Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Mara Schechter “What has brought us here today is the belief that our current food system is broken… and we believe this system must be changed,” said Eric Schlosser, author of “Fast Food Nation” and co-producer of “Food, Inc,” at the Future of Food Conference this Wednesday at Georgetown University.
I’ve met a lot of people who lived all or much of their lives with very little power, and seen their homes, and I have ample visual evidence that often life can be quite graciously lived with little or no gas, electricity, and other inputs. The critical difference between a life lived graciously with little, and one without is the realm of how resources – whether land or fossil fuels or whatever – are used collectively. Thus, I’d like to propose what I think is an important and useful distinction – between public use of energy and resources and private use of energy resources. The former, I would argue, is essential to maintaining a good life, the latter is not.
It is clear that moving towards renewables is about more than simply adding more wind turbines and solar panels, but rather it is about a significant system re-think. For instance, one important measure would be to make the national power grid independent from the ten major electricity supply companies. That way anyone can set up their own electricity supply company and the current monopolistic structures would give way to a more diverse system.
Humans have an innate need for status and for novelty in their lives. Unfortunately, the modern world has adopted very energy- and resource-intensive ways of meeting those needs. Other ways are going to have to be found as part of the move to a more sustainable world.
-Japan to Cancel Plan to Build More Nuclear Plants
-Nuclear commission pinpoints 2021 for German atomic shutdown
-Shrinking Oil Supplies Put Alaskan Pipeline at Risk
-Methane contamination of water rises near to shale gas sites, study shows
-France set to heed shale oil protests
These days, the idea that using less energy and resources might be a viable and indeed a necessary part of navigating the crisis of industrial society too often runs afoul of the hangover of America’s Puritan heritage; too often, that concept has been wielded in the service of fashionable hypocrisy, or turned into an ostentatious display of hair-shirt asceticism. Still, approached in the right way, using less — or, more exactly, using L.E.S.S. — is a crucial step in the direction of sustainability. With the help of W.C. Fields, the Archdruid explains.
Not one mention was made of the best way to be farming this year: letting the animals graze for their food as they turn untilled pasture into meat, milk and eggs. It has been so wet that you did dare put cows on some pastures some days but, on the whole, pasture farmers are happy with all this rain: we could graze twice as many animals as normal.
Many of you may have seen this kind of video, showing the effects of methane in drinking water near some shale gas extraction wells: Before now, I’ve never known what to make of this kind of thing. Is this a very rare, if spectacular occurence, or is it common where shale gas drilling goes on? Now, there is a paper in this weeks PNAS, Methane contamination of drinking water accompanying gas-well drilling and hydraulic fracturing by Osborn et al, researchers at Duke University. It appears to answer the question, and the answer is not good.
What if hyperinflation is the next big thing? At ASPO-9 in Brussels, Jeff Rubin and Douglas Reynolds said exactly that.
When a cautious and conservative group like the IPCC goes this far, we can be certain that much more could be achieved by a society committed to ecological sanity.
What do you get when you cross Green, as in Green Markets – those emergent farmer’s and craftspeople’s markets that have given life to local food – with Black or Grey Markets – ie, illegal sales? Khaki is the color you get, and you get what I call “Khaki Markets” – the growing trend towards producing food, toiletries and other regulated substances outside of regulation.
On the 6th of May the city council of Sopot in Poland has passed a landmark resolution that starts the process of participatory budgeting in our city. It means that the citizens of Sopot will have a direct say in what the public funds are spent on. We’re beginning with a modest amount of 1.1 million USD – I say “modest”, because it’s less than 1% of the total budget expenditure. Nevertheless, in the city of 37,000 residents many small projects can be funded with this amount.
