jack works or jack plays

For more than a century we've been doing our best to trash the notion agricultural work. As a result we've come to regard the labor of growing food as a nasty, backbreaking effort best left to all those machines and a few of their handlers. The average age of a farmer in this country, 55 years old, is a reflection of the message we've been sending to our children as they grow up. "Don't get involved in that awful work of farming. Move to the city and find real work." When we further examine this change in attitude though, we find a deeper modification in the way we think about work.

Humans have been developing tools since the beginnings of our evolution. In fact many people think of the advent of tool making as the distinction between apes and man. That is, we were just animals until we started using tools to better out lives. One of the reasons for developing tools was undoubtedly the time savings advantageous of some of our tools. Fast forward a few thousand years and consider the invention of a more modern time saving tool, the cotton gin. Eli Whitney is credited with creating this machine, an updated version of the Indian Charkhi used to pick the seeds and seed pods out of cotton. Before its invention someone, very often a slave in the case of the cotton producing regions of the Southeastern United States, had to pick them out by hand. A very tedious and time consuming job indeed. In the cotton gin we can see a fairly low tech tool that reduced the amount of human labor needed to produce a particular agricultural product.

It is worth noting that because the cotton gin made the labor of removing seeds so much easier and less time consuming, cotton harvests grew tremendously in the years following its invention. This meant more people needed to plow the fields, plant the cotton and harvest it. The net result of the cotton gin was not fewer slaves but more. It is also worth pointing out that our modern way of life offers us more time saving devices than any other society in the whole of human history. We have machines to can food for us and machines to open the cans. We have machines that wash our clothes and bake our bread and dry our hair and transport us out and over the landscape at consistent speeds not dreamed of by the people of only a hundred and fifty years ago. And yet, the average worker in the US works more now than ever. Why, in this age of time saving tools are we still working so much?

If you factor in the time it takes you to earn all the money needed to own and operate a car, and all the time you spend sitting in traffic, the average speed of driving is slower than a human being can walk. Of course walking doesn't offer the range needed by many of us to travel all the daily miles we become accustom to driving. And the actual act of driving is faster than walking. It would take some commuters days to walk to work. But this notion that all our modern tools of convenience have actually given us more time in life is a fallacy that points to the way we think about work.

Before these modern time saving tools were invented, before the industrial revolution led to the invention of all these tool, human activity wasn't divided so acutely into labor and leisure. There were no time clocks to stamp on the way into the office. Life was a collection of daily activities that sustained life. For farmers, which meant for majority of people living 150 years ago, daily activities included what we would think of as chores: putting animals out to pasture, milking cows, mending fences, sewing seeds, harvesting food, etc. These chores were obviously necessary to the continuation of life. That is, the work was required if a particular farmer wanted be able to feed his family so the work was really important. But it was also ingrained in those who did such work in a way we have trouble understanding today.

For most Americans the concept of work is a negative one, associated with a job that is visited where labor is done in return for money with which to buy all that a person needs and wants. The work was required if a particular laborer wanted be able to feed his family so the work was really important. But there is a palpable distinction between the work of directly feeding your family and the work done to buy money to feed your family. It's a distinction that informs not only the way we think about food but the way we think about work.
We work more now than many agricultural societies of the past so it's important to point out that if the goal of getting the farmers into he factories and mechanization agriculture was to offer us more time, then industrial agriculture is a failure. Not just because it is destroying our soil and poison our land and our waterways and our children. Not just because it is warming our planet. And not just because it is unsustainable in the future just ahead, a future with fewer fossil fuel resources to do the job of growing food. Industrial agriculture fails because it's part of a system of living that takes time away from us as it forces us to work longer and harder just to feed our families and meet our needs.

But it robs us of our time in another way, a way in which I alluded to above. Our divisive way of thinking about labor has caused us to compartmentalize our lives and scorn the time we don't consider leisure. It's doubtful that preindustrial farmers worked each and every day while whistling through the easy chores of farming. There are always unpleasant jobs that must be done. That is as true now as it has always been, but the difference is that now we tend to scorn any and all work as the opposite of the way we strive to spend our time. These days we tend to think in terms of having a fixed number of hours during which we are required to work and then we are free again to have fun. We talk longingly about the day we can retire and do no more work at all! (I can't find statistics to back up my claim but isn't it interesting to note the number of people who die shortly after they stop working. I mention this as I note the passing of a family friend and mailman of my town for decades. He had just retired. Most people retire when they are older and therefore closer to their inevitable passing, but might not the regular work of life, regardless of its form, help keep humans healthy in all the many senses of wellbeing?) As the baby boomers, noted for their, shall we say, lack of modesty, drag us all along with them on the story of their most recent life stage, retirement, we are reminded that near the end of life we're expected to stop the efforts that sustain our families and get back to the fun of living- the golden years!

Retirement is defined as "the withdrawal from one's position or occupation or from active working life." In the future, retirement as considered by today's baby boomers will not be possible. Sipping Mai Tais on a tropical beach while spending money accumulated over years of work at a job will probably be the destiny of fewer and fewer people. Retirement itself is a fairly new concept, not mentioned in the English language until about 350 years ago and not a common occurrence for most people who, up until the 19th century, worked until they died.

Of course the type of work they did changed as they got older. 85 year old men were not leading teams of horse to work the soil early in the spring. The labor of the elderly in years past fit both their physical capabilities and the wisdom they had accrued. But the notion of contribution went beyond weekly volunteerism or story telling. Older people remained active in the patterns and habits that sustained life on the homestead. Again the idea of labor as a more inclusive part of life precluded the notion that one day older people would just stop working.

The same is true of children of course. Least I be accused of championing the return to labor conditions of the industrial revolution before child labor laws went into affect, let me make it clear that there are jobs both suitable and unsuitable for children. But children adore being outdoors. They love to play in natural settings and work in the garden and grow food. My daughter truly enjoys our chickens. She likes to watch them, to gather their eggs, to feed them and visit them at night to shut them in safely. She is only two and not especially helpful in taking care of them at this age. ;-) She also gets a bit scared when they fly but in only a few years I hope it will be part of her duties as a part of our household to take care of the chickens, a job not outside the skill range of a seven year old. Much of the work of starting seeds, planting and weeding and harvesting, (and cooking! My daughter also "helps" to bake bread) can be done safely by people under the age of 18. Traditional this has been how farming families got through the annual periods of time when more labor was needed. Many agricultural regions of our country historically operated school systems around the need for seasonal labor provided by the younger members of the family. Of course it is important to protect the younger, more vulnerable member of our society at large. And it is important that children have access to education that teaches a wide range of thoughts, skills and ideas. But it would be foolish to assume that means children and those who get too old to do heavy labor should be excluded from the work of feeding ourselves in the future.

