Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
– Glenn Beck embraces simplicity (for real!)
– 21 Holiday Gift Ideas for the Permaculture and Guerrilla Gardening Activists in Your Life
– NYT: The Beekeeper Next Door
– The UK Crash Course… now online and available free to all UK Transition initiatives…
– Why not eat insects? (video) – new!
There is growing evidence that prices of staple foods, like maize, rice, and wheat will rise steadily due to increased population and income growth. And climate change adds more pressure to these already big challenges.
“Most of the food people eat is processed,” says Left Coast Naturals president Ian Walker. This simple truth sums up what may be the biggest hurdle for our local food system in feeding the masses.
In the short to medium term, climate-driven food insecurity is likely to pull Pyongyang into increasing reliance on its nuclear weapons program as leverage to bargain for international largesse in the form of food, energy and fertiliser supplies. The increased importance of the nuclear bargaining chip in the context of climate change, in conjunction with the numerous other justifications for its nuclear proliferation (domestic politics, security, ideology), makes it even more unlikely that the regime will relinquish its nuclear weapons capability.
Chickens, which would love to graze that grass, are once again taking their rightful place in the backyards of America, and it is only a matter of time before sheep will join them.
Five years after the “100 Mile Diet”, authors Mackinnon and Smith tour us through their top ten local food projects. From the Napa Valley to New York. Winter farming in Michigan. In Canada, Toronto out-pacing Vancouver. Great talk, inspiring ideas for your food security.
– Japan Turns Its Back on Kyoto Protocol
– GOP Moves Quickly to Kill House Climate-Change Panel
– Albert Bates: The Cancún Climate Summit – Opening Day Coverage
– Monbiot: Cancún climate change summit: Is God determined to prevent a deal?
– Vía Campesina: Statement on the Climate Summit in Cancun
– Food Security Wanes as World Warms
A new report from the Soil Association reveals that supplies of phosphate rock are running out faster than previously thought and that declining supplies and higher prices of phosphate are a new threat to global food security….
Intensive agriculture is totally dependent on phosphate for the fertility needed to grow crops and grass. …. Recent analysis suggests that we may hit ‘peak’ phosphate as early as 2033, after which supplies will become increasingly scarce and more expensive.
This episode #193 marks the final broadcast of Deconstructing Dinner before we embark on a much-needed break. Producer & Host Jon Steinman speaks about the need to step away from producing new shows and what future might lie ahead. Jon also shares some reflections on the past 5 years of producing this weekly one-hour radio show and podcast, and offers suggestions to those involved in the responsible food movement – a movement which this show has helped track its evolution and certainly one that this show has in many ways been a part of.
If you found yourself on the southern shore of False Creek at Westminster Avenue (now Main Street) on Saturday, Aug. 15, 1908 you would happen by opening day of Vancouver’s City Market. The grand building with dual bell towers and a generous waterfront promenade is plastered with signs advertising retail and wholesale “farm products” for sale and a restaurant serving “meals at all hours.” Could B.C.’s biggest city today bring back to life so vibrant a public space, building a key component in what could be one of North America’s most robust local food economies?
Rainey Hopewell’s crazy idea has ended up feeding a neighborhood and creating community. She and Margot Johnston planted vegetables in the parking strip in front of their house. They offer them free for the taking — to anyone, anytime — with messages chalked on the sidewalk noting when particular vegies are ready to pick. Neighboring children and adults are joining in to work on the garden, harvesting fun along with food, and even handing fresh-picked vegies to passers-by.
The news reported recently that scientists had proved conclusively what farm children have known forever. You can’t walk in a straight line blindfolded, or by extension, if you are lost in the woods or a corn field, you will invariably walk in circles. Those of us who have matriculated from farms in our youths with PhDs in ornery knowledge know all about walking in circles.
