Movement – April 4
– Kellogg’s six-hour day
– Why are there no young people in the room?
– Political strategy, macro and micro
– First Transition Town in Pennsylviania
Building Community
“Possum Living” author steps out of the shadows
In the late ‘70s, at the age of 18, and with a seventh-grade education, Dolly Freed wrote Possum Living about the five years she and her father lived off the land on a half-acre lot outside of Philadelphia. Known for its plucky narration and no-nonsense practical advice on how to live frugally while keeping up a middle class facade, at the time of its original publication, Possum Living became an instant classic. Following her success as an author, Dolly Freed grew up to become a NASA aerospace engineer. She aced the SATs with an education she received from the public library and put herself through college.
Food & clothing – April 4
– Marijuana, dark horse savior of California agriculture
– Bill McKibben: The only way to have a cow
– On job creation—local fruits and vegetables vs. corn and soybeans
– Farmers can return to proper role as innovators and stewards of the land
– Should we be planning a new approach for producing clothing?
Another post-oil-novel roundup
Review of two recent additions to the post-petroleum literary canon:
– Julian Comstock by Robert Charles Wilson
– Crossing the Blue by Holly Jean Buck.
Food & agriculture – Apr 2
-Push to Eat Local Food Is Hampered by Shortage
-Dwindling Food for Thought
-How a Band of Youthful Entrepreneurs Are Resuscitating an Ailing Vermont Town With a New Economy Based on Local Foods
-Restoring natural capital in degraded landscapes
Can urban agriculture help save our struggling cities?
-Urban farming touted as tool for neighborhood revival
-Project aims to turn empty Dallas plots into vegetable gardens
-A Damascus farmer’s ideas on sustainable urban agriculture are breaking new ground
-Mayor’s agriculture plan soon to bear fruit
What works: community
At some point, we simply lost track of the importance of communities, human and otherwise. Along the way to becoming a nation of multitasking, Twittering, Facebook “friends” we abandoned the ability to connect meaningfully, viscerally, individually. … I know you hate those stories that start with, “When I was a kid, ….” But here goes, regardless. I grew up in a tiny, backwoods, red-neck logging town. By the time I was 18 years old, I’d seen more bar fights than first-run movies.
Collapse Competitively
We are heading toward economic, political and social collapse, and every day that passes brings it closer. But we just don’t know when to stop, do we?…In short, what on earth is our problem?
Transition Training and Consulting: a day with Norfolk County Council
It was with some fear and trepidation that Alexis Rowell, a Camden Borough councillor and the author of the upcoming Transition Guide to Local Authorities (LA), and I arrived in a deeply conservative part of the country, Norfolk, to do a day with them on peak oil, climate change and the Transition town model and practice.
Gaviotas: Village of Hope
We first learned about Gaviotas, the legendary sustainable Colombian village, in 2004, while working in our home state, New Mexico. The two of us helped found a group called La Mesita, “the small table,” composed of three educators, a renewable energy scientist, a water-rights attorney, and a community organizer. We decided to start a project that would involve teenagers in organic agriculture and renewable energy in Ribera, a rural village in the north of the state. We believed that reviving northern New Mexico’s agricultural and cultural traditions could help the region confront both its environmental crises, like unsustainable water use, and its deepening social problems, such as rural drug abuse and teen pregnancy.
Three Spring Edibles
Spring has sprung, which means it’s time to stop hiding from the environment and start consuming it. Even now, months before the berries arrive, there are plenty of tasty morsels to be had in forests and by streams.
Say it loud: I’m childfree and I’m proud
Here’s the dirty little secret that we’re never supposed to say in mixed company: There are a lot of perks to childfree living, not to mention a lot of green good that comes from bringing fewer beings onto a polluted and crowded planet. [Also, Stephanie Mills video on her decision to remain childless]
