I've been having trouble being motivated to write. So...I had a revelation the other day. I do a lot of online reading. I leave huge numbers of pages open forever. I must be wanting to share them. These are mostly things I think are important for an informed understanding of the future we can expect to live in. Things I want my mother to read. Things I want my daughter to read (one day). Things I want my family and friends to read. Lest those who know me think all these pages are about oil & energy, they do range in subject. I will be up front in saying most present an austere view. But a view I think, that corresponds most closely with what I've learned of physics and human nature on my time in this world. Yes, there's a lot of downers in here. Yes, I still think you should read them. You need to at least form your own opinions on this stuff, and for that, some details might be useful; this universe is anything but simple.
Here's the first round...you might want to bookmark it and come back to this post from time to time. I've probably got 10 hours worth of reading here if you really picked apart each one fully. And rest assured, these are the best of the best. The ones I just *had* to share, that stayed open in my browser for weeks. I'm an addict, but this is just a sliver of my reading over the last few months.
Energy
Start with this series. It's all pics. You'll laugh (or cancel your internet). AZRainman is an experimental photographic artist. His satirical works are priceless. My favorites:
Change We Can Believe In
Will Work for Oil
Peaked Oil
Mother Fuel
Time'z Crook of the Year
Economapacalypse
Here's 'the rest'; he seems to have a healthy distaste for all politicians, regardless of flavor: AZRainman's Photo Stream
Bikes
I love bikes (y'all knew that already, I know). Plus most of the news with bikes is upbeat, not depressing. Enjoy.
The Bike Boom: State of the Union for cycling from the Christian Science Monitor (surprise: they are into peak oil too [links another day]). Long. Learned a lot.
Bicycling: The SAFEST Form of Transportation There's only about a zillion posts out there about how riding in traffic isn't as bad as it appears from inside a car. This one I like. This guy is also the guru of living frugally so you can save for when your employer downsizes. His blog is worth a browse.
Transportation National Survey: Americans really like bikes. And trains. And (even) buses. They are feeling increasingly strangled by their cars.
Economy
My basic premise: The intersection of newly expensive energy (i.e. fracking) and new levels of greed is on-course to impoverish every one of us. Sooner than we think. Numerous solutions abound, but I do not see implementing enough of them to be within our biological, psycological, and political natures. The Automatic Earth has been blowing my mind lately. These are not light reading (helps to have another window with wikipedia open while reading them), but you don't have to get the jargon ("fiat currency?") to figure it out - the conclusions become pretty obvious. Their graphs are especially damning. Their analysis resonates with what I observe and read elsewhere. I needn't point out, that it will not, on the other hand, rhyme with what you hear on Fox, or CNN, or read in USA Today or the Star.
Why all that quantitive easing ("QE") ain't helping anyone get a job
More of the same...
Detroit's bankruptcy is bad for all cities
Environment
The big news for me in the environment category: Climate change is here now, and it's not looking predictable. Some of the news about methane especially seems downright sobering.
Arctic methane catastrophe scenario is based on new empirical observations
Seven facts you need to know about the Arctic methane timebomb
Eight Images to Understand the Drought in the Southwest Local news.
Southwest Climate Change Assessment Report
I went to see this prof's presentation in a tiny classroom at the UA. I don't think he expected 100 members of the public & reporters to show up. Main takeaway: our winters are going to get dryer, and the monsoon is going to get more variable. Also seems like we're heading into conditions not unlike those that led our prehistoric neighbors (Hohokam, Sinagua, Anasazi, etc.) to move elsewhere. Lovely.
National Security
Edward Snowden's not the story. The fate of the internet is: also quite informative. Lest you doubt, news yesterday was that Dilma Rousseff (president of Brasil) just canceled her visit with Obama over Snowden revelations. And they are contemplating re-routing all their fiber-optic links to Europe & Africa to avoid US servers.
Nuclear
Life in a Real Nuclear Wasteland - with Fukushima still making news every couple months (and not in a good way), I think this is maybe revealing reading for a lot of us. Note that a good many of you are downwind from Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station in Arizona, one of our nation's largest spent-fuel pools, and largely similar to Fukishima. Gives one pause.
The Drug War
Interview with Ethan Nadelmann, Drug Policy Alliance leader: seemed pretty common-sense. Interesting guy.
Saturday, September 21, 2013
Friday, September 20, 2013
Know your farmer.
Meet my farmers!
We've been getting most all of our produce from these folks lately, right in the desert. They mostly live southeast of us where it's a few degrees cooler and wetter. I was originally looking to my farmer's market for local food, organics that would keep my grocery dollars in southern Arizona, and encourage more of what I want to eat to be grown near my home. I then discovered what real food (as in fresh, and varieties not bred for shipping and picking while green). I was hooked. I also noticed that since the main event in local food is produce, that even while I was buying some things that were more expensive than at the store, I was hard-pressed to spend much more than $40 for a week, for a family of four, and I was shifting in a lot more fruits & vegetables to our diet now that they tasted good. We mostly buy junk food at the supermarket now, and it's amazing how fast that bill goes up compared to all the fruit you can eat in a week, which tempers one's impulse buying significantly.