Again it is the idea of labor as something other than an integrated aspect of life that leads us to carve up our time and make such a distinction between when we are working and when we are having fun. Life is work, but that doesn't make it less fun. We have the tools, some of them old and some of them new, to keep most of the labor of growing our own food from being the nasty, backbreaking work it is often described as being. But it's important to understand that only when we change our minds about what "work" means in the context of our lives will we be able to fully embrace a change in the way we live. Only after we've become accustom to the notion that working is living and doing that work is just as enjoyable- in some ways more enjoyable- than the mindless leisure we've come to expect from our current way of life, will we believe in a change.

in concern of the ends

Last year I wrote a paper describing the virtues of a shorter work week. I started working such a week (4 days, 36 hours) over a year ago and find it a fantastic alternative to the standard 5 day, 40 hour work week. The paper was published at Groovy Green and over at The Oil Drum where some of the comments were really useful in sharpening the argument for a shorter work week. Two specific critiques stand out in my mind as I contemplate an even greater shift in the American idea of labor. I believe such a shift is inevitable in light of declining energy availability and the urgent need to drastically cut carbon emissions.

One of the comments repeated went something like this. “You’re a wimp. I work 75 hours each week!” It was clear that some of the readers base their self-worth, in large part, on the amount of time they spend working. I’m not sure what those proudly bragging about their really long work weeks actually do during those hours. Perhaps it is something genuinely satisfying but increasingly the work in America is more about servicing ever increasing desires and not meeting the needs of our fellow citizens. I’m sure that those people who plan the spectacularly extravagant sweet sixteen birthday parties as seen on TV spend an enormous amount of time planning the events. I bet they make a lot of money too. Good for them but their work is not the kind of worthwhile work my grandparents looked back on at the ends of their lives and described as deeply fulfilling.

The second of the useful critiques I mentioned went something like this. “If everyone get a 3 day weekend every week, they’ll just spend more time driving to the beach, eating up resources and pumping out more pollution!” I agree there is no guarantee that less time spent at the office means more time spent at home reading to the kids or growing a garden or some such other low impact activity. But it seems unlikely that given a shorter work week, the average American worker will spend that increase in leisure time spending a lot more money and spewing a lot more carbon. For one thing he or she is less likely to have the financial means to do so. I couldn’t afford to go winging off to the coast every weekend. And a shorter week will probably mean a reduction in formal compensation. Personally it costs me a few thousand dollars each year. More time to do stuff probably means less time making US dollars in the formal economy so less US dollars to pay for trips to the beach.

But I mention all of this merely as a warm up. The really important thought that occurred to me after reading the comments came months later as I pondered what has become of our society. The American way of life as it stands today is described in admiration and in disgust as a culture of consumption. But even some of those who admire an annual increase in our GDP or praise the notion of unending growth are beginning to at least consider that more stuff is not necessarily making us happier people.

It is an often retold truth that money does not lead to happiness. We hear such a notion in graduation speeches, in wedding rehearsal toasts or at funerals as loved ones comfort each other with notion of what really is important during our time here on this planet. Very quickly though we get right back to business as usual after such ceremonies. We often hear of people going back to work sooner rather than later after the death of a loved one to, “keep me mind off of it,” the person says. Back to the grindstone of doing specialized tasks to earn money to pay for the needs and ever increasing wants of American life; the mind numbing simplicity of it will lessen the pain. Besides, that’s what the Joneses do.

The National Opinion Research Center has been polling Americans annually for decades and their finds show hat while we have more than 3 times as much material wealth as those who lived in this country in the 1950s, fewer and fewer of us report being very happy since that decade. It seems that as Bill McKibben (who also references the National Opinion Research Center polls in his excellent book Deep Economy) says, “new research from many quarters has started to show that even when growth does make us wealthier, the greater wealth no longer makes us happier.” This is an old adage, the notion that wealth doesn’t lead to happiness. It has been taught for ages, perhaps since the first surpluses of agrarian life led to the amassment of wealth. How is it that the message of temperance has been so soundly defeated in modern America?

It seems too simple to just blame television commercials or even the idea of advertising itself for our failure to heed the old message of restraint. Because of course those who preach the notion of temperance have at their disposal some of the very same modern methods of spreading their word. A large percentage of the population attends weekly religious worship services in the United States and all of the major religions (with specific congregational and historical exceptions) teach the value of restraint and self control. Some stress it as an exercise of self strengthen while others focus on the possibility of charitable giving through self sacrifice. The religious communities still teaches that greed is not good and that to contain one’s desires is a virtue. Just turn on the TV Sunday morning and you can watch. And yet, we’ve adopted an economic system that is predicated no exactly the opposite, the growth of consumption at all costs.

I’ll admit that he allure of a sexy television commercial or the bright packing of a supermarket product, when repeated from our days as children into adulthood, has a lot to do with why we seem less able to control our wants. It’s a hell of a lot more sensational than those Sunday morning worship service broadcast. But it seems that a more fundamental change has taken place in terms of how we see the world and what we value in it. We were once a culture of creation, a nation of people who prided ourselves on what we grew and made and built ourselves. Now it seems we pride ourselves on what we can buy from others. And this is a more fundamental change than it might seem at first read. We used to focus on the ends and now we focus only on the means.

In years past what was important to Americans was a goal that was aspired to either personally, as smaller communities or as a nation. Individuals might pride themselves on being able to grow a great tomato or cook an excellent family meal. The idea of cooking good food for her family was such an ingrained idea in my grandmother’s mind that it was inseparable from whom she was as a person. Suggesting that we call for take out would have been to challenge her ability to create a wonderful family meal. That is she was investe3d heavily in the ends of cooking that meal. The means to do so were skills she learned and practiced to be able to achieve her end- a great meal.

Communities too have invested in education as a means to achieve the ends of a knowledgeable population. Usually this is some combination of means- taxation, private donations, fund raisers, volunteerism, and others are used to try and achieve a certain goal; educate our youth.

As a nation we have had similar goals. During WWII we changed many of our regular ways of doing things with a focus on winning the war. US citizens accepted rationing, even came to view self limitation as patriotic in light of the goal of winning the war. The Victory Garden movement is another example of adaptation or the adjustment of the means by which we met our ends. Still desiring some of the foods placed off limits in response to the war, many citizens took charge of their own food production and served to both conserve wartime resources and still eat good, nutritious food. I think this serves as an excellent example of how changing the means can be beneficial in more ways than one, but first we have to know what we want.

The problem is though that there’s been an important shift in the way we think about what is important. We no longer value the ends but more the means. Work, whether that of our own labor or that of other tradesmen and craftsmen, is no longer valued, only the thing which we gain as a product. This is of course one of the reasons globalization has been able to out source the labor of so many Americans. Multinational corporations can take their manufacturing operations overseas and take advantage of cheap labor, lax labor laws, limited environmental restrictions and other dubious incentives to offshore American jobs. But they can do this because we don’t care if they do it. We think that consuming those goods is more important than the way in which they were produced. Our means of life, our need to consume more cheap goods, trumps the ends such a way of life creates. Who cares about lives lived by poor, often mistreated factory workers overseas. For that matter who cares about Americans who lose their jobs to those overseas workers. Who cares about the environmental impacts left to our children by such a system,. Those ends- those devastated lives and overwhelmed ecosystems- pale in comparison with upkeep of our consumptive way of life.

