Two recent learnings about the Greater London Council of the 1980s that I really liked:

1. they set up a number of spaces called Technology Networks – democratic, community-based workshops focused on socially useful production (h/t Internet for the People)

2. they turned the previously pricey/exclusive Royal Festival Hall into a freely accessible public space (h/t The Care Manifesto)

Finished [[The Care Manifesto]]. Looks at care at the level of kin, community, state, economies, and world as a whole. Recommended – short punchy read, enjoyed it a lot. Lots of good stuff in there: commons, ecosocialism, participatory democracy, public spaces, libraries (of books and of things), coops, municipalism etc. Felt a bit of a shopping list of good things rather than processes to enact them, but nice packaging of it all together.

h/t to @adamgreenfield@social.coop who shared it a while back

“A Course on Capitalism, Solidarity and How We Get free”.

Looks very handy. Course-based overview of the issues with capitalism, different types of socialist economics, the solidarity economy. Maybe not that much in it if you already got some familiarity with these topics but looks great as a refresher or something to share with others.

https://economics4emancipation.net

Read – Finished Reading: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/09/a-long-overdue-moment-the-uk-greens-pushing-for-the-nuclear-option (theguardian.com)
An overview of [[ecomodernism]]. Contrasting its uptake in UK and elsewhere.
[[Nuclear energy]]. [[Precision fermentation]]. That kind of stuff. ht @adamgreenfield@socialcoop

I guess there’s degrees of ecomodernism… If it’s coming at it from a position of ‘we need to hold our noses and do this to avoid planetary catastrophe – then later we’ll do something better’ I can engage with it. If it’s green capitalism (which the mention of decoupling growth from material usage hints at) then definitely at odds with it.

The article isn’t very nuanced how it kind of pitches only ecomodernists as pro-technology, and everyone else… not. I’m pro some technology, against some others, dependent on context.

Re: nuclear in particular I think Half-Earth Socialism did a pretty good job of arguing against.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/09/a-long-overdue-moment-the-uk-greens-pushing-for-the-nuclear-option

A long overdue moment? The UK greens pushing for the nuclear option