Straw Bale Guest House, Switzerland
Building — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor November 2, 2012
Swiss architect, Werner Schmidt, created this hyper-insulated guest house in the Swiss mountains. Find out more about this particular building here.
Comments (1)Bitter Seeds Documentary (video)
Biodiversity, Food Shortages, GMOs, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor October 31, 2012
This new documentary, with perfect timing for the upcoming Proposition 37 vote on November 6, is a heartbreaking look at the impact GMOs have had in India, where many thousands of peasant farmers have been pushed to the brink, and beyond, due to crop failures and spiraling costs for seed and the chemicals they demand.
For your interest, there are currently efforts to put a 10-year ban on GMO field trials across India. A court appointed expert panel has advised India’s supreme court that such a ban should be implemented. At time of writing, the next hearing for this case will be November 9, 2012. A 1.5mb PDF submission to the supreme court by the expert panel can be downloaded here.
Comments (0)Pam Warhurst: How We Can Eat Our Landscapes (TED video)
Alternatives to Political Systems, Community Projects, Eco-Villages, Markets & Outlets, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor October 30, 2012
This is a fun and very inspiring talk by Incredible Edible Todmorden champion, Pam Warhurst, on the great work her town is doing in northern England and its growing influence around the world. One of the many encouraging things I take from this talk is hearing how local businesses in Todmorden are, with the renewed interest to support them, being able to diversify their offering, and hence make Todmorden more self-reliant and thus resilient.
The standing ovation at the end of the video says it all….
Comments (0)What the Economic Crisis Really Means – and What We Can Do About It (video)
Alternatives to Political Systems, Economics, Society, Village Development — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor October 29, 2012
The video above is a nice, brief summation of our present predicament, and ends with the only really logical conclusion — permaculture, and resilient, interdependent communities living in the real economy. It’s well worth watching and sharing. Regular readers of this site won’t learn anything new, but should find it yet another useful tool for educating others.
For myself, I am constantly disappointed in mainstream media coverage of the historically unprecedented convergence of issues humanity now faces. Supposed ‘experts’ in economics and business stand in front of us, upbeat and flashing plastic smiles, whilst spouting utter nonsense. They continue to subscribe to, and promote, an impossible belief — that being to ‘grow the economy’, perpetually, on a finite planet. This is the most absurd faith-based religion I’ve ever encountered, and yet it has become the status quo almost everywhere on this tired old earth.
Comments (1)All a great power has to do to destroy itself is to persist in trying to do the impossible. — Stephen Vizinczey
Seeds of Doubt Conference (Videos)
GMOs, Health & Disease — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor October 24, 2012
To follow are six videos, recorded at the October 6 2012 Seeds of Doubt Conference in Los Angeles:
Comments (0)Genetic Roulette Documentary – Free Viewing Period Extended Until End of October 2012
DVDs/Books, GMOs, Health & Disease — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor October 19, 2012
A few days ago I informed that you could watch the Genetic Roulette Documentary for free until October 17. Well, several organisations have kindly sponsored an extension of this free viewing period until the end of October. With Proposition 37 coming up on November 6 in California, there’s no time like the present to get the word out on GMOs. So, if you haven’t already, please take the time to watch it, and please do your best to share it with all your family, friends and colleagues!
Watch the full documentary here!
If we can get mandatory labelling of GMOs happening in California, this can cascade across the U.S. — making it easier for people to recognise and reject ‘food’ items containing GMOs, and this in turn can cause boycotts of supermarkets who continue to stock them. Using the European example as evidence, we may only need about 5% of U.S. residents to start rejecting items containing GMOs, before supermarkets will feel the pinch and try to outcompete other supply chains by no longer stocking them.
And, below is a new 10-minute re-mix of the documentary, useful for those who just can’t make time to watch the full 1.5 hour film.
Comments (0)
Free Viewing of ‘Genetic Roulette’ Documentary Until October 17 (Update: Now Extended Until End of October 2012)
GMOs — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor October 16, 2012
Celebrities on California’s Prop 37
Until the end of October, 2012, you can watch the Genetic Roulette documentary for free. Below you will find the video in three forms: English without subtitles, English with English subtitles, and English with Spanish subtitles:
Genetic Roulette – No subtitles
Incredible Edible Todmorden (video)
Alternatives to Political Systems, Community Projects, Consumerism, Markets & Outlets, Society, Village Development, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor October 11, 2012
If you want a little inspiration today, the following video about the excellent work going on in Todmorden, UK, should do the trick.
Comments (0)
The Mad Farmer Walks Away From the March of Tyranny
Alternatives to Political Systems, Consumerism, Economics, People Systems, Society — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor October 8, 2012
With the presidential race in full swing in the U.S., I thought this graphic would make a good ‘cartoon of the week’, highlighting the futility of thinking that changing from one corporate-run government to another corporate run government will make much of a difference.
