Following Orders
Alternatives to Political Systems, Biodiversity, Comedy Break, Consumerism, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Marc Roberts March 24, 2009
 Click for full view Courtesy: Throbgoblins |
More than 7 million quids worth of police will be ensuring that protestors don’t contaminate the G20 summit with any new ideas, thus making the world safe for inadequate investment, climate chaos, dehydration and myopia, with some open-ended blank cheques thrown in.
So, all in all, a nice little inheritance for the kids. But Nil Deperandum. The revolution starts at home.
Comments (0)Will Obama Allow Organic Farming and Farmers’ Markets to Effectively Get Banned?
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, GMOs, Health & Disease, Society — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor March 19, 2009
A potential new legally enforced system of regulating how food is produced and processed currently before the U.S. Congress has profound and worrying implications for everyone who eats – and all those seeking to work towards sustainability. Significantly, the Bills before Congress may give a new ‘Food Safety Authority’ enormous powers of control – despite not specifically detailing exactly what this new authority intends to do with this power…. This post needs to be read, considered and acted upon by all.
Note: Feel free to skip my intro, and the background, and jump to the meat if you so desire.
I have a dream.
I dream of an age where governments stop pandering to big business lobbyists, and start incentivising a sensible, transitional shift to small-scale, localised food systems. This dream has our current dependence on (rapidly diminishing) supplies of oil – with its extreme cost in human life and economic and environmental destruction – effectively short-circuited. With current industrialised agriculture consuming ten calories of fossil fuels to create a single calorie of food, I see that this dream, if it doesn’t crystalise into reality, and soon, could quickly become a nightmare.
Comments (4)Supermarket Secrets
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Economics, Health & Disease, Society — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor February 17, 2009
Here’s a great behind the scenes look at modern supermarket and supply chain practices that have significant implications on the health of our environment, our animals, our food – and ultimately our own health. If you don’t have more than a few minutes up your sleeve, bookmark this to watch when you do – as these are two full (and very interesting!) 49 minute documentary episodes.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5774892958354867332
Part I: 49 minutes
Comments (0)Our Seeds: Seeds Blong Yumi
Biodiversity, Seeds — by Michel Fanton February 14, 2009
3 Minute Trailer
“Our Seeds: Seeds Blong Yumi” is a fifty-seven minute film shot in eleven countries and made for Pacific audiences that celebrates traditional foods and the plants they grow from. The film introduces to the people of the Pacific the varied people who save seeds and stand at the source of humanity¹s diverse food heritage.
This is a David and Goliath story where resilience and persuasive logic triumph over seemingly invincible giant corporations.
Comments (1)Colony Collapse Disorder – a Moment for Reflection
Biodiversity, Food Shortages, GMOs, Health & Disease, Insects — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor February 5, 2009
Preamble: The issue of massive bee die-offs was hot in the mainstream media news last year, but now it seems they’ve moved on to more ‘interesting’ things…. Despite the lack of recent coverage, this extremely serious issue is not going away. About a year and a half ago I wrote the article below, and since the content of the post is still very relevant, and as it attracted a lot of attention at the time (before the administrators lost them all through website adjustments, it had attracted more than 200 comments – from beekeepers, scientists, gardeners and other interested people), I thought I’d post it again here to bring some attention back to this subject. The beautiful thing about Permaculture is it is completely holistic in nature. Industry and reductionist science tend to look at things in isolation, thus never seeing the bigger picture. The article below is an attempt to join the dots. Unless we take a broad view of the impacts of our industrial systems, we will never find solutions to such potentially cataclysmic problems as Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD).
Our previous posts on the mysterious bee disappearances have been a very interesting exercise. We’ve had great feedback from farmers, amateur and professional beekeepers, scientists, and dozens of other interested/concerned observers. In the meantime, accumulating reports tell us that the problem is not constrained to the U.S. alone – but that, to one degree or another, empty hives are becoming common in Germany, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, Switzerland, Poland, and now the UK.
On the Wings of a Butterfly
Biodiversity, Insects — by Claire Hagen Dole December 14, 2008
Reprinted with permission from the Permaculture International Journal" (PIJ) #61 Dec – Feb 1997 page 17
Butterflies inhabit the earth for weeks at the most. Their existence is fragile but enormously important to the earth, from which many of their species are disappearing. Claire Hagen Dole enters their world to explain how we can create butterfly havens that enrich the planet and bring beauty to our gardens.
 Photography: Craig Mackintosh |
Have you ever noticed a colourful swallowtail butterfly gliding through the boughs of your apple tree? Have you watched a Painted Lady sipping nectar from a blackberry blossom. Like the industrious honeybee, these enchanting creatures are also pollinating blossoms as they move from plant to plant.
Throughout history, butterflies have been a subject of fascination; in some cultures, they’ve been equated with the human soul. Indeed, except for a few over wintering species, most adult butterflies inhabit the earth for a mere few days or weeks. Invite them into your garden; focus your gaze on their incredible journey from egg to larva to chrysalis (pupa) to winged adult. These life stages are so different that early naturalists thought they represented different animals.
Comments (0)Weeds or Wild Nature?
Biodiversity, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Medicinal Plants, Plant Systems, Trees — by PIJ December 10, 2008
Reprinted with permission from the "Permaculture International Journal" (PIJ) (No. 61,
Dec-Feb 1997).
The world’s striving for racial tolerance doesn’t always extend to plants.
A key criticism of permaculture’s approach to building sustainable organic systems has been its perceived willingness to favour the introduction of exotic species.
Is it better to build systems that include exotics or should reforestation aim only to replace what has been taken away?
Is a rampant exotic a weed, or nature’s most effective first aid treatment?
It is a philosophical divide which has sparked heated debate within the permaculture community and strained relationships between groups that have otherwise much in common.
Comments (2)Dead Man’s Chest
Biodiversity, Comedy Break, peak oil — by Marc Roberts November 19, 2008
 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)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 & Loss — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor November 14, 2008
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)Exodus
Biodiversity, Comedy Break, Global Warming/Climate Change, Society — by Marc Roberts November 12, 2008
 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)Learning from the Past
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Population, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination — by Earth Policy Institute October 25, 2008
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)Look Locally, See Globally
Alternatives to Political Systems, Biodiversity, Food Plants - Perennial, Seeds — by Janet Millington October 24, 2008
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 (2)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 & Loss, peak oil — by Ted Trainer October 2, 2008
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 (6)Biodiverse Systems are More Productive
Biodiversity, Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Plant Systems — by Dr. Mae-Wan Ho September 23, 2008
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 (1)75 Percent of Food Diversity Lost in Last Century
Biodiversity, GMOs — by Craig Mackintosh PRI Editor
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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