sastyk | September 23, 2010There are a lot of inherent contradictions in my life - and for the most part, I stand with Emerson and his claim that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Periodically someone throws at my claims that we're going to have to radically reduce our fossil fuel usage "but you are writing this on a computer" as though the fact that there's an underlying hypocrisy to this that undermines my claims. And there is a kind of hypocrisy, in the adolescent sense of the term - but the reality is that it is impossible to live in this world and the one that is coming without being a…
sastyk | September 22, 2010There are coyotes denned right across the road, which is one of the reasons we have Mac the Marshmallow. Mac is a 110lb Great Pyrenees dog, a livestock guardian breed the approximate size of a shetland pony. Asher, my four year old, has been known to ride him.
We call him "Mac the Marshmallow" because he's the color of one, and has the same personality. He's fearless when it comes to predators, but so gentle one of my cats will stick his head in Mac's mouth without worry. When a rabbit got out of cage at our house, Mac caught it, and, instead of doing it harm, washed it. For hours.…
sastyk | September 21, 2010...and I don't really have time today. Seriously, you've got to read the whinings of this idiot, and MTMB's response.
Maybe because my family of six pulls in less than 50K a year (as opposed to the 450K the gent in question is whinging about), and because I can identify still with the realities of poverty, I've got no tolerance for this bullshit. I still remember what it feels like to have your power turned off and the phone ringing off the hook about bills you simply can't pay. I'm lucky - my family is comparatively secure now - for now and by the grace of good fortune. But it is a…
sastyk | September 21, 2010_The Pump Handle_ often addresses the same issues that I do, from a public health perspective and is one of my favorite reads. As the UN Convenes to evaluate progress on the Millenium Development Goals - designed to reduce poverty worldwide, Liz Borkowski has done an admirable job of describing exactly what these are and how they work.
At the same time, however, I think both Borkowski and most evaluators don't explore the ways that the Millenium Development Goals simply begin from assumptions that don't allow them to succeed. That's why many of them are simply failing. The most basic one…
sastyk | September 21, 2010Well, we've finally got a mostly-complete ASPO Conference schedule. The problem is exactly the sort of problem you'd really like to have when running one of these - that there are just too many serious thinkers who need a spot. It is really tough to finalize the conference schedule when every day you are receiving calls that say things like "This is Bianca Jagger, Chair of the Human Rights Foundation, calling to say that I'd like to speak at your conference on the connection between Climate, Energy Depletion and Human Rights...here are the texts of my UN speeches if you'd like to see them…
sastyk | September 20, 2010I'm really excited about the ways that ASPO-USA is evolving. ASPO's role has been to raise awareness about Peak Oil, and it is serving to expose the issue in new ways. I joined the board of an organization that I'd once criticized publically for being elitist and dominated by old white guys because those same gentlemen challenged me to help fix the situation - and we are. Peak oil is emerging as the site of alliances that simply can't be achieved in climate change or on the economy - but because the peak oil community is diverse and crosses ideological lines so powerfully, those…
sastyk | September 20, 2010In some ways, we may be fortunate that the house we chose falls in a middle place in time - old enough to have character and beauty and a kind of solidity, new enough that we don't feel compelled to restore it to a past moment in time. Nor do I worry too much about the scratches the kids put in the pine floors or the authenticity of any particular improvement, although we aspire to keep the place beautiful and suitable to its landscape. My home is a fairly comfortable, moderately shabby work in progress, a mix of old and new that could be done better, but that mostly serves our needs.
So…
sastyk | September 17, 2010During a three month period, between September 9 and December 16th, we have Rosh Hashana, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Simchas Torah, Asher's birthday, Simon's birthday, Thanksgiving, Isaiah's birthday and eight nights of Chanukah. It was manifestly poor planning on my part to produce three kids between Rosh Hashana and Chanukah, but it also means I don't have the luxury of slacking off on holiday prep - not if I want to do them sustainably.
Now on the one hand, I think most of us realize that the traditional Western holidays and birthdays are kind of ridiculous. Less is good for our kids, good for…
sastyk | September 16, 2010Science Blogs is celebrating the beginning of the new school year with a series of 101-style posts, introducing the basics of a concept. I've got a couple of basics posts I'd like to do, but this one seemed particularly apt to me. I'm a homeschooler, but it isn't only homeschoolers that struggle with the question of how you frame our ecological situation for children in ways that are honest, not too frightening, engaging, and age-appropriate. Because most schools of every type offer a very superficial education in ecology, most parents of kids going to school will need, just as badly as…
sastyk | September 15, 2010Ok, that's not quite the headline at the New York Times, but close enough. Yes, the latest Oxfam figures that came out today say that we're back under 1 billion starving people. But yes, those figures were compiled before the Pakistani Floods, and before the 5% rise in food prices driven by the Russian wheat crisis.
The number of hungry people fell to 925 million from its all-time high of 1.02 billion in 2009, with much of the improvement tied to income growth in the Asia-Pacific region as well as a 40 percent decline in food prices from their 2008 peak.
