These are a few stories we found this week that may be of interest to institute regulars. If you have a news tip, please send it to lowtechinstitute@gmail.com.
Low Tech News
20 Free DIY Tiny House Plans – Natural Building Blog
Good Time to Buy Foreclosed Farm Land? – Natural Building Blog
Patagonia’s Business Library is a toolkit for all shareholders of the planet – TreeHugger
Natural Building: Passive House, Active People – Milkwood Permaculture
China’s potato push – Vice News
High School Students Build Tiny Houses For Flood Victims – NPR
Book Review – All New Square Foot Gardening II: The Revolutionary Way to Grow More in Less Space by Mel Bartholomew – Deep Green Permaculture
Farmerama Radio: Episode 18 – ORFC17, Charles Dowding and more – Indie Farmer
Rising Earth Natural Building – Natural Building Blog
Small fridges make good cities: the podcast – TreeHugger
Small Cheese Makers Invest in a Stinky Science – New York Times
1704 – Place Based Education and IPEC (Part 1) – The Permaculture Podcast
1705 – Growing Food, Growing Communities with an AMI Fellowship – The Permaculture Podcast
Propagating a shiitake mushroom for free: Success – Walden Effect
When Man’s Best Friend Is The Worst At Truffle Hunting – NPR
Video: From Measles To Syphilis, How We Created The Golden Age Of Germs [VIDEO] – NPR
An All-You-Can-Eat Buffet: Bald Eagles Prey On Farmer’s Chickens – NPR
How to cook rice to remove the most arsenic – TreeHugger
Environmental News
More Than 70 Arrests In North Dakota As Pipeline Detractors Weigh Legal Action – NPR
Climate Change Is Giving Us ‘Pre-Traumatic Stress’ – Vice
Scott Pruitt Is Seen Cutting the E.P.A. With a Scalpel, Not a Cleaver – New York Times
A Crack in an Antarctic Ice Shelf Grew 17 Miles in the Last Two Months – New York Times
‘A Conservative Climate Solution’: Republican Group Calls for Carbon Tax – New York Times
Final approval: The Army Corps of Engineers announced plans to grant the easement necessary to complete the Dakota Access Pipeline – Vice
Solar jobs are booming – Grist
Lava Fire Hose in Hawaii Returns for an Encore – New York Times
Research News
Factcheck: Mail on Sunday’s ‘astonishing evidence’ about global temperature rise – Carbon Brief
Why Solar Storms Could Be Killing Whales and Dolphins – Motherboard
Mayans Have Farmed The Same Way For Millennia. Climate Change Means They Can’t – NPR
Risk of ‘megafires’ to increase as climate warms – Carbon Brief
Don’t Call It Wheat: An Environmentally Friendly Grain Takes Root – NPR
On Top of Everything Else, Climate Change Helps West Nile Disease to Spread – Vice: Motherboard
Hundreds of ancient earthworks built in the Amazon – University of Exeter
California is getting soaked right now, but farmland is still sinking due to lack of water – Grist
Unusually Hot or Cold Days Don’t Say Anything About Climate Change – Vice: Motherboard
Op-Ed¹
Viral Conspiracies – The Great Change
Risk, double-edged swords and imagining the worst – Resource Insights
Brexit and farming: What happens next? – Indie Farmer
Top 10 tips for WWOOFing – Indie Farmer
Clean energy: The Challenge of Achieving a ‘Just Transition’ for Workers – Carbon Brief
Why is California building fossil-fuel power plants it doesn’t need? – Grist
Do we have a population crisis or a consumption crisis? – TreeHugger
Mapped: EU coal plants ‘should all close by 2030’ – Carbon Brief
Environmental Regulation in the Age of Trump — Knot as Easy as They Thought – Civil Notion
Disclaimer: The news stories and posts linked above are not meant as an endorsement of the information presented. They are provided as they may be of interest to our readers and further our aims of solutions for a post-fossil-fuel world. We strive to provide fact-based information. If you feel that political views are being presented in a partisan fashion, we are happy to provide equal time to opposing view points as long as they are derived from verifiable data and facts.
¹Opinion pieces represent the independent thought of their authors and may or may not represent the position of the Low Technology Institute.