A group of scholars at the University of Wisconsin recently counted nearly 30,000 cooperatives in the United States operating at 73,000 locations. The vast majority are consumer cooperatives, with 343 million memberships (many people belong to multiple co-ops, hence...

Jonny Gordon-Farleigh from STIR interviews Rob Hopkins To mark the release of In Transition 2.0 — an inspirational film about communities printing their own money, growing food, localising their economies and setting up community power stations — I spoke...

For nearly a century local investing has been essentially illegal, and Wall Street has monopolized all the investment options for the average investor. Thanks to the JOBS Act that President Barack Obama recently signed into law, local investing in...

One of the more transformative technologies ever developed for the world’s poor farmers is a water-lifting device called a treadle pump. It looks and operates much like a Stairmaster exercise machine that you’d find in a gym.  But the...

By Bill Bigelow and Bill McKibben Maybe you’ve heard. We are facing a climate crisis that threatens life on our planet. Climate scientists are unequivocal: We are changing the world in deep, measurable, dangerous ways — and the pace...

A Broken Narrative Recently I was asked by a high school teacher if I had any ideas about why students today seem so apathetic when it comes to engaging with the world around them. I waggishly responded, "Probably because...

Credit: Climate One | Download While the past few decades have focused on global integration, a growing number of innovative entrepreneurs are shaping a new economic model, which directs capital to local communities. The payoffs are huge—regional resilience, local investment options, and...