sastyk
Posts by this author
June 16, 2010
Reader Stephen B. pointed me to this comment at The Oil Drum by someone who argues that there's more going on under the Gulf that we think. For those who think it is strange that I be highlighting a comment in a thread, I should note that TOD attracts many, many petroleum geologists and other…
June 16, 2010
In 2006 when I first met Julian Darley, author of _High Noon for Natural Gas_ and the founder of the Post-Carbon Institute, the world was excited by then-famous "Jack" oil field find in the Gulf of Mexico. Both of us were watching the way the world was interpreting the data - people were claiming…
June 15, 2010
The Sharks and the Jets are fighting over by the compost pile. Well, ok, maybe not quite, but it has that feel to it. You see, we have two street-gangs of ducks. The first ones, Pekins and one ratty looking Rouen who is shooting for the "oldest living duck record" have been around for a bit.…
June 14, 2010
I spent my weekend in Washington DC with folks from the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, talking about the future of peak oil research and advocacy. It was an interesting weekend, but for a farmgirl who spends most of her waking hours during the summer outside and working in the dirt, it was…
June 10, 2010
A newly produced UN Report rightly points out, among other things, that the western model of meat and dairy production simply won't work on a planet of 9 billion people. The report, which quantifies the basic unsustainability of affluent societies and the challenges facing us in satisfying needs…
June 9, 2010
Gotta love Richard Heinberg's latest - suggestions for Oil Exec quotes on peak oil:
"We believe fears about Peak Oil to be . . .
a. unsupported by evidence.
b. utter rubbish emanating from cretinous doomsday cultists.
c. compellingly credible.
d. strangely arousing.
"People…
June 7, 2010
Thanks to reader Sunshine for forwarding me this AP article, which I think does a really good job of pointing up something I've been talking about for a long time - the food crisis that was in the news two years ago never actually went away. While food prices stabilized in the developed world and…
June 7, 2010
You learn pretty quickly to adjust for what any mainstream media says about peak oil and anyone who does any kind of preparation. Consider the case of my friend Kathie Breault who has appeared in various newspaper and television accounts. Kathie is grandmother, a midwife and a permaculturist, and…
June 4, 2010
Early signs of tomato late blight have been found already in Maryland, and realistically, we can expect to see it again this year. Last year for American gardeners in the east, tomato blight was a disaster. Moreover, for those of us who produce our own calorie crops, the blight on potatoes was at…
June 3, 2010
I was struck today by the news that the Italian region of Lombardy is going to start paying women not to have abortions. As a demographic move, it is a comparatively small and insignificant one, in a nation already well below replacement rate. If this resulted in the cancellation of every…
June 2, 2010
Most of the people who take Adapting-In-Place, reasonably enough, are doing so because they intend to stay where they are or fairly nearby in the coming decades. They know that they may not be in the perfect place, but for a host of reasons - inability to sell a house, job or family commitments,…
June 2, 2010
I don't plug a lot of movies, mostly because I don't see a lot of movies - I spend so much more time staring a computer screen than I want to, I don't go to the movies often. But I thought I'd have a little blog film festival over the summer, showing bits or trailers of some of the best movies…
June 2, 2010
Definitely read the whole thing
More importantly, the two disasters are analogous in the unprecedented technical, administrative, and political challenges posed by their remediation. In the case of Chernobyl, the technical difficulty stemmed from the need to handle high level radioactive waste.…
June 1, 2010
Nine years ago today we moved to our farm. We brought with us some boxes of stuff, some furniture, four cats, our then 15-month old son (Eli, now 10 and 5' tall), Simon, packed conveniently in my pregnant belly, and my Mom (who went home after a day or two of helping us with the little guy). I…
May 27, 2010
Before I take off for the weekend, I thought I'd leave you with another re-run on the very basic process of adapting to rapidly changing conditions.
