Year: 2012

The Home Energy Handbook: an interview with Allan Shepherd

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The Centre for Alternative Technology has just published a new book called “The Home Energy Handbook: a guide to saving and generating energy in your home and community”. It is a great resource for Transition groups, and Transition features strongly through the book. I spoke to Allan Shepherd, one of the book’s authors/editors, and asked him to tell us more about the book.

Low Carbon Cookbook – Peak Beans

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…food is not just a different way to toss your salad; it’s the reworking of a diet in the face of ecological and economic change. No matter how much the media and politicians deny climate change and peak oil, future cooks are thinking ahead, reworking their larders, gaining some knowledge, learning to glean, preserve, bake and grow. We’re prepping for the long term in our kitchens, knowing that the global industrial food system is highly unsustainable, unethical and unkind to man and beast. And that to use nearly 60 percent of the world’s agricultural land for beef production that accounts for less than two percent of the world’s calories is not the way forward.

Can humus save humans?

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I feel like getting naked and running though the streets, yelling eureka, eureka! By George, I think I’ve got it. And I wasn’t even looking. It all began a few days ago, when I started on a post about creating soil from scratch. A radical notion in its own right, to be sure. So let’s begin with the story there.

The last ASPO conference

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While I feel this conference [in Vienna] was disappointing in general, the organisers are not to blame. They did their best and produced the programme that had to be, with ASPO opening itself to the wider society. But after 10 years of activity ASPO’s message has failed to pass. Policy makers, climatologists, the energy industry, by and large are all yet to fully acknowledge the problem and its implications.

Food & agriculture – July 3

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– NYT: Small Farmers Creating a New Business Model as Agriculture Goes Local
– The Conversation: David Holmgren, co-founder of permaculture movement
– Factory-Fed Fish: Monsanto and Cargill’s Plan for the Ocean
– Mainstream India television show: Toxic Food – Poison On Our Plate?
– The Global Diabetes Epidemic, Brought to You by Global Development (new)

To change the global economy, start by changing the Olympics

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What if we paired two nations as a unified team for each cycle of the summer and winter Games? Instead of Team USA, we could have Team Zimbabwe and USA (or Team Zimbusa). The teams in all sports, from gymnastics to skiing to water polo would consist of a mix of Zimbabwean and American athletes. Think of how much more knowledge and understanding would be shared between Zimbabweans and Americans…it’s enough to reduce Al Michaels to tears of joy!

Natural gas liquids

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According to the Energy Information Administration, in March the United States produced a “total oil supply” of 10.8 million barrels per day, which was 2.1 mb/d more than in January 2005. But if you just rely on those aggregate numbers, you’ll miss some very important trends.

Stuffed and Starved round two: Raj Patel talks to Jonny Gordon-Farleigh about our crazy global food system

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With the announcement of the surprising and remarkable fact that the obese now outnumber the hungry — both forms of malnourishment — we need to be looking deeper into our food system and the industry that has created a world that is stuffed and starved. In his recent books Raj Patel looks at this open secret and the battle between an increasingly aggressive industry and the social movements who are responding to this assault by reclaiming food sovereignty for their communities.