This is our last editorial before taking a couple of weeks break to breathe. In many ways we are walking up to this hiatus with the deepest sense of urgency we have felt for a while.

Not only because of the fires raging across Europe. Not only because of the escalation of war in Eastern Europe. But also because of the piercing alarm bell, now ringing after the Uxbridge by-election, when it became clear that our party-political system is not only inadequate but increasingly losing control of its own agenda.

For those not reading the news from England (possibly the majority of our readers), there were three by-elections held last week that were widely expected to result in three losses for the UK government. However, one was narrowly won - that of former PM Boris Johnson. Given the long-term loyalty of the locals, that might not be too surprising.

Instead, the win has been entirely credited to very energetic campaigning in the area, against the extension of the Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ) - a measure, ironically, first introduced in London while Boris Johnson was Mayor. Bringing emissions down is widely accepted as vital not only for climate change but for the health of everyone living in the area: the numbers of child illness and deaths attributed directly to pollution has been rising dramatically.

Some might say that a vigorous campaign of any kind could have caused an upset to the delicate balance between a Tory and Labour vote at this time. However, contrary to both the Labour and Tory long term manifesto pledges, both national leaders have taken this result as a prompt to drop ULEZ as a priority. For commentators who place their hopes for reform and change in Labour this is just one more piece of dismal evidence that Kier Starmer has bought fully into the idea the only way to win power is to emulate the Tory party.

However, Rishi Sunak's knee-jerk politics have far worse consequences. Since that vote the PM has not only announced that he is "on the drivers' side" when it comes to regulating for the future. But Sunak followed quickly on with granting new licenses to oil companies in the North Sea, no doubt believing this will be a popular move.

In one fell swoop he has trashed the reputation of Britain as one of the global leaders in climate response. His actions will embolden other small countries to follow suit in their retreat from climate targets, hugely accelerating our carbon output. In a month which saw thousands of Britons fleeing climate-generated bush fires in their favourite sea-side resorts, this decision beggars belief.

In the midst of all this, we are lucky that the London Mayor Sadiq Khan has kept his nerve and upheld the legal rights behind ULEZ. It might be that he did his homework and saw that, in fact, the majority of voters are in favour of government regulation for carbon reduction. Here Rupert Read describes the evidence he and his team have used to establish a cross-party 'climate majority'.

In the meantime, here at Alternative Global we have been working hard on the architecture to deliver on that majority. When both parties appear in the media as competing for the populist (meaning emotionally triggered, fear induced) vote, it will be difficult to know what to do come the General Election, due in 2024. If you have been following our activity, you'll know that we launched four incubators in March this year, to found (and fund) the interactions that could build a fledgling, citizen-led, socio-economic-democratic system.

One of our lead goals is to design a new media system to report on and amplify the work of 7-10 cosmolocal community agency networks (CANS), that have developed new decision-making tools and practices. This media system will make available to everyone - those participating as well as the wider public?- the democratic architecture and culture that engages the deliberation and agency of its citizens.

For the first-time politicians will not be able to tell us what we want - a choice between two versions of the current system - we can tell them that there's more than that. The whole offer includes an education / training / self-development curriculum for all those who want to fit themselves for a future possible ecocivilisation.

Since we are not starting any of this work from scratch, each incubator has, over the past four months, begun to identify a set of fundable activities as follows:

1) Future Being: designing a personal practice for cosmolocalism - helping individuals to master time, place and integration. Connecting I-We-World.

2) Ecocivilisation through CANs: designing the socioeconomics of a global system of community agency networks. Including manifesting mycelial-like networks as architecture for a Fourth Sector relational economy.

3) News from Planet A: this is simulatneously an internal communications system for CANs, and an attractor for those outside the new system arising. Giving everyone an alternative news source.

4) A new political system: designing a parallel polis arising from interconnected CANs. The building blocks of a new political system, starting in 7-10 towns/cities.

While we are taking a break during August, we are moving into a next phase from September. Join our co-creators and join Hylo (info on signing up) for further information on getting involved.

One aspect of The Alternative Global / Planet A not yet fully highlighted is the role of RegenA: the digital native generation that is uniquely tasked - and qualified - to realise an ecocivilisation for the future.

We got a glimpse of RegenA in action at the 7th Vegan Campout in Bicester, Oxford this weekend. Since their inception in 2016, with only 400 attendees, they have grown to welcome 13,000 from over 40 countries.

Of course, not all vegans are youngsters, and in that sense, RegenA describes anyone committed to a regenerative economy, society, politics and practice. Equally, not all vegans are environmentalists - many are there as defenders of animals primarily. However, all appear to be committed to the principle of regeneration: the rights of all sentient entities to live full and free lives.

We went along to Vegan Campout not only to experience the energy of this vibrant movement, but to assess the narratives and strategy. We saw a mix of radical activism (Tash Peterson and Joey Carbstrong), narrative shaping (Klaus Mitchell, Plant Based News), community building (Juliet Gellately, Viva) and energetic entrepreneurialism (BOSH).

On the one hand, there was guerrilla filming inside abattoirs, the footage shared to wake the wider public up to the mechanised atrocities of animal extraction. On the other, the festival-goers were teaching each other how to make work and money in a fast-growing marketplace. There was also deeply researched evidence on why putting veganism first would help us meet our climate targets ahead of time.

However, for the younger ones it was clear that the most important aspect of these gatherings was the friends they could make, the warmth they could experience, the meaning making they could imbibe, the future they could make tangible. Speaking to a small group on the final day, they expressed the grief they knew they would feel the next day, having to leave this community behind for another year.

This kind of yearning for a whole-body, whole-system experience, rooted in restoring, respecting and protecting life, gives vegans a way to be in this present, demanding moment. It gives them energy and courage for the task of creating a regenerative future.

In many ways it was what we have anticipated with our four incubators - a world that meets the physical and emotional needs of every kind of person. The sooner we can, together, build the architecture, the structures and the practices - and the mode of transmission - for this dream of civilisation, the sooner it will become a reality from which all can benefit.

See you in a fortnight.

Alternative Editorial: Urgency Is Upon Us