So where’s the hope?
In America, the spiritual journey starts with an active, conscious, personal rejection of I Consume, Therefore I Am. Life is precious, but new shoes, especially when you’ve already got perfectly adequate footware, are not.
Media & Communications
Ten birds that will not land: Some thoughts on school, the simple life, and independence
What is the nature of “independence”? We talk about it like it can actually be achieved and that it’s a good thing. What if neither is true?
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?”
The good food movement is now a revolution
“There are enough people talking about growing food, but not enough growers.” Suddenly, my mostly sedentary Brooklyn life was filled with kale planting, chicken feeding, delivering produce to restaurants via bicycle, and picking up buckets of coffee grounds from local cafes for composting.
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.
Transition & responses – Sept 21
– a Look at the Example of Detroit
-Lessons From a Low-Impact Week
-Free Geek – Computers for the Community
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.
Peak oil review – Sept 20
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-Economic recovery?
-Taxes, regulations and moratoria
-Brazil in the news
-Briefs
You will never know: The volatile life
We have had a period of unprecedented stability in the last decades – mostly declining food and energy costs have allowed us to live as we have. That’s changed. Now the one thing we know is that we’ll never know.
Transition barter habit spreads up the Severn
The sort of conundrums which the barter market produced helped us unmask some of the hidden dynamics of markets, in particular how we measure value.
Twenty-first century energy superpower
If you want to know which way the global wind is blowing (or the sun shining or the coal burning), watch China. That’s the news for our energy future and for the future of great-power politics on planet Earth. Washington is already watching — with anxiety.
Deep thought – Sept 20
-Do Not Pity the Democrats
-Are dying languages worth saving?
-The environmentalist’s paradox: we do better while the earth does worse
