This is mirrored from Jak King's blog here:

I just finished reading “Plastic Ocean” by Capt. Charles Moore and Cassandra Phillips. Hard to say much else but that this should be the “Silent Spring” of our generation.

Moore is a seaman who has become an oceanographer and environmentalist. It was his voyages that focused attention on the huge amounts of pollution — mostly…

It is a rare event when our local media, of any stripe, publish writing of such honesty and progressive weight on most all of the issues of Transition.  We wish to celebrate just such an instance by reprinting a Tyee article here by two very talented writers, Christine Boyle and Seth Klein.  Village Vancouver also wishes to thank The Tyee staff and editor for making such journalism possible.…

From Terminal City to Transition Town

How Vancouver residents are dropping fossil fuels and adopting resiliency

BY KERRY HALL

Sandra Ignagni hosts the monthly Sew Op, where community members can drop in for free, at her home in the Kitsilano neighbourhood. Photo by Kerry Hall…

Twenty blocks on Main Street will be closed June 16

BY SANDRA THOMAS, STAFF WRITER JUNE 6, 2013

Car Free Day Vancouver has evolved into a community-driven project far beyond at least one organizer's dreams.

"It's kind of like that Stone Soup fable," said Matthew Carrico, who sits on the board of the non-profit society and helps co-ordinate the Main Street festival. "We supply the nuts, bolts and logistics, and the community takes it from there. We shut the streets down,…

Source: http://grist.org/food/chicago-urban-ag-farm-district-could-be-the-biggest-in-the-nation/

A rendering of the planned urban farm district, which would run along the Chicago’s New ERA Trail.

Chicago’s Black Belt area, on the historic South Side, was once a hub for jazz, blues, and literature, but today is riddled with vacant lots, poverty, and blight. Now, a new plan…

Showing off what Vancouver does so well and learning from others far away is a great exchange of gifts. Please respond to this opportunity to connect with a visitor to Vancouver October 19th and 20th (Friday or Saturday). Here is her note:

_________________________________________________

Greetings!

I have a request: I'm trying to identify someone who knows their way around Vancouver pretty well, is into sustainability and Permaculture-ish urban gardening, and would be…

An article from BBC Scotland about the movement to free up unused public land for market gardens is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-18405257

This issue is crucial to us in a City regulating itself and its residents to death, or at least into homelessness and malnutrition. In my book, homelessness and malnutrition are tantamount to death,…

We’re about to push the Earth over the brink, new study finds

By David Roberts

There’s a new scientific paper out in the journal Nature called “Approaching a state shift in Earth’s biosphere.” In a sane world, it would be front page news. This is from the…

Off-the-Grid Living in Brooklyn

TEST BUILDING The Delta in Carroll Gardens, which has been built to run entirely on solar energy,

is a showroom for a “net-zero” rental planned for Park Slope.

added: Above right, Ronald F. Faia of Voltaic Solaire,…

By Lisa Hymas

E. O. Wilson thinks you should get out there and make some noise.  We had lots of questions for acclaimed biologist and conservationist.

Edward O. Wilson when he dropped by the Grist office recently while touring to promote his latest book, The Social Conquest of Earth.

But Wilson directed the toughest question of the day back at us: Why aren’t you young people out protesting the mess that’s being made of the planet?

As we squirmed in our seats,…

Full video of this speech is on the National Endowment for the Humanities' website here.

The essayist, novelist, and poet Wendell Berry, shown at…

Vancouver has some significant experience with local farm produce selling coops and other services, including NOWBC (www.nowbc.ca), Home Grow-In, and Eternal Abundance (www.eternalabundance.ca).  Not all such ventures have been or are successful, especially when competing with heavily-subsidized industrial agriculture and its…

This article is in part a reminder to check our home page often to read the RSS feeds from Yes!, Chelsea Green, and Grist Magazines.  They are in the lower left column.  These are free headline links to great information on what is happening in our global ecological system and on how to live sustainably.  This article below,…

Carrots in the car park. Radishes on the roundabout. The deliciously eccentric story of the town growing ALL its own veg

By VINCENT GRAFF

Last updated at 4:31 PM on 10th December 2011

Admittedly, it sounds like the most foolhardy of criminal capers, and one of the cheekiest, too.

Outside the…

Feature: My one-year crash course in subsistence gardening is over

This great article was sourced to The Urban Country and depicts a perfectly Transition project.   

We have the choice of burning all the oil left and hacking down all the remaining rainforests - or saving humanity

by Johann Hari

Sometimes, there are hinge-points in human history – moments when we have to choose between an exuberant descent into lunacy, and a still, sober voice offering us a sane way out. Usually, we can only see them when we look back from a distance. In 1793, the great democrat Thomas Paine said the French…