Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Staff – Canadian Couple’s Kitchen Garden Targeted By Authorities
– The world is closer to a food crisis than most people realise
– Small Farmers Creating a New Business Model as Agriculture Goes Local
– Online Solution for Home Gardeners to Profit from Bumper Crop
What does the Higgs boson have to do with the establishment of a sustainable economy? The discovery of this subatomic particle required a Herculean effort, involving billions of dollars, over 1,000 physicists, and thousands of craftsmen to construct and operate an almost incomprehensibly complex machine — the Large Hadron Collider. The same kind of diligent, prodigious effort is needed to construct and operate a new economic system for all nations of the world.
In many former industrially important cities in the United States and around the world, solid old buildings stand empty — useless. But one green innovator is proving that such structures could instead be off-the-grid, zero emission urban food oases.
Caren Black and Christopher Paddon couldn’t find mentors to teach them self-reliant living when they became aware of peak oil. So they created a homestead and opened their doors to training others. People can take a personalized Lifeboat Course online or in person, where hands-on learning includes food production with domestic animals and gardens, renewable energy, and carpentry skills. “We’re all in this together,” Christopher notes, so the couple educate, volunteer and share to also make their community more resilient.
How do cities concentrate energy and materials spatially? What is the relative emergy basis for modern cities, agrarian towns, and rural spaces? Do city dwellers use more or fewer resources than suburban or rural dwellers? Are big cities more sustainable in descent, as some propose, and how do we maximize empower in the future for our cities?
California, which imports over 25% of its electricity from out of state, is in no position to lose half (!) of its entire nuclear power capacity. But that’s exactly what happened earlier this year, when the San Onofre plant in north San Diego County unexpectedly went offline. The loss only worsens the broad energy deficit that has made California the most dependent state in the country on expensive, out-of-state power.
The worst possible course of action for a government to take, when consumer spending is falling and businesses won’t invest, is precisely the course adopted and doggedly clung to by our own government.
Down the road only a few generations, the millennium of Magna Carta, one of the great events in the establishment of civil and human rights, will arrive. Whether it will be celebrated, mourned, or ignored is not at all clear. That should be a matter of serious immediate concern. What we do right now, or fail to do, will determine what kind of world will greet that event. It is not an attractive prospect if present tendencies persist — not least, because the Great Charter is being shredded before our eyes.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-Middle East in turmoil
-The drought worsens
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
In the anger phase of societal unraveling, we must not only be aware of its perils but prepare ourselves with great intention to navigate it. One of the first issues we must grapple with is the reality of trauma. Increasing dissolution of the fabric of the culture is by definition traumatic for those who rely on it for basic necessities, identity, lifestyle, distraction, and sense of well being.
Small town Sebastopol residents in Northern California have been waging a fierce David vs. Goliath struggle against the powerful Chase Bank, CVS Pharmacy, and Armstrong Development for over two years. The implications of this struggle extend beyond this one town, as big business continues to seek to expand its wealth.
Sometimes conversations get competitive and unpleasant. Everyone is trying to prove they’re right — that they’re smarter than everyone else. This drains our spirit, and we lose our energy to work for change. So we need to remember, in any kind of conversation, that it’s not a contest. Think of it as a barn-raising: You’re helping each other build something.
