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Healthy Planet and the Law of Ecocide – an Interview with Polly Higgins
Alternatives to Political Systems, Biodiversity, Deforestation, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, People Systems, Society, Soil Erosion & Contamination, Water Contaminaton & Loss — by Marcin Gerwin April 18, 2013
The disappearing Amazon rainforest
Photo: Cifor
Marcin Gerwin: You propose introducing a new international law of ecocide as an amendment to the Rome Statute. Ecocide is defined as “an extensive damage to, destruction of or loss of ecosystem(s) of a given territory, whether by human agency or by other causes, to such an extent that peaceful enjoyment by the inhabitants of that territory has been or will be severely diminished.” Why do we need the new law to protect the planet? Aren’t current regulations enough?
Comments (2)Carbon-Sequestering Perennial Industrial Crops
Animal Forage, Biofuels, Deforestation, Food Forests, Food Plants - Perennial, Global Warming/Climate Change, Plant Systems, Trees — by Eric Toensmeier
This article is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Carbon Farming: A Global Toolkit for Stabilizing the Climate with Tree Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices, and is part of a series promoting my kickstarter campaign to raise funds with which to complete the book.
Rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) is a common perennial industrial crop, though
typically grown in problematic monocultures. Photo Wikimedia Commons.
Industrial crops produce materials, chemicals, and energy. Some, like cotton, have been used since the dawn of agriculture. Others, like firewood, go back with our species for hundreds of thousands of years. Few of us pause to think where cardboard, rubber, fibers, solvents and biopesticides come from.
Currently much of the materials, chemicals, and energy that support our civilization are synthesized from fossil fuels. To address climate change this needs to end, and we need to learn to do without or use renewable feedstocks (raw materials). Of the biobased renewables used now, GMO corn may be the most frequently used, for example for ethanol and bioplastics. In addition to the social and ecological problems of GMO corn, as an annual crop it contributes to the release of soil carbon into the atmosphere. We must do the opposite, developing perennial and regenerative systems that sequester vast amounts of carbon while meeting human needs.
Comments (0)Store Update
DVDs/Books — by Bonnie Freibergs April 17, 2013
We thought you might like to know about new items in our online store:
Comments (0)Food from Perennial(ising) Plants in Temperate Climate Australia, for February 2013
Food Forests, Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Trees — by Susan Kwong April 16, 2013
This is the late Summer post for the ongoing research project about perennial plants and self-perpetuating annual plants providing food in temperate climate Australia. The original article introducing this project, stating its aims, and providing participant instructions, can be found here. Growers are sending me information on a month-by-month basis, then this information is collated and published the following month. All previous posts from this series can be found by clicking on my author name (Susan Kwong), just under the post title above.
Comments (4)Industrial Starch and Bioplastic from Non-Destructively Harvested Perennials
Food Plants - Perennial, Material, Plant Systems, Trees — by Eric Toensmeier April 15, 2013
This article is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Carbon Farming: A Global Toolkit for Stabilizing the Climate with Tree Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices, and is part of a series promoting my kickstarter campaign to raise funds with which to complete the book.
Though we rarely think of it, starch is the number two most used carbohydrate in industry, coming just after cellulose which is used in great quantities in papermaking. Unlike many industrial crop categories, there is no “synthetic starch” being made from fossil fuels. The situation, however, is not much better. All, or virtually all industrial starch comes from annual food crops, grown in conventional tillage systems. In fact, 17% of European grain goes to papermaking every year. So first we’re using annuals where perennials might fill the gap, and second we’re using food to make cardboard and drywall. This seems like a waste of food, and if we want to minimize the use of annuals we need to find another strategy. Efforts are also underway to genetically modify plants to produce particular starches useful to industry. Given the wide range of starch types available in nature, and the ingenuity of chemists, I think this is unnecessary and somewhat alarming.
