Not a fair COP…a report from Paris by Robert Hutchison

"The climate change threat will only be fully met – and the opportunity for greater human wellbeing only fully realised - when the collective courage of humanity forces governments to face up to their responsibilities. Climate change remains everyone’s issue; we need to tread more lightly, more softly, while listening and responding to the most vulnerable."

The Paris agreement: a Christmas truce, or a new beginning?

During the Christmas Truce of 1914, German, English and French ground troops temporarily stopped fighting and instead exchanged greetings and gifts, and sang Christmas carols together. There was a certain amount of musing about the absurdity of the war. And yet they went right back to fighting afterwards. How can we prevent a similar dynamic from happening after COP-21?

Commoning

In a second excerpt from his book Credo, Brian Davey explores the features of sustainable commons and the extent of commons today. He describes the practice of commoning as a possible response to the ecological crisis - a topic of much relevance to the current COP21 negotiations on climate.

Concepts for a fenced off world

"Private property in land means enclosure and exclusion. Economists typically assume that economic choices involve inevitable trade-offs. However, it is not true that alternatives must always be forgone. There is often a potential for sharing and mutual accommodation that is being ignored. Not all choices are rivalrous," writes Brian Davey in en excerpt from his book Credo.

Motivations for New Currency Design

Those developing new currencies will want to explore the various motivations behind what they're doing and set out for themselves - ideally explicitly - their balance of motives. Graham Barnes identifies some of the main 'flavours' of motivation.