Saving Farmland, Supporting Young Farmers
It’s a bit odd that land reform is barely mentioned in most progressive agendas. Maybe that’s because it is seen as challenging the presumed virtues of private property and capitalist markets.
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Peak Oil in South & Central America
Production peaked 2015 due to Venezuela’s production collapse. Brazil’s production has not yet peaked but is unlikely to offset Venezuela’s decline. All other countries together are on a bumpy production plateau for the last 20 years.
How and why I stopped buying new laptops
Not buying new laptops saves a lot of money, but also a lot of resources and environmental destruction.
2021: The Year of the Post-COVID Consumer Orgy?
2020 was a year lived in fear—fear of the surprise arrival of a novel coronavirus, of not understanding it, of getting it, of watching a loved one get it—never being sure if they’d survive.
How capitalism started, and why it still matters
In fact, capitalism isn’t particularly about markets or selling things. This needs stressing over and over, because powerful narratives to the contrary repeatedly fool us into supposing otherwise.
Covid-19 has shown us that good health is not just down to biology
Our society’s recovery from this disease should be centred on building more equal, resilient societies, where people in all parts of the world have access to both protection from the disease and access to research developments.
Perilous Bounty: Review
Tom Philpott has a book out that examines the impending crises in US agriculture caused by short-sightedness, a relentless profit motive, and the power of corporations over US farm policy.
Bill Vitek: In Pursuit of Better Agriculture (and a Better Society)
About 40 years ago, Wes Jackson at the Land Institute in Salina, Kansas asked this radical question: Why can’t we have perennial grains? Since grains make up about 65% of worldwide calories, why not develop perennial versions?
Musings on a soufflé dish or why capitalism has no space for love
That is why there is no room for love in capitalism. You cannot love a thing and at the same time be indifferent to its demise.
Podcast from the Prarie: Methodism in my madness
In this episode of “Podcast from the Prairie,” Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen discuss the role of religion, both in Jackson’s life and in our human future.
What Could Possibly Go Right?: Episode 28 Douglas Rushkoff
Rushkoff’s work explores how different technological environments change our relationship to narrative, money, power, and one another. Through this lens, he answers the question of “What Could Possibly Go Right?”
Have yourself a merry little agrarian populist Christmas
This is the field of agrarian populism, where both the greatest challenges and the greatest opportunities lie in the fact that so few of ‘the people’ in so many countries today are agrarians.
