PolitiCook.net

As a former …

… wannabe farmer who has reached the decision (one that might change yet again as I continue gathering information) that smallish cities and urban areas are more likely than rural areas to survive the coming ___________ , I urge you to read this:

If managing in a catastrophe were just about growing your own food, many (but not all) rural people would probably be just fine. If it were about repairing your machines, maintaining your roof, keeping the well running, a good many rural people would be okay.

But there’s a lot more than that involved in running the kind of society we all demand, things like public health systems, communications systems, transportation infrastructure, energy supplies, banking and finance, good governance innovations, an effective legal system, etc. Places with these systems do a heck of a lot better than places without them, and these are systems many communities are in a poor position to provide for themselves. In much of rural America, those systems aren’t even working very well today.

That’s the reality.

Sunday Solar Fiesta: Passive Solar Heater Links Galore

Note: Stocking Up 101 will return next weekend.

And, boy oh boy, is there ever a wealth of information on passive solar heaters.

In my less busy days, I bought the plans for this: Mother’s Heat Grabber. Unfortunately, though, I never got around to making it, in part because my neighbors had made me so self-conscious about doing anything. Long story, but …

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Paradigm Shifts, Y2K and the Green Blowback

While muddling through a pile of throw-away books at work yesterday, I found this: The Complete Y2K Home Preparation Guide. And oh what a gem it is!

Now, bear in mind that I’ve been haunting online survivalist enclaves and befriending well-armed mountain men for years now, so it’s pretty hard to catch my eye. But this book did, not because it’s the best out there — far from it — but because, beyond its TEOTWAWKIness, it contains countless useful links.

So I grabbed it and tucked it into my bag, to be added to my ever expanding collection of dystopia-wrangling tools.

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Food News: Prepare for higher prices

Floods seen adding to already high food prices

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The cost of everything from corn chips to beef steaks was going higher even before the disastrous floods hit millions of corn and soybean acres in the U.S. Midwest, and now food price increases may be even greater, industry sources said on Tuesday.

Torrential rains over the past week and the worst floods in 15 years have badly hit the U.S. Midwest, which directly or indirectly produces much of the nation’s food.

Food prices to soar on back of devastating US floods

Most of Iowa, in the US ‘corn belt’, has been declared a disaster zone. At least three people have died and tens of thousands have been forced to leave their homes.

[snip]

“One thing that we haven’t talked about, which I’m very concerned about and is critically important, is the damage that has been done to our agricultural sector,” [Iowa’s Governor Chet Culver] said.

“It is possible you’re talking about $US1 billion ($AU1.06 billion) to just our agricultural sector, in terms of loss.”

Nothing but cheerful food news this morning!

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Monsanto to Re-brand as Climate Change Savior!

As John McSame clumsily attempts to re-brand himself as an economist,

From ETC Group [link and blockquote added by biscuit]:

the world’s largest seed and agrochemical corporations are stockpiling hundreds of monopoly patents on genes in plants that the companies will market as crops genetically engineered to withstand environmental stresses such as drought, heat, cold, floods, saline soils etc… BASF, Monsanto, Bayer, Syngenta, Dupont and biotech partners have filed 532 patent documents (a total of 55 patent families) on so-called “climate ready” genes at patent offices around the world. In the face of climate chaos and a deepening world food crisis, the Gene mongers are gearing up for a PR offensive to re-brand themselves as climate saviors, pushing genetically engineered crops as a silver bullet solution to climate change.

According to a new report,

patented techno-fix seeds will not provide the adaptation strategies that small farmers need to cope with climate change. These proprietary technologies will ultimately concentrate corporate power, drive up costs, inhibit independent research, and further undermine the rights of farmers to save and exchange seeds.

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Food News Roundup: The Cheery Edition

It’s not all doom and gloom, not just yet! I know I tend to report the bad news like a broken record, but believe me, it’s because it is bad, and with peak oil, water & food shortages, overpopulation…and the dopey monkey still in the WH, it doesn’t augur well, and I haven’t even mentioned Global Warming! Some posters went as far to suggest that being in the richest and mightiest country in the world, not much will happen to the food chain. Well, if you’re the head of Exxon or somewhere in that super rich league, yes, you’ll still have plenty to eat, but for the rest of us, the hoi polloi, we’ll have to find interesting ways to make ends meet within the next two decades.

Scouring the “Internets”, I have come up with news that are mostly good news. Not many but then again, I never promised you a rose garden. Read more »

Is Dean Foods (Horizon Organic) Killing USDA Investigation?

I host a live weekly audio program called “The Celsias Show” and recently interviewed Mark Kastel, Senior Farm Policy Analyst from the Cornucopia Institute, one of the truly effective watchdogs of the organic industry. Immediately after the interview, Jill Richardson (who many of you know as OrangeClouds115) joined me in a discussion that covered, in part, the latest developments in Cornucopia’s ongoing effort to convince the Inspector General at the USDA to investigate appearances of favoritism at the agency that has benefited Dean Foods, the company behind Horizon Organic.

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UK could become too hot to produce wine!

For all those global warming deniers out there, read this: climate change could mean some parts of southern England will be too hot to for wine-making by 2080, according to a UK professor. Why? Rising summer temperatures have already started to evolve the UK’s wine profile, with some French grape varieties being successfully introduced there in the past 20 years (I’m salivating at the prospects of planting my own little vineyards here in Eire, someday).

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The Gardener’s Medicine Cabinet: Heat Exhaustion

With an eye to Peak Oil, global warming and spiraling costs, I’ve been relying on fans and haven’t yet put in the window air conditioners for the season. But, alas, the time has come.

True, the houndie grrl is thriving, which, I suppose, is to be expected, given her coonhoundy pedigree. But Moose Boy (aka my lab) and I are suffering. He’s starting to really drag and is going through gallons of water a day. Unfortunately, this morning, I woke up downright nauseated.

Not a good sign. And I have way too much to do over the next month or so to live in front of the giant fan or become debilitated in any way. So Chore One is putting in one of the air conditioners and getting myself recharged. Read more »

Lasagna Gardening

Picture it: a barren landscape littered with baling wire, abandoned axes and halters, mountains of river rock and perhaps a quarter inch of soil covering the boulders beneath the surface, surrounded by the contradiction of lush forest, wild flowers and native fruits.

Then, two - three years later, this:

And all thanks to the magic of Lasagna Gardening Read more »