Transition Indiana

TEDxBloomington -- Keith Johnson -- "Food Security and Resilence"

2011-07-10T14:24:00.002-04:00

I have never prepared more for a 10 minute talk than I did for this TEDx Bloomington event. Even so I was a bit nervous and stumbled over my words but overall I'm pleased with the results. The TED experience was wonderful and I got to play with some fine folks.

Here are the rest of the talks: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLD67656A7D72F7D9A

CAFO's Can Kill You - No Joke.

2011-02-25T17:24:00.000-05:00

Flies and cockroaches carry antibiotic-resistant bacteria from factory farms, study finds

BY Tom Philpott

25 FEB 2011 3:24 PM

A fly's paradise: Near a giant hog factory in North Carolina, downed pigs fester while sprayers spread untreated manure onto fields.Photo: Steve WingWhat sort of antibiotic-resistant pathogens are growing on factory farms, along with all the cheap pork chops and chicken wings? And what level of threat do they pose to our health?

Well, we know that in total, factory-farm animals consume a jaw-dropping four times as many antibiotics as do people in the United States, thanks to diligent reporting by Maryn McKenna andRalph Loglisci and work by Rep. Louise Slaughter(D-N.Y.).

And we know that a kind of antibiotic-resistant staph infection called MRSA now kills more people than AIDS -- and infects people who never set foot in a hospital, which is the site where MRSA is thought to have originated. We also know, due to the stellar work of Iowa State University researcher Tara Smith, that pigs in confined animal feedlot operations, and the workers who tend them, routinely carry MRSA strains (her paper can be found here).

We also know that, by the FDA's own reckoning, meat on grocery store shelves is routinely infected by pathogens resistant to multiple antibiotics (again, McKenna's work brought the FDA's perhaps intentionally obscure report to light).

And now we know of yet another means by which antibiotic-resistant nasties can make their way from meat factories into the broader community: through the cockroaches and flies drawn to the titanic amounts of manure produced on factory farms. For a paper published last month in the journal Microbiology, researchers from North Carolina State and Kansas State universities took one for the team -- i.e., the public. They did something few of us would want to do: rounded up common flies and roaches hanging around factory hog farms, and tested them to see what kinds of bacteria they were harboring.

Their finding? More than 90 percent of the insects sampled carried forms of the bacteria Enterococci that are resistant to at least one common antibiotic, and often more than one.

Read the rest here.

Boycott Land O'Lakes - GMO Pushers

2011-02-25T16:29:00.000-05:00

Hay Now — It’s Boycott Time: Land O’Lakes, This Means You!

By Citizens for Safe Food and Feed

Farm Wars

By now you’ve heard how President Obama and his Monsanto Administration have plowed through approvals of three more genetically engineered products, including GE alfalfa. Well, here’s something else you should know:

To produce its Round-Up Ready Alfalfa seeds, Monsanto partnered with a company called Forage Genetics International, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of Land O’Lakes dairy co-op. That’s right, Land O’Lakes stands to make a fortune from polluting our food supply with untested and unlabeled GMOs.

To protest, you could sign one of the many petitions going around that will likely just be ignored. But there’s another way to show your disapproval of genetically engineered Round-Up Ready Alfalfa: Boycott all Land O’Lakes products — its butter, cheese, eggs, speads, margarine, seasonings, creams, cocoa and cappuccino mixes, sour cream and milk. All of them.

You have the power to economically punish Land O’Lakes — the owner of Forage Genetics, Monsanto’s partner in crime — for its role in polluting the food chain with untested and unlabeled GMOs, increasing the use of toxic glyphosate herbicide, and potentially destroying the organic beef and dairy feed market by loudly refusing to support Land O’Lakes with your dollars.

Tell all your friends to go to all the supermarkets in their area and let the check-out clerks know that they’re boycotting Land O’Lakes products until they are out of the GMO business, loud enough for other shoppers to hear. And next, stop by the store manager’s desk and tell him about the boycott.

Send Land O’Lakes and other companies a clear message: HAY you — We’re FED UP with GMOs in our food supply!

And to make sure Land O’Lakes knows why its sales are down, contact its president and CEO Chris Policinski and let him know you won’t be buying Land O’Lakes products anymore because you don’t want genetically engineered food or animal feed:

Chris Policinski
President and CEO
Land O’Lakes
4001 Lexington Avenue
Arden Hills, MN 55126-2998
651/481-2222

Spread the word…

The American Dre.....er, Nightmare. Time to Wake Up, eh?

2011-01-12T10:00:00.000-05:00

The AMERICAN DREAM is a 30 minute animated film that shows you how you've been scammed by the most basic elements of our government system. All of us Americans strive for the American Dream, and this film shows you why your dream is getting farther and farther away. Do you know how your money is created? Or how banking works? Why did housing prices skyrocket and then plunge? Do you really know what the Federal Reserve System is and how it affects you every single day? THE AMERICAN DREAM takes an entertaining but hard hitting look at how the problems we have today are nothing new, and why leaders throughout our history have warned us and fought against the current type of financial system we have in America today. You will be challenged to investigate some very entrenched and powerful institutions in this nation, and hopefully encouraged to help get our nation back on track.
PLEASE SUPPORT THE MAKERS OF THIS FILM AND BUY A QUALITY DVD!
http://www.theamericandreamfilm.com/

Dave Rollo's Peak Oil Presentation

2010-12-26T21:33:00.001-05:00

Bloomington City Councilman, IU Biologist, and Peak Oil Task Force chair Dave Rollo provides an introduction to peak oil, the probable social consequences and his city's pro-active response. Taped August 7, 2010 at the Illinois Renewable Energy Fair, Oregon, Illinois.

Peak Oil - A Community Response from Steve Wenzel on Vimeo.

Taking Back Our Lives from the Wall Street Mafia

2010-11-25T12:02:00.000-05:00

“Get rid of Wall Street!” says David C. Korten, author of Agenda for a New Economy and The Great Turning. Wall Street is about phantom wealth — real wealth is about happy, healthy families, local living economies in balance with Earth’s resources, and caring, resilient communities that provide life’s basics, like food, shelter, and education. To do that, we must change the rules to reduce the power of corporations, the politicians in their pocket, and a destructive money system. (www.davidkorten.org). (From Peak Moment TV)

Simply Living Fair and Midwest Permaculture Gathering

2010-06-30T08:00:00.000-04:00

The Center for Sustainable Living and the Bloomington Permaculture Guild are excited to offer the 2010 Simply Living Fair and Midwest Permaculture Gathering, Sept 23-26!
Come to the fair on Saturday to participate in workshops on a variety of sustainable living topics including:

Renovating an old home for energy efficiency
Conserving water with rain barrels, cisterns, and low-flow faucets
Cooking with solar ovens
How to live without a car
Growing food in your backyard (or front yard)

There will also be activities for children all day long and a series of demonstrations including natural building, a visit from the Solar Bike Team of Bloomington High School South, and live music. Keynote speaker Aaron Newton, coauthor (with Sharon Astyk) of A Nation of Farmers, will talk about rebuilding our local food systems and his work creating a farm incubator in North Carolina.

On Sunday, tour sustainable sites around Bloomington with your choice of morning and afternoon tours. Options include Urban and Community Food Production, Nationally Acclaimed Permaculture Design, Solar Homes and Businesses, Green Retrofitting, Community Sustainability, and Backyard Wildlife Habitats.

From Grass to Cheese

2010-05-26T15:12:00.000-04:00

From Grass to Cheese: The Nolan Family Farm from Milk Products on Vimeo.

Growth As Cancer

2010-05-17T13:52:00.000-04:00

Everything you thought you knew is wrong!

Okay, maybe not everything. But what if some of our core beliefs about how the world works turn out to be myths? This documentary flips our world upside down to see what makes it tick, as it explores the most critical question of our time:

How do we become a sustainable civilization?
Water shortages, hunger, peak oil, species extinction, and even increasing depression are all symptoms of a deeper problem – addiction to unending growth in a world that has limits. Hooked on Growth goes way beyond prescribing Band-Aids to slow the bleeding. This film examines the cultural barriers that prevent us from reacting rationally to the evidence current levels of population and consumption are unsustainable.
It asks why the population conversations are so difficult to have. Why it’s more important to our society to have economic growth than clean air. Why communities seek and subsidize growth even when it destroys quality of life and increases taxes.
Our growth-centric system is broken. It’s not providing the happiness or the prosperity we seek. But that’s good news; it means a shift to a sustainable model will be good for us. We’ll be happier and more prosperous!
Individual and public policy decisions today are informed by a powerful, pro-growth cultural bias. We worship at the Church of Growth Everlasting. Undeterred by the facts, we’re on a collision course powered by denial and the myth that growth brings prosperity. Before we can shift our civilization meaningfully, effectively, and substantially toward true sustainability, the world must be “prepped.” We must become self-aware and recognize the programming that keeps us hooked. Hooked on Growth will do just that. We’ll hear from leading thinkers of our time – scientists, sociologists, economists – to help us separate fact from superstition.
How does a film have some fun while shaking up the fundamental underpinnings of our modern civilization? We follow the travails of an everyday citizen who dares to stand up in his own community and declare, “The emperor has no clothes!” We follow his adventures as he attempts to provide an intervention in a community addicted to growth. The cultural resistance to getting unhooked is amply illustrated as filmmaker/activist Dave Gardner spars with his city council, chamber of commerce and growth profiteers. He even runs for city council. All the while, we follow Dave’s adventures in getting this film made. He nearly goes broke as humanitarian foundations fund efforts focusing on symptoms rather than a film that dares to expose the system creating those problems. As the film plays out, we find belief in growth everlasting is deeply entrenched around the world.
We’re approaching the end of growth. Will we embrace it? Or go down fighting?
From Las Vegas to Atlanta, Mexico City to Mumbai, the White House to the Vatican, Hooked on Growth takes us on a whirlwind tour of growth mania. It’s Wild Kingdom with a twist: the cameras are turned on humanity as our own survival skills are examined. Hooked on Growth looks into the psychology of denial and crowd behavior. It explores our obsession with urban and economic growth, and our reluctance to address overpopulation issues head-on. This documentary holds up a mirror, encouraging us to examine the beliefs and behaviors we must leave behind – and the values we need to embrace – so our children can survive and thrive.

Going Local

2010-05-11T12:02:00.000-04:00

Why Local Economies Matter

by Anna White

Around the world, there is a growing movement to pull back from the relentless march of corporate globalization by re-rooting economic and social activities at the community level. From the burgeoning popularity of farmers' markets and food co-ops to the revitalization of community banking, people are organizing themselves to reclaim the economy from large profit-driven corporations and instead build sustainable, local alternatives.
While the term ‘localization' has never gained popular currency (perhaps because it is so easily misunderstood), it is worth considering a broad definition for this trend towards small-scale, community-oriented businesses. In Localization: A Global Manifesto, Colin Hines defines localization as "a process which reverses the trend of globalization by discriminating in favor of the local". It is important to note, however, that this does not mean "walling off the outside world" through nationalistic protectionism (see Micahel Schuman, Going Local: Creating Self Reliant Communities in a Global Age). Nor does it mean creating communal autarky, with self-sufficient groups cutting themselves off from the monetary economy. International trade, travel and cultural exchange would continue, but locally-controlled, diversified economic activity would reorient production and service provision towards meeting the needs of the community first.
Why Localize?
Individuals and organizations who are already working to strengthen their communities and local economies are doing so for a multitude of reasons. This is not an ideologically driven movement that fundamentally rejects the global in favor of the local, nor is it based on one blueprint solution or economic model. Rather, it is an organic process motivated by a number of interrelated factors.
Economic globalization has gradually increased the power of multinational corporations and ‘too-big-to-fail' banks, not only over the means of production and distribution of goods and services, but also over the entire democratic and social process. In light of the recent financial crisis, where governments spent billions of taxpayer dollars on bailing out the banks that were partly responsible for causing the crisis, the overbearing influence of the corporate and financial services sector has never been clearer.
In response, people around the world are moving to reclaim local control over the economy through alternative business practices and banking. Campaigns such as Move Your Money aim to revitalize community banking so that finance is redirected towards local needs rather than speculative profits and bonuses. Alternative business structures such as cooperatives and community-supported agriculture also encourage local ownership and production, thereby closing the divide between owners and workers or producers and consumers upon which the corporate model thrives.
A growing awareness of the ecological impacts of a globalized, fossil-fuel dependent economy is also inspiring people to ‘go local'. With the twin specters of climate change and peak oil looming, people are recognizing an increasing need for localized production and distribution in order to build a viable alternative to the current environmentally destructive, export-driven model. Projects such as Transition Towns and Ecovillages are largely motivated by a belief that sustainable living requires resilient, diversified local economies. Many of the strategies adopted by these communities are not new; community gardens and local currency schemes, for example, have long been used to ensure local resilience.
For many people, the motivation to rebuild local economies goes beyond practical concerns about the unstable and unsustainable nature of the globalized economy. It is rooted in a deep dissatisfaction with the lifestyle and values promoted by a system obsessed with efficiency, competition and consumerism. Re-rooting economic activities at a local level offers a way to rebuild the community ties that have been eroded by a tendency towards competitive individualism in society. In the words of David Korten, author of Agenda for a New Economy: From Phantom Wealth to Real Wealth, the broader goal of a localized economy is to shift "its favored dynamic from competition to cooperation, and its primary purpose from growing the individual financial fortunes of the few to building living community wealth to secure the health and well-being of everyone."
Promoting Small-Scale on a Large-Scale
Currently, the shift towards the local remains a fringe, grassroots process, made up of small-scale initiatives as diverse as the cultures and environments in which they are taking place. As Helena Norberg-Hodge argues in her contribution to The Case against the Global Economy: And For a Turn Toward the Local, for these efforts to translate into a wholesale shift in the mainstream economy, they must be accompanied by policy changes at both the national and international level.
With politicians pandering to the interests of corporations in the never-ending pursuit of economic growth, policy support for local economies remains near to nonexistent. Many government policies, such as ensuring the availability of cheap fuel, liberalizing markets, subsidizing agribusiness and bailing out the big banks, essentially act as a form of corporate welfare in support of large-scale, profit-driven multinationals at the cost of small-scale community ventures. The same is true at the international level. Agreements under GATS and the World Trade Organization bar governments from discriminating in favor of the local, all in the name of free trade and the logic of economic competition.
Yet if economies are geared towards meeting local needs first, rather than becoming ever more efficient at producing goods for export-oriented trade on international markets, the logic of competition and ‘comparative advantage' flies out the window. The only question that remains is how to untangle government priorities that currently favor of big business and globalized finance, and to gain political and popular public support for a more diversified global economy geared toward localization. In order to build a new paradigm for development, one that empowers communities and works within the ecological limits of the planet, the rules of the game need to fundamentally change.
‘Going local' offers a way for people to push for transitional economic alternatives from the ground up, but individuals, communities and civil society must come together to form a powerful political movement demanding that the necessary shift toward local empowerment takes place through national and international policy measures. As multiple and interrelated global crises reveal the socially and environmentally destructive nature of the current globalized economy, the time for such a movement has never been more propitious - an opportunity that we all must make the most of.
Further Resources
Business Alliance for Local Living Economies
Go Local - Yes! Magazine
The E. F. Schumacher Society
Move Your Money
The New Rules Project - Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Transition Culture

FDA Says "You may not eat the food of your choice."

2010-04-28T23:52:00.000-04:00

FDA Steps Up Enforcement Against Raw Milk

THE RAID
On April 20, two FDA agents, two federal marshals and one state trooper descended on the Kinzer, Pennsylvania farm (Rainbow Acres) of Dan Allgyer to execute an administrative search warrant against Allgyer's premises. The group set foot on the farm at 5 a.m. to conduct the inspection even thoughthe warrant called for the inspection to take place "at reasonable times during reasonable business hours." The warrant allowed the FDA agents to inspect "all portions of Rainbow Acres facility (except for the private residence located therein) and all things therein, including all equipment, finished and unfinished materials, containers and labeling therein." The warrant also called for the "use of reasonable force" to gain entry to any area the agents were authorized to search.

Later that day after the agents reported their findings to officials at FDA's Philadelphia district office, Philadelphia District Director Kirk Sooter sent Allgyer a warning letter stating that FDA had determined that "you are causing to be delivered into interstate commerce, selling or
otherwise distributing raw milk in final package form for human consumption, such distribution is a violation of the Public Health Service (PHS) Act, Title 42 United States Code, Section 264(a), and the implementing regulation codified in Title 21, Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Section 1240.61(a)."
THE INTERSTATE BAN
The regulation [21 CFR 1240.61(a)] issued by FDA in response to a 1988 court order provides, in part, that "no person shall cause to be delivered into interstate commerce or shall sell, otherwise distribute, or hold for sale or other distribution after shipment in interstate commerce any milk or milk product in final package form for direct human consumption unless the product has been pasteurized."

The statute [42 USC 264(a)] authorizing FDA to issue the regulation prohibiting raw milk for human consumption in interstate commerce provides, in part, "The Surgeon General, with the approval of the Secretary, is authorized to make and enforce such regulations as in his judgment are necessary to prevent the introduction, transmission, or spread of communicable diseases...from one state or possession into any other state orpossession." In FDA's view all raw milk is a communicable disease and is "adulterated"; so, a product that is legal to sell under the laws of two
neighboring states is a "communicable disease" and illegal when it crosses from one neighboring state into another. The federal ban on raw milk is a prohibition on a product that is legal to sell or distribute in at least twenty-nine (29) states and legal to consume in all fifty (50).

FDA'S STRATEGY TO TARGET FARMERS
AND ACHIEVE STATE-BY-STATE BANS
In spite of the booming demand for raw milk, FDA's position has not changed. The agency is at the center of the opposition to raw milk and wants a complete ban on the product's sale and distribution. In the Chicago area,the FDA has targeted for enforcement (one at a time) twenty (20) different buying clubs the agency suspects of having obtained raw milk from
out-of-state sources. FDA has a similar strategy for the states, with the plan being to pressure one state at a time to ban raw milk sales. If the food safety legislation currently before Congress passes, FDA will have increased leverage over the states so this threat will be greater; the agency does not have the manpower to conduct the inspections mandated by the food safety bill(s) and will in effect be putting state agriculture and health department employees on the federal payroll to carry out its workload.

In taking action against farms, like Rainbow Acres, whom FDA suspects of transporting raw milk across state lines, the agency is attempting to deny the people's right to obtain the food of their choice from the source of their choice. FDA allows Vioxx, Avandia, melamine, aspartame, and
genetically modified foods on the market but is now trying to take off the market a food that has benefited human health for thousands of years.

Interestingly, there is nothing in the U.S. Constitution nor in any Supreme Court decision that specifically mentions freedom of food choice. Freedom of food choice is 'the rights issue' of the twenty-first century; ultimately, consumers will be the ones to win the fight.

RAW MILK AND YOUR FREEDOM OF FOOD CHOICE
Raw milk is at the heart of the battle for food freedom. The key to securing the right to obtain raw milk from the source of choice is to overturn the federal ban; without the ban, FDA will not be able to put the pressure on states that it currently does to make raw milk sales and distribution illegal. Efforts are being made to overturn the ban. In February of this year, the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund filed a lawsuit in federal district court seeking a court ruling that the federal ban is unconstitutional as applied to its members and other individual plaintiffs. Congressman Ron Paul last year introduced HR 778, a bill that would effectively overturn 21 CFR 1240.61.

Readers can do their part to help by contacting FDA and asking that the
agency not harass farmers like Dan Allgyer whom the agency suspects of
transporting raw milk across state lines. John F. Sheehan, the Director of FDA's Division of Plant and Dairy Food, is the official most responsible for carrying out FDA's agenda of completely banning the sale and distribution of raw milk. Sheehan has stated: "Raw milk should not be consumed by anyone, at any time, for any reason."

TAKE ACTION
Call, fax and/or write Mr. Sheehan at the contact information provided below, telling him to leave Dan Allgyer alone. Here are some points to make:

1. FDA should respect the right of consumers to obtain the food of their choice.

2. FDA has no business trying to deny consumers the right to drink raw milk since consumption of raw milk is legal in all fifty states.

3. Consumers are perfectly capable of making food choices for themselves and their families and don't want FDA dictating what foods they should and should not consume.

4. If FDA has no choice but to "enforce the law" then the agency should advocate for overturning that law.

NOTE: FDA has never taken action against any individual obtaining raw milk for their own consumption from another State; but it is possible that FDA could interpret the ban to include prohibiting even consumers from crossing state lines to get raw milk. FTCLDF strongly disagrees with this interpretation and takes the position that people have the right to cross state lines to obtain the foods of their choice.

