Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Can sustainability save the Midwest?
Everybody eats: The unifying power of food
Charles in GM ‘disaster’ warning
Thurstaston farmer shocked by lack of support for switch to local produce at Church Farm
Soaring fertiliser prices threaten world’s poorest farmers
Organic garden takes over San Francisco’s City Hall lawn
NPR misses real story, plants wrong seeds
A solar success on the farm
The curse of Yemen – qat
Alternative trade networks and the coffee system
Feeling the heat of food security
Brazilian agriculture faces huge losses from climate change
Those of us who have sought security by producing our own food to eat and to sell locally instead of trying to find salvation in the pretend money that the government is pouring into the banks to save them, should count our blessings. That popping noise I think I hear issuing from the Chicago Board of Trade is the sound of grain bubbles bursting all over the trading floor.
The limits of localism (vertical farms?)
The locavore’s dilemma: finding places to plant
Can cattle save us from global warming?
Nigeria: Farming – the neglected obligation
The food crisis and global institutions
If we were willing – and in some cases able – to pay more for food, then some serious problems with our food system might be solved. The trouble is that along the path towards a better, more sustainable farming and energy system, there will be many casualties
EPA rejects Perry plea on ethanol
Experts clash over viability of biofuels, alternative energy
Burgers or biofuel?
I starting reading the news, and following links, and reading a backlog of articles I’ve been meaning to read, and lo and behold, I noticed a pattern. Our society is changing. We rely so much on oil, that as the price skyrockets, we have no choice but to change. Are you noticing a shift?
Bring on the Staycation / Relocalizing fun
She’s ready: Just add water
12 Tips for the sustainability shift
This week on Worldchanging Seattle
Organic food becomes latest casualty of the credit crunch
The climate costs of a glass of milk
Congress takes another potshot at family farmers
When you consider which plants, insects, and animals you ideally would like to share your backyard garden with, you think immediately of the most beautiful and beneficial creatures—perhaps bluebirds, luna moths, fiery searcher beetles, barn owls, bluegills, and foxes. You reject “ugly” or “harmful” creatures—pine voles, rosy apple aphids, starlings, and hognose snakes. This kind of thinking, perfectly logical when applied to a totally man-made environment like a house, won’t work when applied to nature.
Once, black caviar from the Caspian Sea was ubiquitous in Russia in its typical blue cans. Now, it has disappeared. “Peak Caviar” has taken place around 1980 in Russia. … “Peak Caviar” is another confirmation of how common the “Hubbert” behavior is. It doesn’t matter if a resource is theoretically renewable, as sturgeons and whales are. If sturgeons or whales are killed much faster than they can reproduce, then they behave as a non renewable resource; just as crude oil.
“Farmers should not go to university,” Jo said, “what is taught there is not sustainable. What good is it for a farmer to have an education if he is not taught how to be sustainable?” I glanced at Jo’s boy Than wondering how this boy would be educated. … Yet I understood what Jo was saying. Perhaps an education was just another form of runaway consumerism training students to increase their needs and consume more resources in order to “succeed”. What, indeed, was sustainable about it? What was progress for a Thai farmer if the use of modern agriculture meant endless debt and health problems from pesticide use?
