Urban design – Apr 30
Highlights from the 7th EcoCity World Summit
CNN covers Transition towns
New book: Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change
Food & Water
Keeping fed
In spite of the monumental failures of Soviet agriculture, the overall structure of Soviet-style food delivery proved to be paradoxically resilient in the face of economic collapse and disruption. The combination of local food stockpiles administered by politicians conditioned to treat bread riots as career-ending calamities, the prevalence of government institutions that attended to the sustenance of their employees and plenty of kitchen gardens, meant that there was no starvation and very little malnutrition. But will fate be as kind to the United States? (Book excerpt)
Food & agriculture – Apr 29
Ban Ki-Moon to chair UN task force on food crisis – hunger threatens ‘more than 100 million’
Recession Diet just one way to tighten belt
The future of dirt
Clothing – Apr 27
Clothing stores feel sharp economic pinch
The end of cheap clothes is near
Thrift shops – a wardrobe essential
Gardening in the nude (or new use for rhubarb)
Food crisis – Apr 27
The troubles with food (food security vs food sovereignty)
Anti-hunger protests in Haiti
Avoidable hunger (subsidies)
Afghanistan food riots
Food & agriculture – Apr 27
WSJ: Load up the pantry
How much your groceries will cost in 10 years
Food miles and social dilemmas of imported foods
Sachs: How to end the global food shortage
Food & microorganisms – Apr 27
The real dirt on dirt
Post Harvest Technology (food preservation post peak)
Global hops shortage
Biodynamics and microorganisms
Garden – Apr 25
Stand by your beds – guerrilla gardening
Warming shifts gardeners’ maps
Pasadena family finds change can start in your own backyard
Peak clothing – Apr 24
BBC: The end of cheap clothes is near
The Joy of Socks
Food & flowerpots – Apr 24
Shops ration sales of rice as US buyers panic
Plastic garden pots trashing the planet?
Biofuels – Apr 24
Brown sounds retreat on biofuels
How biofuels could starve the poor
Why more food is not the answer
The world wants more food – a lot more food – but the planet will not be able to provide it. A groundbreaking United Nations report was released last week that presents an alternative paradigm for agriculture – at a very timely moment.
