Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
I have run out of room for my tomatoes. Over the last three years, I have placed tomato and pepper plants all throughout my current garden beds, and now I need a new spot to rotate them into to avoid building up diseases in the soil. Thus, last weekend’s activities.
-Past Peak Oil Travelling towards Transition
-Why Transition? Creating a Brighter Future
-The Future of our Food Supply
-‘Peak water’ could flush civilisation
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For something as critical as food, it is common sense that society should design for resilience. Reliability in food production in the face of change requires a system capable of rapid evolution. Resilience is therefore a core principle of sustainability.
With energy demand expected to exceed production, (well documented on this site) and with the economic fall-out that will ensue, many see that transition to the low carbon economy needs to start right away. But where to start? Stephen Hinton, applications manager for the Copenhagen – based Humanitarian Water and Food Award, (http://Waterandfoodaward.org) argues that food and water security are paramount.
This episode we welcome Ragan Sutterfeld of Felder School Farm, a school farm located in Little Rock Arkansas that is pioneering the way to get agriculture into our country’s schools. Topics of discussion include barriers to adoption, the agricultural calendar vs. the educational calendar, and agriculture in education. This idea can be summarized in five words: Turn the Schools into Farms. Now, let’s go out there and make it a reality.
-Pick-your-own vegetables to replace flowers in high street
-Permaculture Design is for Disaster Relief, Not Just for Gardens
-Sharon, the bounty!: A review of Astyk’s “Independence Days”
-Oilrigs should be used for homes in areas at risk of flooding, report says
-Growing Home—Urban Agriculture in Chicago
-Towns Rush to Make Low-Carbon Transition
Faith Carr, after working hunched over a desk for 35 years, ended up disabled. Exhausted after even more years of progressive political activism with no success, she turned her hand to her own backyard. The 25 square-foot herb garden turned into a homestead. Come the revolution, she’ll bring the eats.
-UK Cross-Government Food Research and Innovation Strategy
-Return to slop bucket as homes face ban on sending food waste to landfill
-It’s time to get back to the land
-Voodoo wasps that could save the world
-Groups ask U.S. to regulate shipping of commercial bumblebees
-The cricket that pollinates plants
-Bee decline linked to falling biodiversity
-The Vexing Bugs in the Global Trading System
Tractors have gone robotic too. This is good news for us wordsmiths, strange as that may seem. I happened to look inside the cab of one of the tractors that can drive itself across the field without benefit of clergy or anyone else. The cab resembled the console and cockpit of a 747 jet.. Right there beside the air conditioner was a stack of magazines, not all of them necessarily the kind you leave out on your living room coffee table. The farmer grinned sheepishly. “Gotta have some way to stay awake,” he explained.
-Emissions from UK food industry far higher than believed
-Poachers Arrive at Egg Farms
-Striking a bargain: With supply limited, state targets water demand
-Will Anyone Stand Up For American Industry?
-The Key to Local Food Systems’ Survival: Strong Community Support
‘Eco’ packaging
-Google defies Chinese censors after cyberattacks on Gmail accounts of activists
-Public Produce: Filling the Sidewalks with Fruit Trees
-As the World Burns
-Movie Review Friday: The Road
-A New Eden, Both Cosmic and Cinematic
-Photo Gallery: Homes for a Changing Climate
