Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The following is proposed as a preliminary plan for discussion amongst all those who are willing to acknowledge the reality of our predicament, think beyond the paradigm of the current system, and rationally discuss the fundamental reforms required to avoid catastrophe.
Heinberg: The Food and Farming Transition
A bounty sprouts in the city with MyFarm enterprise
Green prisons farm, recycle to save energy, money
Food Insecurity’s Dirty Secret
Victoria: Call for action as state food security at risk
A world with energy doubled in price That’s the scenario for the year 2020 that 150 people in Addison County, Vermont considered for a day last weekend. The participants’ task was to figure out what they want their world to look like under that scenario, and then figure out how to move in that direction.
I saw a headline in the paper today that said people are beginning to question whether to buy organic food because times are getting tough and they don’t want to spend the money on it. So, okay, let’s go back to eating food grown conventionally. And what will you spend on health care for the problems created by the pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, chemical fertilizers, hormones, and genetically altered and denatured food that results from that way of farming?
Shall we plan and prepare for the real future: a world without oil and without electric power. Or, shall we continue to avoid reality, dream about what will never happen, and waste time, effort, and capital on illusions?
Food hunters of the urban jungle
Albert Bates: Biochar’s fractal dimension
Forget flowers, say I love you with vegetables
The food crisis and gender
Preparedness, at its root, is more than anything about making sure people get dinner. Yes, we can prepare to fight off zombie attacks, build earth shelters in case we lose ours (although odds are most of us will move in with a friend or relative), learn how to handle background radiation – but the first tier problems most of us face – and the ones most people prepare for first, are the ones we’re familiar with – what will we eat? How will we cook it?
I’ve just come out of the most hopeful and interesting discussions of climate change I’ve ever witnessed. Anchored by Indian food-sovereignty activist Vandana Shiva, the panel discussion at Terra Madre unveiled a new “Manifesto on Climate Change and the Future of Food Security,” drawn up by the International Commission on the Future of Food and Agriculture.
The document under discussion — which can be found here — is brisk, lucid, and to the point.
Staying home as a necessity and a right
Progettazione per zone e settori in ambiente urbano
Creating a Post-Peak Future Worth Living Into
Horticultural Consciousness: Hemenway interview #2
Time to build a new civilization
The temples of doom
The Most Radical Thing You Can Do
Find out by reading Ellis Jones’ The Better World Shopping Guide – 2nd Edition (book review)
Soil research has dried up
Europe’s secret plan to boost GM crop production
Farm-credit squeeze may cut crops, spur food crisis
Is manure more valuable than hogs?
At Asian food market, a sign of lost confidence