Osage orange is a perennial inedible starch with excellent potential as a
feedstock for industrial products like cardboard and bioplastics.
It is cold- and drought-hardy. Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
The Great Unmentionable
Consumerism, Economics, Global Warming/Climate Change, Population, Society — by George Monbiot
We have offshored both our consumption and our perceptions
Every society has topics it does not discuss. These are the issues which challenge its comfortable assumptions. They are the ones that remind us of mortality, which threaten the continuity we anticipate, which expose our various beliefs as irreconcilable.
Among them are the facts which sink the cosy assertion, that (in David Cameron’s words) “there need not be a tension between green and growth.”
At a reception in London recently I met an extremely rich woman, who lives, as most people with similar levels of wealth do, in an almost comically unsustainable fashion: jetting between various homes and resorts in one long turbo-charged holiday. When I told her what I did, she responded, “oh I agree, the environment is so important. I’m crazy about recycling.” But the real problem, she explained, was “people breeding too much”.
Comments (5)Free Permaculture Design Videos
Land — by Ecofilms April 12, 2013
A free series of permaculture design videos by Geoff Lawton, world renowned permaculture designer, teacher and consultant, reveals how to not only survive the coming crisis with permaculture design but how to build abundance on your land. How to have all the water you will ever need. How to have all the fish you will ever want. How to have your own food forest and grow all your own food. Where to start. How to understand your land. How to work with it. How to design it, Naturally. Abundance is no accident.
Just enter your email into the website and Geoff Lawton will keep you updated as he releases future videos in the series.
Comments (2)Coppiced Nitrogen-Fixing Firewood Species of the World
Energy Systems, Land, Trees — by Eric Toensmeier
This article is an excerpt from my forthcoming book Carbon Farming: A Global Toolkit for Stabilizing the Climate with Tree Crops and Regenerative Agriculture Practices, and is part of a series promoting my kickstarter campaign to raise funds with which to complete the book.
Coppiced firewood species trial at ECHO
These firewood species grow rapidly, fix nitrogen, and re-sprout (coppice) quickly after cutting. All have high-quality firewood. They are thus a productive, self-fertilizing and perennial firewood source. Intensive blocks of these species can produce a tropical family’s cooking fuel needs on 0.15ha (0.37 acres; according to interviews with staff at both Las Cañadas and ECHO). Use of rocket stoves and other conservation technologies can reduce the area even further.
Comments (12)PRI Sunshine Coast – Biogas Project Update, March 2013
Energy Systems — by Zaia Kendall
On the 18th of March we started our biogas project. This project involves making a bio-digester which will turn manure into methane gas for cooking and other energy needs.
An update on a previous post, by Zaia Kendall
Outline of the bio-digester
Tom had to re-do some fencing and clear the site for the bio-digester. He calculated that with the amount of manure we are getting (around 30kg per day), we need a 5 cubic metre bio-digester, which will give us around 1 1/2 cubic metres of gas per day.
Lead up time to get the gas going will be around 60 days once we start filling the bio-digester. But we are not there yet, and here I have documented the start of the project.
Comments (1)Layers of Healing: Realizing the Power of the Ordinary Onion
Food Plants - Annual, Food Plants - Perennial, Medicinal Plants — by Jennifer Finelli
They’re a staple in stews, a flavor in fried foods, and that ’sting’ in salads. The sharp, savory taste and juicy crunch give them versatility in the kitchen cooked and uncooked — but they really deserve a place in your permaculture medicine cabinet.
That’s right–the ordinary onion.
I’d never have believed it either, but one day, in the agony of an ear infection, I read that an onion sliver could help quell the infection and calm the pain. My ear ached so badly I would have tried almost anything short of shooting the Queen of England, so I heated a tiny onion ring and slipped it into my ear for a while. We had some extremely potent, weep-your-eyes-out young yellow onions; I could actually feel the fumes moving around in my ear. Ear pain like that usually continues for days for me, but repeated applications of onion cleared everything up within about half a day. It helped that my infection had just started, but still, the results aroused curiosity. Does the onion really have antibiotic effects, or did the potent fumes just clear up a painful pressure inside my ear? More importantly, can you lasso the power of this plant to heal you, too?
