 Reviewing scientific literature, this World Bank report warns that greenhouse gas emissions will lead us to a four degree Celsius global warming in this century. The report outlines a range of risks that a four degree increase could provoke including extreme heat waves, severe droughts and floods, a decline of global food stocks, and a loss of ecosystems and biodiversity — all of which would disproportionately affect the world’s poorest regions and undermine development efforts. The authors contend, however, that a warmer world can be avoided and advocate for mitigation, adaptation, inclusive green growth, and climate-smart development policies. Read More»
In a recent article in YES! Magazine –— whose Spring 2013 issue is centered on cooperatives in the new economy — author Amy Dean looks at how the United Steelworkers (USW) union is aiming to use employee-run businesses to create new, middle-class jobs to replace union work that has shifted overseas. Union co-ops differ from other worker-owned co-ops in that they allow worker-owners to appoint a management team and then bargain collectively with management. Citing the Evergreen Cooperatives as a model, USW has started pilot cooperative organizing efforts in Pennsylvania and Ohio, including the Pittsburgh Clean and Green Laundry Cooperative and the Cincinnati Union Cooperative Initiative. The latter already has one co-op up and running — an urban food hub enterprise called Our Harvest. Read More»
 Gamaliel’s latest study, Community Organizing As Job Creator, argues that more investment in community organizing leads to multiple economic benefits, including job creation and community stabilization. Examining the achievements of the Gamaliel network over the last five years, the study finds that community-organizing efforts within the Gamaliel network led to the redirection of $16.6 billion toward infrastructure development, education, and transit that created and saved a total of nearly 640,000 jobs. The report is intended not just for community organizers, but also elected officials, businesspeople, government agencies, and any advocate for the common good. Read More»
 A new report from Good Jobs First shows how state and local governments waste billions of dollars in subsidies used to lure business across state lines while businesses use job creation “blackmail” to demand greater rewards. The result is a shrinking tax base for states, reduced funding for education, infrastructure development, and job development as well as unfair job redistribution. After examining the states where these practices are most common and harmful, the authors recommend policies that reduce interstate job competition. Ultimately, the authors call on the federal government to use incentives to curtail these practices. Read More»
CW Interview: Rob Witherell This month we interview Rob Witherell, representative for the United Steelworkers union in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. In addition to working on contract negotiations, benefits analysis, research and organizing, Witherell has also led the United Steelworkers’ efforts on developing union co-ops and is the union’s lead liaison with the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation. In this interview, Witherell discusses what elevated co-op organizing to the top of the Steelworker agenda, commonalities between labor unions and cooperatives, how the union co-op model will work, what its challenges will be, and key accomplishments of the movement to date. Read More»
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Democracy Collaborative Co-Founder Gar Alperovitz’s new book, What Then Must We Do?: Straight Talk About the Next American Revolution, looks at why the time is right for a new economy movement to coalesce, what it means to build a new system to replace the crumbling one, and how we might begin. The book calls for an evolution, not a revolution, out of the old system and into a new system that is not corporate capitalism, not state socialism, but something else entirely — and something entirely American. This new system would democratize the ownership of wealth, strengthen communities, and be governed by democratic institutions sophisticated enough to manage a large-scale, developed economy. 
Accompanying his new book, Gar Alperovitz’s new film, The Next American Revolution, offers practical, politically viable solutions to the structural crisis plaguing the American economic and political system — from wage stagnation and chronic unemployment to unchecked corporate and state power and growing inequality. Pointing to efforts under way in thousands of communities across the United States, from co-ops and community land trusts to innovative municipal, state, and federal initiatives, Alperovitz marshals years of research to show how bottom-up strategies can work to check monopolistic corporate power, democratize wealth, and empower communities. 
