By Patrick van Zwanenberg and Anabel Marin, Steps America Latina Last week, at a small ceremony in Argentina, seeds were transferred from researchers to farmers for the first time under a new kind of open source contract. Over the last eight months, STEPS America Latina has been busy discussing and designing Bioleft, an open source seed […]
By Hannah Moersberger and Dylan McGarry This post also appears on the Future Earth blog. “We are longing for mentors that take care of us as human beings; mentors that act like parents, not like political dictators.” These are the words of Kuda Mudokwani from Zimbabwe, reflecting on struggles and longings of early career change-makers […]
Zimbabwean farmers creating new markets via creative solidarity relations; South African farmers crossing boundaries between college, youth groups and farmers’ associations; Ethiopian communities re-framing power relations as they protect their sacred natural sites, and university students and administrators hosting a funeral for e-waste on their campus. What do these all have in common? Qualities and […]
By Dunja Krause and Joachim Roth This post originally appeared on Just Transition(s), which is published by the Just Transition Research Collaborative in partnership with the ISSC. Despite its growing uptake, the Just Transition is often narrowly conceived as a concept to protect workers who are facing unemployment due to climate policy and shifts to sustainable production systems, […]
By Thomas Hirsch This post originally appeared on Just Transition(s), which is published by the Just Transition Research Collaborative in partnership with the ISSC. The Just Transition discourse has its origin in the struggle of North American trade unions for programmes supporting workers who lost their jobs as a result of environmental protection policies in the 1970s and […]
By Jacklyn Cock This post originally appeared on Just Transition(s), which is published by the Just Transition Research Collaborative in partnership with the ISSC. Two new coal-fired power stations, among the largest in the world, are being built in South Africa. Another 10 smaller ones are planned as well as 40 new coal mines, most of them in […]
By Romain Felli This post originally appeared on Just Transition(s), which is published by the Just Transition Research Collaborative in partnership with the ISSC. In 2016 UNIA — the largest trade union active in construction and industrial work in Switzerland — won special protection for workers of the Vaud region in the case of severe weather. Now, during the winter months, the […]
By Rebecca Shelton This post originally appeared on Just Transition(s), which is published by the Just Transition Research Collaborative in partnership with the ISSC. In Eastern Kentucky and Appalachia, the clean energy transition comes at the cost of economic loss in communities that have produced and processed coal for over 100 years. A Just Transition is one in […]
By Dimitris Stevis This post originally appeared on Just Transition(s), which is published by the Just Transition Research Collaborative in partnership with the ISSC. As any concept, whether democracy or sustainability, becomes more prominent it becomes increasingly contested. This is no mere disagreement over definitions. Rather it reflects competition over investing terms with particular meanings. That is now […]
By Hadrian Mertins-Kirkwood This post originally appeared on Just Transition(s), which is published by the Just Transition Research Collaborative in partnership with the ISSC. Who deserves a Just Transition to a cleaner economy? Coal miners, of course! Maybe steel workers, too, and truck drivers? Actually, all working people — and their families — probably need some support. So do the […]