MR SHEEHAN'S CONTACT INFORMATION
John F. Sheehan, Director
Div. of Plant and Dairy Food
Office of Food Safety
CFSAN-FDA
Bldg. CPK-1, Rm. 3D-055
5100 Paint Branch
College Park, MD 20740
Main phone for Office of Food Safety
1-301-436-1700 (If the receptionist refuses
to put you through to Mr. Sheehan, respectfully leave a message.) Fax 1-301-436-1700 eMail: john.sheehan@fda.hhs.gov A sample letter to Mr. Sheehan can be found at http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/aa/sample_consumer_letter_to_sheehan_042610.pdf Thanks, Pete Kennedy, Esq. - President Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund

Sharecropping Reimagined

2010-04-26T23:04:00.000-04:00

So you want to be a gardener but lack any hint of a green thumb? Have excess available land in need of a nurturing gardener to till the area? Aspiring horticulturists and land owners now have an online space to connect, garden, and share homegrown fruits and vegetables. Founder Adam Dell’s Shared Earth aims to bring sharecropping back by connecting open land with gardeners hoping to cultivate their own food. Motherboard reports:

Shared Earth Re-imagines Share Cropping for the Modern World

GOOD Blog > Alicia Capetillo on April 25, 2010 at 7:00 pm PDT

It's kind of like a dating site, but instead of romantic dinners, people come together around backyards and empty lots. In the process, they get to reduce wasted land, fight greenhouse gases, grow their own food, harvest extra crops for food pantries, and maybe make some extra cash. It's ground-breaking. Literally.

The environmental benefits of unused land being transformed into farmland aside, Shared Earth seems like a great way to meet other local food enthusiasts and finally take advantage of the small patch of land between apartment buildings. The venture is already a success, with nearly 26 million square feet of land already being shared across the country—particularly impressive considering the fact that the site only launched this Earth Day. Head over to Motherboard for an interview with Dell; it just might convince you to abandon your thriving Farmville area and try your hand at the real thing for a change.

Photo via Motherboard

The Crash Course — Exponential Growth Meets Reality

2010-04-23T15:56:00.000-04:00

The Crash Course — Exponential Growth Meets Reality

“The next twenty years will be totally unlike the last twenty… We’ll face the greatest economic and physical challenges ever seen by our country, if not humanity.”

So opens Chris Martenson’s much-viewed online Crash Course illuminating the relationship between economy, energy and the environment. Starting with the power of exponential growth, he tidily sums up our economic problems: Too Much Debt. Chris discusses the implications if we continue the status quo, and ways to prepare. He believes that “if we manage the transition elegantly we can actually improve things.” (www.chrismartenson.com).

Preparing for Disasters and Hard Times

2010-04-23T15:22:00.000-04:00

In this animated dialogue, natural resource analyst Sean Brodrick provides a sharp-eyed perspective on what may be coming in this precarious economy and how to prepare for it. The author of The Ultimate Suburban Survivalist Guide, Sean is hip to peak oil and other resource declines as well as the Katrina hurricane lesson - don’t rely on government to save you during disasters. Urging us to prepare for hard times while we’re in good times, he covers smart money moves, food and water storage, basic preparations in case you have to evacuate, and creating bonds with your neighbors to increase home security. [UltimateSuburbanSurvivalist.com and UncommonWisdomDaily.com].

Sean’s Financial Crisis Survival Kit (pdf) goes into far more detail than our conversation, and covers personal financial preparedness and investment advice.

Local Democracy Under Siege

2010-02-09T20:35:00.000-05:00

With the recent ruling on Citizens United vs. the F.E.C., the Supreme Court has opened the floodgates on corporate cash, allowing the titans of industrial energy, agriculture, extraction and development to pump even more money into the election system. What to do?

At Bioneers we've long showcased solutions for local democracy. Last year at the conference we featured Mari Margil of the Community Environmental Defense Fund. We've also heard from her partner Thomas Linzey about the "Democracy School" movement to empower local say in environmental and development issues.

Marine biologist, and Bioneers alum Riki Ott, author of Not One Drop - Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, has issued an impassioned call to action for local communities to take a stand against corporate personhood. You can join Riki's efforts at movetoamend.org.

Another friend of Bioneers, Jeffrey Clements, is giving his time to serve as general counsel to Free Speech to the People, a grassroots organization working to return the First Amendment to its rightful place, empowering individual citizens.

Bioneers founder Kenny Ausubel has spoken out about the threat of corporate speech to local democracy before. Read what he's had to say, and check out this useful list of how corporate consolidation is increasingly putting the power in the hands of fewer and fewer individuals.
_________________________________________________

Grassroots Mobilization:
A Call for Communities to Defy the Court

The U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission is a radical undermining of our sovereign self-governance. It ushers in government of, for, and by The Corporations. It goes well beyond stolen elections -- which can now legally be bought elections.
But that's not the worst of it. This decision actually goes far beyond the circular legal argument that, since the court has ruled previously that free speech equals money, limiting corporations from spending money to influence elections has a chilling effect on free speech (money). If this is confusing, don't worry it's not you. The court had to reach for this.
Citizens United is merely the last straw in a haystack of (successful) corporate attempts to extend corporate constitutional "rights" to corporate persons ever since the U.S. Supreme Court blurred the distinction between "natural persons," or real living human beings, and "artificial persons" -- corporations -- in 1886.

Since the 1886 Santa Clara decision, literally hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of local, state, federal, and international laws that attempt to protect our environment, our elections, our safety and health, and our right to organize have been overturned as a result of this doctrine. Armed with human rights and legal privileges, corporations have amassed enormous wealth and power and disabled democracy on all three branches of our government. Even a partial list shows the range of regulations falling to the new corporate rights doctrine, from those concerning clean and fair elections; to environmental protection and energy; to tobacco, alcohol, pharmaceuticals, and health care; to consumer protection, lottery, and gambling; to race relations - and more!
Our Republic and democratic process has been hijacked by corporations through illegitimate usurpation of rights intended for human persons. This is a call to action! It is time to change the rules.

What can people do? When Congress passed the USA Patriot Act that undermined civil rights and civil liberties, hundreds of communities, some counties, and at least three states adopted Anti-Patriot Act measures. Similarly, but on a bigger scale, we could start a grassroots movement at the local level to pass municipal legislation or resolutions that defy the Court and strip corporations of their personhood (human rights) status. We could strike any corporate personhood language from State law -- or State constitutions, a harder process.
It is fine that for-profit corporations and other business entities exist, but they should exist to serve people. Corporations are not people and they should not be guaranteed the rights of people. A legislature can give corporations whatever privileges deemed appropriate, but granting corporations the legal status of living, breathing, and eventually dying, natural persons is a grave mistake. Their huge wealth, coupled to human rights, makes corporations far more powerful than people.

Action to abolish corporate personhood (e.g., artificial persons with human rights) in a municipalities, counties, and states could be the forefront of a movement to push this issue right back to the federal level and force Congress to consider amending the U.S. Constitution to do the same.

People could also join the largest and most politically, geographically, and racially diverse coalition to respond to the Citizens United case. The Campaign to Legalize Democracy aims to amend the U.S. Constitution to end the illegitimate legal doctrines that prevent the American people from governing ourselves. First and foremost, the campaign will move to amend that only human beings are entitled to constitutional rights.

Within one day of the decision's release, over 20,000 Americans had signed on to the Motion to Amend the Constitution. This campaign aims to fix the root of the problem - corporate personhood - not only the symptoms like campaign financing, election financing, and free speech issues that were raised in the Citizens United case.
The main thing is to get involved with the grassroots movements to protect democracy from unchecked corporate power.

It cannot be overstated: The ruling in Citizens United leaves ordinary citizens little power to keep corporate influence out of democratic decision making. We must unite to reverse this outrageous ruling -- and the underlying morally wrong premise that corporations and other artificial persons are entitled to real human rights.

All aboard for democracy!

Riki Ott is director of Ultimate Civics, a co-organizer of the Campaign to Legalize Democracy. She lectures nationally on the democracy crisis. Learn more and sign the motion to amend the Constitution to affirm rule by the people, not corporations!

The Wires that Control the Public Mind

2010-02-09T18:13:00.000-05:00

Our thinking is colonized not only by the law – which establishes certain constraints that deny us the goals of our activism – but our thinking is colonized by a culture that is created by those who benefit from the way that the system operates.
Video with Sheldon Rampton.
Sheldon Rampton researches deceptive PR firms for the Center for Media and Democracy and is the co-author, with John Stauber, of books including "Toxic Sludge Is Good For You: Lies, Damned Lies and the Public Relations Industry"; "Trust Us, We're Experts: How Industry Manipulates Science and Gambles With your Future": and "Weapons of Mass Deception: The Uses of Propaganda in Bush's War on Iraq." He will discuss the Center's work including its website, Sourcewatch.org, a wiki-powered collaborative research project to document the "names behind the news."

Overcoming Corporate "Personhood"

2010-02-08T22:54:00.000-05:00

How'd you like to attend a class that teaches community persons how to overcome corporate "persons"? The following outline itself offers some outstanding history and educational empowerment for regular persons like us. Be the Change.

Democracy School Curriculum Outline

Section “A” – Our Work Within the Regulatory System:
What is Law and How is it Used?

The regulatory system guarantees that the environment will be damaged, that the system actually permits it to occur, and that the system is built to recognize certain constitutional constraints.

Our “engaging in the regulatory system”, while limiting some of the harms done by corporations, cannot achieve the types of change we need, and that our minds are colonized to believe that the untruth that we can create change by these means.

Our thinking is colonized not only by the law – which establishes certain constraints that deny us the goals of our activism – but that our thinking is colonized by a culture that is created by those who benefit from the way that the system operates.

On the issue of land application of sewage sludge, we’ve been colonized that a bad is a good, through language used to frame the issue.

On the issue of the corporatization of agriculture, we’ve been colonized that a bad is a good, through language used to frame the issue.

Both the regulatory system of law and the culture produce a system of activism that cannot stop a corporate minority from governing community majorities, and that the regulatory system of law and culture effectively drives us like cattle down to a point of activism where we cannot win the issue that we’re working on.

A regulatory system of law governs employer-employee relationships, and that regulatory system of law codifies the rights of the employer over the employee law codifies the rights of the employer over the employee.

Regulatory systems of law were created not to protect health, safety, and welfare, but as a governmental barrier to prevent majority governance by the people.

The traditional use of the regulatory system of law, and the operation of today’s regulatory agencies, are not mistakes or errors, but a logical use of the law to assert minority control over majorities.

Law itself has a long history of being used by a minority to govern, that it was used by William the Conqueror to create an English structure of law; and that the mere existence of Constitutions does not guarantee democratic government.

Throughout history, there have always been people who have seen the illegitimate structure of governance, and demanded something else, like the English Levelers and Diggers in the 1600’s.

DAY TWO

Section “B”- Colonialism: Replicating the English Structure of Law and Culture Across the Globe and in the American Colonies

Western Europeans colonized other countries through various means of legally sanctioned violence and terror.

The English colonized the Caribbean through various means of violence and terror.

The Church intervened repeatedly to legalize and authorize state colonialism.

The English colonized America through the use of corporate charters which transferred full governing authority to one or several men, and that charters are, in reality, instruments of exclusion.

The English Structure of Law was positioned to recognize the legality of colonizing “discovered” lands, and that the American Indians were dispossessed of lands through that legal sanction.

The English Structure of Law viewed nature as a resource to be used, and thus, that it was man’s rightful role to subjugate, dominate and manage nature; and that through colonialism, the English imposed that view and forcibly eliminated those cultures that sustainably used natural systems.

The English Structure of Law treated African-Americans as property, leading to a system of slavery as the dominant economic institution both north and south, and that imposition of that understanding led to thousands of slave revolts prior to the Civil War in the United States.

The English Structure of law treated women as property.

Section “C” – The American Revolutionaries Rebel Against the English Structure of Law and Culture

Early colonists understood that English colonialism, carried out by multinational trading corporations chartered by England, resulted in the actions taken by Parliament against the American colonies.

Some revolutionaries understood that solving their problem meant replacing the English structure of law and culture, and transforming the chartered corporate colonies from property to constitutionalized states, and that the corporate form must be subordinated to the governance of the people.

That understanding led to the declaration of a new theory of governance, expounded as part of the Declaration of Independence, that people have inherent rights and create governments to secure and protect those rights, and that when government fails to secure and protect those rights, is the duty of people to abolish that government.

The authorship and release of the Declaration of Independence was illegal.

The colonists drafted a First Constitution, the Articles of Confederation, and those Articles envisioned a decentralized confederation of the States that retained local governing authority.

Lack of a centralized, preemptive federal government created delays for those engaged in multi-state commerce, and that Washington’s incorporation of the Potomac Company spotlighted those problems.

Section “D”- Betraying the Revolution: A Minority Replicates the English Structure of Law Through the Adoption of the U.S. Constitution

The Mount Vernon Conference was convened to solve the problems encountered by the Potomac Company, and the Conference led to the Annapolis Convention, which sent a report to Congress urging for a broader meeting to be held in Philadelphia.

Delegates to the Philadelphia Constitutional Convention were a select group representing property-owning white males, that the proceedings were secret and sentries were positioned at the doors, that Madison and Randolph presented the Virginia Plan on the first day, and that minutes of the Convention were not released for over 53 years.

Most of the delegates viewed democracy as rule by the rabble, and called for the crafting of a Constitution that enabled a minority to govern, and which protected the property of the minority from majority governance.

There were a group of people called the anti-federalists who understood what the delegates were attempting, and attempted to stop the ratification of the Constitution.

The Constitution is an anti-majoritarian, slave document that established a minority-rule, slave state.

Section “E” – The Second American Revolution: Abolitionists and Women’s Rights Agitators Lead a Revolt Against the Constitution

The Abolitionists launched a frontal attack on the Constitution as a slave document, and that the Abolitionists used the Declaration of Independence as the foundation for that attack.

The Abolitionists were forced to dismantle the popular American Colonization Society, which called for the expatriation of slaves to slave colonies, because their goals were not the goals of the Abolitionists.

The Abolitionists and Radical Republicans drove the 13^th, 14^th, and 15^th Amendments into the Constitution following the Civil War.

The Abolitionists saw those Amendments as the beginning of a constitutional revolution, to replace a slave Constitution with a rights Constitution.

Southern and northern business interests reunited after the Civil War, and with the election of Hayes, pulled the federal troops out of the south and brought them north to put down labor uprisings.

The United States Supreme Court concocted legal theories that withdrew the protections of the Amendments from African-Americans in the South.

That women attempted to enforce the guarantees of those Amendments and were denied, and that suffragists broke the law as part of their efforts to drive universal suffrage into the Constitution.

Section F: Building a Corporate State: A Minority Uses the Constitution to Override Community Self-Government

Accumulations of property and capital, in the form of the corporation, have been given constitutional "rights" and protections over the past one hundred and thirty years.

As early as 1819, corporations were recognized as being protected by the Contracts Clause of the Constitution, making their corporate charters exempt from unilateral authority exercised by the State seeking to change the charter.

Even though private corporations and municipal corporations are both corporations, separate sets of law have evolved which empower private corporations but keep municipal corporations under very strict State control.

The system of law guarantees that the rights of private corporations and their decisionmakers will almost always trump the rights of communities, even though municipal corporations ostensibly represent “we the people.”

The system of law does not recognize a right of local self-government, but that municipalities are wholly controlled by State governments, as a parent/child relationship.

The Commerce Clause has been used by corporations and the courts to strip state and municipal governments of lawmaking in the area of commerce, and that major environmental, labor, and civil rights laws were passed under the authority of that Clause.

The accumulation of rights for corporate minorities combined with the corporate grip on culture, has resulted in the creation of a Corporate State.

Section “G” – Shaping a Movement: Communities Assert Local Self-Governance in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Virginia and Beyond

DAY THREE

Optional - offered to Communities that are ready to organize a Rights-Based campaign to assert Self-Governing Rights through their Municipal government

Getting a Local Campaign Started

The Curriculum, Themes, and Structure for this Optional portion of the Course will be Tailored Specially for Each Community

Dmitry Orlov - Deﬁnancialization, Deglobalization, Relocalization

2010-01-24T21:16:00.000-05:00

Dmitry Orlov - Deﬁnancialisation, Deglobalisation, Relocalisation from Feasta on Vimeo.

Meet the Farmer - Joel Salatin

2010-01-24T13:30:00.000-05:00

A few good stories from PPJ Gazette

2010-01-24T03:05:00.000-05:00

The Truth behind the drive to outlaw raw/fresh milk sales

The multiple personality disorder of the USDA

The New “Cult” – Amish?

Forget Grass Fed Beef –
You are eating GRAS Ground Beef

Great Unleashing - Apr 24th in Bloomington IN

2010-01-22T13:59:00.000-05:00

The following has been clipped from Treehugger.com

The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience (Transition Guides)

Transition Towns have been hailed as one of the most important social movements of our times.

It's true, some have worried that Transition is just 'Back to the Land' in disguise, or that it is skewed toward the left-leaning hippy side of things. But there's no doubt in my mind that the movement has both energized and united communities, and it has spread like wildfire. And from planting fruit and nut trees to reviving local currencies, it's Transition's focus on effective action that is most important. But what does Transition look like? A UK group has produced a great video about the "Unleashing" of their transition initiative. It's inspiring stuff.

As part of the Transition model, each community organizes a series of outreach and education which is intended to build knowledge and generate a core group of Transition activists. That is then followed by a "Great Unleashing", in which the Transition group is introduced to the community as a whole - and everybody from businesses to politicians to community groups are invited to participate as the group kicks into full swing. Transition Langport in Somerset, England decided to film their Great Unleashing - showing the world how they chose to launch their initiative.

Entering the Anthropocene - A Nitrogen Fixation

2010-01-19T20:27:00.001-05:00

When I opened my latest issue of Agroforestry News I found the following story drawn from Nature Magazine and Environment 360 I've clipped pieces from Nature's article and the one from Environment 360 in its entirety as it covers the Nitrogen cycle portion of the Planetary Boundaries issue.

We are entering the Anthropocene, a new geological era in which our activities are threatening the Earth´s capacity to regulate itself. We are beginning to push the planet out of its current stable Holocene state, the warm period that began about 10,000 years ago and during which agriculture and complex societies, including our own, have developed and flourished
To avoid catastrophic environmental change humanity must stay within defined 'planetary boundaries' for a range of essential Earth-system processes, argue Johan Rockström and his co-authors in a Nature Feature. If one boundary is transgressed, then safe levels for other processes could also be under serious risk, they caution. Seven expert commentaries respond to this proposal in Nature Reports Climate Change.

(Click image for larger view) The inner green shading represents the proposed safe operating space for nine planetary systems. The red wedges represent an estimate of the current position for each variable. The boundaries in three systems (rate of biodiversity loss, climate change and human interference with the nitrogen cycle), have already been exceeded.

Stratospheric ozone layer
The stratospheric ozone layer filters out ultraviolet radiation from the sun. If this layer decreases, increasing amounts of ultraviolet (UV) radiation will reach ground level and can cause a higher incidence of skin cancer in humans as well as damage to terrestrial and marine biological systems. The appearance of the Antarctic ozone hole was proof that increased concentrations of anthropogenic ozone depleting substances, combined with polar stratospheric clouds, had moved the Antarctic stratosphere into a new regime. Fortunately, because of the actions taken as a result of the Montreal Protocol, we appear to be on the path that will allow us to stay within this boundary.

Biodiversity
In the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment of 2005, it was concluded that changes in biodiversity due to human activities were more rapid in the past 50 years than at any time in human history, and the drivers of change that cause biodiversity loss and lead to changes in ecosystem services are either steady, show no evidence of declining over time, or are increasing in intensity. These large rates of extinction can be slowed by judicious projects to enhance habitat and build appropriate connectivity while maintaining high agricultural productivity. Further research is needed to determine whether a boundary based on extinction rates is sufficient, and whether there are reliable data to support it.

Chemicals dispersion
Emissions of persistent toxic compounds such as metals, various organic compounds and radionuclides, represent some of the key human-driven changes to the planetary environment. There are a number of examples of additive and synergic effects from these compounds. These effects are potentially irreversible. Of most concern are the effects of reduced fertility and especially the potential of permanent genetic damage. As an example, organism uptake and accumulation to sub-lethal levels increasingly cause a dramatic reduction of marine mammal and bird populations. At present, we are unable to quantify this boundary; however, it is nonetheless considered sufficiently well defined to be on the list.

