Our money system guarantees that inequality will get worse - Here is the evidence » Positive Money Written by Graham Hodgson (Guest Author) on . The gap between the very richest and the rest of us has increased continuously over the last thirty years. Did you know that top 10% of population earns on average 6 times more than the bottom 90%? Many factors contribute to this growing gap, but one of the most significant is least understood: the role of money creation by banks. As a volunteer for Positive Money, I’ve spent much of the last two years investigating the connections between inequality and the money system. Here are some of the problems that arise when money is created by banks when they make loans: The entire money supply is effectively ‘on loan’ from the banks. I’ve written up these initial findings into a 16 page academic paper, Banking, Finance and Income Inequality, which you can download below. Within society, a moderate degree of inequality is considered to provide a stimulus to economic progress and general prosperity. Technical Annex We have to act now! 1. 2. 3.
Architects are starting to 3D print houses—but without a house-sized printer A couple of months ago, Dutch architect Janjaap Ruijssenaars announced that he was building a curvy, loopy and for some reason, largely see-through building, to be made with the help of Enrico Dini’s D-Shape 3D printer. The project would cost up to 5 million euros ($6.4 million) and be completed in 2014. Janjaap Ruijssenaars’s twisty, loopy 3D-printed building. Another group quickly piped up, declaring that a similar project they were working on would be done even faster and cheaper. Softkill Design’s web-like confection of a building. This month, another Dutch company jumped into the fray. DUS Architects plan to use non-traditional 3D printing methods to build a traditional house along a canal in Amsterdam. 3d house-printing—it certainly sounds like a brilliant idea. But what does this 3d house-printing actually mean? How it works A cast concrete sample detailing the resolution of the combined additive (3D printing) and subtractive (robotic milling) fabrication process being developed.
‘Spending more time outside is a really political act’ David Bond, the 'marketing director for nature' and his daughter Photo © Jack Barnes There is a scene in new documentary film Project Wild Thing where director David Bond sits under a tree for an hour. It may not sound like the most electrifying cinematic moment, but as he listens to the birdsong and watches the wind rippling across the water, you can feel your own breath slowing down in appreciation of the scene. It is this ‘power to ground’ us that leads Bond to describe nature as a “wonder drug”: one that most of us, especially children, are not taking enough of. The amount of time British children spend outdoors has shrunk by 50% in a generation, for example, and their roaming area – the space in which they are allowed to play unsupervised – by 90%. Bond’s enthusiasm is infectious. “Given a little encouragement, children revel in the bugs and the fresh air and the leaves and the mud” Project Wild Thing is released nationwide on Friday 25 October but is already making waves.
Auto produzione casalinga di biogas con il Digestore Compatto biogas il gruppo A.R.T.I. ha realizzato un sistema innovativo che consente l’auto produzione casalinga di biogas da scarti alimentari di tipo farinaceo e vegetale, si tratta di Digestore. Con tale brevetto il gruppo A.R.T.I. ha vinto il premio Ashden per l’Energia Sostenibile nella categoria “food securety. Il prodotto può essere impiegato per la produzione di gas, per la cottura quotidiana degli alimenti e per l’acqua calda sanitaria. Grazie a questo sistema, c’è un risparmio notevole in termini ambientali ed economici: l’ambiente verrebbe alleggerito della presenza di rifiuti e nello stesso tempo si eviterebbe l’utilizzo di GPL e di petrolio che incidono gravemente anche sull’economia delle famiglie. Inoltre l’alimentazione dell’impianto è a costo zero in quanto si utilizzano solo ed esclusivamente scarti alimentari. Le caratteristiche energetiche del sistema rendono il processo più veloce, più efficace e con minore utilizzo di materia rispetto al tradizionale impianto a biomassa animale.
