Media & Communications

Food & agriculture – Mar 26

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-Is urban farming Detroit’s cash cow?
-Looming citrus disease could annihilate county’s trees
-The Great Sustainability Debate: Meat Or No Meat?
-The London Orchard Project: bringing fruit to car parks
-Don’t confuse manure tea with Earl Grey
-China faces ‘diabetes epidemic’, research suggests
-Big food push urged to avoid global hunger
-The Radical Necessity of Cooking: Mollie Katzen, Vegetablist

Movement Matriarch

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Last spring, when hundreds of alums and faculty of the nutrition program of Columbia University Teachers College gathered to commemorate the department’s 100th anniversary, one speaker riveted the audience. Shoulders back, patrician chin jutting forward, Joan Gussow strode toward the stage. A recent octogenarian, she remains in remarkable shape.

UK Telegraph Reports, “Oil Reserves ‘Exaggerated by One Third'”

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Earlier this week, the UK Telegraph reported: Oil reserves ‘exaggerated by one third’

The world’s oil reserves have been exaggerated by up to a third, according to Sir David King, the Government’s former chief scientist, who has warned of shortages and price spikes within years.

As Glaciers Melt, Bolivia Fights for the Good Life

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Bolivia is watching its glaciers melt, early casualties of a changing climate. As communities struggle to adapt and the government tries to pioneer an alternative way forward, rural Bolivians believe the answer lies not in consumerist striving to live better, but in learning to live well.

My Fellow Science Bloggers Meditate on the Depletion of Nearly Everything

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I came back to my computer to find that many of my fellow Sciblings have recently taken up issues of resource depletion from various interesting perspectives – doing my work for me, I guess ;-). It isn’t exactly news to most of us that we’ve been using just about every resource on the planet far too casually, but it is interesting to see them tied together.

Alaska: Confronting the Prospect of 6 Billion Barrels of Stranded Gas

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Alaska — and the so-called Sarah Palin pipeline — are in the crosshairs of the abrupt surge of natural gas supplies in the continental United States. Leading the charge against a much-promoted pipeline to ship Alaskan natural gas into the currently glutted Lower 48 is former Sen. Ted Stevens. The locally influential Republican says the gas should be rerouted to Asia, and that if Alaska doesn’t move fast, this fuel — the equivalent of 6 billion barrels of oil — could end up effectively stranded at home.

The future of payments

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I was invited earlier this month to speak on the future of payments at the Digital Money Forum in London, now in its thirteenth year and as provocative as ever. Of course, it’s a future that’s increasingly bound up with technology. My version is based on the work that’s been done by the historian of economics and technology, Carlota Perez (which I’ve blogged about elsewhere, at length) on long technology cycles.