One of the best things about being invited to present at conferences and events is that I get to meet the other speakers, and usually talk with them in at least a semi-relaxed setting. Generally speaking, at a good conference I can count on meeting at least a few people who I’ve never heard of, but should have, at […]
I want to go shopping. I don’t mean I need to go shopping – I don’t, particularly. I just want to go out to a store somewhere and spend money and buy something fun or pretty – a trashy novel, cute clothes for the boys, yarn or maybe a nice tablecloth for my table. I […]
Several people have noted that in _A Nation of Farmers_ we spend a lot of time talking about very small-scale agriculture - home gardening, farms spread across multiple yards, very small home farms - and less time talking about farming for a living - and this isn’t an accident. One of my standing bits of […]
The recent debate between George Monbiot and Paul Kingsnorth over whether we actually can save the world seems mostly to have degenerated into sound and fury, which is rather a problem, since the larger question of whether climate change is stoppable, whether we can avoid having billions of people die, seems, well rather a good […]
The recent debate between George Monbiot and Paul Kingsnorth over whether we actually can save the world seems mostly to have degenerated into sound and fury, which is rather a problem, since the larger question of whether climate change is stoppable, whether we can avoid having billions of people die, seems, well rather a good […]
At the end of last year, I predicted that by the end of this year, the US would have experienced an economic collapse into a deep Depression. Despite the rhetoric about bottoms and “green shoots” my own take is that we’re on target for that outcome - the realities of losing millions of jobs through […]
One of the best things about life is the strange bedfellows you find in it. It makes for one heck of a slumber party.
I was thinking about this recently, because I happened to follow out the links that people have been putting in to my posts one afternoon when I had time to kill, just out […]
Today Is Dr. Seuss’s Birthday. Today is the day that anti-coal activists try to shut down the capitol coal plant. Utility shut offs for those who can’t pay their bills have hit a new high. Last week New Scientist magazine published its prediction that we would hit four degrees of climate change, and its apocalyptic vision of what that […]
Oh you’ve been on a fast train
And its going off the rails.
And you can’t come back, can’t come back again.
And you start breaking down, in the pouring rain
Oh, you’ve been on a fast train.
….Got to go on the land.
Stuck in no-man’s land.
Ain’t nobody on your way back.
Ain’t nobody going to lend you a helping hand.
And you start breaking down
And you falling […]
Note: This is a revised and retitled version of something that appeared here a while back. This is the version that will appear in Aaron Newton and my forthcoming book _A Nation of Farmers_. I promise this is the last rerun for a while - I’m sending off the book today!“
In the future, airplanes […]
