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What Farmers Say About Climate Change
What Farmers Say About Climate Change This is probably the most honest assessment of the current state of farming and our future food supply. Photo by Rob Mulder / Unsplash People seem to misunderstand the connection between atmospheric CO2, climate predictability and industrialized agriculture. The number of times a “climate skeptic” has told me “plants […]
Can Our Veggie Gardens Feed us in a Real Crisis?
Can Our Veggie Gardens Feed us in a Real Crisis? Musings from someone who has tried and failed to grow all their own food A haul from the Author’s urban farming operation in Portland, Sept. 15, 2007, set out for CSA members to pick up (Photo C.H.White) This is one of my all-time most popular essays, […]
Post-Modernity
Post-Modernity As sketched in the previous post, I believe modernity to be an unsustainable flash that will not persist into future millennia. Uncomfortable with untethered speculation, I have said little about what might come after, but feel I owe something in this vein. Semantically, what follows the modern age must be the post-modern age, right? Except […]
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XCV–We All Believe What We Want To Believe
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XCV January 31, 2023 (original posting date) Monte Alban, Mexico. (1988) Photo by author. We All Believe What We Want To Believe The following Contemplation is my comment in response to a thought-provoking post I read by Dave Pollard at his site How to Save the World. Great read, thanks for sharing. A […]
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XCIV–‘Representative’ Democracy: A Ruse To Convince Citizens That They Have Agency In Their Society
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XCIV January 29, 2023 (original posting date) Monte Alban, Mexico. (1988) Photo by author. ‘Representative’ Democracy: A Ruse To Convince Citizens That They Have Agency In Their Society A friend recently posted on my FB timeline the link to an article about the plans of our provincial government in opening up sections of […]
Open comment post: the AMOC shutdown and the future of agriculture
Open comment post: the AMOC shutdown and the future of agriculture It’s time to move on to pastures new from my Saying NO… book, as I mentioned in my last post. Seems like an opportune moment to try an ‘open comment’ post to signal the change of direction, an idea I trailed at the start of the […]
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XCIII–Energy Future, Part 3: Authoritarianism and Sociobehavioural Control
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XCIII January 16, 2023 (original posting date) Monte Alban, Mexico. (1988) Photo by author. Energy Future, Part 3: Authoritarianism and Sociobehavioural Control In Part 1, I argue that energy underpins everything, including human complex societies. In Part 2, I suggest that the increasing need for diminishing resources, especially finite or limited ‘renewable’ ones, […]
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XCII–Ecological Overshoot and Collapse: Rearranging the Deck Chairs On the Titanic
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XCII January 22, 2023 (original posting date) Monte Alban, Mexico. (1988) Photo by author. Ecological Overshoot and Collapse: Rearranging the Deck Chairs On the Titanic My comments prompted by two recent articles by The Honest Sorcerer (whose writing I highly recommend). January 13 post: I believe you’ve hit the nail on the head […]
Spring Traditions and Celebrations: The Past, The Present and the Future of Farming. Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin
Spring Traditions and Celebrations: The Past, The Present and the Future of Farming. Caoimhghin Ó Croidheáin Introduction Eleanor Parker writes in her book, Winters in the World, that “in Anglo-Saxon poetry winter is often imagined as a season when the earth and human beings are imprisoned, kept captive by the ‘fetters of the frost’. Naturally enough, […]
Dodging The Gator – What Can Be Done?
Dodging The Gator – What Can Be Done? Photo by Dušan veverkolog on Unsplash Humanity is in overshoot, and a major correction is already underway, something, which will only accelerate even further. A runaway energy crisis, together with resource depletion, climate change and ecosystems collapse will upend centuries of growth and prosperity. But what does that mean on […]
Today’s Contemplation: And Now For Something Completely Different, Part 5
Today’s Contemplation: And Now For Something Completely Different, Part 5 January 19, 2023 (original posting date) While I take a break from my Contemplation posts and specifically the energy series I began (see here for Part 1, Part 2), here is the sixth installment of chapters from the fourth book in my fictional novel series (that […]
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XCI–Mainstream Green Narratives: It’s About Selling More Industrial Products
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XCI January 16, 2023 (original posting date) Monte Alban, Mexico. (1988) Photo by author. Mainstream Green Narratives: It’s About Selling More Industrial Products A follow-up to Contemplation LXXXIX that responded to the idea that if enough people found true contentment and happiness by cooperating with others, humanity would discover a ‘oneness’ that could […]
Today’s Contemplation: And Now For Something Completely Different, Part 4
Today’s Contemplation: And Now For Something Completely Different, Part 4 January 13, 2023 (original posting date) While I take a break from my Contemplation posts and specifically the energy series I began (see here for Part 1, Part 2), here is the fourth installment of chapters from the fourth book in my fictional novel series (that […]
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XC–A Societal Phase Transition This Way Comes
Today’s Contemplation: Collapse Cometh XC January 10, 2023 (original posting date) Monte Alban, Mexico. (1988) Photo by author. A Societal Phase Transition This Way Comes The following contemplation shares my thoughts/response to The Honest Sorcerer’s latest article (another very worthwhile read) regarding the diminishing returns being increasingly encountered by non-renewable, renewable energy-harvesting technologies (aka ‘renewables’) — and, yes, I […]
Today’s Contemplation: And Now For Something Completely Different, Part 3
Today’s Contemplation: And Now For Something Completely Different, Part 3 January 7, 2023 (original posting date) Common Grackle Fledgling, Whitchurch-Stouffville. (2022) Photo by author. While I take a break from my self-indulgent Contemplation posts and specifically the energy series I began (see here for Part 1, Part 2), here is the third installment of chapters from the […]
