Back to the Land March 29, 2007
Posted by Graham in : Food , 5commentsFirst published in Sustainability March 07
Food, Climate Change and the Coming Energy Crises. by Graham Stouts
Some years ago a friend in Mayo told me she had been visited by a neighbour of hers, a farmer, who was curious to see what she was doing planting potatoes in her garden. Apparently the neighbour farmer could not understand why on earth she was going to the trouble and hard manual labour of digging beds and setting seed potatoes when they were so cheap to buy. In recent years farming has become defined more and more by the availability of grants and subsidies, and by the dictates of international trading agreements. One of the consequences of this is that individual farms are producing an ever diminishing range of products for an increasingly global market.
Simultaneous to this, the home garden has become a fashion extension of manicured lawns and clipped shrubs.Growing food has become a special interest hobby or is viewed as some kind of regressive primitivism which swims against the tide of lawnmower culture now becoming prevalent in the suburbs. (more…)
Sustainability! March 27, 2007
Posted by Graham in : General , 1 comment so farMy good friend Andy Wilson of Westport, Co. Mayo, has just produced a new Irish Sustainability journal. It delivers what we have been needing in this country for a long time- a serious periodical covering every aspect of building the sustainable culture, with articles on the economy, building, climate change, food and energy.
Andy was the first person I visited on my first ever trip to Ireland, which must have been in around 1985 or ‘86. I had hitch-hikedup to Antrim, via Scotland, for a “Skills and Knowledge” type festival that was to be hosted at a small-holding at aplace called Fleskwater. Well, the festival didnt actually come to much but I spent a productive week working with Andy and his companions who were practicing what remains the best example of what I think of as “hard core back-to-the-land self-sufficiency” that I have seen. (more…)
Peak OIl Prep March 20, 2007
Posted by Graham in : General, Peak Oil , add a commentBook Review- Peak Oil Prep Three things you can do to Prepare for Peak Oil, Climate Change and Economic Collapse By Mick Winter Westsong Publishing 2006
*Mick Winter is the host of two Peak Oil websites- drydipstick.com and beyondpeak.com
If you were asked to offer just three actions people could take or start to take right now to help them prepare for Peak Oil, what would they be?
Perhaps surprisingly, of a straw-pole of just three people I have asked this question to, they all came up with the same three that Mick Winter recommends as “The Big Three” at the start of his book “Peak Oil Prep”: (more…)
