Transport – Sept 23
-How to Get People Out of Their Cars
-The data problem that holds back climate action and smart growth
-Bicycle – The Freedom Machine
Act: Inspiration
South-South technology transfer in Bolivia: A solution for local health, forests, and our global climate
These cooking devices rely only on power from the sun and are built entirely with materials indigenous to Bolivia. It is the kind of solution that embodies many of the elements necessary to really get to work solving climate change—local, small-scale, incorporating indigenous knowledge and materials, and with simple, easy-to-use technology.
A threat to burn the Koran and the role of the Transition Movement
When change unfolds, people want real solutions more than they want to hate. Our work helps people get focused on practical action, brings emotional rewards of connection and common purpose. Transition is an inoculation against human breakdown. It is inoculation against hate.
So where’s the hope?
In America, the spiritual journey starts with an active, conscious, personal rejection of I Consume, Therefore I Am. Life is precious, but new shoes, especially when you’ve already got perfectly adequate footware, are not.
The good food movement is now a revolution
“There are enough people talking about growing food, but not enough growers.” Suddenly, my mostly sedentary Brooklyn life was filled with kale planting, chicken feeding, delivering produce to restaurants via bicycle, and picking up buckets of coffee grounds from local cafes for composting.
I commit random acts of gardening
Here, there and everywhere, I plant little edible gardens. You might find one in a pot at the front door, trailing into a walk way, acting as ground cover, or exploding out of a patch of former lawn. I seem to have a driving, primal voice pushing me on to replace ornamentals with beautiful and yet nourishing stand ins.
Ten birds that will not land: Some thoughts on school, the simple life, and independence
What is the nature of “independence”? We talk about it like it can actually be achieved and that it’s a good thing. What if neither is true?
Edible landscapes and Entergy argues for federal preemption (transcript added)
Darrin Nordahl, the author of Public Produce: The New Urban Agriculture, has chronicled the growing movement to put edible plants in public spaces–like Vermont’s vegetable garden on its State House lawn. Also, Ray Shadis, a consultant to the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, will respond to the question: “Can the state of Vermont regulate Vermont Yankee without falling foul of federal preemption law?”
The End of the World-as-we-know-it in 10 years? And the rise of the post-carbon era…
We are running out of time. By 2018, converging food, water and energy shortages could magnify the probability of conflict between major powers, civil wars, and cross-border conflicts. After 2020, this could result in political and economic catastrophes that would undermine state control and national infrastructures, potentially leading to social collapse.
Meet my food system
I live because we live—in reciprocity. Me, you, the farmers, the politicians, the merchants, the animals, the vegetables, the minerals, the trees and oceans, the Earth. These are my pals. These are my suppliers.
Simplicity and abundance (Day 172) September 17th
John and I take a trip out to visit Woody and Zoe at nearby Cuckoo Farm to see their gorgeous straw bale house, which has been plastered to meet health and safety regulations, and which now looks like an ancient thatched cottage. Over cups of tea I hear about anaerobic digesters and how simple a system they are.
Transition & responses – Sept 21
– a Look at the Example of Detroit
-Lessons From a Low-Impact Week
-Free Geek – Computers for the Community
