Building Community

Deconstructing Dinner: A farewell…for now! (includes update on eggs investigation)

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This episode #193 marks the final broadcast of Deconstructing Dinner before we embark on a much-needed break. Producer & Host Jon Steinman speaks about the need to step away from producing new shows and what future might lie ahead. Jon also shares some reflections on the past 5 years of producing this weekly one-hour radio show and podcast, and offers suggestions to those involved in the responsible food movement – a movement which this show has helped track its evolution and certainly one that this show has in many ways been a part of.

SEWA: A movement to transform women’s lives in India and beyond

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In India, 72 percent of women are involved in agriculture. But often, these small-scale farmers confront numerous economic barriers, including lack of access to training, markets and productive inputs. In a society where gender biases are deeply ingrained, women farmers also lack access to bank accounts and land tenure. And, women are also underrepresented in farmers groups and associations, making it harder for their voices to be heard.

Peak Moment 185: Claiming the commons — food for all on Haultain Boulevard

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Rainey Hopewell’s crazy idea has ended up feeding a neighborhood and creating community. She and Margot Johnston planted vegetables in the parking strip in front of their house. They offer them free for the taking — to anyone, anytime — with messages chalked on the sidewalk noting when particular vegies are ready to pick. Neighboring children and adults are joining in to work on the garden, harvesting fun along with food, and even handing fresh-picked vegies to passers-by.

City Living 1 – Tales from London 8-9th November 2010

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How do we transition a city? The answer to that is perhaps, simply, for each of us look at a size that is manageable, and I don’t for one second mean by this that a city is too large, not at all, but what I do suggest is that we each ask ourselves a question; “What size of place feels manageable to me, personally?”

Dr David Fleming: 1940-2010

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It is with great sadness that I report the passing of Dr David Fleming, who passed away peacefully in his sleep last night while visiting a friend in Amsterdam. David was a huge inspiration to me personally, as to many others, and is one of the few people I have met who I considered close to being a genius. He was also one of the funniest, kindest and most thoughtful people I have ever had the honour to know. His passing will leave a large void in our lives. And he never did get his bloody book finished!

What we can learn from Transylvania (Really!)

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The word commons dates back to the medieval era, originally describing land that was shared by a community under well-defined rules. Peasants were often given specific rights to hunt and fish in these places, or to harvest medicinal herbs, forage for berries, or gather thatch for their roofs. This tradition of common ownership still thrives among indigenous and peasant cultures in the developing world, but has disappeared in Europe except for a corner of Transylvania where a few commons customs have endured to this day.

Truth Needn’t be Scary

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A response to a response that Dmitry Orlov has also chimed in on. The immanent end of Western industrial civilization–the Industrial Growth Society–isn’t equivalent to collapse. I tend to think of collapse as something bad. Western civ is causing collapse in many areas, such as with the rampant biodiversity loss that’s breaking numerous links in the food chain, so I find it difficult to put it in the category of collapse.

Literature and limits

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What is missing from most modern stories is the notion of physical resource limits. Such limits imply a tragic trajectory, the possibility of failure and punishment for overuse of the physical world. In the last half century the scientific literature has been infused with increasingly ominous warnings about such limits. But popular stories accessible to the mass of humanity, at least in rich countries, still most often champion explicitly or implicitly the ideas of a limitless material future.

From Black Friday to a better way

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Our modern economy is structured such that its stability depends upon ever increasing consumer spending. In my first economics course in college in 1961, the professor told the class to go out and shop because it is good for the gross national product (GNP). Then and now, mainstream economics continues to treat the Earth as if it were a business in a liquidation sale.