world wide, or (b) trying to patch the system up.…
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Video envisioning: Units of Trust
Imagine it were possible to, instead of just consuming, invest your money in local sustainable enterprises. As long as your money is with these enterprises, they provide you with your daily needs at a lower cost. You would need to work less and less as time goes on, with more time over to do what…
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Eco units provide Naoki Shiomi’s Half Farmer/Half X lifestyle
The concept of the Half-Farmer/Half-X lifestyle was first proposed in the mid-1990s by the Japanese Naoki Shiomi, who now lives in the city of Ayabe in the north part of Kyoto Prefecture. The basic idea is that people pursue farming, not so much as a business but to grow food for their own family, while…
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Why we need a change: this is not your ordinary recession
My recent visit to England shows a country nose-diving into a new kind of recession: one that has no end. As the reams of newspaper articles laying out dismal prospects for 2009 appear before us, there is an underlying belief in that the recovery will come in a few or at most ten years, and…