How Food Shapes Our Cities

by Carolyn Steel – TED Presentation

Click here to learn more about Carolyn Steel (and her book “Hungry City”)…

Garden For The Globe

by Karen – (excerpt from “Reading Dirt” 10/15/09)

We live in a society grounded in consumption. We haven’t always been this way. In the past, people of the US took pride in their productivity. Most people lived on small farms. People cooked, sewed, spun, and knitted. They worked wood, braided rugs, made milk into butter and cheese and apples into pies and cider. In the country, people grew most of the food that they ate. Even in the suburbs, while houses might have a lawn and flower beds in the front, they typically had a kitchen garden in the back.

In the mid-20th century, particularly after WWII, American society had a turn-around. After scrimping and saving for two World Wars, after giving up butter and meat, after endless scrap drives, after knitting for the soldiers, people were tired of economizing and were pleased with the message from Madison Avenue: luxury goods! Modern living! Why cook from scratch when you could buy ready-cooked in a can, all the work done for you in (what was presented as) a clean, hygienic factory kitchen? Why be so old-fashioned as to knit or sew when you could buy ready-made?

And so we became consumers instead of producers, happily contributing to an economy that was based on more and more people buying more and more stuff per capita every year. The price for the luxury of buying everything ready-made and on-demand was increased pollution, increased carbon emissions, and depletion of natural resources. Global climate change was the inevitable result, and it’s not thousands of years in the future. It’s right now.

Our consumer-based economy is neither economically nor ecologically sustainable. We can’t keep it up. We must change, and do so before the economy and the ecology collapse irrevocably. We must do so intelligently, thoughtfully, and with care in choosing what kind of economy we can sustain.

And what does this have to do with gardening? Take a peek back at those farms and homes I talked about earlier. What was in the back yard? Yep, the humble kitchen garden. Where were most people living? You got it — on local farms, supplying people in the area with fresh produce, meat, and eggs.

If global climate change is the demon child of the industrial revolution and the transformation of producers into mass consumers, the way out again is to become producers once again and become more thoughtful consumers. Eating locally is one avenue. Eating locally reduces our reliance on produce shipped from faraway countries, and you can’t get much more local than your own back yard. There’s also nearby farms and farmer’s markets. Buying local not only reduces one’s carbon footprint, it also keeps money in your local economy, which keeps local businesses and farms alive and preserves meaningful employment in your area.

Natural landscaping is another avenue. Outside of the kitchen garden, thoughtful choices among native and near-native plants can reduce water consumption, contribute to carbon-sequestering, and support local wildlife. Organic gardening methods put carbon-rich humus in the soil, which increases carbon-sequestering.

Then there is the more cerebral part of organic gardening. As the gardener goes through the seasons, learning from books and by (sometimes hard) experience about which plants to choose, how to care for them, and which pests to watch out for, the gardener connects to the natural world and the rhythms of the seasons. Thoughtful choices in the garden, from which pest control methods to use to which plants to choose, can lead to thoughtful choices outside of the garden. If I don’t want to put poisons on my plants, do I want poisons in the household cleaners I use? If I’m concerned about the health of my soil, what about the soil of our nation’s farms? What do I care about the latest fashions or must-buy products when I have a harvest of tomatoes and corn to take pride in?

By some religious traditions, humans began life in a garden. With a little effort, maybe it will be gardens that keep us alive as well.

A Farm For The Future

by Chuck Burr – CultureQuake

Wildlife filmmaker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family’s farm in Devon, UK into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature holds the key.

The magic of this film is abundant. First, Rebecca is not a died-in-the-wool sustainability activist. Her earnestness in asking questions and genuine learning evolve through the film. Rebecca was raised in a traditional farming family in Devon. The magic also comes from her experience as a wildlife cinematographer. The footage of the wildlife and landscape is beautiful.

The film begins with Rebecca returning to her family’s farm in Devon to become the next generation to farm and her quest to find a more sustainable farming practice in view of rising fuel prices. She learns how dependent food production is on cheap fossil fuel and how insecure oil production will be in the future.

The film documents Rebecca’s exploration of ways to farm without fossil fuels. One of the most touching momemts of A Farm for the Future is when Rebecca asks pioneering farmer Charlotte Hollis, “Are you telling us not to plow?” Rebecca is starting to get it when Charlotte responds, “Yes.”

The enjoyable balance of the documentary follows Rebecca through her visits to beautifully captured woodland forest garden permaculturists in the UK and Ireland where design is inspired by nature.

