Chris Smaje

So… now that I’ve earned a little carbon credibility by passing up the opportunity to fly to North America for a book tour, it’s time for a confession – we have a tractor and a mini digger on our holding.

But for sure we’ve got to do something different to avert the present suicidal and ecocidal course of our food system. I’ve made the case in my two recent books for agrarian localism as the best something different option.

Claims that existing (or augmented) patterns of urbanism are more pro-social and pro-nature than rural alternatives appeal to people’s contrarian nature. And since most people live in urban areas, especially in the rich countries, it also tells them what they want to hear…

Given the basically non-existent ‘transition’ into clean energy outlined in my previous post which is failing to meet even existing needs for energy, the vast increase in renewable electricity generation that would be required to fund the additional energy demands of manufactured food if it’s to play any major part in a sustainable future makes this technology a non-starter as a mass food approach.

There’s nothing wrong with propounding for renewables. What’s problematic is propounding for a like-for-like transition of the existing fossil-based global growth economy to a future renewables-based one. A renewables-based transition to a lower-energy, more equitable, local and agrarian economy could be a wonderful thing.

I thought I’d introduce a new element to the blog starting today with this first ‘news’ post. The idea is to intersperse my longer essay-style offerings with shorter postings on matters that seem newsworthy according to my idiosyncratic view of world affairs.