Culture & Behavior

Food preservation, food storage and the locavore

by

I knew the idea of local eating had penetrated when I quickly ran into a grocery store while visiting my Mom, and this older couple came up to me and asked “Honey, could you read where it says where the plums came from? We’re trying to eat local but neither of us brought our glasses.” If I can’t get in and out of a supermarket in 3 minutes without running into someone trying to eat local, I know we’ve gone mainstream.

Peak toil

by

Peak toil: A fable of the future?

It’s happening in Belgium, Scotland, and Spain, in India, South Korea, Nepal, Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Nigeria, Italy, Portugal, Greece, France…

What might we expect from the average working-class American, as economics in this country continue to worsen? Will they organize in labor unions or protest as isolated individuals expressing their individual sense of hopelessness and despair? Will it be sparked by some “organized” movement, or from some shift in their internal emotional reality? Frank Lee gives his future fantasy version of what he sees could be coming, and folks, it isn’t pretty…Kathy McMahon

Which future should we prepare for, industrial or agrarian?

by

The more Harrison Brown talks about the future of industrial society, the more unlikely it seems that it has a future. Brown is the author of a seminal book entitled “The Challenge of Man’s Future” which outlines the ecological predicament we find ourselves in today. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Brown’s book is that it was published in 1954 long before our predicament had taken its full shape and when there were only about 2.6 billion people on Earth.