The hunger number remains "…
sastyk | September 14, 2010If you've ever done a long car trip with four kids - 10+ hours up and back, with multiple stops along the way, you know just how I feel.
The trip was wonderful - I got to talk about food and agriculture right in front of Thomas Jefferson's own vegetable garden, got to let my kids see enormously cool things they would otherwise have had no chance to view, and had a wonderful time visiting friends and family. We made some wonderful, wonderful new friends - including our hosts in Charlottesville who were insane enough to take in our whole family, sight unseen!
99% of the time, I take Amtrak…
sastyk | September 8, 2010Super-quickie from me today - officially I'm in transit, but while my visiting my MIL and miraculously having time to read the entire New York Times before breakfast (admittedly the skinny Wednesday edition, but hey, I'll take it), I wanted to draw your attention to this article by David Leonhardt about how to think about housing.
Read the whole article - it is a good, basic overview of how economists generally view housing. What I'd like to write about it, but don't have time for right now (we hit the road shortly) is the way in which I think both of these viewpoints are inadequate to the…
sastyk | September 6, 2010I've got to leave you with something fun to read. I'll be in Virginia for several days - if you are anywhere near Monticello's Heritage Harvest Festival this Saturday you should come by - it is going to be fabulous.. I'm going to be talking about how Jefferson's idea of "A Nation of Farmers" can be lived today, and I'm giving a workshop on low-energy food preservation, complete with tastings. C'mon by and say hello! I'll be the one following Patti Moreno around admiringly ;-).
The family and I are making this an extended holiday (Rosh Hashana) trip with visits to family and friends on the…
sastyk | September 6, 2010There's an interesting article in the National Post emergent from a recent study in _Brain and Behavioral Sciences_
The article, titled "The weirdest people in the world?", appears in the current issue of the journal Brain and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. Henrich and co-authors Steven Heine and Ara Norenzayan argue that life-long members of societies that are Western, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic -- people who are WEIRD -- see the world in ways that are alien from the rest of the human family. The UBC trio have come to the controversial conclusion that, say, the Machiguenga are not…
sastyk | September 3, 2010Let us start with persona, since one goes to any prizefight to see the metaphorical battle of two created characters, embodying sides, virtues, faults.
In this Corna... John Michael Greer, owner (by a whisker over Bob Waldrop) of the finest beard in Peak Oildom, Archdruid, moral descendent of Toynbee and Gibbon, considerer of declines in centuries, not weekends. No Zombies for Greer - we are Rome, and we might as well deal with it, dammit.
And in this Corna...Rob Hopkins, beardless founder of the Transition movement, permaculturist, endless energetic optimist and municipal leader, student…
sastyk | September 2, 2010It isn't that I'm not athletic, I am - but my strengths in the athletic zone were never speed and agility - more forceful forward motion and tough elbows in basketball games. I've never been the kind of person who makes that rolling catch to save the game.
Until now. You see, I've got a new sport - the baby goat roundup. This is definitely a speed and agility event, and I am now the queen.
You see, we let our goats roam loose. Believe it or not, they don't go wandering into the road, but stay in the pastures. We only do it when someone is around to keep an eye on them (the rest of the…
sastyk | September 2, 2010Der Spiegel reports that it has obtained a German military think tank's analysis of peak oil's implicatons - and that the implications of the report are that the German government sees a peak oil scenario as potentially serious and likely enough to require attention:
The issue is so politically explosive that it's remarkable when an institution like the Bundeswehr, the German military, uses the term "peak oil" at all. But a military study currently circulating on the German blogosphere goes further.
The study is a product of the Future Analysis department of the Bundeswehr Transformation…
sastyk | September 2, 2010Yesterday I was on the phone with my Rabbi, who was asking me for data bout the BP oil spill and wanted to know whether there was any connection to peak oil. I told him that there certainly is - the BP oil spill is in many measures a consequence of a society under deep pressure to develop every conceivable source of oil, at great monetary, energy and ecological cost. The connection to peak oil is obvious - once upon a time, one dug a well in the ground and oil came spurting up - the version of oil prospecting one can still see in Bugs Bunny Cartoons today.
Now increasingly, the world's…
sastyk | September 1, 2010It is manifestly the case that I have never fully mastered keeping things from getting overwhelming, but I get better at it every year (mostly). And there is a lot you can do to make sure that the canning and preserving don't make you crazy!
Despite the fact that you've got a life, a job, a family, volunteer responsibilities and enough backlog in your life to keep you busy until 2182, you've decided that you are going to do some food preservation too. And you are definitely wondering if you are a little nuts. After all, this means finding time to do so, and isn't always easy. It helps to…
sastyk | August 31, 2010 First, there's the end of summer canning and preserving - the warm dry weather has meant the most astonishing harvest, all of which needs attention yesterday. Second, there's the beginning of fall getting everything ready before winter on a farm, most of which involves carrying heavy things (hay, firewood, etc...) around). Third, there's the start of Eric's semester, which is heavier than usual. Fourth, there's my teaching schedule. Fifth, the start of our annual homeschool year and grades 4, 2 and kindergarten for three kids. Sixth, the eldest is off school for two more weeks - and…