Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
This past week I had the opportunity to spend a day with Amish relatives. This visit was colored by my acute awareness of civilization’s collapse and the ramifications of that reality for most of us.
The suburb-eating robot
Intent shapes environment, environment shapes life
Pedicabs a hit in Bellingham
Rob Hopkins on permaculture (interview)
Dmitry Orlov details the Collapse Party platform
Among the most challenging dimensions of the crisis of industrial civilization is the task of preserving its immense cultural heritage into a future where today’s technologies of communication and information storage will likely no longer be available. The emergence of cultural conservers — individuals who make the preservation of some part of our cultural heritage a personal mission — offers one option for dealing with this challenge.
Where industry once hummed, urban garden finds success
Your friend, the kitchen
High gas prices drive farmer to switch to mules
Gene Logsdon: Garden and small farm skills – hoemanship
“A good place to learn about peak oil, energy conservation, energy efficiency, global warming—get it all in one spot.” (U.S. Rep. Vern Ehlers) The conference is scheduled for Friday, May 30, through Sunday, June 1 in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
We’re still sending out the cultural message “we’re different from the old agrarian roots” even though that’s become painfully obvious. The difficulty, of course, is that we may need to be rather more like the old people.
Soaring bills leave families just £50 a week
Saving for survival: New Zealand traditions
Astyk: Tinkerbelle economy starts to falter
What if gas cost $10 a gallon?
Clare Short: Birmingham should become a transition city
A family farm in the midst of suburbia
No wonder Iceland has the happiest people on earth (their secret revealed)
While hard work and discipline are essential to the successful life, true success is not in an award, or bank account balance. It’s in the number of real friends you have, and intangibles such as your ability to enjoy life in deep and profound ways, and to have stood for something far greater than your own comfort, convenience, and bank account.
A crucial role in shaping the future will be played by cultural conservers – individuals who choose to take on the task of learning and preserving some part of the cultural legacy of the past, and passing it on to the future.
As “The Long Emergency” begins to unfold, it’s becoming evident that we’re going to need to relearn to use our hands to do immediately useful work, become more self-reliant and less dependent on the marketplace to sort things out.
It is a good time for an increasing number of people to return to the multiple benefits and pleasures of growing at least part of their own food by gardening and farming. In addition to satisfying the need to eat and drink, farming can also help deal with depression, passivity, and other forms of psychological suffering. It can help treat both the body and the soul.
