Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Writer of 1970s ‘Ecotopia’ makes a comeback in the green era
Energy Uncertainty and Community Resilience
Two Steps Towards Being Slightly More Sustainable
The Peer-Polity Peter Principle
Western prosperity is based on resources that are running out
Wes Jackson and Wendell Berry: A 50-Year Farm Bill
Peak soil
A Change We Can Believe In – Dumping Industrial Agriculture
Community Food Co-op establishes stronger foothold in local grocery industry with opening of second store in north Bellingham
Dave Haferd sees his farm with eyes that are 200 years old. He knows every foot of its 180 acres, on top and underneath. Walking across his land, he discourses endlessly and joyfully upon almost any rock, post, tree, clod, weed, or building that his eye falls upon.
For several months I have been meaning to write a review of Rob Hopkins’ The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience, but other things got in the way-like a planetary economic meltdown and out of control climate change that exceeds some of the most dire predictions by climate scientists. I should have spoken out earlier in support of this movement, but I didn’t. Now, as we commence this new year, I am.
I will begin this book “review” by telling you that I find nothing-absolutely nothing wrong with The Transition Handbook. If that then makes this article into a commercial for the book instead of a review, so be it.
David Reid has distinguished himself by actually getting his own sailboat and succeeded in making trial voyages to demonstrate the feasibility of sail power for passage and freight. In September of 2008 Dave sailed with friends from the Olympic Peninsula, Washington, to Seattle, with a load of organic produce. Flying the Sail Transport Network burgee and documenting the costs, time and other aspects of the voyage, the first STN tangible project came about.
Transition Towns training
Ecolocity DC – peak oil group in Washinginton DC
Relocalize newsletter: Year in Review
Community website for online journalism
Happy 15th birthday, Sightline
Swiss caviar, saffron, tea …
Food lessons from the Great Depression
Group seeks to augment local food supply
May I speak for those who do things not for payment, but simply because they love them, or they are fascinated with them, or infuriated by them? Speaking as one of many people who began blogging not to compete with anyone, but because they simply care deeply about a subject, deeply enough that even the boring bits are fascinating, I can honestly say that there are things that no payday can ever fuel.
No Furnaces but Heat Aplenty in ‘Passive Houses’
With fewer kids, homeowners flee the suburbs
Elgin is seeing green in its future
NY Times on the gas tax
Braddock, Pennsylvania: Out of the furnace and into the fire
‘The nurses’ birthed a better place at Stinking Creek
I am a father, and I want my daughter to have a decent life in a strange time. I am in my 30s now, but I knew five of my great-grandparents, all born in the 19th century, and my daughter, if she is lucky, may live to see the 22nd. Her life might span humanity’s most important decades, and before she is even an adult, the world could grow much more difficult – energy shortages, food shortages, economic collapses and a Malthusian crush. I want her to be able to realize what is happening, and not to be bewildered by a domino line of solitary unthinkables.
“… what followed in the wake of the tornado during the next three weeks was just as awesome as the wind itself. In that time — three weeks — the forest devastation was sawed into lumber and transformed into four big new barns. No massive effort of bulldozers, cranes, semi-trucks, or the National Guard was involved. The surrounding Amish community rolled up its sleeves, hitched up its horses and did it all. Nor were the barns the quick-fix modern structures of sheet metal hung on posts stuck in the ground. They were massive three-story affairs of post-and-beam framing, held together with hundreds of hand-hewn mortises and tenons.”
