act:ualise | what we think

This is a long-overdue response to SavageSays’ excellent post rebutting the idea that protectionism (even if in the form of buying local or FairTrade) can ever be a good idea. He argues that buying local isn’t necessarily better for the environment, citing three pieces of research: A study by Lincoln University in New Zealand arguing [...]

Much has been made of Iceland’s economic demise and the stepping down of the then government leadership. Their dramatic and undignified end was widely reported, the male bankers and ministers all shown leaving in a flashbulb frenzy, scurrying back to their multi-million Krona homes. What a surprise then that little to no mention is made [...]

Piers Fawkes asked on the PSFK blog recently “is buying local considered protectionist?” It’s a current question given the softening of the protectionist language in  Obama’s stimulus package bill. And the answer is, yes, it is protectionist. Any action to restrict trade between nations (whether through buy-local requirements, tariffs, quotas or whatever else) is protectionist. But [...]

My two previous posts present a worrying possible conclusion to the way we’re living and the impact that we’re having on our own social fabric and environment today. It’s always easy to criticise and find the negative in our situation, so I’ve been thinking about what we can do to improve the situation, and what [...]

Picking up on the urban migration thread, I’ve been researching what’s been driving that mass exodus from the world’s rural areas. In my travels, I came across The Story of Stuff, which I highly recommend. I love it for giving such a succinct explanation of such a huge and complex subject, for the wonderful way [...]

Have you seen 192021.org? If not, take a look. It’s an interesting, and well-presented, exposition of what it calls the “defining megatrend of the 21st century”: that by 2050 more than two-thirds of the world’s population will live in cities, up from 50% of the global population right now. And in 1900, it was only [...]