Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
-Seed behemoth Monsanto stumbles into antitrust trouble
-Weather no obstacle for Pittsburg garden
-How a Hoop House Can Extend the Growing Season
-Copenhagen: peasant farmers can save the planet
-Getting at the roots of unsustainable U.S. ag policy
-Copenhagen could lead to increase in intensive farming
-Meet the Milk
-Where Industry Once Hummed, Urban Garden Finds Success
It’s the end of the decade 2000-2009, and there has been progress as well as potential disaster for sustainability. In chronological order, I’ve chosen these ten stories to show a range of relevant global and national issues and events on climate, business, government, media, design, technology, language and demographics.
Former truck driver Bill Wilson tells an insightful story about the energy packed in a gallon of gas — which we won’t always have in cheap abundance. Now a permaculture educator, he sees permaculture as a viable, realistic way to use nature to provide the abundance we really need — harvesting sunlight, food, wind, water and more. Can you guess what the magic stuff is that we all can’t live without? (No, it’s not oil.)
The greatest mistake that they did before Copenhagen was to focus the spotlight only on climate. If the world situation is to develop in a positive way in the future then this one-lane track must be broadened into a four-lane highway. One only needs to examine the global welfare equation (HWB) to understand what those four lanes are: Food and water, climate, economy, and peace on Earth.
The jokers think maybe with more progress and more help from Monsanto Claus, in time we will have corn mountains tall enough to use as temporary winter ski slopes.
A year ago I wrote a lengthy article for Oil Drum – Campfire describing the beginning of my conversion from a career of professional life often an desk to one of a farmer. Due to the interest and spirited responses to my article of last December I thought that Oil Drum readers might find it interesting to know what has transpired this past year on the farm and what I think I have learned.
“as mankind proceeded to get bigger and bigger we silently crossed a threshold”
Why Britain faces a bleak future of food shortages
-Sinking Feelings About Storing Carbon Emissions on the Farm
-California’s Troubled Waters
-L.A. cooperative provides communities with produce
-Farmers Reclaim Power!
-Free lunches handed out to highlight food waste
-Setting the Table (report)
Kris Holstrom’s off-grid permaculture farm at 9000 feet high is living proof that food can be grown nearly anywhere. Managing with a very short growing season and water constraints, she and her interns have created magic. Tour the sun-warmed, insulated greenhouse where greens are grown year-round.
We are all well aware of the no-man’s land of cultural difference between farmers and non-farmers…But there is another cultural divide coming to the fore in our society, this one between farmer and farmer.
-Cultivating Resilience: The Shelburne Falls Food Security Plan
-think global : eat local
-The Local Price Premium
-Nitrous oxide concerns cloud future of biofuels
-Regreening Africa
-Community Food Enterprise: Local Success in a Global Marketplace
-Grow $700 of Food in 100 Square Feet!
-N.J.’s food pantries and politics: Hungry people need food– end of discussion
It seems the evil empire will keep chugging along, despite my wishes to the contrary. How long is anybody’s guess. And, despite my record of bad guessing, I’ll toss out some more guesses here.