Climate Change
We have reached a point at which the loss of summer polar ice is almost certainly irreversible. From the perspective of the Earth as a complex system, this is one example of the sharp threshold above which large feedback mechanisms could drive the Earth system into a much warmer, greenhouse gas-rich state with sea levels meters higher than present. The weakening or reversal of terrestrial carbon sinks, for example through the ongoing destruction of the world´s rainforests, is another such interdependent tipping point. Recent evidence suggests that the Earth System, now passing 387 ppmv CO2, has already transgressed this Planetary Boundary. A major question is how long we can remain over this boundary before large, irreversible changes become unavoidable.

Ocean acidification
Around a quarter of the CO2 humanity produces is dissolved in the oceans. Here it forms carbonic acid, altering ocean chemistry and decreasing the pH of the surface water. Increased acidity reduces the amount of available carbonate ions, an essential building block used for shell and skeleton formation in organisms such as corals, and some shellfish and plankton species. This will seriously change ocean ecology and potentially lead to drastic reductions in fish stocks. Compared to pre-industrial times, surface ocean acidity has increased by 30%.
The ocean acidification boundary is a clear example of a boundary which, if transgressed, will involve very large change in marine ecosystems, with ramifications for the whole planet. It is also a good example of how tightly connected the boundaries are, since atmospheric CO2 concentration is the underlying controlling variable for both the climate and the ocean acidification boundary.

Freshwater consumption and the global hydrological cycle
The freshwater cycle is both a major prerequisite for staying within the climate boundary, and is strongly affected by climate change. Human pressure is now the dominating driving force determining the function and distribution of global freshwater systems. The effects are dramatic, including both global-scale river flow change and shifts in vapor flows from land use change. Water is becoming increasingly scarce and by 2050 about half a billion people are likely to have moved into the water-stressed category. A water boundary related to consumptive freshwater use has been proposed to maintain the overall resilience of the Earth system and avoid crossing local and regional thresholds ‘downstream´.

Land system change
Land is converted to human use all over the planet. Forests, wetlands and other vegetation types are converted primarily to agricultural land. This land-use change is one driving force behind reduced biodiversity and has impacts on water flows as well as carbon and other cycles. Land cover change occurs on local and regional scales but when aggregated appears to impact the Earth System on a global scale. A major challenge with setting a land use-related boundary is to reflect not only the needed quantity of unconverted and converted land but also its function, quality and spatial distribution.

Atmospheric aerosol loading
This is considered a planetary boundary for two main reasons: (i) the influence of aerosols on the climate system and (ii) their adverse effects on human health at a regional and global scale. Without aerosol particles in the atmosphere, we would not have clouds. Most clouds and aerosol particles act to cool the planet by reflecting incoming sunlight back to space. Some particles (such as soot) or thin high clouds act like greenhouse gases to warm the planet. In addition, aerosols have been shown to affect monsoon circulations and global-scale circulation systems. Particles also have adverse effects on human health, causing roughly 800,000 premature deaths worldwide each year. While all of these relationships have been well established, all the causal links (especially regarding health effects) are yet to be determined. It has not yet been possible specific threshold value at which global-scale effects will occur; but aerosol loading is so central to climate and human health that it is included among the boundaries.

Nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the biosphere and oceans
Human modification of the nitrogen cycle has been even greater than our modification of the carbon cycle. Human activities now convert more N2 from the atmosphere into reactive forms than all of the Earth´s terrestrial processes combined. Much of this new reactive nitrogen pollutes waterways and coastal zones, is emitted to the atmosphere in various forms, or accumulates in the terrestrial biosphere. A relatively small proportion of the fertilizers applied to food production systems is taken up by plants. A significant fraction of the applied nitrogen and phosphorus makes its way to the sea, and can push marine and aquatic systems across thresholds of their own. A concrete example of this effect is the decline in the shrimp catch in the Gulf of Mexico due to hypoxia caused by fertilizer transported in rivers from the US Midwest.

Nitrogen and phosphorus cycles

Modern agriculture is a major cause of environmental pollution, including large-scale nitrogen- and phosphorus-induced environmental change. At the planetary scale, the additional amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus activated by humans are now so large that they significantly perturb the global cycles of these two important elements.

Human processes — primarily the manufacture of fertilizer for food production and the cultivation of leguminous crops — convert around 120 million tonnes of N₂ from the atmosphere per year into reactive forms — which is more than the combined effects from all Earth's terrestrial processes. Much of this new reactive nitrogen ends up in the environment, polluting waterways and the coastal zone, accumulating in land systems and adding a number of gases to the atmosphere. It slowly erodes the resilience of important Earth subsystems. Nitrous oxide, for example, is one of the most important non-CO₂ greenhouse gases and thus directly increases radiative forcing.

Anthropogenic distortion of the nitrogen cycle and phosphorus flows has shifted the state of lake systems from clear to turbid water. Marine ecosystems have been subject to similar shifts, for example, during periods of anoxia in the Baltic Sea caused by excessive nutrients. These and other nutrient-generated impacts justify the formulation of a planetary boundary for nitrogen and phosphorus flows, which we propose should be kept together as one boundary given their close interactions with other Earth-system processes.

Setting a planetary boundary for human modification of the nitrogen cycle is not straightforward. We have defined the boundary by considering the human fixation of N₂ from the atmosphere as a giant 'valve' that controls a massive flow of new reactive nitrogen into Earth. As a first guess, we suggest that this valve should contain the flow of new reactive nitrogen to 25% of its current value, or about 35 million tonnes of nitrogen per year. Given the implications of trying to reach this target, much more research and synthesis of information is required to determine a more informed boundary.

Unlike nitrogen, phosphorus is a fossil mineral that accumulates as a result of geological processes. It is mined from rock and its uses range from fertilizers to toothpaste. Some 20 million tonnes of phosphorus is mined every year and around 8.5 million–9.5 million tonnes of it finds its way into the oceans. This is estimated to be approximately eight times the natural background rate of influx.

Records of Earth history show that large-scale ocean anoxic events occur when critical thresholds of phosphorus inflow to the oceans are crossed. This potentially explains past mass extinctions of marine life. Modeling suggests that a sustained increase of phosphorus flowing into the oceans exceeding 20% of the natural background weathering was enough to induce past ocean anoxic events.

Our tentative modeling estimates suggest that if there is a greater than tenfold increase in phosphorus flowing into the oceans (compared with pre-industrial levels), then anoxic ocean events become more likely within 1,000 years. Despite the large uncertainties involved, the state of current science and the present observations of abrupt phosphorus-induced regional anoxic events indicate that no more than 11 million tonnes of phosphorus per year should be allowed to flow into the oceans — ten times the natural background rate. We estimate that this boundary level will allow humanity to safely steer away from the risk of ocean anoxic events for more than 1,000 years, acknowledging that current levels already exceed critical thresholds for many estuaries and freshwater systems.

For more of the story go to http://www.nature.com/news/specials/planetaryboundaries/index.html

The Nitrogen Fix: Breaking a Costly Addiction
by Fred Pearce

Over the last century, the intensive use of chemical fertilizers has saturated the Earth’s soils and waters with nitrogen. Now scientists are warning that we must move quickly to revolutionize agricultural systems and greatly reduce the amount of nitrogen we put into the planet's ecosystems.

A single patent a century ago changed the world, and now, in the 21st century, Homo sapiens and the world we dominate have an addiction. Call it the nitrogen fix. It is like a drug mainlined into the planet’s ecosystems, suffusing every cell, every pore — including our own bodies.

In 1908, the German chemist Fritz Haber discovered how to make ammonia by capturing nitrogen gas from the air. In the process he invented a cheap new source of nitrogen fertilizer, ending our dependence on natural sources, whether biological or geological. Nitrogen fertilizer fixed from the air confounded the mid-century predictions of Paul Ehrlich and others that global famine loomed. Chemical fertilizer today feeds about three billion people.

But the environmental consequences of the massive amounts of nitrogen sent coursing through the planet’s ecosystems are growing fast. We have learned to fear carbon and the changes it can cause to our climate. But one day soon we may learn to fear the nitrogen fix even more.

A major international survey published in September '09 in Nature listed the nitrogen cycle as one of the three “planetary boundaries” that human interventions have disturbed so badly that they threaten the future habitability of the Earth. The others — according to the study by Johann Rockstrom, of the Stockholm Environment Institute, and 27 other environmental scientists – are climate change and biodiversity loss.

Nitrogen affects more parts of the planet’s life-support systems than almost any other element, says James Galloway of the University of Virginia, who predicts: “In the worst-case scenario, we will move towards a nitrogen-saturated planet, with polluted and reduced biodiversity, increased human health risks and an even more perturbed greenhouse gas balance.”

The problem is that we waste most of Haber’s fertilizer. Of 80 million tons spread onto fields in fertilizer each year, only 17 million tons gets into food. The rest goes missing. This is partly because the fertilizer is wastefully applied, and partly because the new green-revolution crops developed to grow fat on nitrogen fertilizer are also wasteful of the nutrient. The nitrogen efficiency of the world’s cereals has fallen from 80 percent in 1960 to just 30 percent today.

Artificial nitrogen washes in drainage water from almost every field in the world. It is as ubiquitous in water as man-made carbon dioxide is in the air. It is accumulating in the world’s rivers and underground water reserves, choking waterways with algae and making water reserves unfit to drink without expensive clean-up.

Most of the man-made nitrogen fertilizer ever produced has been applied to fields in the last quarter-century. Nature has some ability to reverse man-made fixing of nitrogen, converting it back into an inert gas — a process called denitrification. But last year, Patrick Mulholland of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee reported that the system is being overwhelmed. Many rivers in the U.S. are now so nitrogen-saturated that they are losing their ability to denitrify pollution.

Most of this excess nitrogen ends up in the oceans, where it is killing whole ecosystems. Excess nitrogen is the cause of the growing number of oxygen-depleted “dead zones” in the oceans, says Mulholland.

Why should a fertilizer kill? It is just too much of a good thing. It over-fertilizes the water, producing such large volumes of algae and other biomass that it consumes all the oxygen in the water [as it dies and decomposes], causing the ecosystem to crash. Coastal bays, inlets and estuaries around the world are succumbing.
The Gulf's Dead Zone

A study earlier this year found that algal blooms dump domoic acid, a neurotoxin, onto the ocean floor, where it persists for weeks. “The first signs are often birds washing up on the shore or seals acting funny, aggressive and twitching, looking as if they were drunk,” says Claudia Benitez-Nelson of the University of South Carolina.
Red tide, Fla., click to enlarge)

What can be done? To meet the target cited in the Nature study requires a transformation of the world’s agriculture as profound as the transformation of energy industries needed to meet targets for cutting greenhouse gases. There is an urgent need, says Smil, to breed crops that are far more efficient at absorbing the nitrogen in fields, and for developing farming systems that manage nitrogen far better.

Luckily the potential is considerable. In China, where nitrogen application to fields is among the highest in the world, a study by a group of scientists led by Wilfried Winiwarter and Tatiana Ermolieva of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis found that better on-farm management of nitrogen could cut nitrous oxide emissions to the environment by 25 percent without damaging farm output.

Galloway says the flow of nitrogen through the environment can also be reduced by decreased emissions from burning fossil fuels — perhaps as a byproduct of efforts against climate change. And better sewage treatment in cities could convert nitrates that have passed through the human gut into safe gaseous nitrogen.

If anything exemplifies humanity’s growing impact on the planet’s life-support systems, it is the way we are overwhelming the nitrogen cycle. There are solutions. But for now we are hooked. As Smil put it: “In just one lifetime, humanity has developed a profound chemical dependence.”

POSTED ON 05 Nov 2009 IN Oceans Pollution & Health North America

Resilience Thinking

2010-01-19T16:52:00.001-05:00

by Rob Hopkins
Resilience; “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change, so as to retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks”.

Resilience Thinking. Why ‘resilience thinking’ is a crucial missing piece of the climate-change jigsaw and why resilience is a more useful concept than sustainability.

In July 2009, UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change Ed Miliband unveiled the government’s UK Low Carbon Transition Plan, a bold and powerful statement of intent for a low-carbon economy in the UK. It stated that by 2020 there would be a five-fold increase in wind generation, feed-in tariffs for domestic energy generation, and an unprecedented scheme to retrofit every house in the country for energy efficiency. In view of the extraordinary scale of the challenge presented by climate change, I hesitate to criticise steps in the right direction taken by government. There is, though, a key flaw in the document, which also appears in much of the wider societal thinking about climate change. This flaw is the attempt to address the issue of climate change without also addressing a second, equally important issue: that of resilience.

The term ‘resilience’ is appearing more frequently in discussions about environmental concerns, and it has a strong claim to actually being a more useful concept than that of sustainability. Sustainability and its oxymoronic offspring sustainable development are commonly held to be a sufficient response to the scale of the climate challenge we face: to reduce the inputs at one end of the globalized economic growth model (energy, resources, and so on) while reducing the outputs at the other end (pollution, carbon emissions, etc.). However, responses to climate change that do not also address the imminent, or quite possibly already passed, peak in world oil production do not adequately address the nature of the challenge we face.

Let’s take a supermarket as an example. It may be possible to increase its sustainability and to reduce its carbon emissions by using less packaging, putting photovoltaics on the roof and installing more energy-efficient fridges. However, resilience thinking would argue that the closure of local food shops and networks that resulted from the opening of the supermarket, as well as the fact that the store itself only contains two days’ worth of food at any moment – the majority of which has been transported great distances to get there – has massively reduced the resilience of community food security, as well as increasing its oil vulnerability. One extreme, but relevant, example of where sustainability thinking falls short was Tesco’s recent ‘Flights for Lights’ promotion, where people were able to gain air miles when they purchased low-energy light bulbs!

Some people believe that we can move from our current ‘high carbon’ model, where goods are transported at great distances, to a ‘low carbon’ information economy, where it is ideas that are exchanged rather than goods, and where we operate in a virtual world with few impacts. Yet such an economy still depends on fossil fuels: to power the vast internet servers as we check our morning emails, not to mention the breakfast we eat and the coffee we drink that continue to be sourced from far and wide, often with a disastrous impact on the local food systems that would have supported us in the past. Despite the temptation to believe otherwise, we still operate in the physical world with very real and pressing energy and resource constraints.

The concept of resilience emerged from within the ecological sciences as a way of looking at why some systems collapse when they encounter shock, and some don’t. The insights gleaned now offer a very useful overview for determining how systems can adapt and thrive in changing circumstances. Resilience within communities, for example, depends upon;”

Diversity: a broader base of livelihoods, land use, enterprise and energy systems than at present
Modularity: not advocating self-sufficiency, but rather an increased self-reliance; with ‘surge protectors’ for the local economy, such as local food production and decentralised energy systems
Tightness of feedbacks: bringing the results of our actions closer to home, so that we cannot ignore them

A recent report by the think tank DEMOS, Resilient Nation, raised the question, “Resilient to what?” Are we building resilience in the face of peak oil and climate change, or of terrorism and pandemics? While it is clearly not an either/or situation, I would argue strongly that peak oil and climate change are so far-reaching and destabilizing that we really must give them precedence, the solutions that arise being markedly different from addressing terrorism or pandemics. But what would this kind of resilience thinking look like in practice?

For many years, those writing and campaigning on relocalization have argued that it is a good idea because it produces a better, more equitable economy. Now, as the potential impacts of peak oil and climate change become clearer, an additional and very strong argument has emerged: that as the net energy underpinning society inevitably contracts, so the focus of our economies and our daily lives will inexorably shift, at least in terms of manufacturing and trade, from the global to the local.

It requires a huge amount of cheap oil thundering around the superhighways and shipping lanes of the world to bring to our shops the things we now feel we need, much of which we would have grown or made ourselves not all that long ago. But creating a different way of doing things takes time, resources and proactive and creative design.

Often, climate-change thinking doesn’t question the notion that higher rates of consumption lead to individual happiness – it focuses rather on low-carbon ways of making the same consumer goods. Yet as we enter the world of volatile oil prices, resource constraints, and the need to situate ourselves more within the local economy than the global one, we will need to link satisfaction and happiness to other less tangible things like community, meaningful work, skills and friendships.

When I give talks on this subject, there are always some who interpret the concept of increasing localization to mean that building resilience in the West – increasing national food security, rebuilding local manufacturing and so on – will by necessity lead to increased impoverishment in the developing world. I don’t believe this to be the case. Will the developing world be lifted out of poverty by continuing to dismantle its own food resilience and becoming increasingly dependent on global trade, which is itself massively dependent on the cheap oil we can no longer rely on? Is the way out of poverty really an increasing reliance on the utterly unreliable? Rather than communities meeting each other as unskilled, unproductive, dependent and vulnerable settlements, they would meet as skilled, abundantly productive, self-reliant and resilient communities. It is a very different quality of relationship, and one that could be hugely beneficial to both.

In any event, work by people such as Mike Davis in his book Late Victorian Holocausts shows how the impact of famine was enormously magnified by the forced introduction of India into the international money/cash-crop nexus. As Amartya Sen has shown, famine occurs more from the way in which food is distributed, and inequality, than from food shortage. Even that analysis now needs to be revisited from a ‘resilience’ perspective. Over the last few years we’ve started to see clear impacts of tying the developing world into global commercial food webs, as food prices rose in step with oil and fertilizer prices. In fact, I’d argue that tying developing-world food producers into the globalized system leads to their exposure to both food and money shortages.

The need to cut carbon emissions is even more urgent than the government’s Transition Plan acknowledges. NASA scientist James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, now argues that we have already passed the climate tipping point at our current level of 387ppm, when the safe level of carbon in the atmosphere is at most 350ppm. While the UK government argues that we need to stay below 450ppm, it is clear that even that is a huge ask. If you were to step outside your front door today and ask the first ten people you met what your town or city might look like in ten years’ time if it began today to cut its emissions by 9% a year starting today, I imagine most people would say something between the Flintstones and Mad Max! We have a paucity of stories that articulate what a lower-energy world might sound like, smell like, feel like and look like. What is hard, but important, is to be able to articulate a vision of a post-carbon world so enticing that people leap out of bed every morning and put their shoulders to the wheel of making it happen.

Resilience thinking can inspire a degree of creative thinking that might actually take us closer to solutions that will succeed in the longer term. Resilient solutions to climate change might include community-owned energy companies that install renewable energy systems in such a way as to generate revenue to resource the wider relocalization process; the building of highly energy-efficient homes that use mainly local materials (clay, straw, hemp), thereby stimulating a range of potential local businesses and industries; the installation of a range of urban food production models; and the re-linking of farmers with their local markets. By seeing resilience as a key ingredient of the economic strategies that will enable communities to thrive beyond the current economic turmoil the world is seeing, huge creativity, reskilling and entrepreneurship are unleashed.

The Transition Movement is a rapidly growing, ‘viral’ movement, which began in Ireland and is now under way in thousands of communities around the world. Its fundamental premise is that a response to climate change and peak oil will require action globally, nationally, and at the scale of local government, but it also needs vibrant communities driving the process, making unelectable policies electable, creating the groundswell for practical change at the local level.
It explores the practicalities of building resilience across all aspects of daily life. It catalyses communities to ask, “How are we going to significantly rebuild resilience in response to peak oil and drastically reduce carbon emissions in response to climate change?”

By putting resilience alongside the need to reduce carbon emissions, it is catalyzing a broad range of initiatives, from Community Supported Agriculture and garden-share schemes to local food directories and new Farmers’ Markets. Some places, such as Lewes and Totnes, have set up their own energy companies, in order to resource the installation of renewable energy. The Lewes Pound, the local currency that can only be spent in Lewes, recently expanded with the issuing of new £5, £10 and £20 notes. Stroud and Brixton are set to do the same soon.
The Scottish government is using its Climate Challenge Fund to fund Transition Scotland Support, seeing Transition initiatives as a key component of the country’s push on climate change (and thanks also to that fund, a number of Transition initiatives have received substantial financial support: for example, Transition Forres received £184,000 and has become a real force for local resilience-building). In England, Somerset and Leicestershire County Councils have both passed resolutions committing themselves to support local Transition initiatives. What underpins these responses is the idea that meeting our climate emissions responsibilities and preparing proactively for the end of the age of cheap oil can either be seen as enormous crises, or as tremendous opportunities.

