A note at the top, especially for my academic friends: this is a simplified discussion of domestication of plants for the purposes of an upcoming presentation on the history of gardening. The dates and theories have been rounded off for the amount of time and target audience. Until about 10,000 years ago, all humans on … More Gardening: The First Domesticated Plants?
The news is full of talk of recession. The dreaded inverted yield curve (short-term bonds have higher yields than long-term ones — the inverse of the typical state) has occurred less than two years before every recession since 1955 (and the one time it happened without a recession following was the economic slowdown of the … More Low-Tech Recession?
A few years ago, Why Did Ancient Civilizations Fail? identified many of the same problems outlined in the recent UN report on our diet and its climate effects. What follows is a brief excerpt from the book. A sustainable food system can be built on the three principles laid out at the beginning of this … More A More Sustainable Food System — UN Report
Most English speakers know the terms kibbutz (Israeli communal agricultural communities) and commune (now called intentional communities) as groups of people living together and sharing their property, work, land, and buildings to greater or lessor extents. One reason that I think these communities didn’t catch on in the US is the strong ethos of individual … More Moshav: A Cooperative Agricultural Community
This article on the Restoring Mayberry blog, by regular contributor Brian Kaller. If you ever wanted to see what the world might look like after the Tribulation, you could do worse than visit the Burren land on the Atlantic coast of Ireland. Most of my adopted country still looks as lush and green as in … More A Different Kind of Childhood — Contribution from Brian Kaller
Recently, I saw a sponsored product while scrolling through social media. The headline grabbed my attention: “FoodCycler provides indoor composting solutions. This technology has revolutionized composting; offering indoor odorless solutions for your home or garden.” Needless to say, I was interested in all of these promises. As avid readers of the blog know, we keep … More Adding Energy to a Green Process Isn’t Helping
The Green New Deal (GND) has garnered support and opprobrium since it was published. While this plan at least acknowledges the problem of climate change and identifies the proper scale of our reaction, we can point to large gaps in the plan that must be remedied: All this construction while still limiting emissions? Who will … More Green New Deal: How About A “Low Tech New Deal”?
In addition to the nonbinding house resolution on the Green New Deal (GND), a document was circulated with more specific action items, which have caught media attention. This is where media outlets have gotten headlines such as “Green New Deal Wages War Against Air Travel, Cows,” and “Democrats’ Green New Deal Wants to Eliminate ‘Farting … More Green New Deal: Additional Details Document
The Green New Deal is ambitious. Net-zero emissions by 2030 is an enormous goal for a country that emits over 6.5 gigatons of carbon dioxide (equivalents) each year. Although this is down from our peak of over 7.4 Gt CO2 in 2007, this is only part of the 37 Gt CO2 emitted worldwide annually. Note … More Green New Deal: Net Zero?
The Green New Deal, introduced as House Resolution 109 on February 7th, has received much media ballyhoo, but what does the actual resolution say? You can read it for yourself in full text here, or enjoy the summary below. It starts by citing the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change‘s special report on global warming of … More Green New Deal: A Summary