First, I tip my hat to our CSA, Sunizona Farms in Wilcox. Since they are a fairly large CSA and have a greenhouse & local delivery service, they charge weekly, instead of the more traditional seasonal-subscription model. They do weekly or twice-a-month deliveries to many locations around Tucson, in biking distance of most of our neighborhoods. They also have a year-round supply of things like tomatoes with all the glass, and a substantial field crop acreage too - their carrots last winter where the best I've eaten. All fertilizer is 'veganic' - no manure means no e-coli in your lettuce. Plus a bakery which makes a nice sandwich bread; wrapping up with bulk foods (i.e. flax, rice, raisins) from other veganic farms around the continent.
What's really exciting to me right now (it's high summer), is my farmer's market. I go in to work late because it's on a friday. It's worth it. It's really chill. All the farmers chat and get to know you. Birds chirp. And with a lot of farms comes a lot of variety. I rarely want for something in the summer. From cabbage to berries, I usually find plenty of produce for a week. Eating with the seasons is usually even fulfilling in some way I don't quite understand (although I was pretty tired of leafy vegetables come last March, haha). Jesse Owens Park hosts the Tucson eastside farmers' market on Friday mornings. I bike there and usually overfil my baskets. Everyone is pesticide-free. Here are the players, listed from South to North:
They have greenhouses with a lot of heirloom tomatoes, and many market standards, like cukes, peaches, melons, citrus, etc. George also has a college buddy who does organic imports, bringing things from Casa Grande to Sonora, such as potatoes and mangoes. They probably have the best selection at any given time, although Richcrest is in the same league.
Over the summer, Big D has had 'good ol' dirt-grown tomatoes, berries, peaches, squash, and melons. Occasionally purple asparagus. I get the impression they grow everything they sell- quite a diverse farm, that!
Richcrest is the other large spread like Grammy's, but they seem to be a little more into vegetable varieties, while Grammy's does more fruit (incl'g the tomoatoes; they both do a lot of both though). Recently they are carrying Haden Mills local organic flour, from an heirloom Sonoran wheat, and I just got some blackeye peas the family has been growing since the 1930's! Their giant carrots looks like they'll chew like a tree root, but they crisper & tastier than baby carrots from the store all through! I've been putting a lot of them on the barbecue like potatoes or corn lately, they are quite good roasted!
There is a thin sliver of higher country due south of us that stretches to Nogales. Walking J does the marquee seasonal veggies (i.e. mostly squash & garlic right now). Their real pride is their livestock. You can get most cuts of beef & pork, but the less expensive ones go fast (except the brain I'd guess). They also have a CSA with separate subscriptions for each meat and the produce. She packs an impressive array of freezers in the trailer as you might guess!
Their ranch is right on the border, southeast of Patagonia (lovely camping down there, by the way). I've yet to try their beef (it's in the freezer waiting for a special occasion), but he always has chicken & duck eggs too. When the squirrels raid my chicken coop and I run low, I run to Bob!
We've been getting most all of our produce from these folks lately, right in the desert. They mostly live southeast of us where it's a few degrees cooler and wetter. I was originally looking to my farmer's market for local food, organics that would keep my grocery dollars in southern Arizona, and encourage more of what I want to eat to be grown near my home. I then discovered what real food (as in fresh, and varieties not bred for shipping and picking while green). I was hooked. I also noticed that since the main event in local food is produce, that even while I was buying some things that were more expensive than at the store, I was hard-pressed to spend much more than $40 for a week, for a family of four, and I was shifting in a lot more fruits & vegetables to our diet now that they tasted good. We mostly buy junk food at the supermarket now, and it's amazing how fast that bill goes up compared to all the fruit you can eat in a week, which tempers one's impulse buying significantly.
First, I tip my hat to our CSA, Sunizona Farms in Wilcox. Since they are a fairly large CSA and have a greenhouse & local delivery service, they charge weekly, instead of the more traditional seasonal-subscription model. They do weekly or twice-a-month deliveries to many locations around Tucson, in biking distance of most of our neighborhoods. They also have a year-round supply of things like tomatoes with all the glass, and a substantial field crop acreage too - their carrots last winter where the best I've eaten. All fertilizer is 'veganic' - no manure means no e-coli in your lettuce. Plus a bakery which makes a nice sandwich bread; wrapping up with bulk foods (i.e. flax, rice, raisins) from other veganic farms around the continent.
What's really exciting to me right now (it's high summer), is my farmer's market. I go in to work late because it's on a friday. It's worth it. It's really chill. All the farmers chat and get to know you. Birds chirp. And with a lot of farms comes a lot of variety. I rarely want for something in the summer. From cabbage to berries, I usually find plenty of produce for a week. Eating with the seasons is usually even fulfilling in some way I don't quite understand (although I was pretty tired of leafy vegetables come last March, haha). Jesse Owens Park hosts the Tucson eastside farmers' market on Friday mornings. I bike there and usually overfil my baskets. Everyone is pesticide-free. Here are the players, listed from South to North:
George & Rosie of Grammy's in Cochise Settlement, AZ
They have greenhouses with a lot of heirloom tomatoes, and many market standards, like cukes, peaches, melons, citrus, etc. George also has a college buddy who does organic imports, bringing things from Casa Grande to Sonora, such as potatoes and mangoes. They probably have the best selection at any given time, although Richcrest is in the same league.