It is clear, as Jonathon Porritt argues in Living Within Our Means, that attempting to get out of the current recession with the thinking that got us into it in the first place (unregulated banking, high levels of debt, high-carbon lifestyles) will get us into a situation that we simply cannot win. A friend of mine who works as a sustainability consultant in the North West talks of a meeting he had with a leading local authority there. Having read their development plan for the next twenty years, he told them, “Your Plan is based on three things: building cars, building airplanes and the financial services sector. Do you have anything else up your sleeves?” As John Michael Greer says, we’re in danger of turning what could still be a soluble problem into an insoluble predicament. Transition is an exploration of what we need to have ‘up those sleeves’, an optimistic exploration of the practicalities of relocalisation, creating, as Jeremy Leggett puts it, “scaleable microcosms of hope”.

However, resilience is not just an outer process: it is also an inner one, of becoming more flexible, robust and skilled. Transition initiatives try to promote this through offering skills-sharing, building social networks and creating a shared sense of this being a historic opportunity to build the world anew.

Navigating a successful way through climate change and peak oil will require a journey of such bravery, commitment and vision that future generations will doubtless tell stories and sing great songs about it. But as with any journey, having a clear idea of where you are headed and the resources that you have at your disposal is essential in order to most skilfully maximize your chances of success. If we leave resilience thinking out, we may well end up an extremely long way from where we initially thought we were headed.

Rob Hopkins is co-founder of the Transition Network and is the author of The Transition Handbook. You can download the pdf (with wonderful illustrations) of this article here Originally published in Resurgence Magazine.

An Invitation to Think Differently

2010-01-15T16:59:00.001-05:00

by Peter Pogany

National governments and multilateral organizations attribute the global economy’s deep wounds to a pile-up accident of financial investment outfits and banks. Misconduct and lost confidence that erupted into an unprecedented imbroglio mid-2008 was the supposed culprit behind the recession that has been declared over despite the troubling new spell of worldwide pauperization and protracted indolence on the investment front.

The dominant narrative remains mum on the strong possibility that the turmoil-provoking explosion in the seedy joint of super-leveraged dirty dancing had its fuse lit at a gas station / grocery store somewhere along the interminable commuting route between a North American city, where the jobs are, and exurbia where the zero-down-payment houses were built and sold on the assumption that the costs of transportation and food would never interfere with the perpetual climb of real estate values.

The notion that for the first time in modern history the world has come face to face with a binding resource constraint (call it “peak oil”) is absent from the radar screen of public consciousness.

How did it happen and what’s going on? The typical answer echoing from the academic-liberal media establishment takes excess liquidity as the point of departure.

Read the rest here.

Arctic permafrost leaking methane at record levels, figures show

2010-01-15T16:55:00.001-05:00

The Guardian reports that methane emission from Siberia are accelerating - Arctic permafrost leaking methane at record levels, figures show.

Scientists have recorded a massive spike in the amount of a powerful greenhouse gas seeping from Arctic permafrost, in a discovery that highlights the risks of a dangerous climate tipping point.

Experts say methane emissions from the Arctic have risen by almost one-third in just five years, and that sharply rising temperatures are to blame.

The discovery follows a string of reports from the region in recent years that previously frozen boggy soils are melting and releasing methane in greater quantities. Such Arctic soils currently lock away billions of tonnes of methane, a far more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, leading some scientists to describe melting permafrost as a ticking time bomb that could overwhelm efforts to tackle climate change.

They fear the warming caused by increased methane emissions will itself release yet more methane and lock the region into a destructive cycle that forces temperatures to rise faster than predicted.

Paul Palmer, a scientist at Edinburgh University who worked on the new study, said: "High latitude wetlands are currently only a small source of methane but for these emissions to increase by a third in just five years is very significant. It shows that even a relatively small amount of warming can cause a large increase in the amount of methane emissions."

Global warming is occurring twice as fast in the Arctic than anywhere else on Earth. Some regions have already warmed by 2.5C, and temperatures there are projected to increase by more than 10C by 2100 if carbon emissions continue to rise at current rates.

Palmer said: "This study does not show the Arctic has passed a tipping point, but it should open people's eyes. It shows there is a positive feedback and that higher temperatures bring higher emissions and faster warming."

The change in the Arctic is enough to explain a recent increase in global methane levels in the atmosphere, he said. Global levels have risen steadily since 2007, after a decade or so holding steady.

The new study, published in the journal Science, shows that methane emissions from the Arctic increased by 31% from 2003-07. The increase represents about 1m extra tonnes of methane each year. Palmer cautioned that the five-year increase was too short to call a definitive trend.

The Guardian also has an article from George Monbiot on a "national outpouring of idiocy" in Britain in the wake of the recent cold snap - Britain's cold snap does not prove climate science wrong.

It's as predictable a feature of the British winter as log fires and roasting chestnuts: a national outpouring of idiocy every time some snow falls.

Here's what Martyn Brown says in today's Express:

As one of the worst winters in 100 years grips the country, climate experts are still trying to claim the world is growing warmer.

There's a clue as to where he might have gone wrong in that sentence: "country" has a slightly different meaning to "world". Buried at the bottom of the same article is the admission that " ... other areas including Alaska, Canada and the Mediterranean were warmer than usual." But that didn't stop Brown from using the occasion to note that "critics of the global warming lobby said the public were no longer prepared to be conned into believing that man-made emissions were adding to the problem."

The ability to distinguish trends from complex random events is one of the traits that separates humans from the rest of the animal kingdom. It is also the basis of all science; detecting patterns, distinguishing between signal and noise, and the means by which the laws of physics, chemistry and biology are determined. Now we are being asked to commit ourselves to the willful stupidity of extrapolating a long-term trend from a single event.

The Express would have us return to the days in which the future course of human affairs could be predicted by solar eclipses and the appearance of comets. It has clearly made a calculated decision in recent months that climate scepticism plays to its readership - and therefore shifts papers - just as the daily drip-feed of conspiracy theories about Princess Diana and Madeleine McCann has done in the past.

Brown is by no means alone in his idiocy. On Sunday, the Telegraph and the Mail published almost identical articles; one by Christopher Booker, the other by his long-term collaborator, Richard North. Both claimed that the Met Office had predicted a mild winter, and that it had made this prediction because it has been "hijacked" by a group of fanatics - led first by its former chief executive Sir John Houghton, now by the current boss Robert Napier - who stand accused of seeking to to corrupt forecasts to make them conform to their theories on climate change.

If this story were true, it would be huge: the UK's official weather forecasting service is deliberately changing its forecasts to make them fit a political agenda. It would also be fantastically stupid, as forecasts can always be checked against delivery. Booker and North offer no evidence to support this humongous conspiracy theory, just a load of unrelated facts cobbled together in the usual fashion.

Report of the Bloomington Peak Oil Task Force: Redefining Prosperity: Energy Descent and Community Resilience

2010-01-14T09:18:00.001-05:00

Report of the Bloomington Peak Oil Task Force: Redefining Prosperity: Energy Descent and Community Resilience
by City of Bloomington Peak Oil Task Force

Bloomington, IN - On December 2, 2009, the Bloomington City Council overwhelmingly approved the report of the Bloomington Peak Oil Task Force entitled Redefining Prosperity: Energy Descent and Community Resilience (PDF 13.36 MB). The report is the product of a seven-member task force and outlines the community's vulnerability to a decline in cheap oil and proposes numerous mitigation strategies.

The report is premised on the fact that oil infuses just about every aspect of our lives. We rely on cheap oil for necessities such as transportation, food and electricity. However, oil is a non-renewable resource. It is widely acknowledged that the world has reached, or will soon reach, the point at which oil production is at its maximum, or peak. Once the world reaches peak oil production, we will not run out of oil but we will run short of oil. At that point, the price of oil will become more volatile. Given the systemic nature of oil, a decline in the availability of cheap oil will have implications for all aspects of society.

The City of Bloomington formally recognized the peak of world petroleum production via a resolution passed in 2006. In 2007, the City translated that recognition into action with the creation of the Bloomington Peak Oil Task Force. Since March 2008, the Task Force has met bi-weekly to fulfill its charge. The result is a 250-page report focusing primarily on the following community systems: the economic context, municipal services, land use, transportation, housing and sustenance.

The Task Force maintains that it is likely that world oil production peaked in July 2008. Because peak has already occurred, Task Force Chair and City Councilmember Dave Rollo counsels that "Adaptation will require time, and we find that our society is very late in responding to this threat. We need to think through ways to power down our community without delay."

To prepare for peak oil in a robust way, the Task Force calls for a reduction in community oil consumption by 5 percent per year in an effort to realize a 50 percent decrease in consumption in just 14 years. Toward that end, the Task Force offers many possible strategies, which include:

* Explore new energy sources, greater efficiencies and conservation opportunities for the following energy-intensive municipal services: water and wastewater treatment; law enforcement and fire protection; heating and cooling municipal buildings; and trash removal and recycling. Immediate attention should be given to off-grid water production to meet minimum community needs.
* Promote economic relocalization. Our community's reliance on a steady supply of inexpensive goods from as far as halfway around the world makes us vulnerable to a decline in inexpensive oil and/or shortages. Producing and processing more goods within the community fosters greater security in a post-peak world while strengthening the local economy.
* Recognize the need for, and the inevitability of, a steady state economy - one that is not predicated on ever-greater amounts of energy and materials throughput, but recognizes the limits of the biosphere.
* Intensify the City's emerging focus on form-based development, so that residents can easily live within walking distance of daily needs, such as grocery stores, schools and pharmacies.
* Increase home energy conservation and aim to retrofit 5 percent of housing per year.
* Establish community cooperative rideshare programs.
* Advocate for greater local, state and federal funding for public transit.
* Accelerate local food production by training more urban farmers and removing legal, institutional and cultural barriers to farming within the city.
* Plant edible landscapes throughout the city.

As spelled out in the advisory report, the Task Force's vision for a post-peak Bloomington is one wherein, "most residents live within walking distance of daily needs; most of the food required to feed residents is grown within Monroe County; residents can easily and conveniently get where they need to go on bike, foot or public transit; most of the community's housing stock is retrofit for energy efficiency; and local government provides high-quality services to its residents while using less fossil fuel energy."

The Task Force points out that peak oil presents our community with some very serious challenges. Indeed, Rollo states that "the risk entailed in doing nothing until problems arise is too great to ignore. If we wait until shortages arise, we will surely have much more difficulty in adapting to oil scarcity. " However, according to the report, peak oil also "presents us with an opportunity to make a great community even better."

"The volunteer citizen-driven report is a remarkable document, which reflects opportunities we have to protect and promote our community's sustainability," Mayor Mark Kruzan said. "The City Administration sees the task force report as a blueprint for the Sustainability Coordinator's role within City government and the larger community."

Redefining Prosperity is available in PDF format at http://bloomington.in.gov/peakoil.

For more information about the report, please contact the Council Office at 349-3409.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Heads in the Sand? Or, Why Don't Governments Talk About Peak Oil

2010-01-10T16:46:00.004-05:00

From Gail the Actuary on the Oil Drum:

This is a guest post by Shane Mulligan. Shane is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Waterloo, and is working on a book on the security implications of peak oil. Shane writes on The Oil Drum as bioprospector.

There is a train crash about to happen from an energy point of view. But politicians everywhere seem to have entirely missed the scale of the problem… [G]overnments and multilateral agencies have failed to recognize the imminence and scale of the global oil supply crunch, and most of them remain completely unprepared for its consequences.1

Anyone aware of peak oil has had to wonder (at least briefly) why the world's governments seem to be ignoring the issue. The official silence is difficult to fathom in light of the fact that the IEA has decidedly come down on the side of a likely peak by 2030, while Fatih Birol (the Agency's Chief Economist) suggests it's more likely a “plateau” from 2020, or even earlier – a claim recently published in the influential magazine, The Economist.2 As the UK's Energy Research Council points out, “The growing popular debate on ‘peak oil’ has had relatively little influence on conventional policy discourse. For example, the UK government rarely mentions the issue in official publications and …..'does not feel the need to hold contingency plans specifically for the eventuality of crude oil supplies peaking between now and 2020'.”3 The report notes that “the UK is one of many countries that are failing to give serious consideration to this risk.”4 But are governments really ignoring peak oil? Are they unaware of it? Or are they aware and taking steps to deal with it – even while they keep silent on it in public? Indeed, is their silence a policy choice itself?

This research note is an attempt to map out the range of reasons for governments' silence on peak oil. These reasons can be seen along a continuum, from ignorance (“we don't know”), to disbelief, to conspiratorial silence (“we know well, and have plans, but we're not sharing them”). This post surveys some of the more common ideas regarding governments' lack of attention to the issue, in the hope of spurring comments from readers regarding which of the scenarios is more plausible in light of available evidence.

It is worth noting that it is not only governments who have ignored peak oil. As Charlie Hall and John Day point out, population and resource concerns have “largely disappeared, at least until very recently, from most public discussion, newspaper analyses and college curricula. Our general feeling is that few people think about these issues today... Even ecologists have largely shifted their attention away from resources to focus, certainly not inappropriately, on various threats to the biosphere and biodiversity. They rarely mention the basic resource/human numbers equation that was the focal point for earlier ecologists.”5 Governments are not alone, then, in avoiding the issue of resource constraints in general, and peak oil in particular. But given the emergence in the last decade of a well-developed discourse on peak oil, why are they still not talking about it?

Pesticides Behind Mass Die-Off?

2010-01-10T16:37:00.012-05:00

Pesticides Behind Mass Die-Off ?

Posted by Big Gav in bees, colony collapse disorder, pesticides

Yale Environment 360 has an article on the possible link between pesticides and various animal die-offs (including bee colony collapse disorder) - Behind Mass Die-Offs, Pesticides Lurk as Culprit.

Ever since Olga Owen Huckins shared the spectacle of a yard full of dead, DDT-poisoned birds with her friend Rachel Carson in 1958, scientists have been tracking the dramatic toll on wildlife of a planet awash in pesticides. Today, drips and puffs of pesticides surround us everywhere, contaminating 90 percent of the nation’s major rivers and streams, more than 80 percent of sampled fish, and one-third of the nation’s aquifers. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, fish and birds that unsuspectingly expose themselves to this chemical soup die by the millions every year.

But as regulators grapple with the lethal dangers of pesticides, scientists are discovering that even seemingly benign, low-level exposures to pesticides can affect wild creatures in subtle, unexpected ways — and could even be contributing to a rash of new epidemics pushing species to the brink of extinction.

In the past dozen years, no fewer than three never-before-seen diseases have decimated populations of amphibians, bees, and — most recently — bats. A growing body of evidence indicates that pesticide exposure may be playing an important role in the decline of the first two species, and scientists are investigating whether such exposures may be involved in the deaths of more than 1 million bats in the northeastern United States over the past several years.

White-nose Syndrome, named for the tell-tale white fuzz it leaves on bats’ ears and noses, has killed more than a million bats in the northeastern United States.
For decades, toxicologists have accrued a range of evidence showing that low-level pesticide exposure impairs immune function in wildlife, and have correlated this immune damage to outbreaks of disease. Consumption of pesticide-contaminated herring has been found to impair the immune function of captive seals, for example, and may have contributed to an outbreak of distemper that killed over 18,000 harbor seals along the northern European coast in 1988. Exposure to PCBs has been correlated with higher levels of roundworm infection in Arctic seagulls. The popular herbicide atrazine has been shown to make tadpoles more susceptible to parasitic worms.

Bee extinction also features in Douglas Coupland's new novel "Generation A", reviewed by The New York Times - Stung Together.

“Generation A” (the term comes from a Kurt Vonnegut quotation) is not a sequel to but rather a thematic wink at Coupland’s first novel, “Generation X” (1991), about young slackers experiencing postindustrial fin de siècle ennui and sitting around telling stories. That novel kicked off both Coupland’s career and — to his ire — a global media frenzy and commodification orgy. From the beginning, Coupland’s novels have explored the vertiginous acceleration of culture as it intersects with media and technology, as well as the impact of those forces on a disaffected subgroup of drifters and eco-freaks, teenagers and young adults, dropouts and designers, programmers and cubicle inhabitants, gamers and geeks. All of it is rendered with the paradoxical combination of empathy and irony that marks Coupland’s work. And “Generation A” is no exception.

Narrated by five characters who begin as strangers and come from five different parts of the world, the novel is set in a near future when bees are thought to have become extinct. A global “pollination crisis” results, and “a six-ounce bottle of 2008 Yukon fireweed honey” now fetches some $17,000 at Sotheby’s. Also extinct are heroin addicts, because, of course, “poppies require bees.” Instead, a sinister prescription drug called Solon has filled the gap, treating anxiety by blocking thoughts of the future.

Future Farming: The Call for a 50-Year Perspective on Agriculture

2010-01-04T22:34:00.000-05:00

An Interview with Wes Jackson by Robert Jensen

[Excerpt] As everyone scrambles for a solution to the crises in the nation’s economy, Wes Jackson suggests we look to nature’s economy for some of the answers. With everyone focused on a stimulus package in the short term, he counsels that we pay more attention to the soil over the long haul.

“We live off of what comes out of the soil, not what’s in the bank,” said Jackson, president of The Land Institute. “If we squander the ecological capital of the soil, the capital on paper won’t much matter.”

Jackson doesn’t minimize the threat of the current financial problems but argues that the new administration should consider a “50-year farm bill,” which he and the writer/farmer Wendell Berry proposed in a New York Times op/ed earlier this month.

Central to such a bill would be soil. A plan for sustainable agriculture capable of producing healthful food has to come to solve the twin problems of soil erosion and contamination, said Jackson, who co-founded the research center in 1976 after leaving his job as an environmental studies professor at California State University-Sacramento.

Jackson believes that a key part of the solution is in approaches to growing food that mimic nature instead of trying to subdue it. While Jackson and his fellow researchers at The Land Institute continue their work on Natural Systems Agriculture, he also ponders how to turn the possibilities into policy. He spoke with me from his office in Salina, Kansas.

Robert Jensen: This is a short-term culture, and federal policies typically are aimed at short-term results. Why call for a farm bill that looks so far ahead, especially in tough economic times?
Wes Jackson: For the past 50 or 60 years, we have followed industrialized agricultural policies that have increased the rate of destruction of productive farmland. For those 50 or 60 years, we have let ourselves believe the absurd notion that as long as we have money we will have food. If we continue our offenses against the land and the labor by which we are fed, the food supply will decline, and we will have a problem far more complex than the failure of our paper economy.
Read full article

BLOOMINGTON EATS GREEN Conference

2010-01-04T21:11:00.002-05:00

Bloomington’s small size, open‐minded community, world‐class university, and location make it the perfect place to develop a pro‐active, community organized, sustainable food system. The upcoming BLOOMINGTON EATS GREEN conference will lay the groundwork for a new decade of local food system development. Please join your fellow community representatives for a day of discussion and planning aimed at developing and researching sustainable food practices. How can we make our local food system healthier, more secure and equitable, and more sustainable?

Thank you if you have already RSVP’d. In order to get an accurate headcount and arrange for a set of breakout sessions, we would like everyone who is coming to please send a brief message to mailto:sminard@indiana.edu indicating your interest in the following panels so that we may schedule you in an appropriate discussion (choose your favorite 2 from each session, and we will aim to assign you to one of those two):

Morning Breakout Sessions: What are we doing now? Where are we today?

• Urban Gardening and Animal Husbandry
• Farm to Schools and Institutions – Creating Connections
• CSAs and Alternative Distribution Networks
• Food Waste and Recycling/Composting
• Food Security
• Local Entrepreneurship – Local Food Business Development

Afternoon Breakout Sessions: Future Work – Where Do We Go From Here?

• Shaping the Food System: Public Policy
• Indiana UniversityCommunity
Partnerships in Learning and Research
• Community Education and Outreach
• Bridging Food Access Disparities
• Reducing Food Waste and Offering Alternatives
• Building an Awareness of Local, Regional and National Environmental Impacts of Farming

We would like to create a database in order to build connections between groups and individuals participating in the local food system. Therefore, along with your choice of breakout sessions, please send a brief description of your business, organization, or individual project, along with your current contact information, so that we may accomplish this goal.

