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 [...]
Noun 1. foraging – the act of searching for food and provisions. The prices of staple foods such as rice could stay high for the next three years, hindering the battle against poverty, a top World Bank official said Tuesday. I personally think this may be the understatement of the year. With oil prices to [...]
Continue reading about Foraging: Living Off the Fat of the Land
People use lots of water for drinking, cooking and washing, but even more for producing things such as food, paper, cotton clothes, etc. The water footprint of an individual, business or nation is defined as the total volume of freshwater that is used to produce the goods and services consumed by the individual, business or [...]
Who would have thought Prince Charles coming to the world’s rescue? Pic below is of a chameleon from Madagascar. In one of his most out-spoken interventions in the climate change debate, he said a £15 billion annual program (roughly $25 billion) was required to halt deforestation or the world would have to live with the [...]
Cities cover only 2% of the Earth’s surface, but consume 75% of its resources. Cities are black holes, they’re swallowing our planet. But, more and more, they’re turning green. Jac Smit, President of the Urban Agriculture Network and co-author of “Urban Agriculture: Food, Jobs, and Sustainable Cities”, paints a vision of what the world would [...]
Continue reading about City Farms: What if the Urban Landscape were Edible?
One of the pleasures of gardening is finding unexpected critters in unexpected places. Like this little fellow hiding in the outdoor water faucet. And these guys who spend the summer hunting in the composter:
Continue reading about The Gardener’s Medicine Cabinet: Frog Love, plus gratuitous tick remedy
From Spiegel Online today, there’s this horrific bit of news: Bees in the German state of Baden-Württemburg are dying by the hundreds of thousands. In some places more than half of hives have perished. Government officials say the causes are unclear — but beekeepers are blaming new pesticides.
The answer is no. Since 1950, the earth’s population has risen by more than four billion people, to 6.6 billion and UN projections put world population at 9.2 billion by 2050. The world currently faces a food crisis before the full impact of climate change and a 42% rise in population. The Malthusian vision may [...]
Continue reading about 9.2 billion by 2050. Will We Have Enough Food & Water?