Initially dismissing permaculture as, “not proper farming,” Rebecca learns from leading permacultureists such as Patrick Whitefield and Chris Dickson, that polyculture yields per acre can exceed those of industrial farming practices and how low maintenance the permaculture food forest model is. After touring these permaculture sites, it is wonderful to see how Rebecca looks at her family farm in a whole new way.

This film is an extraordinary piece of work, and a ‘must see’ by anyone who wants to know what creating a sustainable future farm will be like when it no longer depends on fossil fuels. – Editor

Hope Project

by Brian Kaller – Restoring Mayberry

I had the honour to participate in an inspiring story recently. A young lady named Jennifer wrote me last month, saying she was concerned for her friend. Her friend was active in ecological issues, Jennifer said, but knowledge of peak oil, climate change and other problems brought her down, and she was losing hope for the future. For her birthday, Jennifer asked, would I write something about what gives me hope, and could she publish them online?

I was honoured and wrote something as best I could and sent it off to Jennifer, thinking it would just be my writing and maybe a few others.

When the birthday came around and I checked the link I received, I was amazed. Jennifer had written dozens of people across the world – scientists, activists, authors and bloggers, all working in some way on the Long Emergency, all explaining to an (apparently) young woman why we need to keep going. It is, hands down, the best birthday present I’ve ever heard of. Read full article…

“Never doubt a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” – Margaret Mead

Modern Survival Philosophy

by Jack Spirko – The Survival Podcast

The core of my philosophy about being prepared, life style planning, self sufficiency and energy independence is summed up in the following ten principles:

Everything you do to prepare for emergencies, disasters or economic turmoil should be blended into your life in a way that improves your life even if nothing disastrous ever occurs.

Debt is financial cancer! Minimize it, pay it off early and stay away from credit cards.

Growing your own food is for everyone not just people that want “organic” fruit and vegetables. To produce your own food, even as little as 10% of what you use reduces your dependence on “the system”. If nothing else gardening is good for your emotional and physical health and increases the value of any property.

Tax is theft, the best way to combat it is to understand every legal deduction you can take or create. In general I think “the system” is bad but when it comes to taxation either learn the system or hire a damn good accountant to work it for you. Every dollar you keep can be used to improve your self sufficiency, every dollar taken from you can be used to make your dependence on the government stronger.

Food stored is an exceptional investment. Food is increasing in cost faster then just about any investment right now and certainly faster then the rate of inflation. You simply can’t loose by storing additional food that you use on a regular basis.

Plan for disaster in the following order of priority: Personal-Localized-Regional-State-National-Global. Despite the real possibility of a true economic melt down or catastrophic terrorist attack or some other major global disaster the most probable “disaster” for any individual is personal. Loss of a job, loss of a family member, a fire or localized weather event are the most probable threats to impact any individual. So plan and prepare for those first, then continue to build going forward.

Renewable energy is great if you do it in a way that saves you money (short or long term) but your solar panels are not going to save the planet. Man made global warming is a scam designed to force the U.S. into a global taxation system. If you want to promote solar, wind, hydro, etc. the best way is to develop it in a more cost effective manner. Fuel efficient vehicles are also great. I personally drive a 2006 Jetta TDI diesel that puts many hybrids to shame at 44 MPG! That’s doing 80MPH on average by the way. I bought it because it was affordable, well built and incredibly engineered and cost me a lot less to run even with diesel being a lot more expensive then gas. The lesson is that the best way to promote “green energy” is via economics.

Owning land is true wealth. I advise people to strive to own land in the country where taxes are low and restrictions are limited. Even if you live in the city finding, buying and improving land within 3-5 hours of your primary residence makes a lot of sense. If you can use it to get out of the city at some point so much the better.

In addition to food, water and other common survival stores use common sense methods of hedging against “disaster”. Pragmatic things like, cash emergency funds, good insurance and secondary income streams are not just for people in “the system”. These types of protection can make you life a lot less miserable when something goes wrong. Make them part of your planning.

Your personal philosophy is more important for you then mine! You are the master of your own life and if you don’t agree with my views, great, define, understand and implement your own. The biggest thing you can do is understand that you are in control of your life and that what you do matters. Those two factors have the greatest impact on individual survival across every demographic you can imagine.

An example of Jack Spirko’s The Survival Podcast – April 17, 2009
Gardening is Patriotic: Our Nation now imports food…

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Grass Roots

by William Lawson

All politics are local…which explains both the source and depth of our national ignorance.

