Category Archives: Sustainable economy
Surviving Peak Oil: Planning, Preparation, and Relocation
This is probably the best description I have seen thus far which describes the logical and logistical consequences of “peak oil”. What will likely happen, in what order, and what inter-connections there are between oil and food; the necessities of survival. And this is not really taking into account the added consequences of the economic crisis we are currently in. Throw that in and it’s the “Perfect Storm”.
The best advice for individuals and organization is to prepare for Peak Oil impacts. No federal or state agencies are studying Peak Oil impacts and contingency planning. A few local governments and organizations are beginning to make plans.
This is what we must plan for. With increasing costs for gasoline and diesel, along with declining taxes and declining gasoline tax revenues, states and local governments will eventually have to cut staff and curtail highway maintenance. Eventually, gasoline stations will close, and state and local highway workers won’t be able to get to work. We are facing the collapse of the highways that depend on diesel and gasoline powered trucks for bridge maintenance, culvert cleaning to avoid road washouts, snow plowing, and roadbed and surface repair. When the highways fail, so will the power grid, as highways carry the parts, large transformers, steel for pylons, and high tension cables from great distances. With the highways out, there will be no food coming from far away, and without the power grid virtually nothing modern works, including home heating, pumping of gasoline and diesel, airports, communications, water distribution systems, waster water treatment, and automated building systems.
Surviving Peak Oil: Planning, Preparation, and Relocation
Posted using ShareThis
The meat complex: Fox News gets it, do you? | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist
Disclaimer: I am still an omnivore. But I am currently eating meat from my local food-shed. I am a locavore as someone else put it. I have also reduced my beef consumption by at least 50% in the last several months and will continue to do so.
Most of the waste products that are mentioned by the Fox reporter and the report are coming from CAFOs (Concentrated Animal Feed Operations) where ten of thousands of animals are fattened up to the slaughter. When animals are raised as part of an integrated small farm these “waste” products are part of the bio-dynamic cycle, fertilizing the crops that are also grown on the farms.
But the real encouragement here is the appearance of this kind of information in the everyday media. Wow! There may be hope for us yet.
The meat complex: Fox News gets it, do you? | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist
Posted using ShareThis
The Revolution has Begun
This set of ideas is a good example of the kind of revolution that I see as the only effective recourse to politics as usual. To take back the power, not only of the individual but of the community and common wealth as well.
Organic, urban, community-assisted and guerrilla agriculture are still small parts of the picture, but effective ones–a revolt against what transnational corporate food and capitalism generally produce. This revolt is taking place in the vast open space of Detroit, in the inner-city farms of West Oakland, in the victory gardens and public-housing of Alemany Farm in San Francisco, in Growing Power in Milwaukee and many other places around the country. These are blows against alienation, poor health, hunger and other woes fought with shovels and seeds, not guns. At its best, tending one’s garden leads to tending one’s community and policy, and ultimately becomes a way of entering the public sphere rather than withdrawing from it.
The Revolution Has Already Occurred
Posted using ShareThis