Comments (5)Full Planet, Empty Plates: The New Geopolitics of Food Scarcity – Chapter 1, Food: The Weak Link
Biofuels, Economics, Food Shortages, Global Warming/Climate Change — by Earth Policy Institute
by Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute
The world is in transition from an era of food abundance to one of scarcity. Over the last decade, world grain reserves have fallen by one third. World food prices have more than doubled, triggering a worldwide land rush and ushering in a new geopolitics of food. Food is the new oil. Land is the new gold. 1
The abrupt rise in world grain prices between 2007 and 2008 left more people hungry than at any time in history. It also spawned numerous food protests and riots. In Thailand, rice was so valuable that farmers took to guarding their ripened fields at night. In Egypt, fights in the long lines for state-subsidized bread led to six deaths. In poverty-stricken Haiti, days of rioting left five people dead and forced the Prime Minister to resign. In Mexico, the government was alarmed when huge crowds of tortilla protestors took to the streets. 2
After the doubling of world grain prices between 2007 and mid-2008, prices dropped somewhat during the recession, but this was short-lived. Three years later, high food prices helped fuel the Arab Spring. 3
Comments (0)A No-Nonsense Guide to Establishing Permaculture Food Forests on Boring Lawns
Food Forests — by Tayler Krawczyk
 Click to download (5.8mb PDF) |
This guide is geared towards starting a new forest garden from scratch. It is geared to the west coast of Canada — temperate / cold climate — where my business, Hatchet & Seed Contracting is primarily based.
I hope it can be used to help propagate both more food forests and more food foresters! It is also geared towards Do-It-Yourselfers, on a relatively low budget. Commercial installs do require a much more thorough design planning process. But for those just wanting to get started, I sure hope it helps navigate through the plethora of information out there.
Comments (4)Using Timber and Forestry to Help Sustain Our Lives Locally
Courses/Workshops — by Deborah Willis
This year, May the 5th 2013, is the celebration of International Permaculture Day. In keeping with the theme of this important event, we need to be aware of the importance of producing and using “local”, especially with regard to forestry and use of timber.
Comments (2)Using Permaculture to Improve the Teaching and Learning of Science
Education — by Nelson Lebo
by Nelson Lebo, The University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
Some people describe permaculture as a system of science and ethics. While ethics guide permaculturists, it is the use of science to design and develop sustainable and regenerative systems that places them in a position to contribute to the improvement of science teaching and learning worldwide. Over the last four years, I have been researching a permaculture approach to junior secondary (years 9 and 10 in New Zealand) science, but my findings can be applied to all levels of schooling. Through the research process, I have identified five characteristics of permaculture that can be employed to engage students in transformative, relevant, and local learning experiences. Those characteristics are: permaculture thinking; permaculture techniques; permaculture properties; permaculture practitioners; and, the transformative nature of permaculture. This article explains the five characteristics and provides examples of how practicing permaculturists can partner with local science teachers in symbiotic relationships.
Political Barbed Wire
Society — by George Monbiot
Why are 97% of our rivers shut to the public? A millionaire minister’s amazing conflicts of interest give you a clue.
Nowhere in Britain is power more concentrated than in the countryside. Some people claim we have the second lowest distribution of land in the world, after Brazil.
Because (thanks to the resistance of the landlords) there is no comprehensive record of who owns what, we can’t be completely sure. But in 2002 Kevin Cahill’s book Who Owns Britain and Ireland estimated that 69% of the land is owned by 0.6% of the population. It has intensified since then: government figures show that between 2005 and 2011 the number of landholdings in England has fallen by 10%, while the average size of holding has risen by 12%.
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