How Green is my Alley: Public Produce on Public Lands

Public Produce: Cultivating Our Parks, Plazas and Streets for Healthier Cities is an unusually important book, if only because the topic is so unusual — how people in cities and towns can grow food on public lands.

Could We Run Modern Society on Human Power Alone?

Unlike solar and wind energy, human power is always available, no matter the season or time of day. Unlike fossil fuels, human power can be a clean energy source, and its potential increases as the human population grows. In the Human Power Plant, Low-tech Magazine and artist Melle Smets investigate the feasibility of human energy production in the 21st century.

The Mysticism of Wide Open Eyes

I think it also matters politically, because spirituality, a whole life lived in the way Potter was describing, is of enormous importance in the struggle for social change. This may sound odd given the common image of mystics as people who are removed from the world, but I’m convinced that spiritual experience is one of the keys to the radical transformation of society.

Legal Challenges of PURPA and FERC

In addition to our deep dive on PURPA and around-market reforms, we’ll also discuss some of the likely implications of Trump’s new direction in energy policy, implications for the Clean Power Plan, and how the federal government’s leadership role on climate might be changing.

Holistic Agriculture Returns to Remotest Appalachia

In 2011 Berman decided to take the plunge into expanding her vision of planting a new local food economy in Appalachia by turning her farm into a major educational endeavor. She launched the Allegheny Mountain Institute (AMI) in an effort to attract young people from throughout the country for six-month fellowships on her 550-acre mountaintop farm.

Life’s Economy is Primarily Based on Collaborative rather than Competitive Advantage

As our focus shifts from individuals and individual species as the unit of survival to the collective of life — its complex dynamic interactions and relationships — we begin to see that collaborative and symbiotic patterns and interactions are of more fundamental importance than competition as a driving force of evolution.

The Richness of the Land

The Weirauchs got their first two dairy sheep as a wedding gift fourteen years ago. The operation began as a hobby, but grew in scope (as hobbies involving living things that multiply tend to do), and after eight years of figuring things out, the Weirauchs have been in business for seven years as a licensed sheep dairy.

Half the Global Population Could Face Unknown Climates by Mid-Century

Billions of people across the world could see climates they’ve never experienced before by the middle of the century, a new study says. Using a measure of climate ‘familiarity,” the researchers show that the tropics in particular are likely to experience conditions that are virtually unheard of for the region in the present climate.