The means by which we get our ends, that is the pattern of growth capitalism, has become the focus of our attention. But as E.F. Schumacher describes it writing in Small Is Beautiful, “The trouble with valuing the ends- which, as confirmed by Keynes, is the attitude of modern economics- is that it destroys man’s freedom and power to chose the ends he really favours; the development of means, as it were, dictates the choice of ends.” That is, by accepting as unalterable our pattern of unending economic growth, we are in fact limiting ourselves and perhaps prescribing the end of the success of the human species as this means of living hurls us towards a future of ecological, agricultural and social collapse.

Industrial agriculture operates within an economic framework that says the cheapest food possible is the best food. It operates within a social framework that says machines are better suited than people to the backbreaking work of growing food because machines are more efficient. (Notice the assumed notion that the work is back breaking in the first place!) It operates within a cultural framework that says citizens don’t grow their own food, multinational corporations do it for them. It operates within a political framework that favors the concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the few at the expense of the many. It operates within an environmental framework that says the natural world is not a system to be worked within but a system to be dominated by humans. And it operates without paying attention to other real issues facing the people who eat the food, namely food security, resource stewardship, and the fostering of a relationship between humans and the natural world that sustains them.

By all of this I mean that instead of focusing on what we want on our table, namely tasty, nutritious food that supports our friends and neighbors who grow it and protects the resources that make it possible for our children to eat in the future and reminds us daily of just how much the natural world has to offer if we work with it- instead of focusing on the ends of this sort of food on our tables, we are focusing instead on the means mentioned above. In other words we take it as a given that the frameworks mentioned above are simply unchangeable facts of life. We buy into the notion that cheap food is good or even possible. We avert our eyes at the real costs. We believe it when we’re told that machines not people should be growing food and that we can not and should not grow our own. That would just be too hard! We accept without question the notion that a small number of companies should be in charge of the decisions that dictate what we can and can not eat. Surely Monsanto and the US Federal government know what we want for dinner! And sadly we’ve grown to suppose that the natural resources of this world will be able to supply as much cheap food as we want forever without any thought given to how the land itself is cared for. That last supposition might prove the most dangerous for as we are seeing, our world has its limits, and we are currently eating beyond them.

But within these limits there is a bounty available for our harvest. Earth does offer an amazing opportunity for growing what we need to feed the people of this planet. It’s important then to ask ourselves not what ends are available given our current means of production, but what means of production will give us our desired ends. It is here in this refocusing of our attention that we can reverse the trend of America, away from a land of consumers and back towards a nation of people who know what they want to eat and who can retool how to grow it and cook it.

Part of this of course goes back to the very idea of work as described by those who critiqued my idea of a shorter work week. The more general criticism I think was a notion that time is in fact divided into two distinct categories. We are either working or we are enjoying ourselves. The notion is that labor is awful, something we must receive compensation to endure not something we genuinely enjoy and do out of desire. The popularly used acronym T.G.I.F. stands for Thank God It’s Friday, meaning how wonderful Fridays are because they signal the end of the dreary work week and the beginning of the wonderful workless weekend! The notion of enjoyment associated with work in this country is no longer the norm. And that’s something we’re going to have to recognize and try to change if we’re going to convince more people to do more work for themselves.

The truth is, gardening and farming can be hard work. Some of its labors, especially done without the use of machines powered by fossil fuels, can be really hard work. I’ve double dug enough beds in compacted clay soils to know that doing that chore is very labor intensive. I can guess that digging a small pond by hand would even more so but very little of the work of growing our own food should be described as backbreaking. Even some of the more laborious stuff is it in fact is very enjoyable. It’s not the physical effort that keeps more of us from taking on this work but perhaps the idea that it is work and therefore not enjoyable. That is, in this country we have come to view “work” as the opposite of fun and therefore it should be avoided at all costs. Really though this is not true. Even really physically strenuous work can be fun. We have allowed a sort of pina-colada-by-the-beach fun to replace the idea that some kinds of fun might actually require physical effort. And this is a shame because an afternoon spent working diligently and laboriously on a project can be great fun. The notion that work is to be avoided at all costs is regrettable. This seems to stem from the fact that the duality of work and leisure- the notion that there is a time for work and a time for relaxation and the two are mutually exclusive- has expanded into the notion that work itself can not be fun. Both work and leisure can be enjoyable.

And of course there are ways of maximizing the enjoyment of physically demanding or otherwise toilsome projects. The Amish are famous for their barn raising, a task that literally demands more effort than any one man can offer. So they get together as a community to do the work. This has the benefit of being more fun because of the social aspect of the project but also allows individuals to offer their own personal tools and talents. A tough job that might seem like torture to an individual undertaking the task alone will find the task actually enjoyable when done with others, especially those who know how to do parts of it better or faster. The same is true of course for tasks that aren’t as much physically demanding as they are monotonous or boring. Shelling thousands of beans might seem like the dreariest way possible to spend a weekend. And left alone those chores do sounds incredibly uninteresting. That is one reason the projects were done together as a family or even at a community gathering. The seemingly tedious work of shucking acres of corn is actually a lot of fun if you get together with friends and neighbors, share some food and some stories and all shuck together fir an evening. The point is that growing food, and for that matter, living life from self sufficiently in general will require effort. Anything worthwhile in this life seems to. Now is not the time to shy away from work but to engage in the notion that the hard is worthwhile, the real hard can be a community effort and a little creativity can keep work from just being dull.

the first thing he did was buy a tractor.

Over the years, my friend Mark has listened as a lot of crazy ideas have come out of my mouth. One of my personal definitions of ‘good friend’ is someone who listens to any idea that discounts conventional thinking without suggesting the idea is outlandish. The fact is, Mark has had a few of his own crazy ideas over the years. It's probably one of the reasons we get along so well. Conventional thinking is all good and well but who wants to talk status quo over a few beers when the notion of radical solutions to contemporary problems is so much more interesting. So it wasn’t surprising when Mark patiently listen to me one night several years ago as I described the fairly dreadful situation facing industrial agriculture and all the human beings dependant on it. I posited that in light of peak oil, climate change and widespread water & soil degradation the industrial model of agriculture was doomed and we best be dreaming something else up.

I filled him in on the "green" revolution and the shift from more sustainable agricultural practices of the past to the implementation of fossil fuel based farming. I went on and on about soil degradation and the state of clean water in this country. We talked food miles, farmer's markets and contrasted the states of agriculture in Cuba and North Korea following the fall of the Soviet Union. By the time we were finished I felt like we'd just read Dale Allen Pfieffer's book Eating Fossil Fuels, aloud- too loud as by this time we’d had a few beers! As this particular night carried on, we began to swing wildly from overly pessimistic predictions about the future of the human race to excessively optimistic forecasts of a shift to ecovillage living for all! We called it a night when we both convinced each other that the end of modern civilization was neigh! and that everything would be fine because those left would be small enough in number to survive on the ancient practices of hunting and gathering. Time to pay the tab.

