Indoor Vegetable Garden with Topsy Turvy Planters and Window Boxes
Food Plants - Annual, Food Shortages, Nurseries & Propogation, Plant Systems, Urban Projects — by Matthew Trotter
One cool product that I’ve had the pleasure of using is the Topsy Turvy Upside-Down Tomato Planter. (Note: I’ve since stumbled up on DIY version of this product made with 5-gallon buckets. How cool is that?) It’s kind of an experimental product as is, and I was using it in an even more experimental way. I got the Topsy Turvy so that I could utilize the vertical space in my indoor container garden. Not being able to grow a garden would have been the bane of my college dorm room existence…. but I wasn’t about to let someone tell me that I couldn’t do it.
Comments (0)Posted on: March 9, 2010
U.S. Feeds One Quarter of its Grain to Cars While Hunger is on the Rise
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Peak Oil — by Earth Policy Institute
by the Earth Policy Institute
The 107 million tons of grain that went to U.S. ethanol distilleries in 2009 was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels. More than a quarter of the total U.S. grain crop was turned into ethanol to fuel cars last year. With 200 ethanol distilleries in the country set up to transform food into fuel, the amount of grain processed has tripled since 2004.
The United States looms large in the world food economy: it is far and away the world’s leading grain exporter, exporting more than Argentina, Australia, Canada, and Russia combined. In a globalized food economy, increased demand for food to fuel American vehicles puts additional pressure on world food supplies.
Comments (0)Posted on: January 21, 2010
Jeff Rubin – $225 p/barrel Oil in 18 Months and the End of Globalisation
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Peak Oil — by Craig Mackintosh
Jeff Rubin, former chief economist at CIBC World Markets and author of the book Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization, was the keynote speaker at the Business of Climate Change conference in Toronto a few months ago. The clip below is the excellent presentation he gave, one that bleats the same message I’ve been sharing for a few years (see some of the links in ‘Further Reading’ section below, for example). Mr. Rubin predicts $225 p/barrel oil within months, and with it a forced relocalisation as long distance globalised trade becomes an economic impossibility. In it he talks about the insignificant scale of new oil finds in comparison with increasing demand from developing countries in tandem with the annual declines we see with our older fields. He talks about the absurdity of saddling our grandchildren with debts they can never afford to repay, just to bail out automotive industries that have no future in a world without oil anyway. He goes on to talk about the failures of Kyoto and the need for financial mechanisms that could speed a transition to a low carbon, relocalised platform.
Have a watch, and let us know your thoughts.
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Posted on: January 18, 2010
The Looming Food Crisis and the ‘Food 2030′ Report
Biodiversity, Consumerism, Deforestation, Economics, Food Shortages, GMOs, Global Warming/Climate Change, Health & Disease, Peak Oil, Population, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contamination — by Craig Mackintosh
It can’t go on like this….
Not long ago I was standing in a bookshop, minding my own business, when a book title leapt out in front of me. The book was "History’s Worst Decisions and the People Who Made Them". It documents the sorry tales of dozens of people throughout history who, with the best of intentions, made some fascinatingly terrible choices.
Comments (1)Posted on: January 6, 2010
Anupam Mishra: The Ancient Ingenuity of Water Harvesting (Video)
Conservation, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Irrigation, Population, Potable Water, Regional Water Cycle, Water Contamination, Water Harvesting — by Craig Mackintosh
India is a country where water shortages have become so acute that the failed monsoon rains in 2009 had people literally killing each other over buckets of water, and tensions are still rising. (See this video also.) In many places cities are receiving less than half the water their populations need to meet basic requirements, and the constant bickering between individual states often breaks down into violent clashes.
Comments (0)Posted on: January 4, 2010
In Transition – the Movie
Alternatives to Political Systems, Bio-regional Organizations, Community Projects, Consumerism, DVDs/Books, Eco-Villages, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Peak Oil, People Systems, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Craig Mackintosh
In Transition 1.0: from oil dependence to local resilience, available now!
The title says it all. Sit back and enjoy the latest work from the Transition Towns movement. You can watch in parts via YouTube below, or if you prefer, catch the whole thing in one hit on Vimeo.
