Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
What is not hoarding? It isn’t building up a reasonable supply of goods before a crisis point (this is only prudent), nor is it attempting to survive and protect the basic health of your family when there is no system of fair distribution. This last is a very important point.
On the surface, Smart Grids sound ‘green’ – with promises of saving energy, creating new power-line corridors run on wind and solar, way-stations to power-up electric vehicles, energy-efficient upgrades to an aging power infrastructure, and real-time customer knowledge of electricity use.
But few who actually study how these new systems functionwant anything to do with them. Other than those who stand to make enormous profits and the physicists or engineers who dream up such stuff, Smart Grids are giving knowledgeable people the willies.
Food is at the core of so many of our global problems, including hunger, obesity, energy, climate change, economic disparity, and on and on. But it’s also something that unites us— everyone eats.
FGU follows a cooperative working model, although it is not formally registered as one. FGU has an ‘each voice counts’ membership, inviting all members to participate in decisions. We operate within the Transition Town umbrella but are autonomous in the pursuit of our objectives. We aim to become a source of information on the benefits of healthy eating and responsible farming and are sharing ideas and best practices with other like-minded initiatives, starting with participating in a mentoring scheme with Stroudco. And, most importantly we aim to engender a spirit of community with designated meeting and working locations.
What we eat is destroying both our bodies and the planet, according to author Lierre Keith, a recovering twenty-year vegan. While she passionately opposes factory farming of animals, she maintains that humans require nutrient-dense animal foods for good health. A grain-based diet is the basis for degenerative diseases we take for granted (diabetes, cancer, heart disease) – diseases of civilization. Annual grain production is destroying topsoil and creating deserts on a planetary scale. Lierre urges the restoration of perennial polycultures for longterm sustainability.
A retired nuclear scientist gives his take on the events in Japan and the possible dangers to Americans.:
“One possibly worrisome long-term scenario is that the Fukushima-I plant is RIGHT on the Japanese east coast. I wondered about ocean currents and where they might deliver any radiation entering the ocean, AND what uptake and concentration mechanisms might be operable in sea-life in the various ocean ecosystems.
“The contaminants move through the ocean’s various food-chains, ultimately to species humans eat, potentially accumulating near the top of the food chains.
“Here on the U.S. coast we have become attuned to food-chain concentration of mercury in aquatic and other life, although I have no knowledge of the environmental pathways. Are we facing the possibility of a similar problem with some radioactive and heavy element species one, two, or three decades hence? Could my children’s salmon contain Japanese reactor fission products?”
Coming, as I do, from an alcoholic family, I have a tendency to watch any unfolding disaster with a single idea in the back of my mind: “I knew it.” This is even true of a disaster like the one in Japan, where the causes are seemingly so unpredictable.
If you want a picture of happiness, you just had to look at the faces of the Egyptians as they stood up for their rights! And the same for the faces in Wisconsin and in state capitals all over the country. No doubt about it — standing up for your beliefs brings some of the greatest satisfaction in life.
As concerns grow in the U.S. about the environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” to extract natural gas from shale, companies have set their sights on Europe and its abundant reserves of this “unconventional” gas. But from Britain to Poland, critics warn of the potentially high environmental cost of this looming energy boom.
For decades, deadly outbreaks of cholera were attributed to the spread of disease through poor sanitation. But recent research demonstrates how closely cholera is tied to environmental and hydrological factors and to weather patterns — all of which may lead to more frequent cholera outbreaks as the world warms.
The opening paragraph of some newspaper and magazine articles about wood heating make the claim that more households are burning wood due to the high cost of conventional energy sources. This assumption is logical enough considering there is plenty of income insecurity and increasing costs lately. But a review of the few available sources of statistics calls this conclusion into question.
Food justice is about ensuring access to healthy, quality food for all people, no matter their economic position. Ahmadi and Reverend Jeffrey sat down with YES! to explain how a total reorientation of the food system can support community health and wealth—planting local businesses, creating jobs, and growing a public understanding about why our current paradigm fails us all, especially those in the most need.
