Powerdown Toolkit #6: Deconstructing Dinner March 29, 2009
Posted by Graham in : General , 1 comment so farThis is the introduction to week six of the Powerdown Toolkit 10-week community learning course created by the Cultivate Center in Dublin. It has an accompanying TV show with a 30-minute episode accompanying each week of the course, soon to be aired on Dublin Community TV.
Deconstructing Dinner: Food Miles, Trade and Food Systems
Subject
Food is energy. Nowhere is this truth seen more clearly than in the conflict for land and resources between food for the hungry in the developing world and biofuels for the energy-hungry motorist in the industrialised nations. {Murphy, P. Plan C}
Since the second world war, agriculture has become a system for turning fossil fuels into industrial foods { Pfeiffer, D. A. Eating Fossil Fuels 2006}- or, as Michael Pollan would have it, “food-like substances”. { Pollan, M. In Defence of Food 2008}
This has taken a huge toll on the fertility of soils, which have become more like sponges for absorbing fossil fuels rather than the complex organic systems, full of billions of microrganisms, that have sustained life on Earth the past 2 billion years.
The Green revolution has essentially been a way of forcing greater volumes of produce from a given area of land through use of oil for pesticides and herbicides and natural gas for the production of artificial fertilisers. It has been calculated that it takes on average 10 calories of fossil energy to produce one calorie of food.
It can be seen therefore that an energy crisis will also mean a food crisis. Such an event nearly happened in the UK in 2000 when a politically motivated truckers strike had the supermarket shelves going bare and Britain on the verge of a famine after just a few days, a result of the “just in time” policies of most of our food system. (more…)
Essential Reading on Population March 28, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Human Ecology, Population, Renewable Energy , 5commentsThe Real Perils of Human Population Growth by David and Marcia Pimentel
The present world population of 6.7 billion is projected by the United Nations to increase to 9 billion and may rise to as many as 11 billion by 2050. Even if a worldwide policy of two children per couple (instead of the current 2.8 children) were agreed on tomorrow, the world population will continue to expand for about seventy years before stabilizing at about 13 billion people.
Powerdown Toolkit # 5: Getting Around- Transport and Mobility March 15, 2009
Posted by Graham in : General , 1 comment so farGetting Around- Transport and Mobility
This is the introduction to week five of the Powerdown Toolkit 10-week community learning course created by the Cultivate Center in Dublin. It has an accompanying TV show with a 30-minute episode accompanying each week of the course, soon to be aired on Dublin Community TV.
According to Ivan Illich { Illich, I. Tools for Conviviality 1973}, a society that travels faster than a bicycle is actually going slower than a bicycle- by the time you have counted all the road construction, repairs, disposal of used cars, mining of metals and of course the consumption of oil for fuel, as a population we may not be traveling very fast at all.
The domination of the private motor car has been an essential feature of the rise of industrial society. As described in the Peak Oil cult documentary The End of Suburbia, the oil industry developed in the early part of the 20th Century by systematically dismantling convivial mass transport systems such as trams in order to sell more oil. Early assembly line production was introduced first to mass-produce private cars. The development of new urban areas in many American cities followed patterns suitable to the private car: long stretched out suburbs with relatively low population density making them unsuitable for public transport. (more…)
Kinsale College on YouTube March 12, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Green Building, Kinsale , add a commentKinsale College of Further Education has recently posted a new video promoting the course on You Tube. Click here to see the video which includes myself very briefly desribing the course modules, and a few shots of the college gardens. The drama, art, multimedia and outdoor pursuits courses are also covered.
There is also an excellent clip here from the Nationwide TV programme available here, which was made with the courses’ founder Rob Hopkins in 2005, with interviews with the students and good coverage of the now famous cordwood amphitheatre.
Full details on the practical sustainability and other courses at Kinsale can be found here.
Permaculture Course at Dunhill Eco Park March 9, 2009
Posted by Graham in : General , add a commentIntroduction to Permaculture course 4th-5th April at Dunhill Ecopark, situated near Ballyphillip, Co. Waterford
Do You Want To Grow Your Own Food…But Don’t Have The Time?
Do You Want To Feed Your Family For Free…But Without The Backbreaking Work?
Then PERMACULTURE is For YOU!
