Only a paradigm shift will stop climate change (online)

Liberal philanthropy is dooming the planet to climate disaster

The Hewlett Foundation's philanthropic initiative to address climate change is set to fail, according to a strategy document setting out the initiative’s five-year plan, and committing $600 million to address climate change. While the Hewlett strategy document is certainly not all bad, its avoidance of specific solutions like regenerative agro-ecology, radical de-fossilization of the economy and biochar is bizarre. Its core approach appears to be based on an inexplicable ignorance and obfuscation of some of the most relevant scientific findings. Real solutions are available, but they do not sit easily within the existing paradigm. They point to a radical paradigm shift, a new type of civilisation, and a new type of human for a truly sustainable and prosperous world.

Peppa Pig makes compost (video)

Peppa Pig - Compost Episode

Peppa and George take a bin of vegetable peelings to Grandpa Pig's compost heap. Worms inside the bin turn the peelings into compost, which Granny and Grandpa use to help their plants grow.

We're all subsidising environmental destruction (online)

Two stumbling blocks on the road to regeneration: externalities and subsidies

 The prevailing opinion among today’s political and economic elites is that economic globalisation is in some sense inevitable. Rather than being inevitable, economic globalisation is, in fact, the result of a number of carefully chosen policies. Paradoxically many of these directly contradict the basic tenets of classical free market economic theory, from which the proponents of economic globalisation draw inspiration and authority. By understanding the key reasons why the global economy behaves as it does today, we will be in a better position to discern the core patterns underlying economic behaviour and to change them. Two key drivers of today’s global economy are externalities and subsidies.

Microgreen/mushroom permaculture (journal)

Expanding Herbal Microgreen-Mushroom Permaculture Can Be an Efficient Way toRecycle Agricultural Waste While Treating and Feeding the World

A sustainable cycle of substrate utilization is beginning to manifest with plant waste being used as mushroom substrate, and spent (used) mushroom substrate being used in place of traditional soil, for herbal microgreen growth. This approach to efficiency and conservation an example of permaculture, or the development of agricultural ecosystems intended to be sustainable and self-sufficient.

 

A vision for eco settlements (online)

A vision for Ecological Settlement Design (by Declan & Margrit Kennedy)

Margrit and Declan Kennedy spend their lives as activists, architects, academics and pioneers in the permaculture, ecovillage and alternative currency movements. This qualifies them as exemplary trans-disciplinary whole systems thinkers, designers, and doers. They are co-founders of the ecovillage Lebengarten in Germany, while working as professors of architecture and urban planning in Berlin, they also taught the first permaculture courses in Europe. Here is their whole systems vision of ecological design for sustainable communities.

The urgency of climate action (online)

Three Things We Don’t Understand About Climate Change

Thinking about climate change is not something that comes natural to humans — or ‘consumers’ as we have been called for decades. It is not only emotionally unpleasant, but analytically extremely challenging. Most of us do not grasp how immediate this situation has become, how fast it is progressing and what the scale of change needed is. After individuals, nations and corporations understand the urgency and the rate, they should be honest about the scale of action needed in order to avoid collapse of the biosphere and thus civilisation.

 

 

UK farmers who meet the sustainability challenge (report)

New report with aim to investigate how the science of agroecology can play a central role in the way our green and pleasant land is managed in the future.

A new report commissioned by the Land Use Policy Group and funded by Scottish Natural Heritage has taken a unique approach to help UK farmers meet the sustainability challenge by using the experiences of farmers that have ‘redesigned’ their farming systems utilising natural resources, such as clover grass leys in the crop rotation, to secure a healthier future for the environment and their businesses.

The aim was to investigate how the science of agroecology can play a central role in the way our green and pleasant land is managed in the future.

Analysing the practical experiences of a group of farmers from Scotland, England and Wales the report aims to unravel farmer expectations, risks and opportunities to help form future policy in the UK based on agroecological farming practices.

The group of fourteen farmers involved in the study were quite diverse and wide ranging – from small scale to large commercial enterprises with on-farm approaches covering agroforestry, pasture-fed livestock systems, organic and integrated farming with direct drilling and/or integration of livestock in arable operations.

The report has recommendations for further action to support agroecology, including the need to develop a support programme to facilitate the transition towards more sustainable farming systems.