Reducing the working week would not just tackle inequality, it would give us the time to think about what we do with our lives.

In his Guardian column this week, Aditya Chakrabortty wrote how workers are becoming slaves to routine, with only a lucky few still possessing any real autonomy. It's time that we changed the way we work.

Ruth Potts

Ruth Potts 2 September 2010
First Name:  Ruth
Surname:  Potts
Profile picture:  Andy Wimbush
Campaign Co-ordinator, The Great Transition
Staff profile page:  Ruth Potts
The world's biggest banks are starting to realise that dirty investments make very bad press.
 By fotdmike

The Camp for Climate Action outside the headquarters of Royal Bank of Scotland in Edinburgh does not so far seem to have shifted the subsidised bank in a more greener direction.

They are still subsidising the polluting business of extracting oil from tar sands, just as they are financing the oil and gas extraction that is accelerating global warming – and just as they were before the bank nosedived. 

Quarter of the way in, we are perhaps further from holding back the warming tide than when we began. But there is still time.

Twenty five months ago, working with my colleague, a climate scientist, Dr Victoria Johnson, and others, I decided to find out how long it would take before, on the best data available, we would begin to cross red lines where climatic instability and extremes were concerned. A quarter of that time has now passed.

My experience at TEDGlobal reminded me that our prospects for making a Great Transition to a just and sustainable economy will depend upon us become better storytellers.

Programme Area: Well-being

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Nic Marks at TED

Andy Wimbush 30 August 2010
Image:  Nic Marks on the stage at TED
Description:  Founder of the centre for well-being talks about the Happy Planet Index
The concept of a 'free market' has been surrendered to big corporations and vested interests. But perhaps now it is time to reclaim it for new economics.

There is no such thing as a free lunch or a free market – or so it is said.  Or a free school, come to that.

Nothing is free.  There we are, now all of us radical new economists can nod our heads sagely and congratulate ourselves on our Jesuitical understanding of the world as it is.

But, having congratulated ourselves, it may be time to think again on free trade, because all is not quite what it seems.

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How many meetings reinforce who and what you already know?

I spent the weekend at Facilitation Camp. An ‘unconference’ built on the principles of Open Space. This means the agenda is designed by participants on the day and a structure emerges built on the energy and interests of the people who are there.

There are positive actions that governments can take to ensure that policy helps rather than hinders the well-being of citizens.

Although I would probably, if asked, describe my work at nef as being part of the ‘battle of ideas’, it’s not all that often that I would use the phrase to describe a day in the office. But last week I found myself truly in the thick of it, subjecting my ideas about well-being research to the scrutiny of a conversation with a dedicated opponent.

On 21 August our environmental resource budget ran out. Now we're living beyond the planet's means to support us.

At the weekend, Saturday 21 August to be precise, the world as a whole went into "ecological debt".

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