‘In Transition’ is the first detailed film about the Transition movement filmed by those that know it best, those who are making it happen on the ground. The Transition movement is about communities around the world responding to peak oil and climate change with creativity, imagination and humour, and setting about rebuilding their local economies and communities. It is positive, solutions focused, viral and fun. – TransitionCulture.org
Part I
Comments (0)Posted on: December 14, 2009
The Looming Global Water Crisis (Video)
Economics, Food Shortages, Water Contamination — by Craig Mackintosh
Prelude: I just read a great interview with the Slovak hydrologist, and Goldman Environmental Prize winner, Michal Kravcik. Do check it out, as Michal has an excellent commonsense understanding of the growing water problem and its antidote.
History is littered with sordid tales of tribes and nations taking the best land and resources from others by force. These were in times where the population density was so low that greed, rather than need, was often the primary motivator. Two thousand years ago, for example, the world population was 3% of what it is today.
Today’s politically correct and population dense world doesn’t look so kindly on such pillaging (although, of course, it still goes on). The modern way is far more, let’s say… discrete. Rather than a sword or a tank, the weapon of choice is now more often a checkbook. The motivation, however, seems to still be the same.
Although the average person may not realise it, water shortage concerns are reaching the highest levels – resulting in a race between some of the world’s most powerful groups to privatise and take control of this most essential of resources.
The two clips below share a frightening insight into the exploitation, profiteering and control of water.
Comments (0)Posted on: December 13, 2009
Who Owns Water?
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Health & Disease, Water Contamination — by Maude Barlow
Editor’s Note: Being 7 years old now, the dates and meetings mentioned in the article below are obviously not current, but the main content is more than highly relevant and makes for a very worthy read.
by Maude Barlow (founder of the Blue Planet Project) & Tony Clarke, originally published September, 2002
 Water – a need, or a right? |
Water promises to be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th century: the precious commodity that determines the wealth of nations.
As the World Summit on Sustainable Development draws closer, clear lines of contention are forming, particularly around the future of the world’s freshwater resources. The setting of the summit paints the picture. Government and corporate delegates to the September meeting will gather in the lavish hotels and convention facilities of Sandton, the fabulously wealthy Johannesburg suburb that houses huge estates, English gardens and swimming pools, and has become South Africa’s new financial epicenter. There, they will meet with World Bank and World Trade Organization officials to set the stage for the privatization of water.
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An Urban Gardener Feeds a Community
Bird Life, Community Projects, Consumerism, Eco-Villages, Food Shortages, People Systems, Society, Urban Projects, Village Development — by Sarah Gorman
Bronwyn’s urban backyard is teeming with diversity. It is providing local families with nutritious food through her Community Supported Agriculture (CSA), but she doesn’t think she is doing anything exceptional. Students from Mulloon Creek Natural Farm’s Permaculture Design Certificate course recently visited Bronwyn Richards’ home in Braidwood, NSW, Australia. They learnt how an urban gardener manages to provide a constant supply of organic vegetables not only for her own family, but five others.
Comments (0)Posted on: December 9, 2009
How to Repair the World
Aid Projects, Deforestation, Demonstration Sites, Education Centers, Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Land, News, People Systems, Plant Systems, Project Positions, Rehabilitation, Trees, Village Development — by Craig Mackintosh
The video embedded in this page spotlights the excellent work of Willie Smits I profiled a little while ago, where rainforest restoration in Borneo not only restored biodiversity and gave increased livelihood opportunities to local people, but it also increased cloud cover and rainfall as well. It’s well worth a watch:
We’re pleased to announce that we’re partnering with the makers of the video above, WeForest, to help establish self-replicating permaculture reforestation demonstration sites in accordance with our Permaculture Master Plan, in several worldwide locations – starting in Zambia in the first instance. Our Geoff Lawton has just agreed to be on their advisory board, and we’ll be working to supply guidance, knowhow and staff to pioneer these projects.
This is just one example of the many encouraging collaborative results we get as people boil current events down to their only logical conclusion – discovering we need to quit battling nature and get busy harnessing biological synergies to repair the earth and rebuild sustainable community interactions.
