Natural Building Materials and Biomass Roofing

Sustainable Build of UK is a great source for construction material and techniques that advance the concept of autonomy and sustainability.  This post serves as an example of the great information one may find there directly, instead of us borrowing this information.  Hopefully it will remain available for time to come, but if you have any plans of using this information soon on a project it is advised to store and reproduce such information as we can not conclude it will always be available and free.

http://www.sustainablebuild.co.uk 

 Natural Building Materials and Biomass Roofing

Biomass roofing is the use of plant materials to build roofs. People from around the world have always used whatever vegetation was locally available and abundant to build their roofs. This cultural and environmental diversity has led to a wide range of roofing materials and styles, from the simple and ephemeral to the more durable and complex.

The Different Types of Biomass Roofing

Although hundreds of different plants have been used to roof houses, these can be classified into two main types: thatch and wood tiles.

Crisis of Humanity and the Specter of 21st Century Fascism

http://www.soc.ucsb.edu/faculty/robinson/Assets/pdf/Crisis%20of%20Humanity.pdf
World Economy  www.worldfinancialreview.com  May - June 2014 Pg 14 – 16

Global Capitalism:
Crisis of Humanity and the Specter of 21st Century Fascism

By William I. Robinson

About the Author

William I. Robinson is professor of sociology, global and international studies, and Latin American studies, at the University of California - Santa Barbara. Among his many books are Promoting Polyarchy (1996), Transnational Conflicts (2003), A Theory of Global Capitalism  (2004), Latin America and Global Capitalism(2008), and Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Humanity (2014).

World capitalism is experiencing the worst crisis in its 500 year history. Global capitalism is a qualitatively new stage in the open ended evolution of capitalism characterised by the rise of transnational capital, a transnational capitalist class, and a transnational state. Below, William I. Robinson argues that the global crisis is structural and threatens to become systemic, raising the specter of collapse and a global police state in the face of ecological holocaust, concentration of the means of violence, displacement of billions, limits to extensive expansion and crises of state legitimacy, and suggests that a massive redistribution of wealth and power downward to the poor majority of humanity is the only viable solution.

The New Global Capitalism and the 21st Century Crisis

The world capitalist system is arguably experiencing the worst crisis in its 500 year history. World capitalism has experienced a profound restructuring through globalisation over the past few decades and has been transformed in ways that make it fundamentally distinct from its earlier incarnations. Similarly, the current crisis exhibits features that set it apart from earlier crises of the system and raise the stakes for humanity. If we are to avert disastrous outcomes we must understand both the nature of the new global capitalism and the nature of its crisis. Analysis of capitalist globalisation provides a template for probing a wide range of social, political, cultural and ideological processes in this 21st century. Following Marx, we want to focus on the internal dynamics of capitalism to understand crisis. And following the global capitalism perspective, we want to see how capitalism has qualitatively evolved in recent decades.

What is the Landless Workers Movement, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST)

A documentary about the history of the fight of the rural workers in Brazil. Go here for the list of videos

What is the MST?

Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST) in Portuguese, is a mass social movement, formed by rural workers and by all those who want to fight for land reform and against injustice and social inequality in rural areas.

The MST was born through a process of occupying latifundios (large landed estates) and become a national movement in 1984.  Over more than two decades , the movement has led more than 2,500 land occupations, with about 370,000 families - families that today settled on 7.5 million hectares of land that they won as a result of the occupations. Through their organizing, these families continue to push for schools, credit for agricultural production and cooperatives, and access to health care.

Currently, there are approximately 900 encampment holding 150,000 landless families in Brazil.  Those camped, as well as those already settled, remain mobilized, ready to exercise their full citizenship, by fighting for the realization of their political, social economic, environmental and cultural rights.

Why is there a lag in our publishing activity

First, and not least, we do not get paid or receive any money from doing this, nor did we undermine the project as something quick and simple.  Certainly we would be able to do more if there were more of us doing it, so if you have developed an interest in getting involved let us know.  Sometime horizontal organization is slow and complicated in terms of production.  Each one of us must convince and be convinced of a proposal to do something.  And this we do neither consider a luxury of a problem, quite the opposite we are critical of those who operate under a hierarchy, an authority, and produce.  

Judging by certain polemics it would seem that there are anarchists who spurn any form of organisation; but in fact the many, too many, discussions on this subject, even when obscured by questions of language or poisoned by personal issues, are concerned with the means and not the actual principle of organisation. Thus it happens that when those comrades who sound the most hostile to organisation want to really do something they organise just like the rest of us and often more effectively. The problem, I repeat, is entirely one of means.

Errico Malatesta   October 1927

So it is not only important to us to do something or do it quickly, but to find the acceptable ways to do it.  If we were to develop specialists, hierarchy, authority, to do something, the value of the product would be all lost as we have returned to the state of affairs we are so eager in departing.  So among the other, real life projects we are engaged in, our digital project has fallen back in priority, while we are constantly reexamining what we have done so far and where we want to go with this.  And this must take time.