Dunhill Ecopark is pleased to announce a 2 Day Course
In Practical Permaculture Presented by Graham Strouts
Dates:
Sat 4th & Sun 5th April 2009
10am – 4.30pm
Course Fee:
€160 – Including Slow Food Lunch & Refreshments
Places are limited, so to secure your place, or for more information please contact:
Telephone: (051) 396934
E-mail: samantha@dunhillecopark.com
Permaculture Class of 2008
Come with Me to Solla Sollew March 7, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Science and Rationaltiy, book review , 1 comment so farI was delighted to read in Sharon Astyk’s Casaubon’s Book that last Tuesday was the 105th birthday of Dr. Seuss.
Like thousands of others, my upbringing was influenced and enriched by the famous Cat in the Hat books- which Astyk’s piece provides some interesting insights into that I had not previously considered.
In more recent years I came across The Lorax 
a classic hymn of environmentalism and anti-capitalism that is as poignant and powerful now as when it was written in 1971. It is a prophetic as well as cautionary tale of the “Once-lers” who turn the natural paradise of truffula trees into profit with o care for the Brown Bar-ba-loots, the Swomee-swans or the hapless Humming-fish who lose their once pristine habitat to the pollution of gluppity-glupp.
The Once-lers’ are seemingly unable resist the growth imprative, despite the protsts of the mysterious Lorax who speaks for the trees:
“And then I got mad.
I got terribly mad.
I yelled at the Lorax, ‘Now Listen here Dad!
All you do is yap-yap and say Bad! Bad! Bad! Bad!
Well I have my rights, sir, and I’m telling you
I intend to go on doing just what I do!
And for your information you Lorax, I’m figgering
on biggering
and Biggering
and BIGGERING
AND BIGGERING !“
I was more delighted that Sharon’s own favourite Dr. Seuss book is the moral tale “I had trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew”, a wry comment on the fraility of human psychologyand our seemingly inexhaustable ability to be deluded by false promises, dreams of riches and generally implausble solutions offered to our problems.
“There I was,
All completely surrounded by trouble,
When a chap rumbled up in a One-Wheeler Wubble.
‘Young fellow,’ he said, ‘what has happened to you
Has happened to me and to other folks too.
So I’ll tell you what I have decided to do…
I’m off to the City of Solla Sollew
On the banks of the beautiful River Wah-Hoo,
Where they never have troubles!
At least, very few…”
Solla Sollew could be anything from the beads-and-mirrors lure of pyramid schemes or housing bubbles to the simplistic solutions to health problems offered by homeopaths, the promise of everlasting life in heaven offered by some religions, or the truly insane delusions marketed so successfully by such scams as The Secret.
Dr. Seuss offers essential guidance to counter all these falsehoods and should still be essential reading for chldren of all ages.
Powerdown Toolkit #4: Rethinking Energy March 2, 2009
Posted by Graham in : Peak Oil, Powerdown, Renewable Energy, community , 1 comment so farThis is the introduction to week four of the Powerdown Toolkit 10-week community learning course created by the Cultivate Centre in Dublin. It has an accompanying TV show with a 30-minute episode accompanying each week of the course, soon to be aired on Dublin Community TV.
Rethinking Energy: Conservation, Curtailment, Efficiency and Appropriate Technology
by David Fleming and Graham Strouts
Energy is first and foremost a demand issue- how much do we need and for what ?- and yet the majority of public debate on the issue is to do with finding new sources of supply so as to allow industrial growth to continue.
Community Powerdown is concerned with redesigning our living arrangements as far as possible so as to reduce demand. We need to reduce drastically both per capita energy consumption as well as total world energy use.
This is an essential point to understand because simply making energy use more efficient, or even reducing per capita consumption, will not be sufficient if total demand is still increasing- for example, driven by rising population.
This means that we will sometimes have to make hard decisions about what we use energy for. Energy is fundamental but one of the challenges of understanding energy in today’s’ world is that we are so unaware of how much we use or what the impacts of its use are. Taking more responsibility for how we use energy is the starting point.
In order to understand better our use of energy it is useful to consider the laws of thermodynamics, and how they impose absolute limits on energy consumption in society. By understanding this we will be able to make better choices about the use of energy in society. (more…)
