The Sustainable Living Project podcast episode at AKG

I have been a regular listener to the Alternative Kitchen Garden podcast for some time now and when Emma at AKG asked for correspondents to add content to her podcast I jumped at the chance. We are honored to be a part of her effort to help folks build resilience through food growing.

Jacqui and I have recorded the first episode which begins the documentation of our planning process for The Sustainable Living Project in America.

You can find the podcast containing our content here. Please see the transcript below.

“Introduction - Hello this is Robb and Jacqui from the Sustainable Living project. We are in the planning and design stage of establishing an off grid permaculture based lifestyle and educational project in the suburbs of Hickory North Carolina USA. Our goal is to demonstrate that a low impact, resilient but comfortable, healthy, and convenient lifestyle is possible in existing suburban developments. You can keep track of our progress on this podcast and at our blog, Sustainable Living at sustliving.blogspot.com

Initially taken from the joining of the the two words permanent and agriculture, permaculture has evolved to encompass many aspects of sustainable living. Indeed the prime directive of permaculture is that, quote, “the only ethical decision is to take responsibility for our own existence and that of our children”, unquote. That’s from Permaculture: A Practical Guide for a Sustainable Future published in 1990 by Bill Mollison, a text we are studying for guidance along our path.

We believe that taking responsibility entails addressing the impacts of all aspects of our lives; food, water, shelter, waste, energy, consumption, and travel. We have chosen not to have children which does simplify things somewhat. On the other hand this has freed us up to live higher impact personal lifestyles. Up until now we have enjoyed living in and visiting far flung locations. This has left us with a carbon debt, or as we like to call it carbon karma, that we feel must be paid down. We believe that a permaculture based off grid lifestyle offers us the most effective path to achieve carbon equity.

Along the way we hope to rekindle our connection to natural cycles, build better health by growing and eating our own high quality organic food, establish household scale resilience as a response to the challenges of peak oil and climate change, and also to help build community scale resilience by starting a transition initiative.

Each episode will feature a different permaculture principle and how we are applying it to the design and eventual implementation of our project. We’ll get started with that in the next episode, for now we’ll leave you with The Principle of Cooperation from the aforementioned text by Bill Mollison - “cooperation, not competition, is the very basis of existing life systems and of future survival”

Outro - And that’s about it for this episode. Thanks for listening and until next time visit us at sustliving.blogspot.com”

Food Demand Likely to Outpace Production

As reported over at Climate Progress;

"With the caloric needs of the planet expected to soar by 50 percent in the next 40 years, planning and investment in global agriculture will become critically important, according a new report released June 25. The report, produced by Deutsche Bank, one of the world’s leading global investment banks, in collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, provides a framework for investing in sustainable agriculture against a backdrop of massive population growth and escalating demands for food, fiber and fuel…. By 2050, world population is expected to exceed 9 billion people, up from 6.5 billion today. Already, according to the report, a gap is emerging between agricultural production and demand, and the disconnect is expected to be amplified by climate change, increasing demand for biofuels, and a growing scarcity of water."

What concerns me is the inevitable pressure to continue to rely on unsustainable agricultural practices in the face of shortages. I noticed that in the recent climate and energy bill, Waxman Markey, agriculture was exempted from emissions reductions. I understand the politics of this, regrettable as that is, but I can't condone exempting a sector of the economy that produces so much pollution and is so unsustainable. Until we expect agriculture, just as any other industry, to clean up it's act we are vulnerable to the added impetus it adds to climate change. Add to that the mentality that business as usual, ie petrochemically reliant agribusiness, can continue in the face of peak oil and we accept the inevitable drastic downturn in production as cheap oil supply crashes.
We should also consider that our food supply is largely controlled by multinational corporations with no loyalty to any nation and but one mission, profit at any cost. This situation has already led to rising rates of obesity and diabetes in the developed world and shortages, disastrous reliance on chemicals, and malnutrition in the developing world as they try to satisfy the world commodity markets insatiable demand for profits. The choice seems clear. We need to shift to sustainable agricultural practices worldwide ASAP. As this progresses we should all pursue the relocalization of the food supply in the interest of better nutrition, better health, higher levels of food security, and more resilient communities.

Planted your garden yet?

The garden I helped get in the ground in Bermuda a month ago is already providing all the salad greens the household needs. The one I've helped put in here in North Carolina in the last month is already yielding fresh organic lettuce and swiss chard. The corn, onions and beans are 4 inches high, the turnips, carrots, and and cukes are well on their way. The blueberry bushes are several inches bigger. Have you planted your garden yet?

