Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Read the transcript from our live webchat about natural gas. David Hughes (author of Will Natural Gas Fuel America in the 21st Century?), Michael Bomford and Richard Gilbert answer questions from readers.
There are many lessons about Human Nature to be learned from the aquacalypse—human-caused destruction of animal life in the world’s oceans. I shall pinpoint several of them today.
We hear a lot about local food these days, but the bankers sure don’t want anyone to take that too literally. If everyone ate at home out of their gardens most of the time, the so-called economy would collapse because it is based on the assumption that the vast majority of people will continue to eat at restaurants, out of necessity or simply because that is the established way of American life.
Envisioning a new investment paradigm is difficult theoretical work, but actually implementing a system that directs flows of investment cash into local food systems is even more difficult. As a nascent movement, Slow Money has moved methodically to build a robust infrastructure for implementation. A growing national network of interested people have been considering how local groups or “Slow Money Alliances” would be structured in order to accomplish the work of bringing more investment into local food systems.
To feed a growing world population, we have no option but to intensify crop production. But farmers face unprecedented constraints. In order to grow, agriculture must learn to save.
How do we plan for this new situation, in which food and energy seem likely to again be rising in relationship to incomes, and as a result, living standards quite likely declining? The following are a few of my thoughts.
The toys most of us really remember playing with as children weren’t really toys but things we turned into toys. My earliest recollection is a matchbox of multicolored and multisize rubberbands I played with by the hour when I was about two. I don’t know why they fascinated me only that they did. Even the matchbox was a wonder — the way it slid so neatly open and closed.
The “financialization” of commodity markets has changed trading behaviour and significantly affects the prices of such basic goods as staple foods, a new UNCTAD study says. The study focuses on how financial investors in commodity markets rely on information related to just a few commonly observable events or on mathematical models, rather than on the physical realities of supply and demand.
In an ongoing series called “Monday Mayhem,” radio host with a pragmatic view of tackling the challenges of energy, food, and the local economy at the end of the age of oil goes head-to-head with a radio host who promotes free-market solutions. In this edition, Carl Etnier and Rob Roper discuss what it looks like to apply the principles of local, organic food to the functions of government.
When contemplating whether humans can successfully adapt to climate change, it is worth noting that at least twice in the last 1.2 million years our species was almost wiped out. Genetic research confirms that 1.2 million years ago the human population on Earth was around 18,500, perilously close to extinction. The reason for this low number is not directly known. Then about 150,000 years ago, it plummeted again down to just 2,000, probably due to climate change.
Much has been made of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization’s FAO) 2009 recommendation that the world will need to produce 70 percent more food to feed the projected global population of 9.1 billion people in 2050. Policymakers and agricultural investors have focused on increasing supply for the global food market. And while 925 million people worldwide today remain chronically hungry—amidst unprecedented population growth, resource depletion, and climate change—meeting the needs of the future is an enormous challenge for the world food system.
In Resilience Circles, we say three things need to happen to make a transition to a new economy: we need a new story about the economy that dismantles the myth of “recovery;” we need stronger communities; and we need new “rules” – i.e. new policies befitting a democracy instead of rule by a corporate elite. To make this happen, Resilience Circles learn together, engage in mutual aid, and take social action.