Click for larger version
Oh, and for those who are thinking to do their posterior a favour, by switching from the left boot to try out the impact of the right boot, this article is also rather illuminating….
A poem from Wendell Berry, the farmer, poet, writer and philosopher, is appropriate in this context, I think:
Comments (1)A Computer Geek Starts a Garden, Part I – Background, Design and Initial Implementation
Compost, Conservation, Consumerism, Demonstration Sites, Economics, Food Forests, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Land, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Society, Soil Biology, Soil Composition, Soil Conservation, Structure, Trees, Urban Projects, Village Development, Water Harvesting, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor October 4, 2012
The yard in winter, before work begins…
A great many people today are living in fear. The future looks uncertain, but bleak. Many cannot see a future at all. The post-WWII baby boomer generation, with their short-lived cheap energy era, have been largely calling the shots, shaping the world we have today. After the miseries of two world wars, they set a course for excess. They and their descendants have been spending profligately, borrowing resources and finances from their children and grandchildren — and the deficit has increased so rapidly that the present generation is already having to foot the bill. We’ve been living the dream, and living in a dream — seeking to live lifestyles without limits — and now it’s time to pay the piper, as it were. We’re discovering that we were the children and grandchildren that society was borrowing from.
Comments (16)
ASPO 2012 Presentations
Biodiversity, Biofuels, Consumerism, Deforestation, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Population, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss, peak oil — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor October 3, 2012
From May 30 — June 1, 2012, the 10th ASPO (Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas) meeting took place. This year it was held in Vienna, Austria. I haven’t had time to check out all of these presentations yet, but want to ensure you’re all aware they’re available to watch as you have time. Not having watched them all, I put the videos below up in no particular order, except for a little influence from intuition perhaps. If you’re not familiar with the Peak Oil topic (is there anyone left in this camp?), you might want to read some previous posts I’ve done on the topic: here, here, here and here for example.
Nate Hagens – Navigating through a Room full of Elephants
Growing BIG Vegetables Using Compost Tea
Compost, Food Plants - Annual, Fungi, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Soil Biology, Soil Composition — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor October 1, 2012
I’ve personally seen produce growing quite large in far northern latitude places like Alaska and Norway, where the summer sun goes around and around and around, giving plants a gentle but steady application of solar goodness. But, the vegetables in this video go even further…. This Alaskan gentleman has been breaking size records with his additions of aerated compost teas. His methods result in tasty, healthy, high-brix vegetables that repel insect attacks.
P.S. To learn more about these methods, check out one of Paul Taylor’s Sustainable Soil Management courses in our courses section.
Comments (2)Watch ‘Genetic Roulette’ Documentary Online Today
GMOs, Health & Disease — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor September 28, 2012
Last night I watched ‘Genetic Roulette’ online (trailer above). You can watch it for a paltry US$2.99 — or, better yet, add a little more as a donation, and you’ll help to get this important information much further, by subsidising its translation into many other languages, so people worldwide can learn of the dangers inherent in genetically engineering our food.
I won’t spoil your viewing experience by telling you too much, but you’ll learn about how the FDA ignored repeated warnings by their own scientists of the dangers of allowing these organisms into the food chain, and you’ll hear doctors and scientists explaining how they are linked to a massive rise in health issues — this rise beginning at the same time as their release. You’ll learn about issues farmers have faced worldwide, with their GMO-fed livestock going sterile and suffering a myriad otherwise inexplicable problems, and which ‘miraculously’ vanished after reverting to a non-GMO diet. You’ll meet scientists who have dared to stand up to Monsanto, and who have been fired for it, and you’ll learn how our Monsanto-financed universities are becoming academic puppets for BigBiotech.
This is a must-watch documentary which should serve to infuriate viewers into tossing GMOs out of their kitchens and shopping trolleys, with the huge potential for this to translate to lost market share for supermarket chains who will feel the pressure to also boycott these ‘products’. If we can get as little as five percent of the US population avoiding GMOs, then we could see the beginning of the end for this industry — an industry which, to me, is the ultimate representation of capitalism run amuck (and along the lines of ‘industries’ like Academi, formerly known as Blackwater, and Xe Industries).
Comments (1)Grow Gigantic Vegetables By Harnessing the Soil Food Web
Compost, Food Plants - Annual, Fungi, Plant Systems, Rehabilitation, Soil Biology, Soil Composition — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor September 27, 2012
This is a very cool video on fungal dominated humus and enormous vegetables. Besides a humungous pumpkin, you’ll also get to see microorganisms at work, at 400x magnification.
Comments (1)Permaculture for Environmental Sustainability in Kenya
Aid Projects, Community Projects, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor September 26, 2012
It’s great to see PRI Kenya getting some mainstream media coverage by CNTN.
Comments (0)
