Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The notion that politics only takes place in the voting booth or halls of state basically evaporated in the 1960s. We now know that political acts occur in a range of settings: in our neighborhoods, bedrooms, kitchens, and, yes, even in our gardens.
When we enter the decline phase of conventional oil—likely before 2020—we will scramble to fill the gap with alternative liquid fuels. The Hirsch Report of 2005, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy, took a hard look at alternatives that could respond to the scale of the problem in time to have an impact. Not one of the approaches deemed to be currently viable in the report departs from fossil fuels. But what about biofuels? To what extent can they solve our problem? We’ll dip our toes into the math and see where a first-cut analysis leaves us.
I know something I would much rather occupy than Wall Street. I wonder if the typical young critic of the moneychangers realizes where the wealth that drives Wall Street comes from. How much of it, for example, resides in the land out here in corn and soybean country that is owned by wealthy people who have never set foot on it?
But the hands that write also stir, chop, mix and fold. They have learned in these cooking and eating out years to touch and feel and memorise the living fabric of the earth, the vibrancy of fish and fowl, the rough coats of seeds and bark, the soft down of peaches. These hands know what to do with sea urchins and dead hares. They have shopped in the markets of the world – Greek islands, South American cities, desert and mountain towns. They are smart, gentle, ruthless. Like everyone’s hands.
Detroit was once a destination for car companies and youth trying to break into the music industry. Today, it’s now home to entrepreneurs looking to break into the urban farming business. In Detroit, a city that saw half its population move in the wake of economic collapse, many of the hopes of those who stayed behind hinges on urban farming.
One of the scary factoids in circulation these days is the revelation that grocery stores hold only a three- or four-day supply of food. We’re only a few days from starvation, goes the frightening story, and we’re liable one day to find our supermarket shelves empty and the populace in panic. To accept this forecast uncritically, though, means ignoring how complex systems work. Here’s why storing more food in cities is not the right strategy for food security.
Peak oil is behind us. That much seems to be clear from what was said at the 5th meeting of the Italian section of the Association for the study of peak oil (ASPO) held on Oct 28 in Florence, Italy.
The current industrial model of US agriculture is economically, energetically, and ecologically doomed. Any hope for a livable future requires that we accelerate the creation of resilient, ecologically-viable ‘shadow structure’ replacements for industrial US agriculture in the diminishing time available to us. We already possess the tools, knowledge, and organizational structures to begin such projects at the family and community level. Here are some things I’m excited about.
Born of water, wool, soap and human hands — felt is the most immediate textile that can be created from the back of a sheep. The directness of the process, and utility of the finished product has found its way deep into the heart and soul of our kindred featured artisan, Katherine Jolda, a woman whose creative life has manifested fundamentally crucial garments for the 150 mile wardrobe. She has been deemed “a brilliant inventor, natural philosopher, and felt athlete” by those who have both observed and worn her work.
“La Ruche Qui Dit Oui” (“The hive that says yes!” or LRDQ) is a business model and web platform that enables anyone to set up a fair trade organic food distribution and supply network – and make a sustainable social business out of it at the same time.
These days Permaculture principles and ethos are present in my life like weeds in a raised bed, always popping up, full of unexpected insights and good ideas.
No figure is more endearing and enduring in agriculture than the lonely plowman out there on the horizon who raises himself by his own bootstraps to financial success. Only problem is, there is no occupation more dependent on the cooperation of society and nature to achieve success than farming.