Comments (0)Posted on: December 8, 2009
A Hotter Planet Means Less on Our Plates
Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, Population, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contamination — by Earth Policy Institute
In the Sunday November 22, 2009 issue of Outlook in the Washington Post, Lester Brown discusses the significant implications of food security in the upcoming Copenhagen Conference.
by Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute
 China walks a tightrope between feast and famine. |
As the U.N. climate-change conference in Copenhagen approaches, we are in a race between political tipping points and natural ones. Can we cut carbon emissions fast enough to keep the melting of the Greenland ice sheet from becoming irreversible? Can we close coal-fired power plants in time to save at least the larger glaciers in the Himalayas and on the Tibetan plateau? Can we head off ever more intense crop-withering heat waves before they create chaos in world grain markets?
These are all climate-change issues, but they have something else in common: food. Copenhagen will be about climate, of course, but in a fundamental sense, it must also be about whether we will have enough to eat in the decades to come.
Comments (0)Posted on: December 4, 2009
The Localization of Agriculture
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change, News, Social Gatherings, Society, Village Development — by Earth Policy Institute
by Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute
In the United States, there has been a surge of interest in eating fresh local foods, corresponding with mounting concerns about the climate effects of consuming food from distant places and about the obesity and other health problems associated with junk food diets. This is reflected in the rise in urban gardening, school gardening, and farmers’ markets.
With the fast-growing local foods movement, diets are becoming more locally shaped and more seasonal. In a typical supermarket in an industrial country today it is often difficult to tell what season it is because the store tries to make everything available on a year-round basis. As oil prices rise, this will become less common. In essence, a reduction in the use of oil to transport food over long distances—whether by plane, truck, or ship—will also localize the food economy.
Comments (0)Posted on: December 1, 2009
If Nothing Else, Save Farming
Economics, Food Shortages, Peak Oil — by George Monbiot
It’s probably too late to prepare for peak oil, but we can at least try to salvage food production.
by George Monbiot: journalist, author, academic and environmental and political activist, United Kingdom
I don’t know when global oil supplies will start to decline. I do know that another resource has already peaked and gone into freefall: the credibility of the body that’s meant to assess them. Last week two whistleblowers from the International Energy Agency alleged that it has deliberately upgraded its estimate of the world’s oil supplies in order not to frighten the markets(1). Three days later, a paper published by researchers at Uppsala University in Sweden showed that the IEA’s forecasts must be wrong, because it assumes a rate of extraction that appears to be impossible(2). The agency’s assessment of the state of global oil supplies is beginning to look as reliable as Mr Greenspan’s blandishments about the health of the financial markets.
Posted on: November 17, 2009
The Mathematics that Contemporary Economics Ignores
Consumerism, Economics, Food Shortages, Population — by Craig Mackintosh
With all the talk of a new carbon economy and dreams of new sources of energy so we can continue with our contemporary understanding of human ‘progress’ – continual economic growth – I wonder if a few facts may be getting overlooked. You might not have time to watch these clips in one sitting, but do bookmark it so you can come back and watch them through.
Here we have Dr. Albert Bartlett, Professor Emeritus of the Department of Physics, University of Boulder Colorado talking about Peak Oil and Population Growth from a mathematics perspective. Essentially, Limited Resources + Exponential Growth = Only a Matter of Time. As he says, it’s not rocket science, but nevertheless the consequences of these simple calculations are being almost universally ignored in our consumer-oriented economy – and by the politicians and industry that run them.
The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function. – Dr. Albert Bartlett
Warning: Dry Sense of Humour Alert!
Part I
Comments (0)Posted on: November 3, 2009
The Full Belly Project
Aid Projects, Food Plants - Annual, Food Shortages, Rehabilitation, Soil Erosion & Contamination — by Craig Mackintosh
George Washington Carver (1864-1943) was a man worthy of respect. Born into slavery (his mother was purchased), he lived and died as a black man in an age of racial segregation. He was lucky enough, however, that his owners were a decent couple, who helped him to read and write, and ultimately ended up raising George as their own son (George, his sister and mother were all stolen and resold at one point — the original owner was only ever able to retrieve George).
George was encouraged to study and learn, and that he did — until he became one of the greatest agricultural researchers of his age.
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