Our Invisible Revolution Republished from truthdig.com By Chris Hedges “Did you ever ask yourself how it happens that government and capitalism continue to exist in spite of all the evil and trouble they are causing in the world?” the anarchist Alexander Berkman wrote in his essay “The Idea Is the Thing.” “If you did, then your answer must have been that it is because the people support those institutions, and that they support them because they believe in them.” Berkman was right. It appears that political ferment is dormant in the United States. "It is certain now that a popular revolt is coming." Revolution usually erupts over events that would, in normal circumstances, be considered meaningless or minor acts of injustice by the state. “Because revolution is evolution at its boiling point you cannot ‘make’ a real revolution any more than you can hasten the boiling of a tea kettle,” Berkman wrote. Revolutions, when they erupt, appear to the elites and the establishment to be sudden and unexpected.
How Do We Act in the Face of Climate Chaos? The Warning As described by the United Nations Advisory Group on Greenhouse Gases in 1990, temperature rise “beyond 1 degree C may elicit rapid, unpredictable and non-linear responses that could lead to extensive ecosystem damage”. We’ve clearly triggered the types of positive feedbacks the United Nations warned about in 1990. Yet my colleagues and acquaintances think we can and will work our way out of this horrific mess with permaculture (which is not to denigrate permaculture, the principles of which are implemented at the mud hut). Reforestation doesn’t come close to overcoming combustion of fossil fuels, as pointed out in the 30 May 2013 issue of Nature Climate Change. Furthermore, forested ecosystems do not sequester additional carbon dioxide as it increases in the atmosphere, as disappointingly explained in the 6 August 2013 issue of New Phytologist. Positive feedbacks Warm Atlantic water is defrosting the Arctic as it shoots through the Fram Strait (Science, January 2011).
La Puglia va a tutta canapa! | Territorio Il progetto CanaPuglia, nato due anni fa, ha portato alla semina di circa 120 ettari di terreno sparsi per tutta la regione Prima Capannori, poi la Puglia. Adagio adagio l’Italia torna a piantare e coltivare quella che un tempo era uno dei prodotti più diffusi ed esportati del nostro paese: la canapa. Tempo addietro vi abbiamo parlato dell’esperienza del comune “virtuoso” toscano, che a marzo ha iniziato la semina di quasi cento ettari di terreno; oggi vi raccontiamo di CanaPuglia, un progetto nato due anni fa e che ha portato alla semina, nell’aprile scorso, di circa 120 ettari di terreno sparsi per tutta la regione. E che mira a contagiare tutta Italia. In pochi lo sanno, ma oltre mezzo secolo fa l’Italia era il secondo produttore mondiale di canapa, dietro solamente all’Unione Sovietica. Ma l’avvento dell’industrializzazione e il “boom economico” portarono nel nostro paese le fibre sintetiche provenienti dagli Usa e la canapa finì ben presto nel dimenticatoio.
Pubblicato "Crowdfunding World 2013": Report, analisi e trend della raccolta fondi online E' stato pubblicato "Crowdfunding World 2013", il report sullo stato del crowdfunding nel mondo – con un particolare focus sull’Italia – che include l'analisi, le metriche e i trend del mercato. Si tratta del principale testo mai realizzato sul fenomeno, che tratta la teoria ma soprattutto la pratica della raccolta fondi su Internet. Lo studio, distribuito gratuitamente in versione e-book e scaricabile all’indirizzo facebook.com/about.DeRev, è stato realizzato da Roberto Esposito e Claudio Calveri su iniziativa di DeRev, piattaforma web nata per creare social innovation attraverso crowdfunding e democrazia partecipativa. L'ebook ha ricevuto il patrocinio di istituzioni, operatori internazionali del crowdfunding (Indiegogo, Kiva, Crowdrise, tre delle cinque piattaforme più grandi al mondo e operative in oltre 200 Paesi), soggetti culturali di rilievo nazionale (Giffoni Experience, Fondazione Symbola, Federculture) e incubatori di impresa (Working Capital di Telecom Italia). Gli autori
Here is my interview to Enrico Dini about his and Koshnevis' work: (content in italian).
Here is its Google Translate version: by cloudscene Jan 13