In successive discussions I filled him in on more background information- more of the research I was doing for the book I would be writing. Mark always listened intently and offered ideas, comments, criticisms and general thoughts on the idea that the way we grow food and the way we eat food is way out of whack with the physical realities of planet Earth. He suggested that shortly, we’re in for a shift kick in the pants.

It had been several weeks since I had explained to Mark the idea of a lot of new farmers- 100 million new farmers in America- when he asked me to meet him for a drink so he could share a surprise. I was intrigued and, as always, ready to drink beer and talk about change. When Mark arrived he walked over to the table where I was waiting for him. He sat down, ordered a drink and wasted no time in sharing his news.

"So I bought a tractor," he said "and I'm going to be one of your new farmers." "One of my farmers?" I asked amused but slightly confused. "Your 100 million new farmers," he said, "now you only need ninety nine million, nine hundred and ninety nine thousand, and nine hundred and ninety nine new farmers to meet your goal."

Mark slowly filled me in on his plans. He lives out in the country on enough land to grow quite a bit of food. He thought more about our ongoing discussion concerning the future of agriculture and had decided to change the way he gets his food. It sounded reasonable- compelling even, so he had decided to start farming. And the very first step he took was to buy a tractor.

It's worth noting that the majority of the world's farmers don't have tractors. Most farmers worldwide don’t have enough land to warrant tractor ownership and they work their land by hand. The mechanized labor a tractor offers makes the most sense financially on larger tracts of land. But I listened as Mark described his new purchase, an old Massey Ferguson that sounded big enough to pull his house down. The tires needed replacing and also he needed to replace all the parts that had gone bad mostly from lack of use. This particular tractor had been sitting in the barn of a widow of nine years who couldn't quite bring herself to sell her husband's old iron icon of late 20^th century farming. Mark bought it at a steal.

I knew how much land he had available for cultivation, about 2 acres total. And I knew that he was coming at this as a new participant in the movement of people growing more of their own food, which is a nice way of saying that he didn't know how to grow food but he was eager to learn. I could tell he was dedicated to the idea and I felt that supporting him including not pointing out that a tractor was neither necessary nor even a good idea given his circumstances. But I bit my tongue and he talked on.

The next time we got together I inquired about the state of his new farming adventure. He told me it was coming along nicely but slowly. He had purchased new tires and torn the engine apart. He had parts on order and had lined up someone to paint it all red once he was done mechanically overhauling his machine. I suggested that this sounded like a complete restoration project to which he replied that yes, it had taken on quite a life of its own. I asked if he was still going to grow food and he said yes, that was still his goal, but I got the feeling his shiny new restoration project was first and foremost on his list of things to do.

As spring progressed I didn't see Mark as much but often enough to hear about his tractor and its progress. It was up and running and he'd used it to plow a field and he had planted crops. I got a chance to see his garden on a day in late May. It was still rather barren with more red clay than green leaves but it was level and the surface smoothed. I asked about mulch and he suggested the tractor could help with weeds. He mentioned running a house form his house for general watering. I asked about cover crops and he mentioned planting all two acres in food he could eat. What with the state of industrial agriculture he could not be under prepared! I suggested that one person in charge of 2 acres worth of vegetables might find himself busier than he ought to be but Mark said he was counting on the tractor to help and on evenings after work and weekends to do most of his garden labor. I was impressed by his ambition.

The tractor meanwhile was a sight to behold. It was big enough and red enough to be driven proudly in a rural 4^th of July parade. It had been restored to perfect working order and Mark showed me all he could do with his fancy renovated machine. My daughter thought it was great as Mark hauled her over to the garden from his home across the street. He pulled the neighborhood kids around on occasion and I admit to being a bit jealous of all he could do so quickly with a machine of such power- cut brush, plow soil, move mulch and more.

But over the coming months I watched as Mark's garden got away from him. It was too much for one man to keep up with on a part time basis. The tractor helped but it could not do all of the small labor of a vegetable garden- pick tomatoes and can them, put up bean trellises and keep the deer out of his corn.

But even as the food he was growing got out of control, Mark's love of his tractor grew. It was now a part of any standard visit to Mark’s house, a lap around the neighborhood on his tractor. He contracted for the construction of a small detached garage as a home for his tractor and I knew doing so had cost quite a bit of money.

In the end he did have quite a harvest that year- lots of corn and potatoes and beans. The tomatoes had come all at once and some sort of fungus had set in. The pumpkin patch was overrun with weeds that choked out the vines as borers set in to finish off his hoped for jack-o-lanterns. 15 pepper plants meant more than enough of those for a month or two but no time to dry them. He talked about getting a chest freezer for storage. And while I think my friend Mark had the best intentions, I know he spent an awful lot of money on seedlings and fertilizer and hoses, not to mention the tractor.

That was last year. This past year Mark didn't plant a garden. He had a self described "busy spring" and decided not to bother until next year. Besides he can still get out his tractor even if he isn't taking it into the field. And food is still so cheap. I've mentioned some easier, long term projects for Mark’s farm: cover crops and maybe building a small pond for rainwater harvesting and for keeping a few fish or maybe some fruit trees and bushes planted along the northern edge of his garden; some perennial crops he wouldn’t have to plant again every year. I don't push these ideas though. Mark is a busy man and open minded, but the kind who doesn't take well to pressure from others. He'll do it when he is ready.

I can't help but lament that idea of the tractor supplanting his mission. Mark set out to involve himself more in the process of feeding himself. But he got sidetracked by the allure of shiny farming tool. I don't think bad of him for his detour and I hope he'll return again to his idea of growing more of his own food. I have made my own agricultural mistakes in the past. I put too much under cultivation at first. I originally adopted the practices of row agriculture to the exclusion of other ideas. I didn't learn the value of sheet mulching for a few years and I still keep lousy records even though I know how valuable they can be. But I think Mark's pitfall hints at a greater hazard luring out there for would be converts to the newly anointed return to small scale farming. All of us, even those raised in very urban environments, have a notion about how farming happens. For many it's the idea of a white guy on a red tractor riding proudly over his 500 hundred acres.

But the truth is that's not what we're talking about when we suggest a return to small scale, sustainable agriculture and 100 million new farmers in America as a reasonable response to peak oil, climate change and widespread social injustice. There will be likely be a continuation of large scale industrial agriculture even as the resources support system that makes it possible breaks down over the coming decades. And there are already more and more people growing food and selling it locally with farmer's markets representing the largest growing sector of the food economy in America. Urban gardens, community gardens, even new victory gardens are beginning to pop up all over this country. Spurred by the higher price of food, a dissatisfaction with the industrial agriculture and its products, a longing to engage with others in one's neighborhood- plenty of reasons are driving change even while the existing system continues to lumber on. The pitfall I mentioned was the idea that agriculture in the future must look like agriculture in the past, that to grow food you need a tractor. Not only do you not need a tractor, but such a shiny trapping from the past might serve to distract you from learning what you really need to know in order to grow food effectively.

