Liz Borkowski

Feeding the hungry cities: Backyard chickens, rooftop gardens, and vertical farming

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As the global supply of fossil fuels shrink and oil gets more expensive, foods that have to be shipped long distances – and particularly those that have to be refrigerated in transit – will become much harder to afford. Urban agriculture, which already seems to be undergoing something of a renaissance, will become more necessary.

A shift in the burden of proof

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It is no small thing to shift the burden of proof. Yet that is what Lawn and Clarke, and their colleagues, have done in this remarkable study. The presumption in the “empty world” has been that growth in GDP is “economics” in the sense that it increases benefits faster than costs, as well as in the sense that this thing we call the economy is getting physically bigger. Lawn and Clarke have shown that in a large part of today’s “full world” growth in GDP often costs more than it is worth at the margin, and thus should be called “uneconomic” growth.

A critical response to Michael Brownlee’s call for ‘Deep Transition’

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I read Michael Brownlee’s recent piece “The Evolution of Transition in the US”, with a mixture of fascination and a sense of disquiet that increased the deeper I got into the piece. The concept of Transition has been regularly critiqued, a positive process which has helped to shape what it is today. Most critiques run along the lines of “Transition, nice idea, but it isn’t [ … ] enough”. So, for Alex Steffen, Transition isn’t technologically savvy or optimistic enough, for the Trapese Collective it isn’t politically savvy enough, for John Michael Greer it is guilty of “premature triumphalism”, for Ted Trainer it isn’t sufficiently rooted in alternative culture or focused enough, while for others it is too riven with New Age thinking and pseudoscience. Now, according to Brownlee, it is fatally flawed by not having the “Sacred” at the heart of what it does.

WikiLeaks (content) – Dec 5

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– Leaked cables reveal Saudi minister of petroleum helped craft toothless Copenhagen climate accord
– WikiLeaks cables reveal how US manipulated climate accord
– WikiLeaks cables: Seven key things we’ve learned so far
– “We Have Not Seen Anything Yet”: Guardian Editor Says Most Startling WikiLeaks Cables Still to be Released
– Ongoing coverage

WikiLeaks (diplomacy and secrecy) – Dec 4

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– Steve LeVine: Why diplomats secretly love WikiLeaks
– On WikiLeaks and Government Secrecy
– Dispatches from a beleaguered America in imperial retreat
– State Department To Columbia University Students: DO NOT Discuss WikiLeaks On Facebook, Twitter
– US blocks access to WikiLeaks for federal workers
– Cyber-Con (quotes on transparency from Obama and Clinton)

New threat to global food security as phosphate supplies become increasingly scarce

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A new report from the Soil Association reveals that supplies of phosphate rock are running out faster than previously thought and that declining supplies and higher prices of phosphate are a new threat to global food security….

Intensive agriculture is totally dependent on phosphate for the fertility needed to grow crops and grass. …. Recent analysis suggests that we may hit ‘peak’ phosphate as early as 2033, after which supplies will become increasingly scarce and more expensive.

Interview: James Howard Kunstler

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James Howard Kunstler, author of “The Long Emergency” and two World Made by Hand novels, talks to Transition Voice about recent Wall Street scandals, the role of oil and what he thinks of the Transition movement. Along with the keen analysis that readers are used to from Kunstler, this piece explores a side of his work that is not as well known. And we think that’s cool.