The difficult future facing black gold
The Swiss Broadcasting Corporation interviews the chairman of ASPO-Switzerland and a representative of the Swiss oil industry. Both agree we are close to peak oil.
Year: 2012
Fermentation: to infinity and beyond!
Fermented foods are a huge part of food preservation, a bigger part that most of us know. I think sometimes we underestimate fermenting as a means of keeping things alive because it doesn’t hold foods entirely in seeming stasis as canning or freezing do (yes, canned and frozen foods degrade too), which is what many of us really want. But what fermented foods do really well is work with the seasons to keep food cyclically – they are the ultimate preservers gift for people who want to be regularly engaged with their dinner.
Sandor Katz’s new book The Art of Fermenation is astonishingly comprehensive and fascinating. Besides the incredible history, recipes, cool pics of the microorganisms you are playing with, ideas for experimentation and socio-culture of food, there is Katz’s basic manifesto – we are not better off, safer, healthier or happier when we hand off the tools of food production and preservation to others.
Grange Brew: Tapping into beer’s agricultural roots
Wendell Berry has said that eating is an agricultural act, but what about drinking beer? A thirst for fermented beverages may have inspired the world’s first farmers to plant crops some 13,000 years ago, yet today beer is rarely part of the larger conversation about where our food comes from.
The convenience city ultimatum
After 13 weeks of exploring the problems and opportunities of a sustainable Vancouver by 2050, what did 17 University of British Columbia students and three teachers come up with? Were they able to find a way to make housing affordable, our streets livable, and our burden on the planet much much lighter? Did they find a hopeful way forward, against the odds, to an equitable, affordable, sustainable, and economically vibrant city?
ODAC Newsletter – May 11
Fears of a new phase in the European debt crisis, a decline in oil imports to China in April, and the prospect of a new round of international talks on Iran’s nuclear programme have seen oil prices drop back from recent highs in the past two weeks. Despite all this however, and reports from OPEC that it bolstered supply by 320,000 barrels in April, Brent oil still stands around $112/barrel.
Caught in our own words
Much of what we believe, and much of what we are trying to change, is rooted in the terminology, the language we use to discuss it. If we want to change our own ideas, beliefs and worldviews, we need to stop using that terminology, because it leaves us anchored in the paradigm we are trying to escape.
Making visible the invisible: commodification is not the answer
If you are invisible as a producer in the GDP, you are invisible in the distribution of benefits in the economic framework of the national budget. As feminists we must embrace an ecological model if we are to transform economic power, and the market and commodification must be seen as the servants of such an approach.
Your friendly neighborhood repair cafe
Leave it to the Dutch, who throw away only 3 percent of their municipal waste into landfills, to come up with a socially appealing innovation that does even more to reduce waste: the neighborhood Repair Cafe! As described in today’s NYT, volunteers with a talent for fixing things come together several times a month to repair anyone’s broken household items for free.
Visualize Gasoline
Visualize gasoline-powered civilization arising as if by some maniacally accelerated evolutionary process. It all began so recently, in the mid-nineteenth century, and spread across the globe in mere decades. Automobiles mutated and competed for dominance on vast networks of roads built to accommodate them. Shopping malls and parking garages sprang up to attract and hold them. And powering it all was an ever-widening but mostly invisible river of gasoline–the poisonous blood of 700 million dinosaur-like machines that now dot landscapes around the world.
A vision of America the possible
The deep, transformative changes sketched in the first half of this manifesto provide a path to America the Possible. But that path is only brought to life when we can combine this vision with the conviction that we will pull together to build the necessary political muscle for real change.
The energy wars heat up
Conflict and intrigue over valuable energy supplies have been features of the international landscape for a long time. Major wars over oil have been fought every decade or so since World War I, and smaller engagements have erupted every few years; a flare-up or two in 2012, then, would be part of the normal scheme of things. Instead, what we are now seeing is a whole cluster of oil-related clashes stretching across the globe, involving a dozen or so countries, with more popping up all the time. Consider these flash-points as signals that we are entering an era of intensified conflict over energy.
Barn Cleaning
I decided to learn how to garden because I became concerned about a future of declining natural resources that will undoubtedly make life different, especially since we depend on oil for almost everything in our lives. Indeed, Sharon Astyk’s call for 100 million farmers and 200 million cooks (I already cook) is sound advice and essential preparation for survival in this new and uncertain world. Today, I would start this venture with a lesson on barn cleaning. (This is a sneak peek into an upcoming book about my experiences on the farm.)