Moving forward we think it's worth suggesting that more people grow food, lots more people- 100 million more Americans actively participating in the growing of food in this country. Moving forward we don't expect the tractors to stop simultaneously as a new philosophy of food takes hold in this country and sudden and rapid transformation turns us into a nation of farmers. Real change is more messy and more chaotic and harder to label because it happens without a roadmap and sometimes seemingly devoid of human direction at all. It will serve us well, moving forward, to put aside our notions of who farms, how it's done and where people can and cannot grow food. The 21^st century and its challenges will manifest themselves agriculturally in ways we can't accurately describe today. Being flexible, being redundant, and being willing to consider any alternatives to even the most seemingly useful ideas will be helpful in addressing the coming change. Good luck to all of us, tractors or no.

but it makes my pee smell funny

My wife and I visited friends in Kentucky last spring. It is a beautiful part of the country with rolling hills, stacked stone walls and a mix of open fields and forested landscapes. We spent an afternoon wandering around the property and eventually ended up in an old garden plot. It was just the right time of year for asparagus and a huge bed of it revealed dozens of spears ready to be picked. “Yum, asparagus,” said my wife in a mockingly sarcastic voice. My wife hates asparagus. Or at least that’s what she’s been telling me for the whole of our relationship. I on the other hand really do love asparagus and have been known to eat it straight, biting off the ends of the raw spears and enjoying the unique flavor of this springtime treat. Getting my wife to share in my love for asparagus has been impossible up until this point and I was resigned to eat it by myself for the rest of my life.

The friend who was showing us the land around his home said he also enjoyed asparagus and that we should pick some for dinner. My wife objected lamely, suggesting it is inedible because, “It makes your pee smell funny.” But in no time we had picked more than enough for the rest of us and we started to march back towards the house.

It turns out that our friend and his wife are pretty good cooks and suggested a particular glaze to put over the asparagus after grilling. The rest of dinner was discussed and preparations started. While we mixed and sautéed and baked and grilled we also discussed how nice it must be to have so much fresh asparagus so close by. While I do like asparagus, I think eating it out of a can is on the list of banned international torture techniques as described by the Geneva Convention. If it isn’t, it should be. I think out of season asparagus that gets shipped from half way around the world is a bit better, but not a whole lot.

All vegetables are better when they’re eaten soon after they’re picked but asparagus is on a shorter list of vegetables to avoid if they don’t come from nearby. So I was surprised that it had never occurred to me that part of my wife’s objection to asparagus might be because of the fact that she’s never really had good, fresh asparagus. Well that changed on our trip. After a little teasing by me and our hosts she agreed to try the grilled asparagus… and she loved it! Now it didn’t hurt that the asparagus had on it a honey and bourbon glaze freshly whipped up by one of our hosts. In one sense I don’t think that matters because she was after all eating the asparagus she had avoided for her entire adult life. That is she was trying something new and liking it even though there was technically sweets and liquor involved.

But in a much more practical way she was getting all the goodness that goes along with fresh asparagus. It contains high levels of Folic Acid, Vitamin A and potassium among other nutrients. It a good source of dietary fiber, it is promotes the growth of gut-friendly bacteria and it’s low in calories. As a good source of Vitamins C and E it is good for my wife’s skin, it is thought to have a cleansing affect on the body and as early as the 1600s, people like herbalist Nicholas Culpepper have been suggesting that it’s good for your sex life. In addition to having a positive effect on the body’s level of histamines (which in term affect the ability to organism) eating such a seductively shaped vegetable is bound to spice up your sex life!

And after such a wonderful experience with grilled and glazed asparagus she was willing to try it without the sweet topping. She still liked it. I pushed my luck and got her to try it raw. Now she didn’t like it this ways as much as she did grilled. And she liked it even more with the glaze, but even raw she had to admit that this fresh, super-local asparagus tasted good. Which is really important because there are a lot of really compelling reasons for us to start the project of growing more food closer to home, namely a global peak in oil production, a peak in natural gas production here in North America and the effects of climate change that could seriously disrupt centralized agriculture in all sorts of ways.

But these reasons are scary and it’s hard to say with any measure of certainty just how badly they’ll affect industrial agriculture and exactly when that will begin. I mean it’s hard not to notice that the cost of food from this system is already on the rise. That is the way most people will notice what’s going on, they’ll pay more for food. But at a certain point the price increases could keep enough people from getting enough to eat. The number that can’t afford to eat in this country currently stands at 12% or about out of every eight people. I bet that number would have to double or maybe even triple before a national movement might get going full swing. It’s important to remember that a disproportionate number of those going hungry are children who lack the wherewithal to do much about it and therefore the problem could get big before anyone pays it the attention it deserves. And if we wait too long to begin the project of downsizing agriculture the job will be much harder to do. Part of the process will be made much easier if we still have access to relatively inexpensive fuel to power projects like earthworks aimed at water retention. The depleted soils of much of the US will also take time to revive. For this reason alone we need to start sooner rather than later.

So what’s all this got to do with asparagus you ask? Well my wife likes it now. After an adult life spent without local asparagus she wants it. She wants me to grow more of it (I just have a few wild asparagus plants I rescued a few years ago) and she wants to see who else is growing it nearby. She believes me when I say that we should relocalize agriculture because we’re going to have to do it for all sorts of nasty reasons BUT she didn’t get excited until she tasted yummy asparagus. If we want to foster the redevelopment of small scale, sustainable agriculture it seems to me that the best way to convince more people quickly is to feed them yummy asparagus; topped with honey and bourbon. We can and should continue to explain why this is so important in terms of dangers of not doing it but we must point out, in ever louder voices, that this is about changing the way we grow food and eat it so we can have really tasty food.

might make you smile

george was that comment cleared?

I just had to take a moment and share. In a recent interview with ABC News, George W. Bush was asked about getting tougher with Saudi Arabia about the high price of oil. Our President said the following,

If they don't have a lot of additional oil to put on the market, it is hard to ask somebody to do something they may not be able to do.

Perhaps my added emphasis will help you understand the magnitude of this statement. The sitting president of the United States of America, who recently admitted, "America is addicted to oil," made a comment, after meeting with King Abdullha, that Saudi Arabia might not be able to raise oil production. Of course there are people, knowledge people who have been saying this for at least a few years, but here is our president saying it in an interview with a major news network. This must have thrown his handlers into an uproar. No doubt this points to an exciting year, because in terms of oil production as Saudi Arabia goes, so goes the world.

You can watch the interview for yourself.

If you don't believe the president or if perhaps you still think peak oil is a few decades or even just a few years away, I suggest this informative PDF from Matt Simmons, energy investment banker, which concisely presents the realization that global conventional oil production peaked in May of 2005.

Best Wishes,

aaron

More on the Bush interview from Gail the Actuary at TOD and thanks to Sharon.

why don't farmers take long vacations?

