Commons in the News
Dr. Sandeep Jauhar has written a poignant essay in the New York Times about the degradation of his medical practice by creeping commercial concerns. Instead of being able to dispense their best medical care,...
Read the source at "A Doctor by Choice, a Businessman by Necessity," New York Times, July 7, 2009..
Communities Are Buying Their Own Forests
16 Jun 2009
Jim Carlton of the Wall Street Journal: “Community forests are spreading across the U.S., as more cities and counties seek to rein in development and excessive logging by taking control of the woods themselves….....
Read the source at Wall Street Journal, "Into the Forest".
The Big Sellout
David Bollier
5 Jun 2009
What happens when supplies of water, energy, public transporation and health care are privatized? A German documentary film, "The Big Sellout," takes on this challenge by portraying the everyday consequences of...
Read the source at Bavaria Films International.
Who Owns Rainwater?
21 May 2009
People cringe in horror when they learn that Bechtel, in its quest to privatize water supplies in Bolivia years ago, actually prohibited people from capturing rainwater in barrels. But it turns out that a similar rule...
Read the source at Colorado legislators seek to legalize rainwater collection..
The Washington Post ran a lengthy profile of Peter Barnes yesterday, citing the political traction that Barnes’ cap-and-dividend legislative proposal is getting in Congress. Reporter Steven Mufson noted, "With Obama...
Read the source at Steven Mufson, "In Bill’s Big Idea: Save the Climate, Share the Wealth,” Washington Post..
When the Market Controls Access to Water
20 Mar 2009
The devastation that occurs when water is treated as a free-market commodity, and not as a public resource, can be vividly seen in the Chilean town of Quillagua. As described by the New York Times, “Quillgagua is...
Read the source at Alexei Barrioneuvo, "Chilean Town Withers in Free Market for Water," New York Times./.
The commons-based Cap-and-Dividend plan to curb global warming can bust through the political deadlock that so far has prevented meaningful federal action on reducing greenhouse gases, according to Good magazine....
Read the source at Ben Jervey, :The Third Way: Carbon Cap and Dividend," Good magazine.
Has the collapse of American banks, trillion dollar bailouts and other extraordinary government interventions prompted academic economists to re-think their free market orthodoxies? _Fuggedaboutit!_ A survey of...
Read the source at Patricia Cohen, "An Ivory Tower Unswayed by the Crash," New York Times..
Taking Responsibility for the Commons
26 Feb 2009
UMass economist Nancy Folbre has an excellent post, “Taking Responsibility for the Commons,” on the New York Times Economix blog today. Folbre detects “an accelerating attention shift toward the commons,”...
Read the source at New York Times Economix blog..
Viral Spiral Spreads to C-SPAN
24 Feb 2009
David Bollier, author of "Viral Spiral: How the Commoners Built a Digital Republic of Their Own," appeared on C-SPAN’s “Washington Journal” TV show to explain how digital technologies are spawning diverse...
Read the source at Washington Journal, at http://www.c-span.org/Watch/watch.aspx?MediaId=WJE-A-15668.
The latest issue of Newsweek champions Peter Barnes as one of “four thinkers whose philosophies seem to have captured the intellectual moment.”
In its special end-of-the-year/end-of-Bush-Era issue on "the Global...
Read the source at Newsweek, January 5, 2009..
Lessons from Indian Potlatch?
19 Dec 2008
I would not expect the libertarian-minded John Tierney of the New York Times to give a full, thoughtful account of the social dynamics of potlatch on its own terms, and indeed, he doesn’t. In his article in the...
Read the source at John Tierney, "Tips from the Potlatch," New York Times. .
Toronto Takes the Lead in Banning Bottled Water
17 Dec 2008
The City of Toronto has broken new ground in the fight against bottled water by banning the sale and distribution of bottled water on city premises. The city has not only banned an environmentally destructive product,...
Read the source at "Tony Clarke, "Toronto Stood Up to the Bottled Water Industry," Toronto Star..
The Commons Can Help Stop the Climate Crisis
25 Nov 2008
Cap-and-Dividend, the commons-based solution to global warming, came in for more media attention recently, in Forbes magazine.
Environmental author and philosopher Bill McKibben interviewed On the Commons cofounder...
Read the source at Forbes Magazine.
With no concern for the impact on air, water and wildlife, the Bureau of Land Management is rushing through dozens of new leases for oil drilling on public lands adjacent to national parks in Utah. More than 40...
Read the source at Felicity Barringer, "U.S. to Open Public Land Near Parks for Drilling," New York Times..
Lost among the good news coming out of election day this year was a victory in Ohio for people working toward a commons-based society.
Alternet.org reports that voters in Akron rejected a proposal to privatize...
Read the source at Alternet.
WorldChanging.com solicited advice from a wide range of people about what the next president should do in his first 100 days of office (in 100 words or less).
Here’s what On the Commons Fellow Jay Walljasper...
Read the source at WorldChanging.com.
What’s So Bad About Spreading the Wealth?
29 Oct 2008
With John McCain’s screeching all over the campaign trail about Barack Obama’s supposed plans to “spread the wealth,” On the Commons Fellow Chuck Collins started thinking about what has actually happened to our...
Read the source at Sojourners Magazine.
OTC Fellow Jonathan Rowe talks with the Pacific Sun, the Marin County newspaper, about the erroneous ways that economists measure growth and progress – and the consequences for the rest of us. In the...
Read the source at Pacific Sun, “It’s the Economists, Stupid" -- Interview with Jonathan Rowe. .