Oregon’s Willamette valley, which is where I live, is one of the most fertile places on earth. Sixty years ago, it supplied over 99% of the food consumed by the people living here. Today, that figure is less than one tenth of one percent.

The thousands of acres that once produced bumper crops of vegetables, fruits and nuts…and provided seemingly endless pasturage for dairy, fiber (wool) and meat production…are now largely used for production of grass seed. Edible, I suppose, but not terribly nutritious.

In other words, with very rare exceptions, everything now found in the grocery stores comes from far away. If there were a hiccup in the supply chain, the store shelves would be empty in a matter of days…or hours if the disruption was presented as “ominous” on the nightly news.

Sixty years ago, the people in this valley would hardly notice the consequences. Not just because so much food was produced locally, but also because most of them still had their feet on the ground, or very close to it. For example, when I was a kid, many of the people in this area built their own homes, had gardens (not spas) in their back yards, and canned much of what they planned to eat in the winter months. Only a very small percentage were starting down the road to La-La Land…and thus beginning to rely entirely on others for their necessities.

Today…well, let’s just say that almost no one is prepared either physically, psychologically or socially for any kind of deprivation, much less one that involves vital goods or services. And almost no one has direct control over their basic food supply.

In the broader context, this country–not to mention most others in the west–has effectively constructed a house of cards on an increasingly shaky foundation. And it has also successfully produced at least one generation that is virtually unprepared to function in a seriously deprived environment. Take one card away (take your pick) on or near the bottom of the supply chain, even briefly, and…well, lets just say it won’t be pretty.

So…is there any local political awareness or interest in any of this? Sure…about as much as you’ll find in L.A. or New York City. And who’s to blame for that? Politicians? No, its simpler than that. Just look in a mirror and you’ll see the person who is ultimately responsible for your survival, when (not if) things go south.

You can’t get any more local or “grass roots” than that.

Heirloom Design

by Adele Peters

Can we live sustainably while still enjoying our stuff? Buying better stuff (and less of it), and keeping it for longer is one realistic strategy for making that possible. But we know that won’t work with most of the stuff we have now. Whether it’s clothes, computers, appliances or even homes, throwaway culture in the developed world — accompanied by throwaway design — makes for stuff we not only don’t want to keep, but that we often can’t continue to use even if we try. Read full article…

There’s No Pill for This Kind of Depression

Six months after the collapse, a “pandemic of fear.”
by Peggy Noonan – Wall Street Journal – March 13, 2009

(Excerpt…)
In February the FBI’s criminal background check system showed a 23% increase in gun sales over the previous year, a 29% increase in January, a 24% increase in December and a 42% increase in November, when a record 1.5 million background checks were performed. Yes, people fear Obama will take away the guns he thinks they cling to, but a likely equal contributor to what The Wall Street Journal’s MarketWatch called a “gun-buying binge” is captured in the slogan on one firearms maker’s Web site: “Smith & Wesson stands for protection.” People are scared. Read full article…

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[The following post from the Energy Bulletin (Jan/09) signals a growing interest in organizing communities to become more self-reliant with respect to local food production. It is just one of several activities that this web site intends to illuminate and help promote. - Editor]

Food Security in Boise

by Bob Blurton – Boise, ID – January 17, 2009

I just returned from a ‘Food Security’ meeting at the Boise City Council Chamber. Over 100 people showed up and the enthusiasm was damn near out of control. I have never been to a citizen gathering that was as electric as this thing was tonight.

It was a led off by Elaine Clegg of the Boise City Council who talked about farming and farm animals in the city, and how the council is about to write a new plan and wants urban farming and sustainable agriculture to be a part of it. Read full article…

Tom Friedman’s Awakening

by Jan Lundberg – March 9, 2009

Slow collapse is what we need, if possible. As bad as this seems, “So far so good.” The kind of fast collapse from a massive interruption in oil supplies is much harder to handle. The system is teetering on many levels, and there are uncertainties, but fall it will.

Many people around the world are hurting, but not those who have a secure connection to a fruitful, healthy land base belonging to their community. In the U.S., where the Census no longer has a designation for “Farmer” for lack of numbers, the food charities are stressed from unprecedented demand, while foreclosures and firings mean homelessness for some. And in a minimum-community culture, there’s nowhere to go — in the 1930s’ Great Depression a room could be had in a relative’s farmhouse out in the country. Read full article…

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The Inflection Is Near?
by Thomas L. Friedman – March 7, 2009

… Let’s today step out of the normal boundaries of analysis of our economic crisis and ask a radical question: What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: “No more.”

We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese. Read full column…