Regular readers of this blog have no doubt noticed that my content stream recently slowed to a trickle. First of all I failed at my annual attempt to make the holidays less hectic. Then I spent most of the first half of Janurary '08 traveling. I had a fantastic time in chilly rural NY which was kind enough to snow on this Southerner- something I don't get to experience very often. Then on to KY for more visiting. I am happily at home and settling in for what will be quite an exciting first half of the year. My focus will be twofold. My wife is expecting our second child in the middle of March and my co-author Sharon Astyk and I must finish the book by June 1. I will certainly share information about the former event with readers but it is the latter, the writing of the book, which will show up on this site from time to time. While I won't be sharing everything in advance of publication please comment on anything you think good, bad or even of no consequence as such comments will be helpful. I do believe food can be- might even have to be- the way we really get to work on the unfolding crises of energy descent and climate change. Getting this right is very important.

Best Wishes,

aaron

hungry for change?

Happy 2008. I have only one prediction, and it’s really more of a thought. I’ll play it safe and phrase it as a question. Will food create a crossroads for the crises of energy and environment at which we will change directions and transform the way we live?

From Financial Post

A new crisis is emerging, a global food catastrophe that will reach further and be more crippling than anything the world has ever seen. The credit crunch and the reverberations of soaring oil prices around the world will pale in comparison to what is about to transpire, Donald Coxe, global portfolio strategist at BMO Financial Group said at the Empire Club’s 14th annual investment outlook in Toronto on Thursday.

“It’s not a matter of if, but when,” he warned investors. “It’s going to hit this year hard.”
Mr. Coxe said the sharp rise in raw food prices in the past year will intensify in the next few years amid increased demand for meat and dairy products from the growing middle classes of countries such as China and India as well as heavy demand from the biofuels industry.
“The greatest challenge to the world is not US$100 oil; it’s getting enough food so that the new middle class can eat the way our middle class does, and that means we’ve got to expand food output dramatically,” he said.

The impact of tighter food supply is already evident in raw food prices, which have risen 22% in the past year.

Mr. Coxe said in an interview that this surge would begin to show in the prices of consumer foods in the next six months. Consumers already paid 6.5% more for food in the past year.
Wheat prices alone have risen 92% in the past year, and yesterday closed at US$9.45 a bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade.

At the centre of the imminent food catastrophe is corn - the main staple of the ethanol industry. The price of corn has risen about 44% over the past 15 months, closing at US$4.66 a bushel on the CBOT yesterday - its best finish since June 1996.

This not only impacts the price of food products made using grains, but also the price of meat, with feed prices for livestock also increasing.

“You’re going to have real problems in countries that are food short, because we’re already getting embargoes on food exports from countries, who were trying desperately to sell their stuff before, but now they’re embargoing exports,” he said, citing Russia and India as examples.
“Those who have food are going to have a big edge.”

With 54% of the world’s corn supply grown in America’s mid-west, the U.S. is one of those countries with an edge.

But Mr. Coxe warned U.S. corn exports were in danger of seizing up in about three years if the country continues to subsidize ethanol production. Biofuels are expected to eat up about a third of America’s grain harvest in 2007.

The amount of U.S. grain currently stored for following seasons was the lowest on record, relative to consumption, he said.

“You should be there for it fully-hedged by having access to those stocks that benefit from rising food prices.”

in came the meow

"Neither by journey nor destination bound,
But by the grace of tales unwound."

Last night I went to the back door to lock it before going to bed. I noticed a cat we care for huddling just outside of the door. We call this small, salt and pepper cat MeowMeow or sometimes we call her Ms. Meow or on occasion, The Meow. You might think there is nothing remarkable about an outdoor cat wanting inside on a relatively cold winter night, but you don’t know The Meow. She has lived with us for almost six years without ever coming inside.

Several years ago my wife and I moved to this small town in Southeastern America. We rented an apartment while we looked for a house to call our own. Almost immediately we met The Meow. She was painfully unmistakable. Fur covered only one quarter of her body. The rest was pink, raw skin covered with the scabs of bug bites. Her tail too was furless except for an odd tuft at the tip. This miserable looking feline was significantly underweight. Her bare skin was so taut you could trace the outline of her intestine as it snaked back and forth across her stomach. Her back left leg stuck out at an odd angle forcing her to walk with a slight limp. She was starving and happy to have the food we offered although initially her mood was less than appreciative. We learned quickly that this cat was distrustful of everyone and that she seemed as mean as a snake.

But we continued to feed her and soon trapped her in a cage so I could take her to the vet. Tests revealed no major health problems except malnutrition and the rash of scabs to go along with her less than playful attitude. The limp was from a previous injury- probably hit by a car. I paid for the shots necessary to vaccinate this cat and address her skin condition. I took her home.

She continued to show up for meals and a few months later when we moved to our new house, we trapped her again and took her with us. She accepted her new home but only the outdoor part. She wouldn’t come inside to save her life. She was putting on weight and fur and was beginning to allow us to come close to her. We were slowly getting used to her and she was slowly getting used to us. Still extremely distrustful of humans, she was even more unhappy about our other cats. When we got a puppy almost a year later, she promptly bloodied his curious nose twice before he learned to respect The Meow. I also learned that lesson the hard way. Several times I thought The Meow was ready for me to hold her. She was not. To call this cat fiercely independent would be to redefine the term understatement. I can show you the scars.

Which is why I was so surprised to see her at the back door last night wanting to come inside. She scurried through the doorway and incredulously made her way up onto the living room couch. We left her to sleep there because no one really wants to argue with The Meow.

Truthfully this cat has softened as she’s aged. She lets me pick her up now. She will let other people pet her; even rolling over on her back sometimes so I can rub her belly. I can’t say I have ever seen her play with a loose string or any other such cat toy. The intoxication of catnip is apparently lost on her as well. But she will purr when she’s petted and she will now share space with our other cats. The dog still keeps his distance but even her attitude towards him is much more accepting. People who meet her for the first time think she is sweet which I guess it’s fair to say she has become.

Or maybe she always was. Maybe it was covered over with a scab of pain. I never held her seemingly harsh temperament against The Meow. To have seen this pitiful creature starving and in pain on my doorstep, fearful and truly pathetic, touched me in a way that made great acceptance on my part possible. I learned something from her about giving care. I learned that to care for something when almost no one else notices the need is deeply rewarding.

I believe that we are in one manner of speaking, living a pitiful way of life on whole here in America. At the risk of seeming uncelebratory during this the holiday season, I am struck again and with renewed strength at just how much we’ve lost in an effort to fulfill our every material desire. I lament this time each year how much of our efforts of life in America revolve around getting more stuff than we need. While we are physically fatter than ever before (and yet malnourished to some extent) we seem mentally, emotionally & spiritually starving. I hear people everywhere talking about “focusing on what really matters,” but then they inevitably ask any child within earshot what he or she is getting from Santa. I am not immune from this holiday sense of compulsory consumption. And that is the point I guess, that I feel this sense of sorrow when I look out and see our culture in such truly bad shape. It’s pervasive and almost inescapable, especially if our friends and family are also confined to this system of living. What good would it do for me to leave and find a place where people matter if I had to leave behind the people who matter to me?