Our continued reliance on non local industrial agriculture is fraught with problems, from over reliance on climate destroying fossil fuels, destruction of carbon sequestering soil ecology, the extreme dependence on mining of fossil water to irrigate crops, the contamination of our ecosystem with genetically modified organisms, and the pollution of drinking water with pesticides, herbicides, and fungicides. This is all not to mention the health degrading effects of our diets so heavy with processed food substitutes, high fructose corn syrup, and the unknown (though getting less so) dangers of consuming genetically engineered organisms.

But our problems are as nothing compared to the damage our export of this pernicious form of agribusiness has had on the developing world. People are literally starving to death because they were convinced to give up their traditional sustainable modes of sustenance in favor of lining the pockets of corporate shareholders by growing cash crops for export. Their water sources are drying up, their farm workers are dying due to exposure to deadly chemicals, or committing suicide due to the burden of debt the have been pressured into by their governments in cahoots with the agribusiness giants. This situation represents a threat to civilization itself. If you doubt that, just look at Darfur and Somalia. Read more at Climate Progress;

"It’s not news that Lester Brown is warning about our unsustainable approach to feeding the planet. But it is news that Scientific American has run a major article by him on how “The biggest threat to global stability is the potential for food crises in poor countries to cause government collapse.”

Bill Moyers interviews Michael Pollan

I recently read "Omnivore's Dilemma" and "In Defense of Food". Both excellent and both by Michael Pollan. If you are at all concerned about your food supply I highly recommend them.

Check out Bill Moyers interview with Michael Pollan at Bill Moyers Journal.

Thanks to city farmer for the image where you will find an article about Mr. Pollan as well as lots of other information about food and growing your own.

Is being green so hard?-By Robb

Over on celsias.com there a thread starting up about the difficulties of "Being Green"
It includes some good points and worth a read. I don't mean to deny that change isn't difficult but I think it needs to be put in context. The degree of change we, in the developed world, need to make are actually pretty minor compared to the level of change demanded of those on the front lines of climate change. I wonder, what do the citizens of Tuvalu think? Here is my post on the topic.

What's so hard about living an intentional life? For me it's simple, "being green" is about using less of anything produced with fossil fuels, being more self sufficient in as many ways possible, and helping others to do the same. It's the difference between being a citizen and being a consumer.

There is a well known mantra I try to live by at all times and I don't find it a hardship, REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE, with heavy emphasis on REDUCE.

"Being green" appears much less difficult than being an environmental refugee, starving to death, or drowning, all increasingly likely outcomes for billions of people, even those of us in the developed world, if we continue to consume fossil fuels.

Any action that reduces use of fossil fuel matters, the more the reduction, the more it matters.

For the citizens on the move in India due to the recent unprecedented flooding, those that didn't drown, a massive and immediate lifestyle change is required now. Right Now! No choice in the matter, no pondering how difficult it is, to survive it must be done.

We here in the developed world have the luxury of a continuum of change. It generally isn't forced upon us by calamity, though the citizens of the ninth ward in New Orleans might disagree. For instance, I personally have reduced my flying by over 60% per year in the last two years as I have come to understand it's impacts. Next winter's visit home I hope to be the last time I ever step foot on an airplane. After that I will travel by sea. It took effort, a bit of soul searching, some compromise with my family, and perhaps has been the most "difficult" aspect of my personal continuum of change. I know many people that have already sworn off flying for good, one man I know has not flown in 18 years. Not driving more than once every 2 weeks, not eating fast food more than once a month, not leaving devices on standby, drastically cutting meat eating while drastically increasing my consumption of organic food, changing all my lightbulbs to CFL's, buying only used clothing, growing as much of my own food as possible, staying out of debt to maintain flexibility, the list of actions grows and all are on some sort of continuum.

This is the luxury I have, this is to some extent the luxury I have created. Guilt comes from not doing these things, frustration is eased by understanding that the continuum is a necessary part of transition, and enthusiasm is not "dead of a thousand cuts" rather it flourishes on the life giving blood of a thousand efforts.

We have less than 10 years to get our emissions under control, do we have the luxury of the easy?

Like to eat? Then save the Bees!

Check out this article over at Organic Consumers Association regarding the US EPA's efforts to protect corporate interests, surprise surprise, at the cost of the environment. This time it involves a pesticide banned in Germany and France for years now due to it's danger to bees, those hard workers upon which "every third mouthful of food" we eat depends.

