Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
In a world where fertile soil is an endangered resource, millions of acres of our nation’s best agricultural soil are covered with ornamental shrubs and lawns. Soil can be brought into production for agriculture only at great economic and environmental cost. Why do we allow so much of what we have to remain unproductive?
Scientists warn of lack of phosphorus as biofuels raise demand
Fertiliser shortage hits India’s farms
Food for thought
Energy farm experiment in Kentucky
Six Degrees, but no PhD (science writing by non-scientists)
Environmental stories you can localize: climate change, food crisis, water pollution
The Internet and its discontents
Energy Kid’s Page from the EIA
You probably heard of peak oil – the idea that global petroleum supplies are about to, or have, passed their peak. But have you ever heard of peak phosphorus? Probably not, but it’s something you’ll hear alot more about in years to come because when the earth’s phosphorus supplies run out, so too will food. It sounds like a doomsday scenario, but my guest today believes deposits of phosphorus could be depleted this century.
Homeowners who seriously seek to provide some of their own food, and perhaps some of their clothing, tools, and shelter too, must first learn to view their enterprises within the proper economic framework, or perhaps I should say the proper noneconomic framework.
Many people, deep in their hearts, think that ecological disasters apply mostly to other people. But, of course, as Midwesterners are finding out right now, that’s not true.
Raj Patel: Is meat off the menu?
Yes, we will have no bananas
Midocean trawlers mine world’s seamounts
How to feed a growing planet
Australia: Farmers swap trucks for horses
Walking: still better than driving
CERA: Americans finally react to sting of gas prices
Airline lobby starts its own “Energy Bulletin”
Can religion help prevent eco-catastrophe? Orthodox Church leader thinks so
Why I love diggers and earthmovers
The geography of green consumerism
Where we ought to be: revisiting Total Loss Farm
Bellingham energy task force seeks volunteers
Our diet of destruction
The peaceful revolution in farmers’ markets
Food revolution that starts with rice
Ethiopia pleads for £167m aid after crops fail
Farming with far fewer fossil fuels – learn at Tillers International
Human cost of Brazil’s biofuels boom
Vinod Khosla: We can do biofuel well or poorly
The bad oil on ethanol
Farm-belt voters down on corn ethanol mandate
Pest threatens Brazil’s Sao Paulo cane fields
Brazil’s diverse energy resources
A catastrophe for Iowa farmers will not be just a catastrophe for Midwestern Americans. In the Iowa floods, we’ll see more evidence of how the problems of weird weather (climate change) combine and ramify the problems associated with peak oil.
