Dan Bednarz

A review of the Localization Reader

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The Localization Reader: Adapting to the Coming Downshift, by Raymond De Young and Thomas Princen, aims at the work and struggle ahead for those who realize that the modern world is arrantly unsustainable. The book is scholarly yet accessible, practical and action oriented. It faces the nitty-gritty issues raised by natural resource depletion, and, overall, the sundry predicaments posed by ecological overshoot that the current social system cannot recognize, let alone address.

Summer Cooking

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Greenpa asked me to talk about how we cook in the summer, and that’s a very good subject to talk about — what does a woman who “dances with wood” and cooks on a wood cookstove all winter long do in the summer?

Do potatoes have free will?

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Philosophers like to argue about whether humans have “free will,” that is the ability to make choices that can at times go against the instincts that rule the rest of the natural world. I think potatoes have free will. They may cooperate with the horticultural rules of conduct most of the time, but don’t depend on it. If they decide to grow where no potato has grown before, they by heaven will do it. You can make for them the loveliest bed of organic soil that J.I. Rodale ever dreamed of, and they will repay your efforts by rolling over and rotting instead of sprouting.

Collapse Now and Avoid the Rush

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Since the birth of the modern peak oil movement in the last years of the 20th century, a great deal of discussion and debate has focused on how to prevent peak oil and its consequences from bringing about the end of the industrial age. That approach has yet to yield much in the way of practical results; as our civilization moves deeper into overshoot, it may be time to consider an alternative approach — and, yes, the Archdruid has one to suggest.

Oil prices

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It’s worth a comment on oil prices which have been collapsing with remarkable speed lately. Firstly, let’s briefly recap the price history of the last five years, which I have divided into eight eras…

Unexpected bounty – Beauty plums

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I had almost given up on my Beauty plum tree. I ordered this Japanese variety from Burnt Ridge Nursery and planted it five years ago. For the last two years, it has been covered with fruit, until the week when every single plum fell off before ripening. This year, I gave up and did not even bother to thin the plums, knowing that the effort was pointless.

Yes, the plums ripened last week!

Food, Farmers and the TPP

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I write this as an American living in Aotearoa who is deeply concerned by the “trade” deal being negotiated between our countries (or more correctly, between our countries’ corporations and their political cronies). On America’s side, Monsanto, Big Pharma, and Wall Street are attempting to manipulate New Zealand’s laws to eliminate anything that might get in the way of their expansion and bottom-line. On New Zealand’s side, Fonterra hopes for access to the US market. So they are endeavoring to devise a plan amongst themselves (and the elite of several other countries) to maximize their interests (profit, power, market consolidation) — a plan brilliantly named with the most amiable of words, the “Trans-Pacific Partnership Free Trade Agreement” (hereafter referred to simply as the TPP)

Emergency action plan for New Zealanders (and others)

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We believe that New Zealand, like all other countries, is about to enter a period of extended crisis. The severity and timing of the events that will unfold are uncertain, but the likelihood of major change is increasingly hard to refute.

We offer this list as a starting point for considering what strategies will best meet the challenges ahead, and invite the input of all concerned people to an ongoing conversation.

Denying the climate

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-The Planet Wreckers
-Top US companies shelling out to block action on climate change
-North Carolina Wishes Away Climate Change
-A cold climate in the arts world

Give me that doom time religion

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The Age of Limits conference held at the end of May offered some new insights on how religion, as an organized institution, could play a key role in helping mitigate the collapse that the conferences speakers think has already hit many parts of the world, including much of the U.S.

Though at this event, neither religion nor collapse were what they used to be.