Further questions may be directed to Sara Minard at (773) 547‐1721. Thank you— we look forward to seeing you in the New Year, and working with you to make Bloomington’s food system better for everyone in the community!!
Sincerely,
Richard Wilk
Peter Todd
Sara Minard

Bloomington Eats Green: A Campus/Community Conference on Building a Sustainable Local Food System

MEETING AGENDA JANUARY 23, 2010
Sponsered By: Indiana University, Office of the Vice Provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs, the Departments of Anthropology, Geography & Political Science, Kelley School of Business, and Bloomingfoods

Organized by:
Richard Wilk, Professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies
Peter Todd, Professor of Cognitive Science and Informatics
Sara Minard, Graduate Student in Anthropology of Food Studies

WHERE: Indiana Memorial Union
For Driving and Parking directions: http://www.imu.indiana.edu/about/index.shtml
Parking in the Union lot will be validated with attendance.
Contact the Indiana Memorial Union at: 812-856-6381

9:00-9:30 AM Registration and Coffee
9:30-10:30 AM Welcome and Morning Plenary – Dogwood Room
10:30-12:00 PM Morning Breakout Sessions: Where We Are Today
• Urban Gardening and Animal Husbandry
• Farm to Schools and Institutions -- Creating Connections
• CSAs and Alternative Distribution Networks
• Food Waste and Recycling/Composting
• Food Security
• Local Entrepreneurship – Local Food Business Development

12:00-1:30 PM Lunch in the Union’s Georgian Room (free of charge)

Morning groups prepare report for next plenary

1:30-2:30 PM Plenary – Overview of AM Breakout Sessions
2:30-4:00 PM Afternoon Breakout Sessions: Future Work – Where Do We Go From Here?
• Shaping the Food System: Public Policy
• Indiana University-Community Partnerships in Learning and Research
• Community Education and Outreach
• Bridging Food Access Disparities
• Reducing Food Waste and Offering Alternatives
• Building an Awareness of the Local, Regional and National Environmental Impacts of Farming
4:00-4:15 PM Short Break, with coffee/snacks
4:20-5:30 PM Afternoon Plenary and Concluding Remarks
6:00-7:30 PM Joel Salatin’s “Holy Cows and Hog Heaven” talk -- Woodburn Hall 100

Alcohol Fuel for Sustainable Living

2010-01-03T16:03:00.004-05:00

This is a 2.5 hr, not to be missed, video. Stay tuned. We will be bringing Dave Blume to Bloomington in 2010 for a two-day Alcohol Can Be a Gas training. Download the outline for the workshop. Date to be announced here.

NOT too big to fail...with your help.

2010-01-02T21:56:00.001-05:00

Move Your Money

Feast or Famine?

2009-12-26T19:25:00.001-05:00

91•86•90

2009-12-08T16:12:00.002-05:00

What do these numbers mean? Why do they affect you? Why should you care? Steve Crower, an energy investment banker from Denver, CO, finds a creative way to present the underlying data of the world's petroleum supplies and why we should pay attention to it.

12 Stages of Transition with Rob Hopkins

2009-12-08T15:57:00.002-05:00

Transition Timeline

2009-12-08T14:54:00.002-05:00

The Transition Timeline (a book by Shaun Chamberlain) lightens the fear of our uncertain future, providing a map of what we are facing and the different pathways available to us. Here, Shaun introduces the book...

Its the Stupidity Stupid

2009-12-08T13:47:00.000-05:00

The Age of Stupid is a 2008 film by Director Franny Armstrong (McLibel, Drowned Out) and first-time producer Lizzie Gillett. It is a co-production between Franny's company Spanner Films and Executive Producer John Battsek's (One Day In September) company Passion Pictures.

Oscar-nominated Pete Postlethwaite stars as a man living alone in the devastated future world of 2055, looking at old footage from 2008 and asking: why didn’t we stop climate change when we had the chance?

The production was notable for its innovative way crowd-funding financing model, as well as the Indie Screenings distribution system which allows anyone anywhere to screen the film. The full story of the production of the film is told in the 50-minute Making Of documentary which is free to watch online and also available on the double-pack DVD.

The film was released in 2009 and became one of the most talked-about films of the year. It also spawned the hugely-successful 10:10 campaign.

Age of Stupid: DVD: Copenhagen Kids from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

Age of Stupid: Trailers: Original Theatrical Trailer from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

Age of Stupid: Making Of: War for Resources from Age of Stupid on Vimeo.

In Transition - the Movie

2009-12-08T13:36:00.000-05:00

'In Transition' shows a practical vision for creating a post-consumer society, where ordinary people make a difference. Coming to a theater near you. Stay tuned...

Monsanto's Phosphorus Theft

2009-12-07T16:03:00.000-05:00

Phosphate processing plant in
Soda Springs, USA, operated by Monsanto.
Source: The Center for Land Use Interpretation

Idaho black rock phosphate, and phosphorus in general, is a finite and limited primary plant nutrient. Monsanto, instead of leaving it alone so it can be conserved and made available for use by generations of America's sustainable and organic farmers, turns it into the herbicide Roundup.

Next to clean water, phosphorus will be one the inexorable limits to human occupancy on this planet” wrote Bill Mollison in Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual more than 20 years ago .

Peak Phosphorus barely registers alongside it’s more gregarious, attention-getting bigger brother, Peak Oil. Yet, the implications are even more dramatic. While both peaks are associated with massive food shortages, unmitigated Peak Phosphorus would easily win the award for best disaster.

The latest research tells us that Peak Phosphorus is an issue we cannot afford to ignore any more:

… a global production peak of phosphate rock is estimated to occur around 2033. While this may seem in the distant future, there are currently no alternatives on the market today that could replace phosphate rock on any significant scale. New infrastructure and institutional arrangements required could take decades to develop.

While all the world’s farmers require access to phosphorus fertilizers, the major phosphate rock reserves are under the control of a small number of countries including China, Morocco and the US. China recently imposed a 135% export tariff on phosphate rock essentially preventing any from leaving the country. Reserves in the U.S. are calculated to be depleted within 30 years. Morocco currently occupies Western Sahara and its massive phosphate rock reserves, contrary to UN resolutions. – Western Sahara Resource Watch

From the Times Online:

Battered by soaring fertiliser prices and rioting rice farmers, the global food industry may also have to deal with a potentially catastrophic future shortage of phosphorus, scientists say.

Researchers in Australia, Europe and the United States have given warning that the element, which is essential to all living things, is at the heart of modern farming and has no synthetic alternative, is being mined, used and wasted as never before.

Massive inefficiencies in the “farm-to-fork” processing of food and the soaring appetite for meat and dairy produce across Asia is stoking demand for phosphorus faster and further than anyone had predicted. “Peak phosphorus”, say scientists, could hit the world in just 30 years. Crop-based biofuels, whose production methods and usage suck phosphorus out of the agricultural system in unprecedented volumes, have, researchers in Brazil say, made the problem many times worse. Already, India is running low on matches as factories run short of phosphorus; the Brazilian Government has spoken of a need to nationalise privately held mines that supply the fertiliser industry and Swedish scientists are busily redesigning toilets to separate and collect urine in an attempt to conserve the precious element.

Dana Cordell, a senior researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology in Sydney, said: “Quite simply, without phosphorus we cannot produce food. At current rates, reserves will be depleted in the next 50 to 100 years.

Human excreta (urine and feces) are renewable and readily available sources of phosphorus.
Urine is essentially sterile and contains plant-available nutrients (P,N,K) in the correct ratio.Treatment and reuse is very simple and the World Health Organization has published 'guidelines for the safe use of wastewater, excreta and greywater.

More that 50% of the worlds’ population are now living in urban centers, and in the next 50 years 90% of the new population are expected to reside in urban slums. Urine is the largest single source of P emerging from human settlements.

According to some studies in Sweden and Zimbabwe, the nutrients in one person's urine are sufficient to produce 50-100% of the food requirements for another person. Combined with other organic sources like manure and food waste, the phosphorus value in urine and feces can essentially replace the demand for phosphate rock. In 2000, the global population produced 3 million tonnes of phosphorus from urine and feces alone.

Rob Hopkins at TED

2009-11-25T11:33:00.002-05:00

Rob Hopkins reminds us that the oil our world depends on is steadily running out. He proposes a unique solution to this problem -- the Transition response, where we prepare ourselves for life without oil and sacrifice our luxuries to build systems and communities that are completely independent of fossil fuels.

Rob Hopkins is the founder of the Transition movement, a radically hopeful and community-driven approach to creating societies independent of fossil fuel.

Bloomington Preps for Peak Oil

2009-11-19T13:35:00.000-05:00

Peter Bane and I have been proud to contribute to the creation of the document Redefining Prosperity: Energy Descent and Community Resilience. Our mayor and city council really like it and it could also be adopted by the county. It will likely serve as a peak oil transition template for many other communities in Indiana and elsewhere. Please note that it is a 257 page document and may take a while to download if your server is slow. Please share.
http://bloomington.in.gov/media/media/application/pdf/6046.pdf

The specific charge of the Peak Oil Task Force is to acquire and study current and credible data; seek community feedback; coordinate efforts with other governmental agencies; work to educate the community; and, to develop a Bloomington Peak Oil Task Force Report for approval by the Mayor and Common Council outlining strategies the City and community might pursue to mitigate the effect of declining fuel supplies in areas including, but not limited to: transportation, municipal services, energy production and consumption, food security, water and wastewater.

Answer your cell phone, cook your brain...Hello?!

2009-08-19T17:42:00.004-04:00

In the last 20 years, cell phones have dramatically changed the way people communicate. Now you can stay in contact with your friends, family and colleagues 24/7, from virtually anywhere in the world. But this convenience comes at a heavy cost, and one that could potentially end your life prematurely.

Few people realize this, but brain cancer has now surpassed leukemia as the number one cancer killer in children. Australia has seen an increase in pediatric brain cancers of 21 percent in just one decade. This is consistent with studies showing a 40 percent brain tumor increase across the board in Europe and the U.K. over the last 20 years.

And around this time last year, the head of the prominent University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute -- Dr. Ronald B. Herberman -- issued an unprecedented warning to his faculty and staff: Limit cell phone use because of the possible risk of cancer.

Uban Ag in Bloomington

2009-08-19T15:15:00.001-04:00

Bloomington passes urban agriculture ordinance

Indiana Living Green

Friday, 07 August 2009 08:29

Bloomington, Ind. — The Bloomington City Council recently passed an urban agriculture ordinance, which will become part of the city's new Unified Development Ordinance. In short, the ordinance, which was passed unanimously, defines "urban agriculture" and "community garden" and lists them as permitted activities in all residential zones within the city.

"Getting (the ordinance) into the zoning code was a major victory and will no doubt help promote local food production and food security," said John D. Galuska, one of the supporters. He also expects efforts to get Mayor Mark Kruzan to sign an official proclamation in support of urban agriculture.

First Annual PDC in Bloomington, IN!

2009-08-11T14:49:00.003-04:00

Bloomington, Indiana Weekend Series Permaculture Design Course

The time has come! Permaculture is a great foundation for the transitional and regenerative work our generation needs to be doing. This course is designed to give us all a solid starting place.

Peter Bane, publisher of the Permaculture Activist; Keith Johnson, who has been practicing permaculture for over 25 years; and Rhonda Baird, originator of the Bloomington Permaculture Guild team up with Kevin Glenn of Owl Creek Programs and other guests to offer a fun, fast-paced, and transformative course.

The cost of the course is $750 (or $700 if registered by Sept. 15). This is a deal for anyone and meant for those who work and can't take time away for a two-week course.

This course is designed for busy, working adults and meant to be affordable. We are so pleased to offer a weekend permaculture design course this fall/winter for people in the Bloomington, IN region.

We will gather at the Friend's Meeting House Friday (3820 E. Moores Pike) evenings, Saturday all day, and Sunday afternoons on October 16-18, Oct. 31-Nov. 1, Nov. 13-15, Feb. 19-21 and March 5-7. We would be happy to help those traveling from out of town find accommodations. The cost of the course is $750 (or $700 if paid by 9/15). This includes Saturday lunches and materials for the course. You may pay for the course using Paypal (though you will need to contact Rhonda for registration materials). Please contact Rhonda Baird at 812.323.1058 or rhonda.kb[at]yahoo[dot]com for more information.

GANA Permaculture Gardens Workshop Series update

2009-05-01T13:44:00.004-04:00

Urban Farmstead
In November 2008, Ann Kreilkamp decided to go out on a financial limb and buy the property next door in order to sponsor a community permaculture garden in the Green Acres Neighborhood of Bloomington, Indiana. Read the ongoing report on the origins, difficulties, thrills, successes, failures, and whatever else comes up as a group of people grope toward manifesting a collective vision during the great global descent into a far simpler way of life that, depending on our level of awareness, will create either coherence or chaos.

Transition News

2009-05-01T13:11:00.005-04:00

The recent Transition Training, Apr 18-19, in Bloomington was a great success with 24 people enrolled. We aim to offer another course in the fall with a reduced price in the hope that we will have more enrollments. Contact me (leave a comment here) if you are interested.

Here's a couple links to recent articles about the Transition movement:

May 01, 2009

Do Worry Be Happy

Author: Lisa Chase

Publication: Elle magazine
April 19, 2009

The End Is Near! (Yay!)

Author: Jon Mooallem

Publication: New York Times Magazine: Green Issue

Dollars from dirt: Economy spurs home garden boom

2009-04-16T10:34:00.005-04:00

In the green: Gardening industry sees boom as families grow own veggies to save on groceries

GILLIAN FLACCUS
AP News

(Get your gardening books here.)

With the recession in full swing, many Americans are returning to their roots — literally — cultivating vegetables in their backyards to squeeze every penny out of their food budget.

Industry surveys show double-digit growth in the number of home gardeners this year and mail-order companies report such a tremendous demand that some have run out of seeds for basic vegetables such as onions, tomatoes and peppers.

"People's home grocery budget got absolutely shredded and now we've seen just this dramatic increase in the demand for our vegetable seeds. We're selling out," said George Ball, CEO of Burpee Seeds, the largest mail-order seed company in the U.S. "I've never seen anything like it."

Gardening advocates, who have long struggled to get America grubby, have dubbed the newly planted tracts "recession gardens" and hope to shape the interest into a movement similar to the victory gardens of World War II.

Those gardens, modeled after a White House patch planted by Eleanor Roosevelt in 1943, were intended to inspire self-sufficiency, and at their peak supplied 40 percent of the nation's fresh produce, said Roger Doiron, founding director of Kitchen Gardeners International.

"It's really part of our history and it's part of the White House's history," Doiron said. "When I found out why it had been done over the course of history and I looked at where we are now, it makes sense again."

But for many Americans, the appeal of backyard gardening isn't in its history — it's in the savings.

The National Gardening Association estimates that a well-maintained vegetable garden yields a $500 average return per year. A study by Burpee Seeds claims that $50 spent on gardening supplies can multiply into $1,250 worth of produce annually.

Doiron spent nine months weighing and recording each vegetable he pulled from his 1,600-square-foot garden outside Portland, Maine. After counting the final winter leaves of Belgian endive, he found he had saved about $2,150 by growing produce for his family of five instead of buying it.

Adriana Martinez, an accountant who reduced her grocery bill to $40 a week by gardening, said there's peace of mind in knowing where her food comes from. And she said the effort has fostered a sense of community through a neighborhood veggie co-op.

"We're helping to feed each other and what better time than now?" Martinez said.

A new report by the National Gardening Association predicts a 19 percent increase in home gardening in 2009, based on spring seed sales data and a telephone survey. One-fifth of respondents said they planned to start a food garden this year and more than half said they already were gardening to save on groceries.

Community gardens nationwide are also seeing a surge of interest. The waiting list at the 312-plot Long Beach Community Garden has nearly quadrupled — and no one is leaving, said Lonnie Brundage, who runs the garden's membership list.

"They're growing for themselves, but you figure if they can use our community garden year-round they can save $2,000 or $3,000 or $4,000 a year," she said. "It doesn't take a lot for it to add up."

Seed companies say this renaissance has rescued their vegetable business after years of drooping sales. Orders for vegetable seeds have skyrocketed, while orders for ornamental flowers are flat or down, said Richard Chamberlin, president of Harris Seeds in Rochester, N.Y.

Business there has increased 40 percent in the last year, with the most growth among vegetables such as peppers, tomatoes and kitchen herbs that can thrive in small urban plots or patio containers, he said. Harris Seeds recently had to reorder pepper and tomato seeds.

"I think if things were fine, you wouldn't see people doing this. They're just too busy," Chamberlin said. "Gardening for most Americans was a dirty word because it meant work and nobody wanted more work — but that's changed."

Harris Seed's Web site now gets 40,000 hits a day.

Among larger companies, Burpee saw a 20 percent spike in sales in the last year and started marketing a kit for first-time gardeners called "The Money Garden." It has sold 15,000 in about two months, said Ball.

A Web-based retailer called MasterGardening.com is selling similar packages, and Park Seed of Greenwood, S.C., is marketing a "Garden for Victory Seed Collection." Slogan: "Win the war in your own backyard against high supermarket prices and nonlocal produce!"

Cultivators with years of experience worry that home gardeners lured by promises of big savings will burn out when they see the amount of labor required to get dollars from their dirt. The average gardener spends nearly five hours a week grubbing in the dirt and often contends with failure early on, said Bruce Butterfield, a spokesman for The National Gardening Association.

"The one thing you don't factor into it is the cost of your time and your labor," he said.

"But even if it's just a couple of tomato plants in a pot, that's worth the price of admission."

Kitchen Gardeners: http://www.kitchengardeners.org/

National Gardening Assn: http://www.garden.org/home

Burpee Seeds: http://www.burpee.com/

MasterGardening: http://mastergardening.com/

Harris Seeds: http://www.harrisseeds.com/

Students on farms: A model for America

2009-04-16T09:53:00.003-04:00

For Young Japanese, It’s Back to the Farm

By HIROKO TABUCHI

YOKOSHIBAHIKARI, Japan — A motley group of unlikely farmers descended on the countryside here one recent Sunday, fresh towels around their necks, shiny boots on their feet.

Enlarge This Image

Ayumi Nakanishi for The New York Times, Yoko Goto carrying planted rice plates as part of the Rural Labor Squad program. More Photos »

Multimedia

Slide Show

The New York Times

More Photos

“This is harder than it looks,” said Tatsunori Kobayashi, a spiky-haired janitor from Tokyo Disney Resort, as he tromped through a mustard spinach patch with a seed planter, irregular furrows stretching out behind him.

He is part of Japan’s 2,400-strong Rural Labor Squad, urban trainees dispatched to the countryside under a pilot program to put Japan’s underemployed youth to work tilling its farms.

Started last month as part of Prime Minister Taro Aso’s stimulus plans, the program stems from growing concern about both the plight of Japan’s younger workers and the dismal state of farms. In a play on words, the squad’s name in Japanese — Inaka-de-hatarakitai — is also its rallying cry: “We want to work in the countryside!”

The predicament of Japanese in their 20s and 30s dates back to the lost decade of the 1990s, when many failed to find good, stable work. Today, a disproportionate number endure low-wage jobs — a potential portent for America’s students and first-time job seekers plunging into a shallow job market in the United States.

Read the rest here...

A Bioregional "Biocurriculum"

2009-04-06T23:16:00.004-04:00

At the last Continental Bioregional Congress at Earthaven Ecovillege in 2005, the CBC Coordinating Council was charged by the congress to begin working on a bioregional curriculum, which could be piloted (at least in part) at the next congress. Participants at the last congress felt it was essential to develop bioregional tools that could transmit what we've learned and what we have to offer for a vividly-changing world. The need has only grown in the last four years.

The rough draft format for the course has been posted at http://biocurriculum.blogspot.com/
Your input and comments are welcome.

Please also visit http://bioregional-congress.blogspot.com/

Section 1: Goals of a Bioregional Curriculum

Section 1: Goals of a Bioregional Curriculum
a) To deepen a sense of place for the individual and community
b) To develop a bioregional toolkit for allied movements
c) To provide a way to certify a level of competence in instructors
d) To provide support for local bioregional groups to establish and sustain themselves
e) To strengthen the bond within the bioregional network all over the continent and elsewhere

a) Deepen sense of place
Developing a strong sense of place helps us deepen our local and planetary connections based on the landscapes, history and communities that surround us every day. By exploring what it means to live where we live, we nurture local culture, adapt our economies to providing sustainable livelihood, empower and heal our communities, and reclaim the stories of who we are.

b) Bioregional Toolkit for allied movements
By sharing the bioregional perspective with allied movements, we strengthen each other. Central to the bioregional perspective is its inclusiveness and it is essential that we provide tools that bridge, not separate; tools that anyone can identify with enough to embrace. Allied movements include but are not limited to:
relocalization, outdoor education,
peak oil, green politics,
permaculture, environmental justice,
transition town, ecofeminism,
Earth Ethics and religion, environmental/sustainability groups

c) Certify competence in instructors
We envision that the Congress will set up a bioregional curriculum committee whose task will include developing the extended curriculum as well as develop standards for instructors and maintaining their competence.

d) Support for local bioregional groups to establish and sustain themselves
The bioregional toolkit will provide a set of tools not only to understand what the bioregional perspective is; it will also provide tools for local bioregional groups to explore local ecosystems, provide local organizing tools, and provide ways to enhance local community sustainability.

e) Strengthen the bioregional network
By providing a basic and advanced curriculum, we provide a common ground for local groups to share expertise and learn from each other.