It’s tough to swim against the current. I do not fault those who have taken the bait and settled for this a way of life based upon consumption. But I also feel responsible, as someone in this system who has glimpsed an alternative, to share my thoughts about our loss of focus on each other and on the wider world around us. I’m planning to spend some time during the first of the year envisioning what might be possible as others decide to come in out of the cold as I believe they soon will. This way of life, based on infinite growth in a finite system cannot continue much longer. Already plenty of others are waking up to this reality. Some changes happen fast and others happen more slowly. Predicting what will happen in the future and how quickly change will come is a difficult, perhaps impossible job. But we can help to steer our nation back towards a happy society of stronger self sufficiency coupled with healthy interdependency by being flexible and being ready and being willing to change; that and answering a few questions to frame the work of imagining another way of life.

1. Why is change necessary and therefore possible?

2. Where should we go and what will it look like when we get there?

3. How can we start the journey and what can we expect in transition?

4. Who will join us?

A toast as the New Year approaches: May the year of Two Thousand and Eight offer a chance at change and may it be kind to all of those who work to transform this world into a more thoughtful and caring place.

Best Wishes,

aaron

more food stamps and more grocery stores?

I was absolutely incensed when I read this article. It explains how people living in rural America have unhealthy diets BECAUSE THERE AREN’T ENOUGH GROCERY STORES!

This is the real world of eating and nutrition in the rural United States. Forget plucking an apple from a tree, or an egg from under a chicken. "The stereotype is everyone in rural America lives on a farm, which is far from the truth," says Jim Weill, president of the nonprofit Food Research and Action Center (FRAC). New research from the University of South Carolina's Arnold School of Public Health shows just how unhealthy the country life can be. The study, which examined food-shopping options in Orangeburg County (1,106 square miles, population 91,500), found a dearth of supermarkets and grocery stores.

Of course it’s true that in every part of the country- rural and urban areas- we have lost our connection with what we eat. And many people no longer grow any of what makes it onto their dining room tables. So logically one would expect the article to recommend a reconnection to the local farm fields that could feed us and offer the idea of stronger self sufficiency through some home grown produce- planting that apple tree or raising that chicken. Nope. The answer apparently is more grocery stores and more food stamps.

Nutritionists and anti-hunger activists know what rural Americans should eat. In an ideal world, says Weill, more people would take advantage of nutrition and financial education programs, like those offered by the USDA, that teach consumers how to make a food budget and use recipes. The 2007 Farm Bill would in­crease food stamp access and benefits and allocate an additional $2.75 billion over 10 years to buy fruits and vegetables for the USDA's nutrition assistance programs…

I have no problem with offering help to people who need it. In fact I think as human beings we have a moral obligation to do so. But help should involve more than passing out food stamps. It should involve teaching people how to grow more of their own food and cook with whole ingredients. It should include a farm bill that actually supports the small scale, sustainable agriculture that could offer healthy food to rural and urban communities across our nation. Pick you simile- treating the problem of unhealthy eating in rural America by building more grocery stores and handing out more food stamps is like putting a Band-Aid on a gaping chest wound. It is completely ass backward.

change ain't sexy

The past few weeks have been very busy for me. In addition to my normal activities- work, family life, harvesting the bagged leaves of my neighborhood- I attend a one day soil regeneration seminar and a 2 day ULI seminar on sustainable community design. Both of these events were remarkably informative and I'd go so far as to say inspirational. I love to learn and synthesis seemingly unrelated bits of information into programs that facilitate change. You might even call it a hobby. But one particular event of recent weeks has been much more rewarding. We had our house reinsulated. It would probably be more accurate to say we had it insulated as much of it had no insulation at all.

Now you might think that's pretty strange, that someone convinced we're embarking on worldwide energy descent would have, up until now, lived in a poorly insulated house. To which I would respond that it's been on the list to do, but the list is long and the budget is far from unlimited. The real deal though is that my wife and I have been planning to build our own home for several years. Since day one of my architectural education at university I've dreamed of building my own home. In recent years I study alternative construction methods and fell in love with strawbale building. I read books, took classes and even worked on a few such structures. My wife and I were investigating a land purchase and organizing a few folks to help with the permitting process. But the situation has changed. The peak in global oil production is imminent and the effects of climate change are more rapidly headed our way. I've become convinced that with more than 90 million homes already in existence here in America, what we need is less building new and more making due. Several people have tried to convince me that I could be more useful to my fellow citizens by offering an example of effective strategies for 'Sheltering In Place,' and I'm starting to believe them.

But there's an equally compelling reason. My wife is expecting our second child in March and our daughter is almost 2 years old. At such a young age she can already pick up a hammer and swing it quite effectively but hasn't yet learn that hammers are not meant for the destruction of anything with reach. The idea of my family building a new home during the next 12 months could very well be the uproarious inspiration for a new TV reality show. I'm not sure if we'd find it funny though.

I have not yet thrown out the idea of building our own home. I think using straw for home construction makes sense for lots of reasons and I think we need more people using it to serve as examples. I'd like to be one of them in the future. But for now it looks like we are staying put and that means more closely examining our current conditions and making reasonable adjustments. Sounds prudent right? Well here's the thing, it's not at all sexy.

Over the past two weeks I've spent three days with a crew who are adding insulation to our home. When they first arrived they hooked up a blower door to our home and pressurized the whole structure to get a sense of how air tight our home was. The answer was not very. That part was fun to watch but then came hours of action like caulking and sealing and weather stripping. The real work took a long time and was not my idea of fun. Another contractor used an infrared camera to find out where the big heat leaks were located. This too was pretty neat. But then it was back to the grindstone. The flooring in the attic had to be removed and then insulation was blown up there. The crawlspace below our home had to be cleaned, plastic sheeting laid below and insulation strapped to the underside of the floor joists. The best part, I say with my tongue firmly planted in my cheek, was when the crew cut 2" holes in all our exterior walls ever 20" or so and blew insulation into each cavity. It was necessary. It will make for a much more energy efficient home. We are doing our part! And yet the work itself was mundane. Some of it was boring and some of it was uncomfortable. 3 days of regular old work. And the mess!

In contrast my time spent at the soil seminar was great as was my sustainable community design seminar. But neither of those actually accomplished anything tangible. They were useful experiences. The knowledge I came away with will certainly come in handy, but neither accomplished as much actual change as did my 3 days of insulation. Part of what I've been sensing in the community of people who are interested in issues of energy and the environment is that many are ready to move on from the arena of talk into the arena of action. It's fine and good to talk about peak oil and climate change and track the progress of these occurrences. That is important work for some to do. But for most of us, responding to the converging calamities of the 21st century should be more about getting dirty and less about talking about getting dirty.

