Disability representation in publishing is on the rise. The Publishers Association stated in their 2020 diversity and inclusion report that the proportion of people within the workforce with disabilities has risen from 5% in 2018 to 8% in 2020. Despite this increase, disability remains under-represented: according to the Publishers Association, there are 13.3 million disabled people in the UK – just under one-fifth of the population.
The term ‘Just Transition’ has come from the trade union movement and encapsulates their demand that workers do not lose out in the move away from fossil fuels towards a zero carbon economy. Those whose jobs will be lost need to be given support and training to move into new jobs in transforming our buildings, energy system and transport.
The decades-long debate over climate change has had a particularly unfair impact on the world’s younger generation. Not only are they inheriting the massive and unprecedented problem of climate change, but most are not getting the right level of education to know what to do with this unfortunate inheritance.
Actor Joaquin Phoenix said in his Oscar acceptance speech that “When we use love and compassion as our guiding principles we can develop and implement systems of change that are beneficial to all sentient beings, and to the environment.”
About the same time this speech was given, in early 2020, the Systems Change Alliance (SCA) was formed by a small group of people from different countries. Like Phoenix, we also believe that implementing change with love and compassion is the best way to save both people and planet.
Money has not always been dominated by national currencies. For most of our history, money was something inherently local, often with more than one currency operating within a locality and with varying rates of exchange. Even in the modern era, complementary currencies continue to be invented and used.
The climate emergency has been, as it so often is, pushed to the sidelines when more evidently immediate dangers emerge. Global lockdowns have hampered the visibility of the climate movement just at the moment when international climate strikes were making headlines and forcing politicians to take the issue seriously.
In the run up to the 2021 COP26 climate summit, which was originally scheduled for November 2020, we have been collating diverse accounts from people around the world on themes that cover climate adaptation, alternative economic models, and case studies from a range of different communities.
This year’s A-Level results saw dramatic changes to the ways in which results were determined in light of the absence of exams, with an algorithm being introduced to calculate results on the basis of the prior attainment of the student, and the historic record of the school.
Earlier this year, author L.L. McKinney started the Twitter hashtag #PublishingPaidMe, calling for authors to share the advances they had received for their books. The results revealed that Black authors with well-established fanbases still found it difficult to secure advances[…]
The impacts of COVID-19 on all sectors have been immense, but perhaps one of those hardest hit is the independent publishing industry. Already heavily reliant on events to garner income, as well as book sales, with no dedicated financial support from the government, many small publishers across the UK are on the brink of closure.