Educational Philosophy: In the spirit of bioregionalism, this certification embraces a progressive education philosophy based on the premise that people know best what they need to learn and how they need to learn it. This premise also fosters helping participants integrate action, awareness and knowledge in ways that are both individually and socially relevant for their work, lives and communities. While there will be a variety of educational techniques employed – including lectures, hands-on workshops, large-group and small-group discussion and activities, panel discussions, arts-based learning, etc. – and we will draw on the best of facilitation approaches to create and hold sacred and meaningful space together, all the sessions will also be geared toward the sharing and development of practical and relevant tools that participants can take home to use, adapt, and further develop.

The Future of Food (if Monsanto has its way)

2009-04-03T15:56:00.004-04:00

The Future of Food

There is a revolution happening in the farm fields and on the dinner tables of America -- a revolution that is transforming the very nature of the food we eat.

THE FUTURE OF FOOD offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade.

Shot on location in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, THE FUTURE OF FOOD examines the complex web of market and political forces that are changing what we eat as huge multinational corporations seek to control the world's food system. The film also explores alternatives to large-scale industrial agriculture, placing organic and sustainable agriculture as real solutions to the farm crisis today.

Created by Deborah Koons Garcia and Lily Films, The Future of Food is the first of a series of documentaries Lily Films plans to produce dealing with the current issues influencing our food, environment and agriculture.

Please support Lily Films by logging onto www.thefutureoffood.com to purchase the entire 88 minute film and ensure that this vital message is spread throughout the world.

Guerrilla Gardening, Veggie Vandalism

2009-03-30T00:57:00.001-04:00

A Farm for the Future

2009-03-17T23:52:00.001-04:00

Wildlife film maker Rebecca Hosking investigates how to transform her family's farm in Devon into a low energy farm for the future, and discovers that nature holds the key. With her father close to retirement, Rebecca returns to her family's wildlife-friendly farm in Devon, to become the next generation to farm the land.

But last year's high fuel prices were a wake-up call for Rebecca. Realising that all food production in the UK is completely dependent on abundant cheap fossil fuel, particularly oil, she sets out to discover just how secure this oil supply is. Alarmed by the answers, she explores ways of farming without using fossil fuel. With the help of pioneering farmers and growers, Rebecca learns that it is actually nature that holds the key to farming in a low-energy future.

The following from Tree Hugger:

Film Maker Explores Post-Oil Farming
Last week I wrote about a BBC documentary which I hadn't seen, but the green scene in the UK was all a flutter over. A Farm for the Future explores nature film maker Rebecca Hosking's return to her small family farm and her search for a post-fossil fuel agriculture. I've since seen the film, and would recommend it to anyone with an interest in food and farming - come to think of it, I'd recommend it to anyone who eats. But for those without the time or means to watch it, Rebecca has also written an excellent article in the Daily Mail newspaper about her quest for truly sustainable agriculture.

Rebecca's work (who incidentally is also responsible for a plastic bag ban in her home town!) is not just remarkable for the content she is covering - but the venues in which it is being aired too. To have a half-hour documentary devoted to peak oil, agriculture and alternatives like forest gardening and permaculture appear on prime time BBC is a telling sign of the times. But to also have an article in the Daily Mail - hardly the bastion of environmental radicalism - is dynamite.

There is no doubt in my mind that Rebecca is opening a lot of eyes to the unsustainability of our present food system. Take this excerpt from Rebecca's conversation with permaculture guru Patrick Whitefield [Disclaimer: Patrick is a former teacher and friend of mine]:

But it will work only if we have a lot more growers. Some reports estimate it's going to take as many as 12 million, although currently we have 11million gardeners. A food-growing system based on natural ecology appeals to my naturalist side. But the farmer's daughter in me needed a bit more convincing. Could permaculture feed Britain? I asked Patrick Whitefield, Britain's leading expert in permaculture.
'Good question,' he said. 'A better question would be, "Can present methods go on feeding Britain?" In the long term, it is certain that present methods can't because they are so entirely dependent on fossil-fuel energy. So we haven't got any choice other than to find something different.'

The more permaculture people I met, the more hopeful I became that we can find a way out of this mess if we start preparing for peak oil now.

Along the way, Rebecca also meets Ben and Charlotte Hollins - the brother and sister team who now run the innovative Fordhall Farm in Shropshire - and talks about their nature-based no-till pasture system; she talks with peak oil experts Richard Heinberg and Colin Campbell; visits Martin Crawford of the Agroforestry Research Trust and explores the small holding of Chris and Lynn Dixon - who have pioneered their low input, biodiverse permaculture-based land management techniques in the hills of Wales for years.

For folks like me who have long followed permaculture and other sustainable, but often marginalized, food movements, it's really incredible to see voices like this getting a wide and receptive audience. Now we just have to see how many folks are willing to roll up their sleeves, get their hands dirty, and start planting.

Recovering from Recovery

2009-03-11T12:09:00.001-04:00

Forget About Recovery

By James Howard Kunstler

At the risk of confirming my critics' dumbest charge -- that I am a "doomer" -- the mandate of clarity requires me to ask: to what state of affairs do we expect to recover? If the answer is a return to an economy based on building ever more suburban sprawl, on credit card over-spending, on routine securitized debt shenanigans in banking, and on consistently lying to ourselves about what reality demands of us, then we are a mortally deluded nation. We're done with that, we're beyond that now, we've crossed the frontier and left that all behind, and we'd better get our heads straight about it.

I maintain that there are countless constructive tasks waiting to occupy us on a long national "to do" list for rebuilding a national economy, but they are way different than the ones currently preoccupying government and the mainstream media. The Obama White House, Congress, and The New York Times are hung up on exercises in futility -- "rescuing" banks and insurance companies that cannot be rescued (because they are hopelessly trapped in "black hole" credit default swaps contracts), and re-starting a "consumer" binge that was completely crazy in the first place, based, as it was, on a something-for-nothing standard-of-living.

Meanwhile, if the buzz on the blogosphere is a measure of anything -- and I think it is -- then a new consensus is forming out there about where to start doing things differently. Unfortunately after less than two months in office, President Obama finds himself awkwardly behind-the-curve on this. It begins with the understanding that a general bank rescue is hopeless and, going a step further, that the people who caused the train wreck of "innovative" securities have to be prosecuted. The public's collective voice on this is muted but growing. It has been muted by the general air of blackmail that the banks have used to enthrall policy and opinion -- the "too big to fail" idea -- in effect holding the nation's future for ransom.

Last week, New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo hauled Bank of America chief Ken Lewis into his office to explain who, exactly, received an aggregate several billion dollars in bonuses late in 2008 after the US Treasury forked over billions of dollars in TARP money to his bank. That was a good start. Mr. Lewis, being lawyered-up to the max, had the temerity to reply that answering the question would compromise his ability to keep talented people in his employ. For that impertinence alone, Mr. Lewis ought to be dragged over fifteen miles of broken chardonnay bottles behind a GMC Yukon -- but that is not how we do things in American jurisprudence. To be more realistic, a simple indictment would be in order, and then Mr. Lewis can answer this question, and a few others, in the comfort of an air-conditioned courtroom. Ultimately, that might lead to Mr. Lewis becoming the wife of a bodybuilder in one of New York State's houses of correction -- a just outcome that would go far in rejiggering the nation's expectations about how people in authority ought to behave. And such an outcome might lead to the conviction of many other brides-to-be from the Wall Street debutante pool.

Now it has come to light, just last week in the wake of AIG's latest bail-out, that previous AIG bail-out money to the tune of $50 billion was distributed to a set of banks including Goldman Sachs (former employer of then Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson and then New York Federal Reserve Governor Tim Geithner), plus Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Mr. Lewis's Bank of America, and a long list of European banks with operations in the USA. Since the transactions took place in New York State, the investigation of these irregularities alone could solve the unemployment problem here if NY Attorney General Cuomo were given a free hand in hiring staff to depose everyone involved -- including the hiring of caterers to bring in coffee and meals for round-the-clock proceedings.

All of this raises another awkward question: where is United States Attorney General Eric Holder in this situation? Surely the federal statutes offer some grounds for inquiring about the misuse of Treasury funds -- and many other issues arising from Wall Street's stupendous orgy of misbehavior. What I'm hearing out in the blogosphere is a growing clamor to call people to account before we are really able to move on to the massive task-list that awaits us in rebuilding our economy.

The bigger question for now is whether any of these authorities will act effectively before the public simply goes apeshit and starts burning down Greenwich, Connecticut. The dangerous shift in public mood is liable to occur with shocking swiftness, in the manner of "phase change," where one moment you see a bewildered bunch of flabby clown-citizens vacuously enraptured by "American Idol," and the next moment they are transformed into a vicious mob hoisting flaming brands to the window treatments of a hedge funder's McMansion. The moment of opportunity for avoiding that outcome is looking sickeningly slim right now.

Another thing that President Obama can set into motion anytime -- and pull himself back to the head of the curve of leadership -- is to either by executive order or by proposal to congress, shut down the credit default swap system for a period of time while procedures are drawn up to place all these dubious contracts in a "clearing" market, where the holders of them will have to come clean about what they're sitting on. The lack of this procedure is allowing zombie banks to hold the United States hostage for never-ending bail-out ransoms. None of these banks are going to survive another six months anyway, so the basic blackmail motif that the whole money system will collapse if ransoms are not paid is a bluff that has to be called sooner or later in any case. So Mr. Obama might as well get on with it.

Once these two matters are dealt with -- an earnest start-up of prosecutions and disabling the credit default swap blackmail racket -- then perhaps a stressed-out and impoverished public might be induced to not go apeshit and instead get on with the mighty task of rebuilding our nation along lines that have a plausible future.

Clean Coal (Cough, cough)

2009-03-06T13:44:00.000-05:00

Closing the Collapse Gap

2009-03-03T19:33:00.000-05:00

Dmitri Orlov in great form as usual. The following excerpted from the complete slide show at Energy Bulletin.
Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. I am not an expert or a scholar or an activist. I am more of an eye-witness. I watched the Soviet Union collapse, and I have tried to put my observations into a concise message. I will leave it up to you to decide just how urgent a message it is.

My talk tonight is about the lack of collapse-preparedness here in the United States. I will compare it with the situation in the Soviet Union, prior to its collapse. The rhetorical device I am going to use is the "Collapse Gap" – to go along with the Nuclear Gap, and the Space Gap, and various other superpower gaps that were fashionable during the Cold War.

One important element of collapse-preparedness is making sure that you don't need a functioning economy to keep a roof over your head. In the Soviet Union, all housing belonged to the government, which made it available directly to the people. Since all housing was also built by the government, it was only built in places that the government could service using public transportation. After the collapse, almost everyone managed to keep their place.

In the United States, very few people own their place of residence free and clear, and even they need an income to pay real estate taxes. People without an income face homelessness. When the economy collapses, very few people will continue to have an income, so homelessness will become rampant. Add to that the car-dependent nature of most suburbs, and what you will get is mass migrations of homeless people toward city centers.

Soviet public transportation was more or less all there was, but there was plenty of it. There were also a few private cars, but so few that gasoline rationing and shortages were mostly inconsequential. All of this public infrastructure was designed to be almost infinitely maintainable, and continued to run even as the rest of the economy collapsed.

The population of the United States is almost entirely car-dependent, and relies on markets that control oil import, refining, and distribution. They also rely on continuous public investment in road construction and repair. The cars themselves require a steady stream of imported parts, and are not designed to last very long. When these intricately interconnected systems stop functioning, much of the population will find itself stranded.

Economic collapse affects public sector employment almost as much as private sector employment, eventually. Because government bureaucracies tend to be slow to act, they collapse more slowly. Also, because state-owned enterprises tend to be inefficient, and stockpile inventory, there is plenty of it left over, for the employees to take home, and use in barter. Most Soviet employment was in the public sector, and this gave people some time to think of what to do next.

Private enterprises tend to be much more efficient at many things. Such laying off their people, shutting their doors, and liquidating their assets. Since most employment in the United States is in the private sector, we should expect the transition to permanent unemployment to be quite abrupt for most people.

The Soviet agricultural sector was notoriously inefficient. Many people grew and gathered their own food even in relatively prosperous times. There were food warehouses in every city, stocked according to a government allocation scheme. There were very few restaurants, and most families cooked and ate at home. Shopping was rather labor-intensive, and involved carrying heavy loads. Sometimes it resembled hunting – stalking that elusive piece of meat lurking behind some store counter. So the people were well-prepared for what came next.

In the United States, most people get their food from a supermarket, which is supplied from far away using refrigerated diesel trucks. Many people don't even bother to shop and just eat fast food. When people do cook, they rarely cook from scratch. This is all very unhealthy, and the effect on the nation's girth, is visible, clear across the parking lot. A lot of the people, who just waddle to and from their cars, seem unprepared for what comes next. If they suddenly had to start living like the Russians, they would blow out their knees.

There are some things that I would like the government to take care of in preparation for collapse. I am particularly concerned about all the radioactive and toxic installations, stockpiles, and dumps. Future generations are unlikely to able to control them, especially if global warming puts them underwater. There is enough of this muck sitting around to kill off most of us. I am also worried about soldiers getting stranded overseas – abandoning one's soldiers is among the most shameful things a country can do. Overseas military bases should be dismantled, and the troops repatriated. I'd like to see the huge prison population whittled away in a controlled manner, ahead of time, instead of in a chaotic general amnesty. Lastly, I think that this farce with debts that will never be repaid, has gone on long enough. Wiping the slate clean will give society time to readjust. So, you see, I am not asking for any miracles. Although, if any of these things do get done, I would consider it a miracle.

Certain types of mainstream economic behavior are not prudent on a personal level, and are also counterproductive to bridging the Collapse Gap. Any behavior that might result in continued economic growth and prosperity is counterproductive: the higher you jump, the harder you land. It is traumatic to go from having a big retirement fund to having no retirement fund because of a market crash. It is also traumatic to go from a high income to little or no income. If, on top of that, you have kept yourself incredibly busy, and suddenly have nothing to do, then you will really be in rough shape.

Economic collapse is about the worst possible time for someone to suffer a nervous breakdown, yet this is what often happens. The people who are most at risk psychologically are successful middle-aged men. When their career is suddenly over, their savings are gone, and their property worthless, much of their sense of self-worth is gone as well. They tend to drink themselves to death and commit suicide in disproportionate numbers. Since they tend to be the most experienced and capable people, this is a staggering loss to society.

If the economy, and your place within it, is really important to you, you will be really hurt when it goes away. You can cultivate an attitude of studied indifference, but it has to be more than just a conceit. You have to develop the lifestyle and the habits and the physical stamina to back it up. It takes a lot of creativity and effort to put together a fulfilling existence on the margins of society. After the collapse, these margins may turn out to be some of the best places to live.

Hail to the Cheap...

2009-03-03T01:03:00.003-05:00

The Cheap Vegetable Gardener offers simple, creative and inexpensive solutions to save money and time in the garden.

"Pedal"ing solutions for peak oil...

2009-03-03T00:57:00.000-05:00

Fresh Aire Delivery Service, began in 1991 as a grocery delivery service which used a small bicycle trailer to deliver groceries to others in the community. As the business grew and took on other types of delivery services, they soon found themselves carrying loads beyond the capacity of any bicycle trailer on the market.

To satisfy their needs, they began building their own trailers. Other people with similar needs began inquiring, so they started a second company called Fresh Aire Trailer Works to fulfill the cargo-carrying needs of others and they eventually combined the two companies into one, Bikes At Work Inc.

Today, Bikes At Work manufactures a broad line of utilitarian human-powered transportation products including heavy-duty cargo bicycle trailers and custom cargo bikes while continuing to provide a mix of human-powered services to our community. This mix of products and services allows the testing, refinement, and developing of their equipment while providing a positive example of what can be done using human power alone.

There are several reasons people choose to transport cargo using a bike or trike:

Low equipment cost - A new cargo bike or trike usually costs substantially less than a motorized vehicle.
Non-polluting - The only pollution produced by a human-powered cargo vehicle is the carbon dioxide exhaled by the rider.
Usable indoors or outdoors - Because a human-powered vehicle produces no poisonous fumes, it can be used inside or outside.
Can be operated everywhere - A human-powered bike or trike is one of the few vehicles that can legally be used both on and off the street. This makes it possible to do literal "door-to-door" deliveries to areas inaccessible to motorized vehicles (college campuses, urban businesses, parks, etc.) It also opens up a much wider range of possible routes using bike paths, narrow alleyways, etc., some of which are often much shorter than those available to motor vehicles. These "shortcuts" often make transporting cargo by bike or trike as fast or faster than using an automobile or truck.
Easily parked - A bike or trike doesn't require the amount of parking space as a car or truck, and can generally be parked anywhere.
Always available - A human-powered vehicle doesn't need to be refueled or recharged like gasoline or electric vehicles, so it is always ready to be used.
Great exercise - Transporting cargo using your own power is, of course, an especially good form of aerobic exercise. People who regularly haul cargo by bike are rarely fat.

A Golden Opportunity - Pee Here Now!

2009-02-27T16:58:00.000-05:00

As the following article indicates, we can continue killing the ocean with anoxic dead zones or conserve the causative nutrients for farmers. Others are doing it on a large scale. Why not your town?

We could train and allow people to compost humanure and utilize urine (which contains by the way, in one person's annual output, enough N, P, and K for ONE ACRE of garden). The cost of these nutrients is rising (along with everything else related to petroleum - ask any farmer) and we're THROWING IT AWAY!!!

"Away" itself has gone away. There IS no "away". We always pay the costs in one way or another whether it be red tides, toxic shellfish or higher medical bills. We could save a LOT OF MONEY because THAT'S what we're really throwing away. At some point an informed public will get tired of having their money "treated like crap" and their crap treated like waste. There's a "golden" opportunity here. "Urine" charge...let's grow with the flow. Pee here now.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/27/opinion/27george.html?_r=1&pagewanted=all

Yellow Is the New Green

By ROSE GEORGE OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Woolley, England

IN the far reaches of Shaanxi Province in northern China, in an apple-producing village named Ganquanfang, I recently visited a house belonging to two cheery primary-school teachers, Zhang Min Shu and his wife, Wu Zhaoxian. Their house wasn't exceptional " a spacious yard, several rooms " except for the bathroom. There, up a few steps on a tiled platform, sat a toilet unlike any I'd seen. Its pan was divided in two: solid waste went in the back, and the front compartment collected urine. The liquids and solids can, after a decent period of storage and composting, be applied to the fields as pathogen-free, expense-free fertilizer.

From being unsure of wanting a toilet near the house in the first place "which is why the bathroom is at the far end of their courtyard " the couple had become so delighted with it that they regretted not putting it next to the kitchen after all.

What does this have to do with you? Mr. Zhang and Ms. Wu's weird toilet "known as a 'urine diversion', or NoMix (after a Swedish brand), toilet " may have things to teach us all.

In the industrialized world, most of us (except those who have septic tanks) rely on wastewater-treatment plants to remove our excrement from the drinking-water supply, in great volumes. (Toilets can use up to 30 percent of a household's water supply.) This paradigm is rarely questioned, and I understand why: flush toilets, sewers and wastewater-treatment plants do a fine job of separating us from our potentially toxic waste, and eliminating cholera and other waterborne diseases. Without them, cities wouldn't work.

But the paradigm is flawed. For a start, cleaning sewage guzzles energy. Sewage treatment in Britain uses a quarter of the energy generated by the country's largest coal-fired power station.

