Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
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.
Sharon Astyk, the Submissions Goddess for this new online magazine, writes: “We’re all about serious food production and food security on every scale from container to acreage, from personal to community. And we’ve got food covered at every step of the process, from seed to table. Oh, and we’ll have some sexy stuff (I mean, how could gardening and eating not be sexy?)”
“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?
Riches to Rags
Energy boom in West threatens Indian artifacts
The suicide solution
ANR’s clamp-down on composting operation inexplicable
Grow your own
Organic food becomes latest casualty of the credit crunch
The newly formed Global Phosphorus Research Initiative (GPRI) promises to “undertake quality transdisciplinary research on sustainable global phosphorus resources for future food security.” Their website has articles on peak phosphorus and the importance of phosphorus.
Why is the Douglas administration trying to shut down Vermont Compost? The Montpelier small business provides jobs, low-cost processing of food waste, more than 1,000 dozen eggs every month, and high-quality compost and soil products that are in demand both in state and as far away as the Midwest.
Recreating and preserving ecosystems are effective ways of enabling nature to preserve itself, but setting up such environments often results in fairly stable, low-maintenance yards that for some people just don’t satisfy the need to roll up the sleeves and garden. In seeking an outlet for an abundance of creative energy, both active gardeners and frustrated conservationists might consider adopting this guiding concept: the garden as ark, a la Noah himself. The idea here is to seek out and save plant species—both wild and domestic—that are threatened with extinction. Raise then in a garden designed especially to allow them to thrive, safe from the rigors of an advancing civilization seemingly bent on stamping them out. The challenge and excitement of rescuing and growing a rare orchid or caring for an endangered rose that was once grown in ancient Rome give zest to gardening.
Digesting the problem
Using crop residue for biofuels hurts soil quality (podcast)
Obama’s biofuels policy tension
German waste disposal industry faces crisis
Feed from waste
Houston resists recycling, and independent streak is cited
The vegetable patch goes luxe
Vegetable gardening is cool. Who knew?
Farmers ready to cash in on soaring land prices
Ok, I’m going to try and work some more on the list of necessary skills. So five more entries on this subject – and more coming. Last time was the absolute minimum – but I’m still working on a list of everything you might ever need to know.
