Open letter to all Leaders: Time’s up

Originally posted on Annas Art – FärgaregårdsAnna:
If you wanna spread this letter, you are welcome to share it worldwide. Tag it with #timesup if you want. If you want to make a translation of the text to other languages and share it, do it. We all have to help out saving our…

Please read and share Anna’s wonderful open letter to leaders. Note that this is Anna’s work and that therefore I am closing comments, as those should go direct to the original.

Annas Art - FärgaregårdsAnna


If you wanna spread this letter, you are welcome to share it worldwide. Tag it with #timesup if you want. If you want to make a translation of the text to other languages and share it, do it. We all have to help out saving our planet. This is one way among millions to help.

The image is free to share.

Anna

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En vision blir verklighet – vi flyttar in!

A very interesting post from lagnobo, brought to my attention by Anna. The original post is in Swedish, so here is an English translation courtesy of Google:

A vision becomes reality – we move in!
7 JANUARY 2018LAGNOBO
In autumn 2010, Sörmlands Nyheter had an article with a picture about a house to be built in Nyköping. Very big, not so beautiful but with large conservatory. It sat on the fridge at Lagnö Gård and raised thoughts about a house, but smaller, more beautiful and in the countryside. In December 2010, on a journey to Gothenburg, a vision was formed which later became the basis for a leader application and a preliminary study.

A report on the preliminary study with the whole vision and the work to the association was formed (pdf). ✎ EditSign

Excerpt from Vision:
We thought:
“We like to have close to the neighbor to go in and have a cup of coffee, have a party in the evening or on a walk.” _ _
“We want to grow old with company because we feel better. We think of many dinners with company without having to go somewhere.
We think it will be cheaper to have some things together. Perhaps guest room, dining room, cafe,
car pool or electric car, conservatory, storage room, library, spa.
We think that this accommodation creates jobs for others, like gardeners, housekeepers,
cooking driver, foot care, massage, wellness etc. By coordinating our needs we can get
economic opportunity to utilize these services. “
“We think that if we want our children to be able to live on our soil, we need to develop housing that is scared of the environment, both in the construction process and in the accommodation.
We think of a house with maybe 10-12 apartments, two-three rooms and a kitchen, large garden, please both
inside and out, adapted for building in the countryside.
We think of a house that we own and manage, for example, cooperatively or otherwise in common.
We are thinking of a house for residents, not to make money. “

We who lived at Lagnö Gård invited everyone interested in exploring the possibilities. The architect who helped us when we got started urged us to write a wish list, without limits, before we started. Here is the one we liked wild wish list:

“Our very own wildly wish list!
All this we would wish for in our common, comfortable and sustainable home!
Here is the place for dreams and fantasies! Everything is possible!” _ _
“Winter garden, Spanish bar, party room, dining room, kitchen, kitchen kettle with stove, hot air oven and
sorting space!
Living room, guest room, laundry room with drying room and lack, carpentry, sewer and ironing room, storage room for
the apartments, common storage inside and out, food storage and pantry both for common and
private.
Caretaker / personal butler, sauna, broadband, thrift room, compost, garden land or colony lilac,
pets, reclining room, wellness area, pool, fireplace.
Patio, room with library and computer, film screen and projector, glass door to the greenhouse section,
solar collectors and water tanks, solar cells, car pool with shared car, echo at the pier, electric bicycle,
parking, bicycle storage, electric car with garage to, earth source.
Berry bushes, fruit trees, boulebana, storage room, playroom, tv, indoor and outdoor seating, barbecue area,
music system, bulletin board, speed dial phone …… ..
and in the apartments we wish
bathroom, kitchen / kitchenette, walk-in closet, pantry, open plan living, fireplace, balcony / patio, bay windows. “

Moving in!
After 7 years and an incredible amount of people’s commitment and non-profit work, the first tenants now move! And when we read the vision and wish list that then felt so unattainable, that’s incredibly probably the most. Surely there is a bit left, but we see that everything is possible!

Sure it’s amazing!

Lagnö Bo kooperativ hyresrättsförening

Hösten 2010 hade Sörmlands Nyheter en artikel med bild om ett hus som skulle byggas i Nyköping. Väldigt stort, inte så vackert men med stor vinterträdgård. Den satt uppe på kylskåpet på Lagnö Gård och väckte tankar om ett hus, men mindre, vackrare och på landet. I december 2010 på bilresa till Göteborg formulerades en vision som senare blev grunden för en leader-ansökan och en förstudie.

Rapport om förstudien med hela visionen och arbetet fram till föreningen bildades (pdf). 

Utdrag ur Vision:
Vi tänkte oss:
“att vi gärna har nära till grannen för att gå in och ta en kopp kaffe, få sällskap på  kvällen eller på en promenad.” _ _
“Vi vill bli gamla med sällskap för att vi mår bättre så. Vi tänker oss många middagar med sällskap utan att behöva åka iväg någonstans.
Vi tänker oss att det blir billigare att ha en del saker tillsammans. Kanske gästrum, matsal…

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SBS

Some nature themed links and some of my own photographs. Snakes, butterflies and slugs feature prominently in this post, hence its title.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to this nature themed post on aspi.blog. The title is formed from the initial letters of snakes, butterflies and slugs, all of which feature prominently. 