Then there is the nutrient problem: Human excrement is rich in nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, which is why it has been a good fertilizer for millenniums and until surprisingly recently. (A 19th-century sewage farm in Pasadena, Calif., was renowned for its tasty walnuts.) But when sewage is dumped in the seas in great quantity, these nutrients can unbalance and sometimes suffocate life, contributing to dead zones (405 worldwide and counting, according to a recent study). Sewage, according to the United Nations Environment Program, is the biggest marine pollutant there is. Wastewater-treatment plants work to extract the nutrients before discharging sewage into water courses, but they can't remove them all.

And there's also the urine problem. Urine, like any liquid, is a headache for wastewater managers, because most sewer systems take water from street drains along with the toilet, shower and kitchen kind. Population growth is already taxing sewers. (London's great network was built in the late 19th century with 25 percent extra capacity, but a system designed for three million people must now serve more than twice as many.) When a rainstorm suddenly sends millions of gallons of water into an already overloaded system, the extra must be stored or "if storage is lacking " discharged, untreated, into the nearest river or harbor. Each week, New York City sends about 800 Olympic-size swimming pools' worth of sewage-polluted water into nearby waters because there's nowhere else for it to go.

This probably won't kill us, but it's not ideal. Environmental scientists in California have calculated that sewage discharged near 28 Southern California beaches has contributed to up to 1.5 million excess gastrointestinal illnesses, costing as much as $51 million in health care. We can do better.

Urine might be one way forward. Before engineers scoff into their breakfast, consider that since at least 135,000 urine-diversion toilets are in use in Sweden and that a Swiss aquatic institute did a six-year study of urine separation that found in its favor. In Sweden, some of the collected urine "which contains 80 percent of the nutrients in excrement " is given to farmers, with little objection. If they can use urine and it's cheap, they'll use it," said Petter Jenssen, a professor at the Agricultural University of Norway.

The price of phosphorus fertilizers rose 50 percent in the past year in some parts of the world, as phosphate reserves, the largest of which are in Morocco and China, dwindle. (The gloomiest predictions suggest they'll be gone in 100 years.) Although half of sewage sludge in the United States is already turned into cheap fertilizer known as "biosolids," urine contains hardly any of the pathogens or heavy metals that critics of biosolids claim remain in mixed sewage, despite treatment.

The rest of Sweden's collected urine goes to municipal wastewater plants, but in much smaller volume so it's easier to deal with. Research by Jac Wilsenach, now a civil engineer in South Africa, found that removing even half of the nutrient-rich urine enables the bacteria in the aeration tanks to munch all the nitrogen and phosphate matter in solid waste in a single day rather than the usual 30. Urine diversion also makes for richer sludge and produces more methane, which can be turned into gas or electricity, Mr. Wilsenach said. In short, separating urine turns a guzzler of energy into a net producer.

Putting urine to use is not new. A friend's grandmother remembers the man coming round for the buckets 60 years ago in Yorkshire, which were then sold to the tanning industry. The flush toilet ended that, and no one "my friend's nan included" wants outside privies again. "Any innovation in the toilet that increases owner responsibility is probably seen as downwardly mobile," said Carol Steinfeld, of New Bedford, Mass., who imports NoMix toilets into the United States.

Then there's the sitting problem: in most urine-diversion toilets, a man must empty his bladder sitting down. This wouldn't be a problem in some countries (Germany recently introduced a toilet-seat alarm that admonishes standers to sit) but it has been in others. Professor Jenssen was flummoxed by one participant at a training workshop in Cuba who said firmly, "If a man sits, he is homosexual."

For now, "ecological sanitation" or "more sustainable sewage disposal" thrives mostly in fast-industrializing countries like China and India, which have money to invest in alternatives but few sewers. A subculture of composting toilets exists in the United States, but only a few hundred urine-diversion toilets have been imported, Ms. Steinfeld said.

Necessity "whether occasioned by fertilizer prices, carbon footprints or crippling capital investments" could bring change. At a recent wastewater conference, I watched in astonishment as dour engineers rushed to question a speaker who had been talking about stabilization ponds, which clean sewage using water, flow control, bacteria and light. Normally, such things would be cast into the box of hippie-ish ecological sanitation. But to managers struggling with energy quotas and budget limitations, more sustainable, less energy-intensive sanitation may be starting to make sense.

As Mr. Zhang told me with a smile: "For me, whatever the toilet is, I use it. For example, here we eat wheat. When we go to the south of China, we eat rice. Otherwise we starve."

It's been more than 100 years since Teddy Roosevelt wondered aloud whether "civilized people ought to know how to dispose of the sewage in some other way than putting it into the drinking water." The Zhang family toilet is not the perfect answer to Roosevelt, as it still uses some water, though 80 percent less than a regular flush toilet uses. But at least it's the result of someone asking the right questions.

Rose George is the author of "The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters."
More "Waste" management books here.

The Humanure Handbook: A Guide to Composting Human Manure
by Joseph C. Jenkins, 1994, 198pp. $25

Learn how to deal with your own shit. "Stop trying to change the world. Toilet-train the world and you won't have to keep changing it."(Swami Beyondananda) Here's all you need to know to make sewage treatment systems obsolete. Answers all the questions you never dared ask!

Liquid Gold: The Lore and Logic of Using Urine to Grow Plants
by Carol Steinfeld 2004, 88pp, $13

Pee=fertilizer. Witty, practical, liberating! Grow with the flow! Urine charge. A golden opportunity. Pee here now. Every day, we urinate nutrients that can fertilize plants that could be used for beautiful landscapes, food, fuel, and fiber. Instead, these nutrients are flushed away, either to be treated at high cost or discharged to waters where they overfertilize and choke off aquatic life. Liquid Gold details three ways to use urine hygienically and productively for plant growth, with studies that show the science behind this practice. Several advocates of urine diversion and their gardens are profiled, demonstrating that using urine for fertilizer is a feasible, safe, and cost-saving way to prevent pollution and save on fertilizer costs.

http://www.liquidgoldbook.com/
http://www.liquidgoldbook.com/blo

Turn off the High Definition for better viewing

2009-02-25T14:35:00.000-05:00

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

Find the Ecovillage where you are...

2009-02-25T13:38:00.004-05:00

Good news from friend and colleague (once long-term editor of Communities Magazine and author of Creating A Life Together and Finding Community) Diana Christian (and previously fellow ecovillager at Earthaven) who writes (at her excellent new website, Ecovillage News):

I’m publishing Ecovillages as a free, bimonthly newsletter in order to encourage and inspire ecovillage projects with news about what ecovillages are doing worldwide. People seem to love photos and stories about how others are succeeding in good work. Ecovillages will bring you stories about successful projects in every issue, and practical, how-to information, too.

From six to eight articles will appear in each issue, in a variety of topics. Here are the kinds of articles and ongoing columns you'll find:

I’m especially keen on stimulating more interest in ecovillages in North America, ideally with news of what people are doing elsewhere. You’ll find stories about ecovillage projects in Africa, the Middle East, Europe, Russia, South America, Australia and New Zealand, southern Asia, China, and Japan. (We’re everywhere!)

Our GANG in Bloomington, IN

2009-02-23T12:47:00.004-05:00

After weeks of thinking up stranger and stranger names for our communal garden, Kimberly Wagner, psychologist, wordsmith, and Kevin Polk’s wife, offered up the obvious, both simple and subversive: GANG, or Green Acres Neighborhood Garden. We loved it immediately. Besides its capacity to reverse the sinister association of urban gangs we can say, hey, “Come join the GANG!” or, “Let’s GANG-up!” and so on — one way to add levity to the heightened sense of community.

The executive committee that, throughout this long winter, has been charged with figuring out the mechanics of how to get this garden going, consists of Kevin Polk, Dave Parkhurst and Georgia Schaich, a long-term Green Acres resident, activist and networker. To these must be added teacher and project director Keith Johnson (again see February 3 post) and myself, as project manager. Keith decided that the way to start the process of educating neighbors and the public through this garden as to the benefits of permaculture would be to offer monthly workshops.

Yesterday, he and I decided that we will hold eight workshops, from the end of month of March through the end of the growing season. This means that if you attend all the workshops, you will know how to grow a permaculture garden in Bloomington, Indiana. And of course, for me, the benefits of this garden are equally that it builds community spirit in the neighborhood and empowers us to go further, hopefully creating other public gardens on private land, creating pathways throughout, turning some streets into pedestrian walkways with kiosks, tiny sidewalk lending libraries, tea houses; turning intersections into piazzas through painted mandalas or labyrinths — all as inspired by the template established in Portland’s City Repair project. As Kevin said, grinning, ultimately it will be known as GANGSTA or, Green Acres Neighborhood Gardens Training Association!

We think big.

Meanwhile, “back at the ranch,” ranch house, that is. . . I’ve already been the stranger in this little suburban enclave, saving my leaves, cutting my lawn just barely enough to get by . . . But this? Once a month swarms of people doing weird things in and around the muddy hole in the ground? What will people think?

Well, what will people think if we don’t built such community gardens? It’s time to return to what we used to know and is still written in our bones: how to feed ourselves, to share with one another, to trade skills and re-skill ourselves, and now, for the first time in human history, to remember who we are as one people on a suffering planet wired into a single neural matrix. Though we can link up instantly via the internet, real connections among living breathing humans and animals and plant life forms are slow building and become both vital and invigorating during this time of lurching collective civilizational descent that will prove more and more drastic as time goes on.

We can react in fear or we can respond in love. Coherence or chaos. In this stark time of elemental choice, there is no middle ground.

Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival

2009-02-23T10:30:00.002-05:00

You are cordially invited to attend the Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival presented by Patagonia and hosted by Indiana Forest Alliance. On Thursday, February 26 this film festival, the largest environmental film festival in the nation, will debut in Bloomington, Indiana at the Buskirk Chumley Theater. Travel around the world, to the mountains and to the beach -- look at how people gather together and share a passion for protecting the planet.

Mayor Mark Kruzan and author Scott Russell Sanders will be speaking that evening, with Indiana Forest Alliance founder Andy Mahler as master of ceremonies. Local environmental groups will also be attending -- so prepare to be inspired and to take action.

Doors open at 6:30, films start at 7 pm. There will be a raffle of items generously donated by our national and local sponsors including: Patagonia, Sierra Nevada, Toms of Maine, Clif Bar, JL Waters, Bloomingfoods, Hoosier Heights Climbing Gym, One World, Les Champs Elysees, Nicks, Scholars Inn Bakehouse, Max's Place, and Indiana Running Co.

Tickets are available at Sunrise Box Office next to the Buskirk Chumley Theater, Bloomingfoods locations, and JL Waters. Tickets are $10 for the festival or $20 for the festival and a membership in Indiana Forest Alliance.
So many wonderful things happen in Bloomington. I know that this event will be energizing and inspiring.

Healing Truth Decay

2009-02-20T11:18:00.003-05:00

Swami's 2009 State of the Universe
The Shift Has Hit the Fan: Welcome to the Sane Asylum
By Swami Beyondananda

The shift has hit the fan! Humanity has shifted its karma into surpassing gear, and political climate change has come to America. Thanks to a grassroots up-wising, we the people huffed and puffed together in the same direction and the winds of change blew in a breath of fresh air. And we can all breathe easier.

The vote in November was more than a vote for a new President. It was a vote for a new precedent, to overgrow the "lowest common dominator" paradigm and take a step towards government of the people, by the people, for the people where the government does our bidding, not the bidding of the highest bidder -- and where the Golden Rule can finally overrule the rule of gold. In the short term, the up-wising has been successful, and the American Evolution has begun. The first big shots have been fired, and we are on the road to recovering from an eight-year bout with Mad Cowboy Disease and Electile Dysfunction.

But now, if we want to heal the body politic of conditions like Deficit Inattention Disorder, Truth Decay and the deadliest one of all, an unchecked Military Industrial Complex, we must elect ourselves. Spiritually, it's time to quiet our barking dogmas and evolve past the Ten Commandments to an even greater realization " the One Suggestion: 'We are all in it together.'" Once a critical mass of us chooses to live by this credo, we can avoid the critical massacre called Armageddon, create Disarmageddon instead, and achieve fulfillment as a species.

Humanifest Destiny. The End of the Age of Nefarious?

Every journey into the light is preceded by a dark passage, and our entry into the Age of Aquarius is no different. As predicted in the celebrated quatrain ("When the goon moves into Lincoln's house, and stupider aligns with Mars, then greed will guide the planet and fear obscure the stars ..."), the Age of Nefarious delayed the start of the new millennium. But now the quatrain is heading down a new track, and soular power is shining a light on the endarkened corridors of soulless power.

Just as the eight-year journey that took us from Whitewater to Blackwater was coming to an end, some overzealous Bush-bashers hurled footwear to give the departing regime one final boot. That was understandable, but unnecessary. Better we should keep our shoes on, and use them to stand together at a time when healing wounds is more important than wounding heels. Besides, without Bush there could have been no Obama. His alarming actions awakened more people than Buddha, and a body politic in a fear-induced coma miraculously regained consciousness.

And now there is a new President: Barack Hussein Obama. After eight years of insanity, we can proclaim to the world, "America has a President Hussein!" (who's sane!)

So now, we must face another awesome truth: We are living in a world gone SANE. Welcome to the sane asylum.

Trickle Down Goes Belly Up

It's a good thing our political fates are on the upswing, as our economy has taken a sharp downturn. The house of credit cards economy based on trickle down has gone belly up, and we must face another, sadder truth. Individually and collectively, we've been suffering from Deficit Inattention Disorder, and since we were unable to do the math, we must now do the aftermath. It's a buy-o-logical fact. You cannot spend more than you have. Nature knows this. We can use no more energy than what we have in reserve. We cannot charge energy on our Ascended Master Card and repay it next lifetime.   So yes, the casino economy is coming down, but there is an upside to the meltdown. There is a great opportunity in the crisis. Consider this...when the dollar hits zero, we can pay off our entire $10 trillion national debt and hardly feel it!

Meanwhile, over the past eight years we have seen the fall of reptilian entities like Enronosaurus Wrecks, and most recently a character named Madoff made off with billions. Our entire economic system has been revealed as an extraordinary ponzi scheme where ordinary people are left holding the empty bag.

Unfortunately, this is nothing new. It's the same old needy-greedy where our collective fear of not having enough -- "scare city" -- has empowered those privatizing privateers who are plundering our planet with their mining operations: that's mine, that's mine, that's mine. This mining has overmined the planet and undermined humanity. Thus, the emergency we face right now.

So, what do we do? I am glad I asked that question. We must go beyond the fear-based state of emergency, to a state of emergent seeing. That is where we emerge and see the genuine wealth that is all around us: the virtually infinite energy from Father Sun, the prolific nourishment Mother Earth brings us every season, the love we generate from our hearts, and the inventiveness of our minds. With this realization, we have a one way ticket out of scare city ...and we enter a state of a-bun-dance. That is where we get up off our assets, move our buns, face the music and dance together. In using our resources to create good goods and greater goodness, we can weave a web of mass construction that will make us all interdependently wealthy.

Heartland Security and Purple People Power

So...how do we do this? How do we go from our habitual "every cell for itself" consciousness that has caused our current "mining disaster", to acting on the evolutionary truth that we are in reality "all cells in the body of humanity?" How do we shift from survival of the fittest to thrival of the fittingest?

First we must move from the fear-based Homeland Security to the love-based Heartland Security, and realize our one true security is in the land of the heart. While the beliefs in our head fool us all the time, the love in our heart is foolproof. When we face up to love, we can face down the fear.

What this means in practical reality is that we must step across the red-blue political divide that has kept us separate, and show our true colors as one purple people. Yes, we have all been wounded by polarizing politics, so let's give ourselves a purple heart, and take the next courageous step to cohere around our shared heart core values and become ...we, the purple.

I have a dream ... that the rednecks shall lie down with the blue necks, and we tune out the polarizing mainstream media, which is, sadly, a brainwashing machine stuck on spin. More than ever, we need forums not againstums, dialogue instead of debate. When the body politic stops mass-debating and chooses to have healthy, pleasurable intercourse, we will finally create a healthy brainchild together.

This February, we celebrate Abraham Lincoln's bicentennial, and our friend Richard Lederer (the anagram master known as Riddler Reacher), tells us that when we scramble the letters in "Barack Hussein Obama," we get "Abraham is back: One U.S."

You don't have to be a Barack-backer to see that instead of relying on leaders from above, the next evolutionary step is for us to become the leaders we have been waiting for. I am Lincoln. You are Lincoln. We are Lincoln. And by linkin' together, we free ourselves from slavery to the divisive beliefs in our minds, and form a more perfect union in the land of the heart.

Sure, these ideas may seem far-fetched, but we are nearer to fetching them than ever before. Remember, we are now living in a world gone sane. Change is ahead, change is afoot, and everything is changing from head to foot. Like it or not, we are destined to have heaven on earth. Might as well get used to it.

Rebates for Energy Efficient Hoosiers

2009-02-18T16:52:00.003-05:00

INDIANAPOLIS — A new state program offers Hoosier homeowners incentives to install energy-efficient heating.

Lt. Gov. Becky Skillman announced the availability of rebates that will help Hoosiers offset the cost of heating their homes, washing clothes or even taking a shower.

The Indiana Residential Energy Efficiency Rebate program will provide cash rebates for the purchase and installation of energy efficient furnaces, boilers and water heaters in existing Indiana homes.

"This rebate program is all about Hoosiers making a difference at home," Skillman said. "Installing a more energy efficient furnace or water heater means homeowners can reduce the amount of energy they use to stay warm or have hot water, and save money on their utility bill
at the same time."

A total of $250,000 is available for the rebate program, administered by the Indiana Office of Energy Development.

The rebates, which range from $75 to $400, are available for existing single family homes that are the primary residence of the applicants. Applicants must have a household income of $75,000 or less to be eligible. The rebate application must be approved before any work is done. Applications must be received by April 30. Guidelines for the rebate program are available at www.energy.IN.gov.

The OED is an extension of the Indiana energy office. Under the leadership of Skillman, OED is responsible for the state's energy policy.

Indiana gets 98% of its energy (& pollution) from coal!

2009-02-16T18:07:00.004-05:00

Daniels Takes In Huge Contributions from Mining Companies

Recently re-elected Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels role as the champion of coal has not gone
unnoticed or unrewarded by coal mining firms, industry suppliers and the utilities that burn the dirty energy source. Data released today by four Indiana groups show that coal interests paid $433,462 in campaign contributions to help secure the re-election of Daniels. The previously undisclosed largesse of the coal industry and related utilities may help to explain why the governor has not yet responded to a public records request lawfully filed three and a half months ago about ties between his Administration and Duke Energy.

John Blair, president, Valley Watch, said: "Indiana is one of the most polluted states in the nation and that is largely due to the many old and dirty coal plants that operate here. It is no wonder Governor Daniels is reluctant to answer our records request since it is clear he resides in the back pocket of the industry that causes much of the ill health in southern Indiana."

Valley Watch, Inc. formed in 1981 to "protect the public health and environment of the lower Ohio River Valley." That is loosely defined as the Indiana/Kentucky border.

Coal-fired power plants pollute the environment and cause ill health for Indiana and Kentucky kids and our elderly.

Toxic emissions of Mercury, Lead, Arsenic, Chromium, Dioxin are common from these power plants as are Sulfur Dioxide (Acid Rain), Nitrogen Oxides (Ozone/Smog) and deadly Fine Particles which are known to cause the deaths of 24,000 people in the U.S. each year.

Two southwest Indiana industries, Cinergy’s Gibson Station (6,959,367 lbs.) and Alcoa Warrick Operations (5,554,409 lbs.) individually emit more toxic air pollution than all of the industry in Los Angeles County, CA (5,474,650 lbs.), according to EPA’s 2001 Toxic Release Inventory.

The largest concentration of coal power plants in the world

Join Valley Watch...

Transition Handbook Review

2009-02-14T16:42:00.003-05:00

The Transition Town Movement: Embracing Reality and Resilience, By Carolyn Baker

By Carolyn Baker
CarolynBaker.net
Straight to the Source

For several months I have been meaning to write a review of Rob Hopkins' The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience, but other things got in the way-like a planetary economic meltdown and out of control climate change that exceeds some of the most dire predictions by climate scientists. I should have spoken out earlier in support of this movement, but I didn't. Now, as we commence this new year, I am.

I will begin this book "review" by telling you that I find nothing-absolutely nothing wrong with The Transition Handbook. If that then makes this article into a commercial for the book instead of a review, so be it.

