Food & agriculture – Oct 22
The Garden of Eatin’: A Short History of America’s Garden (YouTube)
Sulfur critical for phosphorus fertilizer
Organic farming ‘could feed Africa’
Staff
Housing & urban design – Oct 22
Living Smaller
A succulent solution to a fiery problem
Mexico pollution solution: Rooftop gardens
Waste – Oct 22
Unnatural resources – (mining landfills)
Better packaging, better benefits
Uncle Sam wants you: cardboard sculptures carry serious message about recycling
Deep Thought – Oct 22
Monbiot: We must start thinking in centuries
Crunch may put price tag on environment
Reuters summit-Economic woes may give planet a breather
What’s organic farmland worth? Or is it a pearl without price?
I and many thousands of small farmers are the village idiots of agriculture. We farm because we like to make little paradises out of our land while growing good food on it. What we make as a return on investment in money doesn’t matter as crucially as it does for the dime-takers. We often choose the nickel because we have learned that taking the dime means servitude to commodity markets and agribusiness giants over which we have no control.
Why we can’t pump faster
Can we actually pump faster? Upping the extraction rate under a limited supply makes the downslope that much more pronounced (the Gompertz curve). First, the good news: oil production does not follow the Gompertz curve as of yet and we may not ever reach that potential given the relative difficulty of extracting oil at high rates. The fact that we have such a high dispersion in oil discoveries also means that the decline becomes mitigated by new discoveries. As for the bad news: easily extractable phosphate may have hit The Overshoot Point (TOP). And we have no new conventional sources. And phosphate essentially feeds the world.
Peak oil and the current economic opportunity
The run-up to Peak Oil was a major factor in the current economic crisis, and the changes emerging from the crisis may help us deal better with the challenges of the coming decade.
Peak oil – Oct 21
Where does the US import oil and other petroleum products from?
Blowhard (PO animation from 1978)
Heinberg: Whither oil prices
NZ engineers warn of imminent oil shock
Transport – Oct 21
Rolls-Royce brings propeller engines back in vogue
Los Angeles transit may have to cut commuter service (AIG fallout)
End of our affair with air travel?
Web & persuasion – Oct 21
Australia: No opt-out of filtered Internet
The electronic activist
Corporate curriculum (industry-sponsored education materials)
Socialism from above – Oct 21
Deficit rises, and consensus is to let it grow
Economists weigh in on the need for stimulus spending
UK Telegraph: We’re all socialists now, comrade
JPMorgan economist: “If you socialize enough of the financial system, it has to work”
Here comes stimulus – question is how
Bernanke: It’s time for stimulus plan
Environment & economy – Oct 21
Green energy is not a middle-class conceit, more the only way forward
Don’t kill the planet in the name of saving the economy
Bolivia’s climate challenge
