Building Community

White nights and chicken skin

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Some days earlier we were debriefing from a speaking engagement at Tartu University, sitting in an open air café, when one of the students took up the argument about human nature and cultural inertia and said it would never be possible to get people to change their habits quickly enough to avert catastrophic climate change and die-off. We remarked that as long as there was a scintilla of hope, we could do no less than to keep trying to shift the paradigm.

Deconstructing Dinner: Whole Foods Market targeted by organic advocates/local food system development spotlight/carnivore chic

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The U.S.-based Organic Consumers Association is the largest of its kind in the United States – representing thousands of supporters of organic food. Over the past year, the organization has taken a strong stance against grocery giant Whole Foods Markets, calling upon them to “walk their talk” and increase their support for organic products…In November 2008, farmer, entrepreneur and member of the NFU Kim Perry shared the successes to date and the actions taken within the region to generate support for a resilient local food system…A revisiting of our July 2008 interview with Toronto author Susan Bourette of “Carnivore Chic – From Pasture to Plate, The Search for the Perfect Meat”.

The work ahead

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May hits us like an ice water dousing on a drowsy morning. It is simultaneously shocking and deeply refreshing. Winter’s leisurely breakfasts are suddenly a thing of the past: Bob and I scarcely have time to join each other for a cup of coffee before we find ourselves on our hands and knees weeding asparagus, donning nets to check on the beehives, pounding posts to trellis new grape vines, digging holes for new fruit trees, or heading down to the farm to make sausage before the farmer’s market starts.

An Even Bigger Spill Looming?

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While the nation’s eyes are turned towards the oil tipped waves and tar balls washing up on the shores of the Gulf Coast, an altogether different energy disaster looms in California—one that might be even more damaging for the environment and our economy in the long run.

Peak Moment 171: A permaculture course for busy people

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Bill Wilson and Wayne Weiseman pour their hearts into their permaculture design courses, changing lives as well as landscapes. In a unique format, students do initial course work online and then attend a one week hands-on course. In this chat along with Sivananda Yoga Farm sponsor Vidya Chaitanya, Wayne discusses principles starting with observing elements like wind, water, sun and topography in a specific property. Bill provides alarming information on “peak soil.”

BP beyond the oil spill, business as usual? – May 25

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-Reflections on an Oil Spill: A New Orleans Native Speaks Out
-Fishgrease: DKos Booming School
-Human Health Tragedy in the Making: Gulf Response Failing to Protect People
-Screw the Environment: BP and the Audacity of Corporate Greed

Eyeing the difficult path to a sustainable future

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In an interview with Yale Environment 360 senior editor Fen Montaigne, Orr talked about the current battle over climate and energy legislation, President Obama’s missed opportunity to use his “bully pulpit” to educate the public about global warming, and what he calls the right wing’s “unconscionable misuse” of the airwaves to spread lies and misinformation about climate change.

Collapse, Transition, the Great Turning, why words matter

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As the work I do circulates around the nation and the world, I frequently encounter resistance to the use of the word “collapse” to describe the unprecedented changes that humans and the earth community is now experiencing. Many people insist that we should focus only on “Transition” and the “Great Turning” because these words make more bearable and palatable the challenges of present and future time. The word collapse, they argue, should be ditched.

A smarter planet?

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“Let’s build a smarter planet.” This is IBM’s inspirational slogan, intoned as a benediction at the end of their 2010 advertisements. They do not say, “Let’s make a smarter adaptation to our planet Earth, out of which we were created and by which we are sustained.” It is the planet that is insufficiently smart, not its evolutionary prize-winning, big-brained, star tenant.

Singularity > Climate Change > Peak Oil > Financial Crisis

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While lying awake late at night worrying about what kind of world my children will inherit, I find it helpful to come up with schemas for the most obvious and inevitable of the large societal problems.  It makes them seem slightly more manageable to place them in order of importance, or time.  Further, being clear on what are the biggest and most important problems is an essential prerequisite to thinking about solutions: these problems all interact, and solutions to the smaller of them may not be radical enough to address the larger of them.