Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The year is 1970 and as the scene opens in the Blue Room Cafe, known locally as Blue Room University, a group of farmers are discussing the pros and cons of growing corn the usual way and the new-fangled organic way. [Fiction, based on a historical events]
Agriculture’s new ‘golden age’
King of soya: environmental vandal or saviour of the world’s poor?
My forbidden fruits (and vegetables)
South Africa electricity crisis – and farmers
Okla. fight over poultry waste escalates
NYT on food: Priced out of the market
In hungry Zimbabwe, pet food as a priority
IEA’s Fatih Birol: We can’t cling to crude
Ken Livingstone – Peak oil “opportunity” for London Mayor
Nansen G. Saleri: The world has plenty of oil
Fears of a commodity crash grow (oil too?)
Bread and oil: rising food prices and the Middle East
The novel presents a fictional world that is at once idyllic and post-apocalyptic, reassuring and frightening.
China’s massive but dwindling aquifers would be on track to run virtually dry if over-pumping continued, said Lester Brown, prominent US environmental policy advocate. At that point, grain production would dive, exacerbating food price increases. (Interview with Lester Brown)
Biofuels: Driving in the wrong direction?
The ethanol bust
Cuba to produce ethanol without sacrificing food
A relocalized society and economy is a pragmatic way to prepare for, to survive from, or to rebuild after whatever comes down — to counteract the rising price of energy and to help diminish carbon emissions. (In-depth interview with writer and activist Dan Armstrong, part 2)
“The bottom line is that China and the world are accelerating in the fog toward a precipice.” (Interview of ecologist Paul Ehrlich.)
The day China runs dry (Lester Brown interview)
FAO expects global fertilizer supply to outstrip demand
The world’s growing food-price crisis
The footprint of a cheeseburger
FT: Food and the spectre of Malthus
‘Panic’ wheat buying across the US
Breadbasket inflation
Fertilizer shortages caused by the depletion of nonrenewable feedstocks are a significant worry in the wake of peak oil. There’s a simple solution — but most people in the industrial world don’t seem to be able to tell it from a hole in the ground.
Democrats seek to boost taxes on oil companies
Won’t be easy to bollect $31B oil royalties
FutureGen CEO interview
Amid election, coal takes the offensive
WaPo editorial: The problem with biofuels
