Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Contour Lines Corp’s approach is to work with the community to plant diverse agroforestry sites on contour, thereby transitioning the land use from chemical, slash-and-burn corn monocultures to organic, perennial food forests.
The big picture, as illustrated below, is that global fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise, after a Covid blip, and the production of coal, oil and gas all reached record highs in 2023.
Staffers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency have been on the ground since before Helene and Milton hit, positioned to help as soon as the storms passed, along with state and local responders. But many people aren’t clear about how FEMA helps or what its responsibilities are.
All Hallow’s Eve is the mid-point between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice. In many ways it marks the end of the farmers year as well as the beginning of the next.
The problems afflicting our world sometimes seem intractable. We have the greatest leverage to make change in the places where we live. Let’s use it.
Having other income streams than farming is not only because you can’t live on small scale farming (you can’t) but also a way to allow you to run the farm according to your ideals rather than to the dictates of the market, banks or the government. A “day job” can in that way strengthen the autonomy or at least the feeling of autonomy
Today, Nate is joined by architect and professor of planetary civics, Indy Johar, to explore the relationship between system design and human behavior – and what might be possible for transformational change.
Profit-driven urban development has disconnected us—particularly children—from the wilderness. The effects are unhealthy.
A planetary compact, focusing on the ratio between sustainable yield and human need, would encourage new partnerships between businesses, governments, and the public, granting to citizens the rights and responsibilities to organize the self-sufficiency and sustainability of their own regional habitats.
The outlook warns that decisionmakers “too often entrench the flaws in today’s energy system, rather than pushing it towards a cleaner and safer path”. It adds: “[L]ocking in fossil fuel use has consequences…the costs of climate inaction…grow higher by the day.”
There are plenty of books and websites telling you how forest gardens should work. I am more interested in how they do (and sometimes don’t) work, and in the people who are working in and with them.
In the current blue economy paradigm, privatization prioritizes profit above ecosystem health. Water is not viewed as a commodity in this construct, and the buying and selling of oceanic water and aquatic resources would be prioritized over other considerations.