Peter from Big D Farms in Cochise, AZ
Over the summer, Big D has had 'good ol' dirt-grown tomatoes, berries, peaches, squash, and melons. Occasionally purple asparagus. I get the impression they grow everything they sell- quite a diverse farm, that!
Thom from Richcrest Farm in Dragoon, AZ
Richcrest is the other large spread like Grammy's, but they seem to be a little more into vegetable varieties, while Grammy's does more fruit (incl'g the tomoatoes; they both do a lot of both though). Recently they are carrying Haden Mills local organic flour, from an heirloom Sonoran wheat, and I just got some blackeye peas the family has been growing since the 1930's! Their giant carrots looks like they'll chew like a tree root, but they crisper & tastier than baby carrots from the store all through! I've been putting a lot of them on the barbecue like potatoes or corn lately, they are quite good roasted!
Tina from Walking J Farm in Amado, AZ
There is a thin sliver of higher country due south of us that stretches to Nogales. Walking J does the marquee seasonal veggies (i.e. mostly squash & garlic right now). Their real pride is their livestock. You can get most cuts of beef & pork, but the less expensive ones go fast (except the brain I'd guess). They also have a CSA with separate subscriptions for each meat and the produce. She packs an impressive array of freezers in the trailer as you might guess!
Bob Meyers from San Rafel Valley Beef (guess where?)
Their ranch is right on the border, southeast of Patagonia (lovely camping down there, by the way). I've yet to try their beef (it's in the freezer waiting for a special occasion), but he always has chicken & duck eggs too. When the squirrels raid my chicken coop and I run low, I run to Bob!
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Futurist Institute update #1 (Coal, Population)
I'm just gonna throw a few tidbits out there and see what y'all think...let's start with Dr. Albert Bartlett:
Here we've got a college physics lecturer from Boulder, CO, form a frontal assault on business as usual ('BAU') in the modern world, using only math. Watching made me a tad ill (it was late at nite). We're not talking fuzzy government statistics math here, we're talking plain old algebra. Hence the queasy. Warning: there are eight sections comprising 90 minutes or so, and couldn't help watching them one right after the other - not everyone's quite as interested in the intersection of energy and the economy as I am though, but I do ask you to start at episode 1 and continue at least through 3 (approx 30 mins) when he talks about coal. Coal is our most widely discussed panacea for our energy problems, Dr. Bartlett, I think, disagrees; decide for yourself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY
Now I'm going to have to re-watch them so I can respond to your thoughts (please try to tag any references to the lecture with the episode# and time so we can skip to it) - Analysis is what the Futurist Institute is here for, and I can't really do that alone.
My first thought is where I think things play out a bit differently in the real world: in his emphasis on population, mainly because energy will be a limiting factor on our economy, and economy a limit on population, far sooner than population by itself will cause problems substantially worse than today, possibly due to some of the factors Dr. Bartlett identifies in the lecture; perhaps I'm being naive.
If you'd like to check professor Bartlett's numbers as he suggests in the video, I suggest you start here, at the US govenrment's Energy Information Agency coal page:
http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=coal_reserves
On a related note, for some background on how China stands in the coal rush:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8064#more
We'll talk about natural gas, the hottest thing since the great recession, and why it's maybe not a great idea either, soon enough.
Here we've got a college physics lecturer from Boulder, CO, form a frontal assault on business as usual ('BAU') in the modern world, using only math. Watching made me a tad ill (it was late at nite). We're not talking fuzzy government statistics math here, we're talking plain old algebra. Hence the queasy. Warning: there are eight sections comprising 90 minutes or so, and couldn't help watching them one right after the other - not everyone's quite as interested in the intersection of energy and the economy as I am though, but I do ask you to start at episode 1 and continue at least through 3 (approx 30 mins) when he talks about coal. Coal is our most widely discussed panacea for our energy problems, Dr. Bartlett, I think, disagrees; decide for yourself.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-QA2rkpBSY
Now I'm going to have to re-watch them so I can respond to your thoughts (please try to tag any references to the lecture with the episode# and time so we can skip to it) - Analysis is what the Futurist Institute is here for, and I can't really do that alone.
My first thought is where I think things play out a bit differently in the real world: in his emphasis on population, mainly because energy will be a limiting factor on our economy, and economy a limit on population, far sooner than population by itself will cause problems substantially worse than today, possibly due to some of the factors Dr. Bartlett identifies in the lecture; perhaps I'm being naive.
If you'd like to check professor Bartlett's numbers as he suggests in the video, I suggest you start here, at the US govenrment's Energy Information Agency coal page:
http://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/index.cfm?page=coal_reserves
On a related note, for some background on how China stands in the coal rush:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/8064#more
We'll talk about natural gas, the hottest thing since the great recession, and why it's maybe not a great idea either, soon enough.
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