Having said that, I did film the whole transformation of my home- about 5 hours of raw footage which will be edited into a video and uploaded onto the Internet some time early next year. Hopefully it will help inspire other people to begin making similar changes. There's no reason to stop sharing our progress with other people. In fact I think we have an obligation to do so. But as much as possible I think we need to get to work; not online but in our own homes and in our own communities. There is much to actually do.

pandora's pantry

From Pandora's Pantry, by John Robbins,

Because so much Roundup is used on Roundup Ready crops, the residue levels in the harvested crops greatly exceed what until very recently was the allowable legal limit. For the technology to be commercially viable, the FDA had to triple the residues of Roundup’s active ingredients that can remain on the crop.(24) Many scientists have protested that permitting increased residues to enable a company’s success reflects an attitude in which corporate interests are given higher priority than public safety, but the increased levels have remained in force.

Advertisements and glossy brochures, seeking to convince farmers to plant Roundup Ready seeds, speak proudly of “clean fields”—clean in this usage meaning enormous fields with nothing growing in them but soybeans or corn or cotton or canola. This is intended as a selling point, and many farmers go for it, but it is an odd use of the word. The fields are actually so chemicalized that they are virtually sterile, and they bear no resemblance whatsoever to a healthy, flourishing, and biodiverse ecosystem. The soil, relatively void of decaying plant matter, and often impoverished of the worms, insects, and bacteria that feed off it, becomes completely dependent on chemical fertilizers.

Ironically, we’re spraying our fields and food with a toxic substance to make use of a sophisticated technology that is largely unnecessary. There are simpler mechanical ways to deal with weeds, including no-till farming, mulching, and companion cropping. But of course, none of these Earth-friendly methods can be patented and sold for profit, and none fit with massive mono-cultures and reliance on chemicals, so they hold no interest for Monsanto and the other agricultural chemical companies that dominate the business of genetic engineering.(25)

Read the whole article here.

just some stuff

I’ve got a few posts half written and an exciting insulation project going on at home so in the meantime I thought I’d share a couple of interesting reads.

The Big Sleep

by Graham Robb

In September, at the General Assembly of the United Nations, President Sarkozy proposed "un New Deal écologique et économique," but without explaining how economic growth can be reconciled with conservation. If he is serious about saving the planet, and if he wants to reassure the unions that workers will still have time with their families, he should consider introducing tax incentives for hibernation. The long-term benefits of reduced energy consumption would counterbalance the economic loss. There has never been a better time to stay in bed.

Until the 20th century, few people needed money. Apart from salt and iron, everything could be paid for in kind. Economic activity was more a means of making the time pass than of making money, which might explain why one of the few winter industries in the Alps was clock-making. Tinkering with tiny mechanisms made time pass less slowly, and the clocks themselves proved that it was indeed passing.

You’d barely know it from the press coverage here in the US but France is seeing a wave of violence as President Sarkozy tries to convince the French people that spending more time working and less time with family and friends is good for anybody but the corporatocracy. So it’s interesting to read that apparently the French used to just sleep through the winter.

Looking down from the peak

by Carlos Guerra

This one goes in the “maybe those peak oil people weren’t so crazy after all.” We have to enjoi these while we can because before we know it everyone will be saying, “Of course we’ve peaked in global oil production. It is, after all, a non-renewable resource- Duh!”

Yet another factor is the growing acceptance of theories that, globally, we are approaching the peak of oil production, after which it will decline and become pricier, theories that, until recently, were dismissed as alarmist bunk.

Mainstream media still ends its articles about peak with some sort of forced skepticism and/or misplace hope in continuing business as usual, perhaps because they make their money selling ads for stuff we’re told to buy and then throw away. And consumer culture sponsors have had so much soma that they can’t bring themselves to even imagine that this is all on the way out, but there are hints that this news is about to break.

Chinese tiger has nothing in tank

by Rowan Callick

Maybe you’re too young to remember what the oil shocks of the 70’s looked like. I am. We’ll here’s the updated 21^st century version- a sneak peak at what happens when oil dependant societies run low on oil. In China,

A truck driver named Li told the Chuncheng Evening News he had been stranded at the Stone Tiger Gate petrol station for three days after searching for fuel in other places, but failing. Another driver, at Geiju city, said a job that would have taken one day in the past, now took three: one on the road, two queuing for fuel.

Nine days ago, a truck driver was reported to have been stabbed to death in central Anhui province after a row about queuing. A few days earlier, at Ezhou in Hubei province, 100,000 people were stranded, unable to get to work, because city buses had run out of fuel.

Of course China’s fuel distribution system is sub par compared to that of the US but it’s important to remember that per capita, we use a lot more oil than they do. I am reminded of the fact that during the brief fuel shortage (if you can even call it that) in my area following Hurricane Katrina, a coworker of mine actually witnessed a fist fight at a gas station. Like I’ve said before, I am not nearly as afraid of the physical implications of peak oil as I am afraid of the reactions of Joe & Jane Public who still say I’m crazy if I talk about peak oil. He & She are going to be pissed.

Also this week Diane Rehm covered what she called, “Oil Production Forecasts” on her radio show on Monday. She did use the term ‘peak oil’ and she did have Matt Simmons (god bless him) on her show along with the standard economists, to talk about the future of oil production. Hers is a national broadcast radio show on NPR that reaches about 1.5 million listeners.

Lastly I’ll recommend a bit of audio. If you are interested in the stuff I write about, I urge you to take a little time to investigate the way money works in our country. Research the "Federal" Reserve. Research the lack of any law that says you must pay income tax (it's actually unconstitutional to tax income the way the gov't does). Research the history of central banks and their involvement in initiating the Revolutionary War. I bet you’ll be amazed to learn (chuckle) if you don’t already know that our monetary system is a complete fraud. It would take much more typing for me to explain but let me suffice by saying that what seems like a perfectly normal system of dollars and cents to you and I, the average American, is actually a contrived system of wage slavery. I could use prettier language but let’s call it a spade. One suggestion for research on this topic: read or listen or watch everything you research on 'how money works' a few times. Unless you’re familiar with this stuff it’ll take repetition for you to understand what’s really going on. In other words, don’t expect to get it the very first time. But who knows, there’s a good chance you’re smarter than me. If you don’t want to listen to the audio try,

Slide Shows

Some Video

update

Earlier this month, avid local cyclist Mark Ortiz was stuck by a motorist while riding his bike. I shared his story here and the local newspaper covered it here. Mark was quite an inspiration in my move away from the automobile. He is recovering at an excellent pace despite multiple fractures to his back, ribs, wrist and pelvis. He remains hospitalized but doctors say it's very likely he'll make a full recovery.

That road to recovery however will be long. To help cover the costs of his medical care the local community has scheduled a bicycle ride in his honor for this coming Friday, November 23 at 10am in downtown Concord, North Carolina. Mark was 15 miles shy of riding 10,000 miles in 2007. We plan to ride those last 15 for him. Come and join us if you can. Many of my readers live too far away to actively participate in such a local event. I do not advertise at this site and tend not to ask for donations. However if you are moved to help Mark please feel free to sponsor me on this ride to help with his recovery. Any donation can be sent to:

Mark Ortiz
c/o Silvers/Newton
280 Post Oak Ave SW
Concord, NC 28025

You can follow Mark's progress here. I'll update on the event early next week.