Dead Man’s Chest
Biodiversity, Comedy Break, peak oil — by Marc Roberts
 Click for larger view Courtesy: Throbgoblins |
"War-torn" is such a compact description, isn’t it. It leaves out the economics and the politics and the machinations of great powers, and concentrates on the trauma in the here and now, as though it had sprung fully formed upon an innocent world.
So we watch the seizing of an oil tanker by desperate men from a failed state - whose climate and conditions get crueler by the year - and we imagine that it is not a portent of things to come, but an aberration in an otherwise purposeful, perfectible world. We choose not to look down the path from whence this monster came.
One of many links from today’s extensive coverage, and another one not so well covered, and another BIG ONE - not for the feint hearted.
Comments (0)Posted on: November 19, 2008
The Food Crisis: “A Perfect Storm” - and How to Turn the Tide
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, GMOs, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Population, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton — by Craig Mackintosh
A recently released study, the largest of its kind, examines the root causes of, and solutions for, a food crisis that will likely get much worse before it gets better — and that will never get better if we continue with business as usual
I’m hungry.
No, not because I don’t have enough food to eat, but because I’m too busy typing and too lazy to walk to the refrigerator. How I wish it were this simple for the people I keep reading about.
Comments (3)Posted on: November 14, 2008
Exodus
Biodiversity, Comedy Break, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by Marc Roberts
 Click for larger view Courtesy: Throbgoblins |
Whilst the newly elected president of the Maldives brings up the massive issue of the resettlement of whole nations due to sea level rise, the UK panics over a more imaginary inundation, and limits non-EU immigration to ballet dancers and sheep-shearers. The Dutch, meanwhile, - in their great tradition of physical nation building - plan to build a hydro electric island in the north sea. The basking shark, amongst others, begins its long goodbye.
Comments (0)Posted on: November 12, 2008
Learning from the Past
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Population, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination — by Earth Policy Institute
by Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute, Washington D.C., U.S.A.
Our twenty-first century global civilization is not the first to face the prospect of environmentally induced economic decline. The question is how we will respond. We do have one unique asset at our command–an archeological record that shows us what happened to earlier civilizations that got into environmental trouble and failed to respond.
As Jared Diamond points out in his book Collapse, some of the early societies that were in environmental trouble were able to change their ways in time to avoid decline and collapse. Six centuries ago, for example, Icelanders realized that overgrazing on their grass-covered highlands was leading to extensive soil loss from the inherently thin soils of the region. Rather than lose the grasslands and face economic decline, farmers joined together to determine how many sheep the highlands could sustain and then allocated quotas among themselves, thus preserving their grasslands and avoiding what Garrett Hardin later termed the “tragedy of the commons.”
Comments (0)Posted on: October 25, 2008
Look Locally, See Globally
Alternatives to Political Systems, Biodiversity, Food Plants - Perennial, Seeds — by Janet Millington
It’s just amazing how many of life’s lessons can be learned in the garden. It is also amazing that even though we think we have an understanding of things they don’t truly hit home until we experience them for ourselves.
I had quite a jolt last week as I searched for my bush basil. I considered myself to have a deep affiliation with the plant. It grew for me when it was dead for everyone else. I was always cutting it and giving it away or putting it into glass jars with water where it gave a clean fresh fragrance to the house, kept the flies away and sent out wonderful hairy roots that would strike every time in the garden. This year it had the most precious little mauve flowers that are as useful to it as our appendix is to us. They have given up setting seed as the plant propagates so well vegetively I had bushes everywhere. Or so I thought!
Comments (1)Posted on: October 24, 2008
Can Permaculture Save the World???
Alternatives to Political Systems, Bio-regional Organisations, Biodiversity, Consumerism, Eco-Villages, Economics, Financial Management, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, People Systems, Population, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Village Development, Water Contaminaton, peak oil — by Ted Trainer
Editor’s Note: Point one - this article is circa 1998, from the now ceased-publication Permaculture International Journal. Point two - it is now more relevant than ever, so please read and ponder. The article goes a long way towards explaining why I mix articles the way I do - some about Permaculture, some about current events, the global situation, and the desperate need for systemic social, political and economic change.
Ted Trainer argues that although the planet cannot be saved without Permaculture, not enough people in the movement realise where Permaculture fits into the solution.
We are fast approaching a period of enormous and probably chaotic change. Western industrial-affluent-consumer society is unsustainable and is rapidly running into serious difficulties.
Permaculture is a crucial component of the solution to the global predicament. However I want to argue that Permaculture is far from sufficient, and indeed that it can be counter-productive if it is not put in the right context. That is unless we are careful, promoting Permaculture can actually help to reinforce our existing unsustainable society. We must do much more than just contribute to the spread of Permaculture. We must locate Permaculture within a wider campaign of radical social change. Before I try to explain this, I need to outline how I see the global predicament we are in. Whether or not you will agree with my conclusions about what needs to be done and where Permaculture fits in will depend greatly on whether you share my view of the situation we are in.
Comments (4)Posted on: October 2, 2008
Biodiverse Systems are More Productive
Biodiversity, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Plant Systems — by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho
Sustainable farming across the world relies on cultivating a diversity of crops and livestock to maximise internal input, and this is in marked contrast to the high external input monoculture of industrial farming, which is proving unsustainable in many respects. Indirect support for the sustainability of agricultural diversity is coming from an unexpected quarter. Academic ecologists are discovering that biodiverse systems are more productive.
by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho: Geneticist, Biophysicist and Director of the not-for-profit Institute of Science in Society .
For over three decades, academic ecologists have debated whether complex, species-rich ecosystems are more stable than ones with fewer species. Unfortunately, there are many definitions of complexity, and even more of stability; and so the debate continues.
The question most relevant to agriculture, and also most easily answered, is whether biodiverse systems are more productive. There is growing evidence that biodiverse systems are indeed more productive, although ecologists still disagree as to how that could be explained, and on the number of species needed to sustain an ecosystem, which has large implications also for conservation.
Comments (0)Posted on: September 23, 2008
75 Percent of Food Diversity Lost in Last Century
Biodiversity, GMOs — by Craig Mackintosh
The average person, roaming supermarket aisles with their trolley, is under the impression that our modern globalised food production system, despite being damaging in every other respect, brings one major benefit to consumers — that being more food choices.
Wrong.
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