sastyk | May 9, 2011What do you get when you cross Green, as in Green Markets - those emergent farmer's and craftspeople's markets that have given life to local food - with Black or Grey Markets - ie, illegal sales? Khaki is the color you get, and you get what I call "Khaki Markets" - the growing trend towards producing food, toiletries and other regulated substances outside of regulation. It is a hugely growing trend, from unlicensed sale of everything from produce to herbs to illegal raw milk sales to gourmet restaurants operating out of old school buses and people's apartments. Indeed, there are whole "…
sastyk | May 9, 2011I'm obviously always a fan of Greer's work, but I thought this week's post was particularly apt - he addresses the larger question of whether we must keep up industrial civilization until it falls apart (note, I do not say "if it falls apart" - implicit in the keeping up is that it brings us faster to collapse), or whether we can change.
George Monbiot, who's carved out a niche for himself as the staff pseudoenvironmentalist of The Guardian, had a blog post of his own on much the same theme. His argument is simply that most people in today's industrial societies are not going to accept…
sastyk | May 6, 2011The fact that the mid-range projections for world population rose by nearly a billion people this week should have garnered a lot more attention than it did. The UN offers biennial updates of its world population estimates, and for the last few years, the mid-range (ie, the most likely scenario) has suggested that the world will peak around 9.2 billion people near the middle of this century, and then slowly begin to decline. The 2010 estimate, however, found that the decline is no longer considered likely, and that by 2100, the world may have as many as 10.1 billion people.
This raises a…
sastyk | May 6, 2011It has been kind of quiet here, because well, it is spring, and that means that all my primary focus has shifted outside the house. The period from May 1 to June 15 is the busiest, craziest, wildest period of the year, and the shoulder season, ie, the month of April, its biggest rival.
We have six baby goats on the ground right now, with two more does due this weekend and five more due in July. I'll be posting the "goats for sale" list very soon - we'll have a 1 year old buck (Goldenrod), at least one senior milking doe and at least one baby, and later in the season, we'll have two doelings…
sastyk | May 4, 2011As Arizona ramps up its attempt to win national "America's stupidest laws" competition (hotly contested, admittedly) by prioritizing heterosexual married couples over gay people and singles for adoption, there's a lovely story about two gay fathers and their 12 children adopted from foster care:
These are all your kids? Oh, my gosh. Their poor mother. Where is she? I have to congratulate her."
"I am their mother - and their father," Steven said. Then, reaching out to shake her hand, he introduced himself, and then Roger, and each of the kids as they loaded into two cars and buckled in.
The…
sastyk | May 4, 2011Far be it from me to laud cuts in spending on critical things like energy analysis...but I admit I can't work up a good head of steam about the cuts in the EIA budget. After all, the EIA has managed to consistently get it wrong on oil reserves. Here's what happened:
The final fiscal year (FY) 2011 budget provides $95.4 million for the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), a reduction of $15.2 million, or 14 percent, from the FY 2010 level.
"The lower FY 2011 funding level will require significant cuts in EIA's data, analysis, and forecasting activities," said EIA Administrator…
sastyk | May 2, 2011After all, we've already figured out how to kill a human being. All you need are trillions of dollars, the willingness to sacrifice the lives of countless civilians and military personnel, and a total disregard for natural resource consumption, and hey, after a decade or so, you can kill a guy. Am I sorry he's dead? No, of course not. Does this resolve much of anything? Not that I can see.
So let's talk about how to kill plants, which is way easier, especially when you don't intend to. I offer this information up for several reasons. First, I'm an expert. You might think this wouldn't…
sastyk | April 27, 2011I don't know that I ever announced this on the blog, but I'm off tomorrow to NYC for an event run by CUNY Feminist Press - last fall they named me one of 40 Young Feminist Writers under 40 whose work on food and environmental issues was changing the way people think about women's issues. I didn't make it to the October Gala for family reasons, but I'm excited to head downstate tomorrow and meet the other folks!
I admit, I'm excited that the context that I've been working to bring to connect our energy history to the way gender roles have changed has been noticed! I've won a bunch of awards…
sastyk | April 26, 2011April is the month that utility shut-offs are resumed in much of the northern half of the country - it is against the law to shut off people's primary heating fuel during the winter, but when they can't pay their bills, generally speaking, April 1 means that you can cut them off. There has been some upheaval in our area, where an unusually cold spring has meant that there is still a need for supplemental heating, and many poor people with very cold houses.
I thought it was worth re-running this article - a version of this ran in 2005, and I've republished it several times since then. We…
sastyk | April 26, 2011Every time oil prices get high, the SPR becomes a central issue. I really like Kopits' analysis here - I think he may be right that the impact of the SPR might hold off an oil shock. At the same time, the question is whether we would then be able to build it up again, and whether we face greater subsequent shocks.
