Geoff in Early Observation Mode
Comedy Break — by Ecofilms September 2, 2010
Here’s a photo of a famous Permaculture person. Can you guess who it is? He was photographed with this shovel back in 1956 at the age of two. He is wearing a child restraint belt usually attached to a long cord as was customary in those days to prevent him from running away to play in the dirt. But he did run away to Australia. He will soon be appearing in a new Soils DVD – but with a bigger shovel….
Comments (0)Sustenance
Comedy Break, Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Marc Roberts August 31, 2010
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In a warming world pests migrate and flourish in previously inpenetrable habitats and latitudes.
Of course there are obvious problems with Frank’s position here – like what happens when your subsistence gets washed away by some other unpredicted AGW shitstorm.
As ever, Permaculture looks straight into the heart of things.
Further Reading:
Comments (1)Tumbling Dice
Comedy Break, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Marc Roberts August 30, 2010
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Loaded dice and extra spots, courtesy of DotEarth.
Comments (0)Cracking Codes
Comedy Break, Food Shortages, GMOs, peak oil — by Marc Roberts August 28, 2010
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Whilst the Russians learn to live without buckwheat and displaced people are poised for land-struggles in Central Africa, boffins crack the wheat genome, which promises to keep us trying the same industrial scale thing for ever. And how will we fuel this ever expanding industrial agriculture sector? Hmm, maybe.
BAA propose to compost food waste – who’d have thunk it?
Comments (1)Power Trip
Comedy Break, Consumerism, Economics, Nuclear, Society — by Marc Roberts August 16, 2010
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The UK Gov’t backtracks on cast iron commitments to environmental performance standards to make space for more dirty coal.
I can’t help thinking it’s a sweetener to bring the big energy companies on board for the stalled nuclear programme. Investors won’t commit unless the taxpayer guarantees their profits and underwrites the decommissioning costs.
Public debt for private profit, without so much as a mention of consumer restraint – all sounds depressingly familiar.
Comments (0)Against the Grain
Comedy Break, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Marc Roberts August 11, 2010
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Russian president Medvedev puts unprecedented weather conditions down to Climate Change. The potential impacts on food supplies of this sort of occurrence are pretty clear.
Further Reading:
- The Biology of Global Warming
- Rising Temperatures Raise Food Prices
- The Looming Food Crisis and the 2030 Report
- The Food Crisis: “A Perfect Storm” – and How to Turn the Tide
- Orchestrating Famine – a Must-Read Backgrounder on the Food Crisis
- A Call to Large Scale Earth Healing and Lessons from the Loess Plateau (Video)
- Carbon Trading Under Scrutiny
- Carbon Trading – and What Should Be on the Negotiating Table at Copenhagen
The Caffeine Did It?
Comedy Break, Consumerism, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Society — by Craig Mackintosh
Warning: Irony alert. People without a sense of humour should proceed with caution.
Some time ago the National Geographic did a piece on the connection between the introduction of caffeinated drinks into Europe and the Industrial Revolution.
It’s hardly a coincidence that coffee and tea caught on in Europe just as the first factories were ushering in the industrial revolution. The widespread use of caffeinated drinks—replacing the ubiquitous beer—facilitated the great transformation of human economic endeavor from the farm to the factory. Boiling water to make coffee or tea helped decrease the incidence of disease among workers in crowded cities. And the caffeine in their systems kept them from falling asleep over the machinery. In a sense, caffeine is the drug that made the modern world possible. And the more modern our world gets, the more we seem to need it. Without that useful jolt of coffee—or Diet Coke or Red Bull—to get us out of bed and back to work, the 24-hour society of the developed world couldn’t exist. – National Geographic
If this is so, then, of course, my incessantly wandering mind must put two and two together. If caffeine was an essential ingredient to bring about the Industrial Revolution, and the Industrial Revolution brought about widespread environmental destruction and climate change, then… that’s it… caffeine is bringing us to the brink of disaster!
Comments (1)Anaerobic Indigestion
Comedy Break, Consumerism, Society, Waste Systems & Recycling — by Marc Roberts August 7, 2010
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The Uk may have to import waste to burn as it builds more incinerators than we can use, whilst waste pickers in the majority world – the poorest of the poor – complain that their livelihoods as recyclers are being destroyed by incineration plans. Oh – and there’s a car that runs on shit.
Comments (2)Whale Tale
Biodiversity, Comedy Break, Global Warming/Climate Change, News, Water Contaminaton — by Marc Roberts July 31, 2010
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With phyloplankton levels crashing and the whole marine food chain going belly-up, perhaps marine life should follow this whale’s example, and be a bit more pro-active.
Comments (0)BP Target of “Irresponsible Act”
Comedy Break, Economics, peak oil — by Marc Roberts July 27, 2010
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Greenpeace shut down 50 BP flagged petrol station franchises in London in order to apply pressure on the incoming CEO, Bo Diddley, er… I mean Bob Dudley, as his predecessor heads for Siberia. I can’t see him giving a tuppenny shite, personally. He’s got a whole planet to fry and his paradigms ain’t for shifting.
Nice try though.
Comments (0)Troubled Waters
Comedy Break, Economics, Water Contaminaton, peak oil — by Marc Roberts July 26, 2010
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How Small We Are
Comedy Break, Health & Disease, Society — by Craig Mackintosh July 15, 2010
I had to cheer someone up the other day. In my bid to be imaginative and put their blues into perspective, I remembered Monty Python’s ‘The Galaxy Song’ from The Meaning of Life. Yes, that’s right, don’t put me at top of your list of those who might be there to lift you out of depression or save you from suicidal tendencies – it’s not in my repertoire of talents….
But, I thought I’d pass the thought along anyway, and share the clips below. When you’re swimming in difficulties, sometimes it’s good to recognise that we, and our problems, are just a small part of a much bigger picture. A happy life is more about perspective than circumstances.
Graduates from Geoff Lawton’s PDCs will no doubt recognise the words in the first of the two clips below:
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Everything’s Amazing & Nobody’s Happy
Comedy Break — by Craig Mackintosh May 18, 2010
They say it’s good to laugh at ourselves….
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Cool Collage of the Ten-Week Internship Program
Comedy Break, Courses/Workshops, Demonstration Sites, Education Centres — by Craig Mackintosh May 15, 2010
David Stockhausen, who is doing some cool work in San Francisco, recently came out to take our January-April 2010 Internship program, and went beyond the call of duty to also put together a rather cool collage of the experience.
Nice one David!
The April-July internship is now underway, and there are only a couple of seats left on the July-October program.
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