Today I'm starting another Adapting-In-Place Class, beginning with the basics of evaluating whether you have a future where you are, what your other…
May 27, 2010
My children are pirates right now. There's a fallen tree in the woods that makes a superb pirate ship, and my children have boarded and captured it. And they are singing pirate songs. Loudly. It is a very good thing that we live so far from other human habitation - if we lived in the 'burbs the…
May 25, 2010
For those of us with dairy critters, now is the time of milk overflow, but even if you aren't ever going to get a cute little goat, you might have milk around. And boy is this yummy. We'll get more complicated eventually, but this is pretty simple, and if you've never made any kind of cheese,…
May 25, 2010
When we bought the property, the creek was frozen over, and from the property survey, we weren't entirely certain that it would belong to us. We never realized that the pretty little body of water that passed along the north side of the house would become the center of four worlds.
For the first…
May 24, 2010
Just a reminder that Aaron Newton (my co-author on A Nation of Farmers) and I will be running our Adapting in Place Class online for six weeks, starting Thursday. The class is asynchronous - you don't have to be online at any particular time, just participate when you like. The goal of the class…
May 24, 2010
(Our new buckling, Cadfael, bred by our friends Jamey and Carol at Weathertop Farm (who are a great place to start if you are looking for little goats.) We arrived at their place recently about three minutes after he was born!
Note: This is a repeat from last year, since we've got visitors and…
May 21, 2010
This list popped up on my screen this morning, and I thought it was an interesting window into a worldview. The article lists ten things that despite the economy, we aren't cutting back on:
Portable computers. The iPad might be the latest must-have gizmo, but the power of computers transcends…
May 20, 2010
Russian TV offers a potential solution to close up the oil leak in the Gulf - nuclear explosions. And no, Stephen Colbert isn't going to pop out here - this is serious. Well, sorta.
As the reporter points out, the flora and fauna of the Gulf may not thank you. On the other hand, how often does…
May 20, 2010
Thanks to fellow science blogger Ed Brayton for the link to this New York Times article, which suggests that because of ties to the company, BP chose to flood the Gulf with a dispersant that is both more toxic than many of the other options and also less effective.
So far, BP has told federal…
May 20, 2010
Damn, I wish I'd written this! John Michael Greer takes up the Victory Garden, and puts it in its proper place - economically, politically, socially - and for zombie slaying. What's not to love? And I think he has it pretty much exactly right here - that while growing your own is never the…
May 19, 2010
Sometimes you read a study and say "duh!" That was pretty much my reaction to a British Study just released that suggests that when men help with the childcare and housework, couples are less likely to get divorced. Gee, that's a shock. You mean women don't love soloing on the toilet cleaning?…
May 18, 2010
Ok, part of this is just that I really like the word "Glyptodon" and am trying to find more uses for it ;-). But there is a point here, I'm pretty sure.
A while back I was teaching a class, and the gentleman teaching before me, an Algonquin Native Descendent, who was talking about the history of…
May 17, 2010
We still don't have the faintest idea how much oil is spewing out of the well in the Gulf. Nor do we have the faintest idea what the full environmental consequence of what may well be the biggest single-event human-caused. ecological disaster of all time (the very fact that I have to add the word…
May 14, 2010
From occasional partner-in-crime Keith Farnish (and author of _Times Up_) comes a scathing but accurate indictment of superficial youth environmentalism.
(our heroine in her pricey electric car, cruising the streets of Beverly Hills)
Farnish writes:
I have met some incredible young people with…
May 14, 2010
A couple of administrative notes before I head off to a weekend involving friends, arboretum plant sales, weeding the asparagus patch, planting an alphabet garden and trying to decide if we really do need a pet sheep.
First, as some of you may remember I'm running an on-site family workshop at my…
May 13, 2010
I was out of town when Zuska posted this piece about trying to feed a family on a food stamp budget, and I've been meaning to respond to her suggestion that I might have something to add for a while. The article she builds on is one in which chefs try and come up with food stamp budget menus that…