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Don't listen to Morning Edition, listen to this

lambert's picture
Submitted by lambert on Fri, 09/16/2011 - 12:32pm
Departments: 
Department of Il faut cultiver notre jardin

This is a very interesting interview on thinking strategically about resilience with Lisa Fernandes, a permaculturalist from down south in Portland. Listen to it all.

Personal reflection:

"Every time I think I'm out, they pull me back in." Whenever I get pulled into covering the horse race -- or the horrible train wreck, pick your metaphor -- I ended up feeling a great need to return to gardening, or processes that are like gardening, as opposed to being like warfare. And I do get sucked into covering the horse race, partly because I've got a fine magazine of tropes, partly because taking Obama down is work that needs to be done, and partly because snark is the form of violence that I permit myself. And of course, doing work that one feels fit for is rewarding. But perhaps I need to do a little "inner landscape work." Like everything else produced by the looting classes, Big Politics is enormously and designedly corrosive, no matter how strongly one attempts to maintain a critical stance. The eternal question -- "stupid and/or evil" -- is not a joke. Happiness and merit are very difficult to achieve in a political environment that feels like "The Road" reads.

* * *

From the interview:

"FERNANDES: My outlook is: Work as hard as I can to increase the likelihood of good outcomes in a place where I happen to be."

Q: What is sacred to you?

FERNANDES: The dirt. The soil. ... The future of humanity, the future of my people, depends on the top six inches of that stuff. No civilization has ever survived the loss of its humus.

NOTE This link comes from a somewhat Inside Baseball article on local meat production. But I think this video offers the bigger picture.

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okanogen's picture
Submitted by okanogen on

So could other cities:

Cleveland and other post-industrial North American cities have the potential to generate up to 100 percent of their current needs for fresh produce and other food items — retaining millions of dollars in the local economy, creating new jobs, and spurring additional health, social and environmental benefits.

Those are some of the findings of a study conducted by Parwinder Grewal, professor of entomology and director of the Center for Urban Environment and Economic Development at Ohio State University, based in Wooster. The study, “Can cities become self-reliant in food?” was published online on July 20 by the journal Cities.

Via Cornucopia

Turlock