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It is a really simple idea - things that can't go on the way they have been, usually don't. Sooner or later things that have no future just stop. We all know intellectually that we can't all live and consume like middle class Americans, that our kids are going to have a harder time because of our way of life, that Empires end and ecological disasters cause things to come to hard stops. We know it, but we don't KNOW it. This blog is about coming to KNOW, and figuring out where we go from here.
I'm a science writer, teacher, environmental activist and small farmer who is trying to put her lifestyle where her mouth is, and live in a way with a future. When not writing books, serving on the board of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, I run my farm with my husband, where we raise dairy goats, herbs, pastured poultry, heirloom vegetable plants, children and havoc.
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agriculture:
Category: A Nation of Farmers
We have used language to write women out of agriculture - out of its history, out of its present, engaging in the "housewifization" of real agricultural work. The implication that the farmer's wife is not a farmer, and is thus knowledgeable about only kitchens and babies (as important as those things are) is a diminuation, an act of linguistic violence that erases the multiple competences of farm women, partnered or not.
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Posted by Sharon Astyk at 9:56 AM • 19 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: agriculture
So much of what we do is focused on what farmers grow - but farmers respond to what eaters eat, and as I've argued before, farmers alone cannot transform their agriculture - it starts at the table.
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Posted by Sharon Astyk at 8:21 AM • 16 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Climate Change
I suspect that Parenti is right that many of us will cease to object to these government services as they become more necessary - the only question being whether anyone will fully grasp the underlying philosophical issues that lead some to undermine the infrastructure that would enable a humane and just response.
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Posted by Sharon Astyk at 8:01 AM • 8 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: agriculture
harvesting of tomatoes, even the sometimes endless pureeing and canning.... Most of the time the work and the joy are indistinguishable and it is hard and good - and the good is what matters.
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Posted by Sharon Astyk at 10:28 AM • 17 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: agriculture
Vegeculture has several advantages over grain culture. For example, you don't have to till up a lot of ground at once, since these crops are adapted to "patch" culture. They often can be stored in the ground and dug up as needed, and can tolerate being integrated with perennial tree plantings.
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Posted by Sharon Astyk at 9:46 AM • 27 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: pasture farming
Thought Experiment: Due to a combination of crises - maybe a volcano explosion, the penetration of Ug99 into the main of the world wheat crop, drought in many of the world's grain growing regions, zombie invasion etc... (it doesn't really matter), the Global North experiences a catastrophic failure of its staple crops. All of a sudden grain supplies drop like a stone.
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Posted by Sharon Astyk at 10:21 AM • 30 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: agriculture
On some level, all disasters are agricultural disasters. When seawater washes over land, when the earth cracks and collapses buildings, when livelihoods and lives are lost, farmers die and lose their jobs. It is easy to forget this, of course,...
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Posted by Sharon Astyk at 8:03 AM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: agriculture
Urbanization is the biggest trend in history. For the first time, more human beings live in cities than in the country. More than 50,000 farmers worldwide leave their land or are driven off of it every single day, most of them moving to cities, often to slum dwellings on the outskirts of growing megacities.
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Posted by Sharon Astyk at 12:39 PM • 18 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: kids
"Goat Sex 101, 102, and 201" This workshop, hosted by Simon 9, Isaiah, 7, and Asher 5, will cover all the salient aspects of goat reproduction and anatomy. Especially suitable for young children whose parents haven't gotten around to explaining the facts of life to them yet, and would love to have it done by other people's children. No new curse words will be taught in this lecture.
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Posted by Sharon Astyk at 9:59 AM • 25 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: food crisis
Can most of the world endure higher food prices, though? And are all high food prices created equal? We already know that poor urbanites and small scale subsistence farmers who buy some of their food are most likely to be badly hurt by rising prices. But what about everyone else? And are rising food prices the best way to create agricultural justice?
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Posted by Sharon Astyk at 9:17 AM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front
A Nation of Farmers: Defeating the Food Crisis on American Soil
Independence Days: A Guide to Sustainable Food Storage and Preservation
