Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Stuart Staniford For all the recessions from 1973 on, energy prices were rising either before or immediately at the onset of the recession, and in every case they “broke” in some sense before the recession was over – either declining, or at least sharply slowing in growth. The paradigm case is 1973 where energy prices were rising steadily and then a huge oil shock coincides with the start of the recession, which only ends after prices have stabilized.
Blue Hill became the third town in Maine to adopt the Local Food and Self-Governance Ordinance. The Ordinance asserts that towns can determine their own food and farming policies locally, and exempts direct food sales from state and federal license and inspection requirements.
The Energy Report does not provide a satisfactory analysis of the issue. It fails to defend assumptions adequately and it omits discussion of crucial issues. To put it mildly, its general conclusion is not established at all persuasively. More importantly, the Report appears to provide yet more proof that renewables can save energy-intensive and growth obsessed societies. It therefore helps to ensure that thought will not be given to the possibility that sustainability cannot be achieved unless there is dramatic reduction in levels of production, consumption, affluence and GDP, and therefore unless there is extremely radical social change, including the abandonment of growth economies.
If we were to speak of a “transformation function” rather than a production function then we would naturally have to specify what is being transformed, into what, by the agency of what?
What confidence should we now have in projections about China that assume more of the same? The ruling Communist Party threw the dice definitively for state capitalism and untrammeled growth decades ago and now sits atop a potential volcano. Only one thing may keep the present system safely in place: ever more growth. The minute China’s economy falters, the minute some bubble bursts, whether through an overheating economy or for other reasons, the country’s rulers have a problem on their hands that could potentially make the Arab Spring look mild by comparison.
So let’s talk about how to kill plants, which is way easier, especially when you don’t intend to. I offer this information up for several reasons. First, I’m an expert. You might think this wouldn’t be true, since raising plants is a large portion of my profession, but in fact, that simply makes me better at it than you. Fortunately, the vast majority of my plants survive, but I have probably tested out just about every creative way to kill a plant not requiring the importation of elephants. I am a professional plant assassin, dammit.
Long after the political uprisings in the Middle East have subsided, many underlying challenges that are not now in the news will remain. Prominent among these are rapid population growth, spreading water shortages, and ever growing food insecurity.
All this gives credence to the popular story among many sustainability activists that in the 70s we were heading down the right path, a path that may not have been diverging far enough from the main-stream consciousness in its first steps, but that was nevertheless a good start, a missed opportunity nonetheless. According to this view, we were at a sort of fork in the road, and that a good part of the nation, if given the proper leadership or if bolstered by enough committed activism, could have put us on a sustainable path.
Agriculture’s role in a country like Iraq goes beyond food production: it’s the second-largest sector in the Iraqi economy, a major source of rural employment, and a vital cultural signifier. As the rest of Iraq joins the Kurdish region in enjoying greater stability, the inevitable expansion of industrial agriculture paradoxically threatens to undermine the local communities that depend on agriculture for their way of life.
Money isn’t a neutral thing. The decisions we make with our investment choices either prop up and reinforce an economic model rooted in a past of cheap energy prices and climate irresponsibility, or they can help to bring forth a new, revitalised and more appropriate way of doing things.
Articles from last month that we found fresh or significant.
Articles on economic contraction, the ghost of ASPO-9 (climate change), the PUBLIC Library.
Plus: peak oil on Australian TV, Bathtubs: A theory of community relations, UK’s happiness movement, building a mass climate movement, sustainable ideas from religion, Octogenarian recalls the First Great Depression.
-The New Geopolitics of Food (excerpt)
-Monsanto-tied scientist abruptly quits key USDA research post
-What is a SeedBomb?
-Why Is Damning New Evidence About Monsanto’s Most Widely Used Herbicide Being Silenced?