For nearly a year I have been emphasizing in my writing that a positive vision must be held in consciousness alongside all of the abysmal events unfolding around us. Even as I have been insistent on staring down the collapse of civilization, I have embraced at the same time, what could be and have held in my mind and heart the threads of the new paradigm that so many of us are working to create.

Thus it has been with great pleasure and relief that I have looked deeply into the Transition Town movement and found it to exemplify everything that I believe comprises effective relocalization and the shaping of alternative economies and vibrant communities. Not only am I in awe of what the people of Totnes, the first Transition Town in the U.K., have accomplished, but more so, that the Transition Town model has become contagious and is spreading to a variety of places throughout the world, in the United States, and closer to my own local community here in Vermont. I'm additionally pleased that the Transition Handbook is now being distributed here in the U.S. by a Vermont publisher, Chelsea Green.

The Transition Town movement is all about preparing for energy descent and climate change and addressing the relationship between the two by essentially viewing them as two different aspects of the same problem. James Howard of Powerswitch in the U.K. states:

Peak Oil and Climate Change are a bigger threat together than either are alone. Our biggest hope is to similarly converge our understanding of them, and how to deal with the problems they present. Peak Oil and Climate Change must be fused as issues - an approach is needed to deal with them as a package. If we are looking for answers, the environmental movement has pushed suitable ones for a long time. Peak Oil presents a tremendous chance to push those solutions ahead; failure to incorporate a full understanding of Peak Oil into the solutions argument for Climate Change would be an abject failure.

Fundamental to the Transition Town movement is the notion of resilience. It is defined in the Transition Handbook as "the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change, so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks." In other words, resilience does not mean putting a fence around one's community, refusing to allow anything in or out. It means "being more prepared for a leaner future, more self-reliant, and prioritizing the local over the imported."

Three requirements for a resilient system are: Diversity, Modularity, and Tightness of Feedbacks. Diversity simply refers to the number of elements in the system-people, species, businesses, institutions, and sources of food. What matters is not so much the number of any of these entities but the connections between them and the diversity of responses to challenges, the diversity of land use, and the diversity between systems. Not only does an analysis of the diversity of the place make top-down approaches redundant, but it reinforces the wisdom of "working on small changes to lots of niches in the place, making lots of small interventions rather than a few large ones."

Modularity of a structure refers to the parts of the system that can re-organize in the event of a shock. It is a key facet of designing an energy-descent plan because the more modularity, the less vulnerability to disruptions in wider networks. As the Transition Handbook states: Local food systems, local investment models, and so on, all add to this modularity, meaning that we engage with the wider world but from an ethic of networking and information sharing rather than of mutual dependence."

Tightness of feedbacks analyzes how quickly and strongly one part of the system can respond to changes in another part. Globalization and national systems can weaken feedbacks, whereas in localized systems, the results of our actions are more obvious and allow the community to bring the consequences of its actions closer to home.

In summary, it is possible that a future with less oil could be more positive than the current addiction to fossil fuels, but only, says the Transition Handbook, "if we engage in designing this transition with sufficient creativity and imagination" which is indeed what the handbook is all about.

The format of this mini-workbook sized manual is extremely appealing. It is printed on heavy recycled paper, designed with simple, natural color tones, and is chock-full of exceedingly practical group exercises for clarifying and practicing its principles.

To its credit, this book does not sugar-coat the daunting reality of Peak Oil and Climate Change, but rather, offers a positive vision of preparation and myriad practical steps for manifesting it. An entire chapter is devoted to the somewhat paralyzing terror of everyone's "End of Suburbia" moment and the resulting "post-petroleum stress disorder", but also emphasizes that alongside that epiphany, we must cherish not only a positive vision, but one that we can realistically and pragmatically implement.

A fabulous chapter in the middle of the book on the "Psychology of Change" underscores how change happens and how we tend to proceed through it emotionally, emphasizing that "change doesn't happen all at once. Rather it occurs in increments or stages." The various stages of change are explored, with emphasis on their characteristics and what may be helpful to move people on to the next stage of the process. Some aspects of addiction diagnosis and treatment are utilized in order to address the depths to which most people in the developed world are addicted to the fossil fuel/consumption-based lifestyle. Fundamental to this addiction, as with all others, is the belief that change isn't really possible. With remarkable skill, the Transition Town movement utilizes a number of effective strategies for assisting people who are stuck in abject pessimism by helping them envision the possibility of change and the certainty that it can be made.

At the core of the Transition Town movement is the Transition Initiative which is an "emerging and evolving approach to community-level sustainability", and many of these initiatives are appearing not only in the U.K. but in the U.S. They are based on four key assumptions:

•1. That life with dramatically lower energy consumption is inevitable, and that it's better to plan for it than to be taken by surprise.

•2. That our settlements and communities presently lack the resilience to enable them to weather the severe energy shocks that will accompany Peak Oil

•3. That we have to act collectively, and we have to act now

•4. That by unleashing the collective genius of those around us to creatively and proactively design our energy descent, we can build ways of living that are more connected, more enriching and that recognize the biological limits of our planet.

At the core of the Transition concept is permaculture, which while difficult to explain in one sentence, is essentially a design template for assembling the various components of any community-social, economic, cultural, and technical in the most efficient way possible. The 12 Principles of Permaculture, established by its founder David Holmgren, are explained, and examples are given regarding how they have become the foundation of Transition Towns throughout the world. How the principles will be implemented-in fact how any aspect of the Transition concept will be implemented anywhere, depends on the unique people and conditions of that place, which is one of the jewels of this movement. It does not offer cookie-cutter prescriptions but rather, possible strategies that can be uniquely applied to one's community and region.

An entire chapter is devoted to how to start a Transition initiative, and although not directly related to the addiction to a fossil fuel lifestyle, Twelve Steps of Transition are offered. The most impressive of these for me is the first one: "Set up a steering group and design its demise from the outset." What a relief! No chance of this group becoming an entrenched, hierarchical, power-driven monster; no chance of success unless the entire community is engaged and becomes more effective in bringing about transition than is the steering group; no need for one or two individuals alone to try to save the world.

The last half of the book is primarily devoted to an analysis of the first year of transition in Totnes and some of the practical manifestations of transition there. And finally, the book concludes with the "viral spread" of the Transition Town concept throughout the world. An extensive appendix includes a generous offering of further exercises, forms, questionnaires, and an energy descent action plan.

How does a Transition Town know if it has become resilient? What is the measure of viable transition? Here are a few resilience indicators:

The percentage of local trade carried out in local currency
The percentage of food consumed locally that was produced within a given radius
The ratio of car parking space to productive land use
Degree of engagement in practical transition work by the local community
Amount of traffic on local roads
Number of businesses owned by local people
Proportion of the community employed locally
Percentage of essential goods manufactured within a given radius
Percentage of local building materials used in new housing development
Percentage of energy consumed in the town
Amount of sixteen year-olds able to grow 10 different varieties of vegetables to a given degree of competency
Percentage of medicines prescribed locally that have been produced within a given radius.

Are these not the most axiomatic of preparations for Peak Oil and Climate Change? The Transition Handbook offers both stunning inspiration and an assortment of ingenious, yet commonsensical tools, for actualizing the concept of relocalization.

The Handbook concludes with these remarkably uplifting words:

While Peak Oil and Climate Change are understandably profoundly challenging, also inherent within them is the potential for an economic, cultural, and social renaissance the likes of which we have never seen. We will see a flourishing of local businesses, local skills and solutions, and a flowering of ingenuity and creativity. It is a Transition in which we will inevitably grow, and in which our evolution is a precondition for progress. Emerging at the other end, we will not be the same as we were: we will have become more humble, more connected to the natural world, fitter, leaner, more skilled, and ultimately, wiser.

With all my heart, I want to support Transition Towns in my community and around the world with the hope that their implementations are not too little, too late. Yet, even if they are, I cannot think of a better place to direct one's energy, time, and passion--regardless of outcome, as we navigate with realism and resilience, the collapse of civilization.

Indiana's Shame

2009-02-14T14:15:00.002-05:00

Indiana Lands on Group's Top 50 List of Mercury Emitters

Indiana a member of group's 'dirty dozen'
By Shari Rudavsky
Indianapolis Star
Straight to the Source

Three Indiana power plants have landed on an environmental group's tally of the 50 facilities in the nation that emit the greatest amount of poisonous mercury into the air and water.

Together, the 50 plants last year released about 20 tons of mercury, which can cause permanent damage to brains, kidneys and developing fetuses, according to a report from the Environmental Integrity Project, a nonprofit that advocates for stricter enforcement of environmental regulations. "Many of the nation's dirtiest and oldest power plants continue to operate," said Ilan Levin, senior attorney with the group. "We need a strong national rule that mandates 90 percent reduction from every power plant."

The group dubbed 12 states, including Indiana, the "dirty dozen" because they had the most plants on the Top 50 list.

All three of the Indiana plants on the list say they have mercury reduction projects under way.

Indiana has no restrictions specifically addressing mercury emissions from power plants. The state is enacting a rule to reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions, which also would reduce mercury emissions.

Coal-fired power plants are the single largest contributor, accounting for 40 percent of mercury emissions across the country. Mercury also is used in the manufacturing of certain vehicle parts, dental fillings, thermometers and batteries.

Environmental activists would like the state to do more to reduce emissions from power plants.

Full Story: http://www.indystar.com/article/20081121/LOCAL/811210433

Be Fruitful and Mulch Apply

2009-02-14T13:32:00.003-05:00

SHEET MULCHING

A few simple directions Michael Pilarski, Friends of the Trees Society (2/3/03 edition)

The most effective sheet mulches are roundish in outline and at least 10 feet or more in diameter to minimize edge which can be invaded by rhizomatous weeds.

1). First chop down existing vegetation as close to the ground as feasible. Leave the chopped material as the first layer.

2) Plant any trees or shrubs desired (if any) in the area to be sheet mulched.

3) Water thoroughly unless the ground is moist from rain or winter melt-off.

4) Spread layer of rich material such as manure, compost or mushroom compost, lawn clippings, fresh green leafy matter,

5) A good addition if available is to add trace mineral rock dusts such as rock phosphate, limestone, dolomite, greensand or humates depending on the soil.

6) Add handfuls of red wiggler worm inoculum (contains eggs as well as actual worms) at regular intervals. Not entirely necessary but they help break down the lower layers of the sheet mulch faster.

7) Cardboard layer. 2 to 3 layers thick, overlapped like shingles. Full coverage. Pull the cardboard within a few inches of any tree stems which have been planted.

8) Chip layer. Broken down is better then fresh material but both will do. Deciduous trees better than coniferous trees but both will do. Biomass from less polluted areas are preferable than from more polluted sources. Leaves, needles, twigs, and bark are better then the actual woody trunk chips. The finer the grind the better. Use whatever you can get, as long as it doesn’t have weed seeds in it.

9) Poke planting holes all the way through the sheet mulch with a heavy steel bar or a pick. Make a planting pocket in the hole and fill it with some good soil and then transplant herb plants or vegetable starts or flowers that you wish to plant. Water in thoroughly and remulch up to their stems.

10) Monitor the planting and pull the occasional weed which pokes its head up through planting holes, or around trees. After a few months the cardboard will decay to the point where weeds will gradually begin to emerge though the sheet mulch. It is easy to pull these shoots out if monitored frequently. The mulch can be renewed once or twice a year to maintain its effectiveness.

"....a lot of Americans will end up starving, & rather soon."

2009-02-09T15:27:00.001-05:00

Poverty of Imagination

By James Howard Kunstler for ClusterFuck Nation

Venturing out each day into this land of strip malls, freeways, office parks, and McHousing pods, one can't help but be impressed at how America looks the same as it did a few years ago, while seemingly overnight we have become another country. All the old mechanisms that enabled our way of life are broken, especially endless revolving credit, at every level, from household to business to the banks to the US Treasury.

Peak energy has combined with the diminishing returns of over-investments in complexity to pull the "kill switch" on our vaunted "way of life" -- the set of arrangements that we won't apologize for or negotiate. So, the big question before the nation is: do we try to re-start the whole smoking, creaking hopeless, futureless machine? Or do we start behaving differently?

The attempted re-start of revolving debt consumerism is an exercise in futility. We've reached the limit of being able to create additional debt at any level without causing further damage, additional distortions, and new perversities of economy (and of society, too). We can't raise credit card ceilings for people with no ability make monthly payments. We can't promote more mortgages for people with no income. We can't crank up a home-building industry with our massive inventory of unsold, and over-priced houses built in the wrong places. We can't ramp back up the blue light special shopping fiesta. We can't return to the heyday of Happy Motoring, no matter how many bridges we fix or how many additional ring highways we build around our already-overblown and over-sprawled metroplexes. Mostly, we can't return to the now-complete "growth" cycle of "economic expansion." We're done with all that. History is done with our doing that, for now.

So far -- after two weeks in office -- the Obama team seems bent on a campaign to sustain the unsustainable at all costs, to attempt to do all the impossible things listed above. Mr. Obama is not the only one, of course, who is invoking the quest for renewed "growth." This is a tragic error in collective thinking. What we really face is a comprehensive contraction in our activities, especially the scale of our activities, and the pressing need to readjust the systems of everyday life to a level of decreased complexity.

For instance, the myth that we can become "energy independent and yet remain car-dependent is absurd. In terms of liquid fuels, we're simply trapped. We import two-thirds of the oil we use and there is absolutely no chance that drill-drill-drilling (or any other scheme) will change that. The public and our leaders can not face the reality of this. The great wish for "alternative" liquid fuels (bio fuels, algae excreta) will never be anything more than a wish at the scales required, and the parallel wish to keep all our cars running by other means -- hydrogen fuel cells, electric motors -- is equally idle and foolish. We cannot face the mandate of reality, which is to do everything possible to make our living places walkable, and connect them with public transit. The stimulus bills in congress clearly illustrate our failure to understand the situation.

The attempt to restart "consumerism" will be equally disappointing. It was a manifestation of the short peak energy decades of history, and now that we're past peak energy, it's over. That seventy percent of the economy is over, especially the part that allowed people to buy stuff with no money. From now on people will have to buy stuff with money they earn and save, and they will be buying a lot less stuff. For a while, a lot of stuff will circulate through the yard sales and Craigslist, and some resourceful people will get busy fixing broken stuff that still has value. But the other infrastructure of shopping is toast, especially the malls, the strip malls, the real estate investment trusts that own it all, many of the banks that lent money to the REITs, the chain-stores and chain eateries, of course, and, alas, the non-chain mom-and-pop boutiques in these highway-oriented venues.

Washington is evidently seized by panic right now. I don't know anyone who works in the White House, but I must suppose that they have learned in two weeks that these systems are absolutely tanking, that the previous way of life that everybody was so set on not apologizing for has reached the end of the line. We seem to be learning a new and interesting lesson: that even a team that promises change is actually petrified of too much change, especially change that they can't really control.

The argument about "change" during the election was sufficiently vague that no one was really challenged to articulate a future that wasn't, materially, more-of-the-same. I suppose the Obama team may have thought they would only administer it differently than the Bush team -- but basically life in the USA would continue being about all those trips to the mall, and the cubicle jobs to support that, and the family safaris to visit Grandma in Lansing, and the vacations at Sea World, and Skipper's $20,000 college loan, and Dad's yearly junket to Las Vegas, and refinancing the house, and rolling over this loan and that loan... and that has all led to a very dead end in a dark place.

If this nation wants to survive without an intense political convulsion, there's a lot we can do, but none of it is being voiced in any corner of Washington at this time. We have to get off of petro-agriculture and grow our food locally, at a smaller scale, with more people working on it and fewer machines. This is an enormous project, which implies change in everything from property allocation to farming methods to new social relations. But if we don't focus on it right away, a lot of Americans will end up starving, and rather soon. We have to rebuild the railroad system in the US, and electrify it, and make it every bit as good as the system we once had that was the envy of the world. If we don't get started on this right away, we're screwed. We will have tremendous trouble moving people and goods around this continent-sized nation. We have to reactivate our small towns and cities because the metroplexes are going to fail at their current scale of operation. We have to prepare for manufacturing at a much smaller (and local) scale than the scale represented by General Motors.

The political theater of the moment in Washington is not focused on any of this, but on the illusion that we can find new ways of keeping the old ways going. Many observers have noted lately how passive the American public is in the face of their dreadful accelerating losses. It's a tragic mistake to tell them that they can have it all back again. We'll see a striking illustration of "phase change" as the public mood goes from cow-like incomprehension to grizzly bear-like rage. Not only will they discover the impossibility of getting back to where they were, but they will see the panicked actions of Washington drive what remains of our capital resources down a rat hole.

A consensus is firming up on each side of the "stimulus" question, largely along party lines -- simply those who are for it and those who are against it, mostly by degrees. Nobody in either party -- including supposed independents such as Bernie Sanders or John McCain, not to mention President Obama -- has a position for directing public resources and effort at any of the things I mentioned above: future food security, future travel-and-transport security, or the future security of livable, walkable dwelling places based on local networks of economic interdependency. This striking poverty of imagination may lead to change that will tear the nation to pieces.

Transition Indiana

TEDxBloomington -- Keith Johnson -- "Food Security and Resilence"

CAFO's Can Kill You - No Joke.

Flies and cockroaches carry antibiotic-resistant bacteria from factory farms, study finds

Boycott Land O'Lakes - GMO Pushers

Hay Now — It’s Boycott Time: Land O’Lakes, This Means You!

The American Dre.....er, Nightmare. Time to Wake Up, eh?

Dave Rollo's Peak Oil Presentation

Taking Back Our Lives from the Wall Street Mafia

Simply Living Fair and Midwest Permaculture Gathering

From Grass to Cheese

Growth As Cancer

Everything you thought you knew is wrong!

Going Local

Why Local Economies Matter

FDA Says "You may not eat the food of your choice."

Sharecropping Reimagined

The Crash Course — Exponential Growth Meets Reality

Preparing for Disasters and Hard Times

Local Democracy Under Siege

Grassroots Mobilization: A Call for Communities to Defy the Court

The Wires that Control the Public Mind

Overcoming Corporate "Personhood"

Dmitry Orlov - Deﬁnancialization, Deglobalization, Relocalization

Meet the Farmer - Joel Salatin

A few good stories from PPJ Gazette

The Truth behind the drive to outlaw raw/fresh milk sales

The multiple personality disorder of the USDA

The New “Cult” – Amish?

Forget Grass Fed Beef – You are eating GRAS Ground Beef

Great Unleashing - Apr 24th in Bloomington IN

Entering the Anthropocene - A Nitrogen Fixation

Nitrogen and phosphorus cycles

Resilience Thinking

An Invitation to Think Differently

Arctic permafrost leaking methane at record levels, figures show

Report of the Bloomington Peak Oil Task Force: Redefining Prosperity: Energy Descent and Community Resilience

Heads in the Sand? Or, Why Don't Governments Talk About Peak Oil

Pesticides Behind Mass Die-Off?

Future Farming: The Call for a 50-Year Perspective on Agriculture

BLOOMINGTON EATS GREEN Conference

Alcohol Fuel for Sustainable Living

NOT too big to fail...with your help.

Feast or Famine?

91•86•90

12 Stages of Transition with Rob Hopkins

Transition Timeline

Its the Stupidity Stupid

In Transition - the Movie

Monsanto's Phosphorus Theft

Rob Hopkins at TED

Bloomington Preps for Peak Oil

Answer your cell phone, cook your brain...Hello?!

Uban Ag in Bloomington

First Annual PDC in Bloomington, IN!

GANA Permaculture Gardens Workshop Series update

Transition News

Dollars from dirt: Economy spurs home garden boom

Students on farms: A model for America

For Young Japanese, It’s Back to the Farm

Multimedia

A Bioregional "Biocurriculum"

Section 1: Goals of a Bioregional Curriculum

The Future of Food (if Monsanto has its way)

Guerrilla Gardening, Veggie Vandalism

A Farm for the Future

Recovering from Recovery

Clean Coal (Cough, cough)

Closing the Collapse Gap

Hail to the Cheap...

"Pedal"ing solutions for peak oil...

A Golden Opportunity - Pee Here Now!

Turn off the High Definition for better viewing

Find the Ecovillage where you are...

Our GANG in Bloomington, IN

Wild and Scenic Environmental Film Festival

Healing Truth Decay

Rebates for Energy Efficient Hoosiers

Indiana gets 98% of its energy (& pollution) from coal!

Transition Handbook Review

Grassroots Mobilization:
A Call for Communities to Defy the Court

Forget Grass Fed Beef –
You are eating GRAS Ground Beef