The SPR holds 727 million barrels of crude oil, about 40 days of US consumption and 70 days of oil imports. In addition, the US has about 1.1 billion barrels of commercial crude oil inventories. All in all, the US has sufficient domestic crude oil stocks to cover about six months…
sastyk | April 26, 2011About a month ago I had the privilege of spending an hour talking (on stage, in front of an audience) to my congressman, Paul Tonko, about energy issues and preparedness. What emerged from this discussion was that *EVEN THOUGH* Tonko is one of the best congresspeople out there on energy and environmental issues, even though he's a tremendously smart guy, even though he actually has had some real education on peak oil issues, the two of us were talking past each other in many ways. It was fascinating - I know that Tonko grasps the basic idea, but the narrative in which efficiency,…
sastyk | April 25, 2011Ok, I've always hated those "Top 10 Ways to Green Your Apartment/Cat/Sex Toys/Shaving Equipment" articles, and yet they do serve a sort of purpose (at least the ones that aren't total rubbish) - narrowing things down and prioritizing is helpful. So for those of you teetering on the edge of joining the new Riot for Austerity, check out the real 10 ways to make a big difference - I promise this is the only "Top 10 Green" List I'll ever make you read!
1. Buy a lot less stuff. So much of what's out there focuses on replacing one consumer need with a marginally less toxic or awful option. This is…
sastyk | April 25, 2011Ed Brayton has a post showing a series of polls that indicate that a majority of Americans now approve a gay marriage.This is good news for a whole host of reasons, among them that gay marriage is good for straight folk too - particularly in a society struggling with economic and environmental issues. I've written about this before, and about why I think gay marriage may be a gift to all marriages:
As long as we view the establishment of a marital household as the creation of something discrete and apart from the families from which they emerged, in both economic and social senses, we find…
sastyk | April 25, 2011
Almost exactly four years ago, my friend Miranda Edel and I were discussing the recent IPCC report on Climate Change and George Monbiot's book _Heat_ and the reactions that we got when we talked about about the sheer depth of the reductions in climate emissions that would be needed to stabilize the climate. Whenever we began to discuss emissions reductions on the order of 80 or 90% (depending on your country of origin - for the US Monbiot's estimate was 94%, although there are reasons to question that number now), the universal reaction we got was that it was impossible - impossible to…
sastyk | April 25, 2011Kurt Cobb has a very funny essay that argues that plants and animals have joined with the climate denialists to bring about the better for them "World Without Us":
The reversal of strategy began when domestic cats and dogs watched the Life After People series on The History Channel along with their putative owners. The cats and dogs then described scenes from the show to their wild counterparts. From there word swept through the animal kingdom and was overheard by many plants as well.
Life After People seemed like a utopian fantasy until some enterprising house plants realized that they might…
sastyk | April 25, 2011As part of their ongoing series on population, National Geographic has a fascinating, and typically visually brilliant article about how the Bangladeshi population is using strategies of adaptation to deal with climate change. This isn't the kind of adaptation most of us are prepared for, but as the authors point out, it may be the kind of adaptation we need:
Ibrahim Khalilullah has lost track of how many times he's moved. "Thirty? Forty?" he asks. "Does it matter?" Actually those figures might be a bit low, as he estimates he's moved about once a year his whole life, and he's now over 60.…
sastyk | April 22, 2011Mark Notaras has a terrific piece on what things are like in Japan, in a culture that has for several generations not had to worry too much about their food. There are useful lessons there for all of us:
But to what geographic point do people's concerns about radiation extend? Once nearby prefectures are associated with contamination, even if the contamination is confined to one small area or a few products, shoppers in Tokyo may choose to stay away from all raw or fresh products from an entire prefecture. When the Japanese government prohibited the sale of spinach from Ibaraki prefecture,…
sastyk | April 22, 2011Ok, have you always wanted to come to see the farm? Here's your chance. On Sunday, May 22, we're having an open farm day from 10am to 4pm at our place at 43 Crow Hill Road Delanson, NY 12053. We're about 45 minutes west of Albany in rural upstate NY.
We will have baby goats to pet, baby rabbits (hopefully), chicks and ducklings, milking and scything demos, some kid activities (if we can get them to do any activities, rather than just racing around and playing in the creek ;-)).
I'll also have books, vegetable, herb and flower plants, eggs and herbs for sale, and maybe other stuff as well…
sastyk | April 22, 2011I've been very grateful for my colleague Greg Laden's regular updates of the raw discussions on the Fukushima situation, but it is nice to have a coherent, visual overview, and Nicole Foss has provided another wonderful analysis at The Automatic Earth. It is very hard to synthesize all the information, because there is so much and so many conflicting reports, so it is helpful to have it all pulled together.
On April 17th the same site had the following radiation levels recorded for units 1-3:
Reactor 1
Dry Well: 121.4 Sv/hr
Suppression chamber: 97.5 Sv/hr
Reactor 2
Dry Well: N/A…
sastyk | April 17, 2011I wrote this post years ago, and have republished it occasionally since - it has been a while, though, and it does go with the other one ;-)
Reasons to Stay Together in Tough Times
1. Gives you something sustainable to do during those rolling blackouts (sex and fighting would probably both fit the bill, actually.)
2. You can't afford dinner and a movie, much less romantic gifts for your mistress or new sweetie anyway. You might as well stay with someone whose expectations have already been lowered by exposure to the real you.
3. Lowered economic expectations mean that even if you are no…