Selling a book that has no name
We have even made excrement disappear in real life. Flush it and forget it.
Food
Edible landscapes and Entergy argues for federal preemption (transcript added)
Darrin Nordahl, the author of Public Produce: The New Urban Agriculture, has chronicled the growing movement to put edible plants in public spaces–like Vermont’s vegetable garden on its State House lawn. Also, Ray Shadis, a consultant to the New England Coalition on Nuclear Pollution, will respond to the question: “Can the state of Vermont regulate Vermont Yankee without falling foul of federal preemption law?”
Meet my food system
I live because we live—in reciprocity. Me, you, the farmers, the politicians, the merchants, the animals, the vegetables, the minerals, the trees and oceans, the Earth. These are my pals. These are my suppliers.
Simplicity and abundance (Day 172) September 17th
John and I take a trip out to visit Woody and Zoe at nearby Cuckoo Farm to see their gorgeous straw bale house, which has been plastered to meet health and safety regulations, and which now looks like an ancient thatched cottage. Over cups of tea I hear about anaerobic digesters and how simple a system they are.
Food & agriculture – Sept 20
– Roving Herds of Grazing Climate Helpers
– The backlash begins against the world landgrab
– Ezra Klein on Industrial Ag: Asking the Wrong Questions
– Greenhorns: the network that’s breathing new life into US farming
– How Peru’s wells are being sucked dry by British love of asparagus
– Forget Oil, Worry About Phosphorus
Five reasons to plant trees now
To some people, planting a tree is the epitome of the environmental cliche. Planting a tree seems so simple, so easy, so… low-technology.
Cluck Trek
Chickens are the happening thing in the city — as evidenced by the fact that the our chicken coop tour was highlighted by the Los Angeles Times (none of our Transition events have ever made it past the editors of this giant paper before). There aren’t too many people who have chickens here, but there is LOTS of interest.
The 4 major threats to industrialized agriculture — Fred Kirschenmann speaks
We are in a food revolution. The next generation sees the world differently. The older people alive today wanted to control the world. The new generation wants to work with it.
“Reinventing collapse” by Orlov (2008)
Dmitry Orlov’s “Reinventing collapse” is as actually a real downer, but Orlov’s intelligence, black humor and very Russian naturally cynical attitude – “to a Russian, ‘hard worker’ sounded a lot like ‘fool'” – makes the book a very pleasant reading experience. The book is full of resigned shrugs regarding the possibility of preventing the absolutely-certainly-coming societal collapse. We’re not talking about saving the world here – the best we can hope for is saving our own skins!
Animals II: chickens, rabbits and fish
To many people, the word “livestock” suggests large meaty animals too big to graze in the average backyard. The same logic that makes intensive gardening a vital tool for a deindustrializing world makes backyard raising of small livestock an important way to expand the food supply on a local and sustainable basis.
Interview with Phil Bereano: Part I
I deal with social ethics: issues of equity, justice, fairness, and democracy. Frankly, GE fails when measured against most of these values. GE, like all high-techs, is inherently anti-democratic. Computers, for example, can be democratic in their usage because anybody can buy into it in a consumer society. But they’re not democratic in terms of development, which is under the control of a very small number of people. Similarly, GE is under the control of small numbers of highly educated people and incredibly wealthy organizations.
The tragedy of goats
Autumn typically is rain-free here. This year, we’ll take advantage of the dry weather to harvest abundant poop from the goat pen and apply it directly to the then-recently harvested potato patch. Potatoes are heavy feeders, so the patch could use the nutrients. By the time we plant next spring, the compost will be working its magic. Nonetheless, we won’t plant potatoes there, though we haven’t decided which nitrogen-fixing plant to work into the rotation.