EPA is Hiding Colony Collapse Disorder Information

" 'This is a real mystery right now," said Dr. Gabriela Chavarria, director of NRDC's Science Center. "EPA needs to help shed some light so that researchers can get to work on this problem. This isn't just an issue for farmers -- this is an issue that concerns us all. Just try to imagine a pizza without the contribution of bees! No tomatoes. No cheese. No peppers. If you eat apples, cucumbers, broccoli, onions, squash, carrots, avocados, or cherries, you need to be concerned.' "

Do you know your neighbors? - by Robb

As I dig into the data coming in from my thesis research into homebased food growing here in Sheffield, I'm struck by how many folks don't garden because they feel they don't have enough land, while a few doors down one of their neighbors is willing to let someone else garden in their yard.

My experience is that gardening at whatever scale you can is worth doing, whether it is herbs on the windowsill, tomatoes in containers on the back deck or giving over your entire yard to it. If the folks who don't feel they have enough land knew their neighbors and worked cooperatively to produce a small scale operation everyone would profit. Local food would get grown and neighborhoods would cease to be so isolationist in nature. An increased sense of community would result and the resiliency derived would be priceless. As threats to food security worldwide continue to mount; from biofuels, peak oil, increased monopolization of supply, climate change, we will need all the resiliency we can muster.

There is much discussion about the suburbs of America being, as James Kunstler has said " the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of mankind" but I see a great opportunity there. All those homes with large lawns represent resiliency potential for those communities. If the people living there can begin to see themselves as members of a community and begin to work together to build sustainability into their lives these sterile deserts of driveways and closed doors can awaken and become nice places to be. What better way than to plant some veggies where there once was lawn, share them with your neighbors, welcome them into your patch, help them do it in their yard. Work together to make resiliency happen.

Invest in sustainability instead of gadgetry, study self sufficiency instead of watching TV, work to get out of debt and quit commuting rather than to get deeper into debt and more dependent on resources from afar. Do it sooner than later, you will be glad you did.

One of the next food sourcing models? - video

Donna and Robyn created Your Backyard Farmer in the Portland, Oregon area. They have an innovative approach to Community Supported Agriculture through urban backyard farming.

Greenhorns Trailer video

I ran across this blog for the Greenhorns film and watched the trailer. It is a film about young farmers in America. I'll be keeping an eye out for it. Good stuff!

What are we up to? - by Robb

Here's a link to an interesting article quoting Ian Marchant, chief executive of Scottish and Southern Energy, regarding our oil addiction and it's likely looming implications.


"Energy boss foretells future scarred by oil wars"


This brings to mind some other implications of our oil addiction. Aside from the blindingly obvious , climate change, drivers should be aware that largely due to the desperate need to fuel trips to the mall people in the developing world can no longer afford basic food stuffs. Burning food based ethanol in our cars is inhumane! You don't have to take my word for it. Lester Brown at the

Earth Policy Institute

is the recipient of forty honorary degrees and a MacArthur Fellowship, among numerous other awards, Brown has been described by the Washington Post as "one of the world's most influential thinkers." (Wikipedia) Check out his writing on food security in this lecture;

WORLD FACING HUGE NEW CHALLENGE ON FOOD FRONT
Business-as-Usual Not a Viable Option

Can we remember the Exxon Valdez disaster? The oil is still wreaking havoc in the ecosystem as Exxon continues to avoid it's obligations to Prince William Sound and the people who depend on it in,

Cordova Alaska

How about the plastic choking the oceans and it's life that we all depend on for food, carbon sequestration, and inspiration. Many oceanographers believe that the oceans are close to ecological collapse. Huge quantities of petrochemical rubbish are swirling in the north Pacific.

"The UN Environment Programme estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic,"

The North Pacific Gyre

Sorry to be so gloomy but I'm sick of all the glad handing green washed eco consumerism promising us that if we just do this or buy that we won't need to change anything else about our bloated, wasteful, unethical, greedy, war mongering lifestyles. Business as usual is not an option in any context, not just food.
Much of the science suggests that a 2ºC rise in global temperature is locked in, with it's attendant sea level rise, impacts on water scarcity and food production. All those impacts will be a fond memory to your grandchildren as they begin to experience 5ºC to 7ºC rises due to our negligence. The rising tide of information has washed away the sand from our buried heads. We won't be able to say "Oh we didn't know, the Fox channel didn't tell us about it", what will be crystal clear is, we knew and we didn't care. We chose to burn food, over-heat and cool our homes, over-consume anything we could get our hands on, spend our resources building theme parks instead of solar and wind power plants, we even chose to build more coal fired power plants and removed mountaintops so we might never have to risk missing an episode of "Lost"!
As we did so, the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and millions of people died, as well as most of the wildlife on the planet. Is that the future you want?

To quote the Tragically Hip "Desperate times call for desperate measures"
Find something substantive and do it, give up your car, go off grid, grow your own food, build sustainable communities, protest war, buy local or better yet don't buy at all, become a citizen not a consumer.