Solutions & sustainability – Aug 7
-‘Eco-Therapy’ for Environmental Depression
-Saving the planet, one block, one small project at a time
-India pays couples to put off having children
Act: Inspiration
The Department of Redundancy, Redundancy Department
Today I’m starting another Adapting-In-Place Class, beginning with the basics of evaluating whether you have a future where you are, what your other choices are, and then triaging your situation, but I’ve already written a good bit about those things, so I want to a basic and essential element of triage – establishing redundant systems.
Peak Moment 149: Santa Barbara Students Lead the Way to Sustainability
Take a personal tour with members of Santa Barbara City College’s Student Sustainability Coalition. They’re propelling action — like bringing fresh, local organic produce daily to the salad bar, and placing recycling bins in the cafeteria.
Burning the furniture
When there is no money for fuel in the middle of winter, desperate residents have on occasion resorted to burning the furniture. That works as long as the furniture lasts. But come spring, there may be no place to sit or sleep, and no prospect of resorting to the same practice should a heating emergency arise the following winter. Yet, this is more or less the equivalent of what many states and municipalities are doing in the face of our unprecedented financial crisis.
Viva 1910…or…You can’t go home again but you can live in the same neighborhood
Resistance to changing the culture we now possess (or possesses us?), a culture that is arguably fatally destructive to the biosphere, includes the argument that we can’t go back to the way we used to live 100 years ago or some other harsher time where we tied our shoes, cleaned floors with mops, and (God forbid) churned butter.
The Economics of Entropy
The least popular of the laws of physics, the second law of thermodynamics — better known as the law of entropy — is also the key to understanding the problems with modern economics. There’s an inevitable mismatch between the production of goods and services, which are subject to entropy, and the production of money through interest, which in theory drives infinite growth — but this mismatch is resolved in an unexpected way.
A Nation of Farmers: Is Vermont Doing Its Share?
New York state author, blogger, and homesteader Sharon Astyk discusses her new book, A Nation of Farmers: Defeating the Food Crisis on American Soil. Astyk sees the energy shortages of peak oil hitting us and our food system now, and she argues that US food security depends on 100 million of us starting to farm in the near future. Four Vermonters also describe part of what they are doing to move Vermont toward much stronger local food systems.
it’s the end of the world as we know it (…and I feel fine) (1)
it’s the end of the world as we know it (…and I feel fine) (1)
Probably few saw this meltdown coming. We have come to view human progress as a given, and an ever growing economy and living standard as an entitlement.
Food & agriculture – July 28
-Urban Farming ‘Mushrooms’ During Recession
-Season Extension Techniques: Cheap and Dirty Options
-Finding fulfilment through farming
The psychology of change: cultivating resilience at the point of no return
In his famous work “The Waking.” Michigan poet, Theodore Roethke, offered sage advice for navigating unprecedented transitions and cultivating resilience. Wisely, the Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins establishes three domains for people who are awake to these transitions as they endeavor to journey through them into a post-industrial world.
The unfathomable universe
To say that our collective human fate lies somewhere between complete destruction and an endless cornucopian future is yet another narrative. Even so, such a narrative requires something the other two do not, creative engagement with the still unfathomable universe. That may be the one thing that emphatically recommends it above the alternatives.
