Ralph Faggotter

Book Review: ‘Solar’ by Ian McEwan

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With the recent exoneration of Phil Jones in the UEA ‘ClimateGate’ kerfuffle, the key lesson emerging from the whole thing is not that the science of climate change is somehow profoundly flawed, but rather that scientists are flawed human beings rather like the rest of us, subject to pomposity, ego, vanity, ill-temper and rudeness.

Against breakfast cereal

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When you think about it, a breakfast cereal is a bizarre product — there is nothing natural or normal about eating manufactured flakes and puffs created by giant machines in factories, shipped around the world and sealed in plastic for months.

Bless Bolivia for recharging the fight to rescue our climate

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Maybe we’ll get a jolt of political energy from the south, courtesy of the groups and leaders assembling from across the world in Cochabamba, Bolivia. This People’s Summit on Climate Change will be seen as naive by precisely the kind of people applauding the president for turning on the oil spigots today–after all, its by definition a People’s Summit, free from the kind of corporate interference that helped sink the Copenhagen conference in December.

The Twenty Seven Cent Melon Seed

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I think that I have tried to grow just about every variety of every garden vegetable commonly on the market. Yes, I try new ones now and then, but I have been doing that for fifty years and by now I know what I want and want what I know. This is particularly true of muskmelons.

African American Farmers Go Organic, Bring Healthy Food to Southeast

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At a recent Saturday market, Mary Curley sat at her table, displaying at least two dozen varieties of herbs, fruits, and vegetables. At 70, Mary is the oldest of these African American farmers, and has the smallest farm among them, a quarter-acre. A beatific smile lights up her face as she recites the names of her organic offerings, urging customers to sniff and taste each one: Japanese orange, Thai basil, lemon grass, Cuban oregano, pineapple sage, and serrano, habanera, and banana peppers.

The peak oil crisis: countdown at the Guri

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Now, if you are wondering why a falling water level in the Venezuelan highlands should be if interest to Americans, the answer is easy. Despite years of political tensions between the Chavez government and Washington, the U.S. is still importing some 800,000 barrels a day of crude from Venezuela.