SOME SWEDISH STUFF

Of course when posting about nature and mentioning Sweden, Anna is going to feature prominently, but also featured here is the work of two Swedish photographers, Ingrid Benson who specialises in butterflies and John Jonasson who photographs reptiles.

A SERIES OF BUTTERFLY POSTS

Some of you may remember that I reblogged a post from fargaregardsanna about butterflies in and around Trosa that was marked as the first of a series. Well that series now runs to six posts, four posts based on the work of Ingrid Benson and two more featuring some of Anna’s own photographs. I now provide links to all of them:

  1. Fjärilar i Trosa – Butterflies in Trosa Sweden part 1 – the series opener – as all posts in this series are titled in this way the remaining links will only contain the part number at the end of the title.

  2. Part 2 – more from Ingrid Benson.
  3. Part 3 – more from Ingrid’s collection.
  4. Part 4 – the last of these posts to feature Ingrid’s work.
  5. Part 5 – the first of the two posts featuring Anna’s own photographs – I include two rather than the regular one as I could not decide between them.

  6. Part 6 – the last post (to date) in the series.

SNAKES

Anna put up a post titled “Snake day” featuring some pictures of snakes near where she lives…

…at the end of it she included a link to the site run by John Jonasson and featuring pictures and information about snakes.

A COUPLE MORE
NATURE RELATED LINKS

Firstly, from A New Nature Blog comes a post titled “Guest Blog: Agri-environment – a need for detailed scrutiny, by Steve Peel” which is quite a long post but well worth reading.

Secondly, from Mitch Teemley, comes a piece titled “Caterpillars Don’t Become Butterflies!” which explains the process of metamorphosis.
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MY PHOTOGRAPHS

We end as usual with some of my own photographs:

butterfly1
The first four of the six butterfly pics that open this set of photos were taken yesterday.

Butterfly2Butterfly3Butterfly4

Butterfly 1
This was taken today, and I thought even at the time that it was out of focus, but luckily…
Butterfly 2
I then got this.

moorhen and chickCorvid

small water creature
This was floating along the Gaywood river too rapidly for its progress to be down to the flow of the river (which is sluggish).
Slug 1
The slugs (three pics) – today is warm and just a bit damp – and the slugs love it that way.

Slug 2Slug 3

Swimming cormorants
Two swimming cormorants in one shot – a first for me.
Diving cormorant
This cormorant went into a dive as I was clicking the shutter…
Cormorant
…but then came up again not much later.

 

 

Marxism 2017: Climate Change

An account of the three meetings at Marxism 2017 that focussed exclusively on climate change.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to this latest post in my series about Marxism 2017. This post deals with three meetings from the event and also features some external links as well. This post features green body text because of the subject matter – headings still in red. This post features pictures in ’tiled mosaic’ form – to view them at full size left-click/ single finger push an image to open the gallery, and if you right-click/ two finger push you get a drop down menu that enables you to open a single image.

MEETING 1: FACING THE ANTHROPOCENE – JEFFREY HALL, SATURDAY – IAN ANGUS

The Jeffrey Hall is the second largest venue in the Institute of Education, with a seating capacity of 500. It was pleasingly full for Ian Angus’ talk about Facing the Anthropocene. This talk was accompanied by numerous slides. Here are the first few pictures:

From this start the speaker went on to define the anthropocene:

Before the Anthropocene the earth had seen five mass extinction events, and all evidence points to the fact that a sixth is upon us. Here are a few links to recent articles about this:

Now here are my remaining pictures from this meeting:

The website climateandcapitalism can be accessed here.

MEETING 2, SUNDA: A REDDER SHADE OF GREEN – MALET SUITE – IAN ANGUS

This was conducted in an informal style. Martin, chairing, asked Ian questions about his latest book (it is a good read btw) and Ian answered. After about half an hour questions were taken from the floor, and they were mainly excellent contributions. At the end of the meeting Ian signed copies of his book for those who were interested. Here are some photos:

Ian Angus and Martin EmpsonPostersPoster

Book
The book – the only one I purchased at Marxism 2017 (there were many others I looked at)

Martin Empson starts the meetingMartin asks Ian a questionMartin asking Ian a questionIan Angus speakingMartin Empson advertises the bookClimate Change poster

PART 3: BUILDING THE MOVEMENT AGAINST CLIMATE CHANGE AFTER TRUMP WITHDRAWS FROM PARIS – SUZANNE JEFFERY

This meeting was in the session immediately after the second Ian Angus meeting, and before the closing rally. This was a really excellent meeting, with many people speaking from the floor about campaigns they were involved in, and the mood generally confident. Here are some photos:

Speaker and chair
Chair Jasmine and main speaker Suzanne before the meeting.
Jasmine introduces Suzanne
Jasmine opening the meeting.
Suzanne giving her talk
Suzanne giving her talk.

AFTERWORD

This post being about climate change and by extension nature I have decided to end with some links courtesy of Anna who has produced some excellent stuff about nature: