William (Bill) Powers is an author, speaker and teacher whose essays and commentaries on global issues have appeared in the New York Times and the Atlantic and on National Public Radio. Powers has also spent several decades exploring the American culture of speed and its alternatives in some fifty countries around the world. He is the author of five books that probe issues of sustainability and the need for a new, bio-centric paradigm, and lives in a Transition Town in Bolivia where principles of a "sweet, slow life" are being put into practice.

In this interview for the Planet Local Voices series, Powers questions the colonial categories of language and thought behind conventional 'development' models that are pushing globalization and urbanization onto the whole world. Powers argues that the antidote to the seeming invincibility of this destructive mainstream direction is by coming home to our senses, re-embedding ourselves in the fabric of Nature and life, and re-building interdependent communities and local economies.

To watch the video of this series, visit: Planet Local Voices interview series.

The music for this series is ‘Pines and Violet’, by Sky Toes.

Ruby Van der Wekken is a member of RIPESS, a network committed to promotion of the Social Solidarity Economy, as well as Oma Maa, a Finnish food co-operative based on community-supported agriculture (CSA) as well as ecologically and socially sustainable food production methods. Ruby works both at the cooperative's community farm and with the development of the co-op, with a personal background in the global justice movement, and advocacy for solidarity economies and the commons. In this interview for the Planet Local Voices series, Ruby describes the work of Oma Maa, and how it exemplifies both solidarity economy and commons principles for fairer, more just and sustainable economies. She also emphasizes the importance of local ownership of the economy, and the need for supportive laws and genuinely democratic governance to enable such alternatives to flourish and spread.

To watch the video of this series, visit: Planet Local Voices interview series.

The music for this series is ‘Pines and Violet’, by Sky Toes.

Rob Hopkins is the co-founder of Transition Network and of Transition Town Totnes, and author of several books including 'The Transition Handbook' and most recently, 'From What Is to What If: unleashing the power of imagination to create the future we want'. He is an Ashoka Fellow, has spoken at TED Global and at several TEDx events.

In this interview for the Planet Local Voices series, Rob inspires with the story of how the Transition Movement has for years been practically demonstrating and fostering a more resilient, healthy, and beautiful local future in communities around the world. Rob explains how this movement represents a profound - and urgently needed - break with the extractivist, (neo)colonial globalized economy, and emphasizes the critical need for boosting the radical collective imagination of what is possible as an antidote to despair and hopelessness.

To watch the video of this series, visit: Planet Local Voices interview series.

The music for this series is ‘Pines and Violet’, by Sky Toes.