Food and climate change

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Western Red Cedar
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by Western Red Cedar »

white belt wrote:
Tue Dec 01, 2020 7:43 pm
I know I sound like a broken record, but I would highly recommend David Holmgren's RetroSuburbia. The electronic version is available for as cheap as a $1 donation. The focus is entirely on retrofitting an existing suburban lifestyle to be more eco-friendly.
I haven't read the book but really enjoyed Holmgren's appearances on Happen Films:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss1BjW2kSNs

I think the retrofitting concept is really important in addressing climate change and general sustainability. The suburbs have a huge amount of resources/energy invested in the existing development. I always get a little worried when I hear fanciful ideas about developing new communities from scratch. There is so much opportunity to improve what we've already developed. It reminds me a little of buying a new electric vehicle rather than making use of a less attractive used option.

Western Red Cedar
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by Western Red Cedar »

Alphaville wrote:
Tue Dec 01, 2020 6:18 pm
anyway, back to the food subject: i need to develop some deeper connections to agricultural networks in my area. we have a food co-op, we have farmers markets, we have csas, we have millennia of agriculture, we have good breweries, we don’t have a terribly great food scene for my standards, but we have something great to build on.
I think community supported agriculture is a great way to go local without breaking the bank. Farmers really like the option because there is some certainty through the season, but the baskets aren't generally too expensive. It's also great to encourage one to step out of their cooking comfort zone. That's also a side benefit of a plant-based diet. With a little curiosity and initiative one can quickly expand their cooking skills and make some amazing vegetarian cuisine.

white belt
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by white belt »

Hristo Botev wrote:
Tue Dec 01, 2020 8:00 pm
Does it translate to an American audience?
I’d say yes. He wrote the book for an Australian audience, but I think you can apply his framework and a lot of the ideas anywhere. I think there are also case studies of systems outside of Australia. I’ll caveat that I haven’t read the whole thing cover to cover yet, instead I hopped around to particular sections that interested me. I think it’s got a lot of breadth, which is why I think it’s a good starting place to get an overview and deep dive what interests you.

ertyu
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by ertyu »

Hm, interesting. "Retrofitting" is essentially what I'm doing by taking on a 1970s apt. No plumbing in the walls to readily hook an automatic washing machine, let alone a drier; clothesline hooks across the bathroom for winter when clothes might not necessarily dry outside; two electric outlets per room, and don't dare overload them. No outlets on either balcony; the original owners had to run a wire along one wall on the balcony they chose for cooking (thus obviating the need for extractor hoods, etc.). I am already feeling how the very infrastructure of the apartment forces me to live with less resource use. Someone else moving into the place would probably strip it down to the brick and rewire/replace all plumbing etc. I'm choosing to work with what I've got.

chenda
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by chenda »

Alphaville wrote:
Tue Dec 01, 2020 7:06 pm
Anyway, if you missed the first time, it’s here: https://www.afar.com/magazine/how-heirl ... exico-city
Interesting, thanks.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Obviously, humans were naturally fairly migratory until the agricultural era when peasants were more likely to be tied to a feudal demesne or domain in exchange for protection from bandits. Of course, in most sentimental re-enactments of village life, most humans will choose the role of Lord of Downton Abbey for themselves. Thus, McMansions on postage stamp acreage professionally manicured lawns, but also post-apocalyptic survival novels in which male protagonist ends up with much younger wife after older wife acquired in pre-apocalyptic era dies from Covid 5, bandits, etc. This actually mirrors what happened in England after multiple waves of the plague. There was more land and more well paid work available for the average human and this paved the way for technological jump. It also mirrors what happened “naturally “ in earliest human societies which was frequent warfare at multiple boundaries. There is no workable personal solution for food in the Anthropocene that does not also include defense at the boundaries of system.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

The real choice we all face is not what to buy, whether to fly, or whether to have children, but whether we are willing to commit to living ethically in a broken world, a world in which human beings are dependent for collective survival on a kind of ecological grace. There is no utopia, no Planet B, no salvation, no escape. We are all stuck here in the same shithole together. And living in that world, the only world there is, means giving up any claims to innocence or moral purity, since to live at all means to cause suffering. While you could, if you had the will for it, go off the grid, your subsistence farm would still be a tiny holocaust for the pests that would live off your bounty, your land deed would still need to be recognized by the state, and you would almost certainly need to enslave animals, if not for food and material such as milk, leather, and bone, then at least for labor.
-“ We’re Doomed, Now What?”- Roy Scranton

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Alphaville
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by Alphaville »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Wed Dec 02, 2020 7:55 am
-“ We’re Doomed, Now What?”- Roy Scranton
hahahha! that’s great

Hristo Botev
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by Hristo Botev »

@7w5, down another rabbit hole I go; Scranton sounds like just what I need to be reading right now.

jacob
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by jacob »

Roy Scranton is from U of Notre Dame, so depending on whether you think the Irish (Go Irish!) are real Catholics ... :-D

He also has an earlier book and some articles out there that IIRC made it into the books or turned into the books.

Hristo Botev
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by Hristo Botev »

Ha! It was seeing the Notre Dame connection on his wikipedia page that made me click "Buy" on abebooks (ugh, Bezos; but at least it's used).

(That said, I'll leave it for another discussion what I think of Notre Dame's link to Catholicism.)

ETA: You, @mooretrees, and @7w5 should get affiliate payments every time I buy one of your book recommendations.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Lol- Save your pennies for when I get around to republishing some lost arts and crafts classics ;)

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Alphaville
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by Alphaville »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Wed Dec 02, 2020 10:10 am
Lol- Save your pennies for when I get around to republishing some lost arts and crafts classics ;)
there gonna be cooking in it? (please no midcentury eh :lol: )

Hristo Botev
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by Hristo Botev »

Goodness @Jacob, that was quite an article. I'll say I'm glad you sent that to me now and not a couple months ago; I don't think I would have comprehended it then. Now, I'm just waiting for the day when DD goes from calling me a "hippy," for always talking about waste and unnecessary car trips, to realizing that I'm actually more a CC culprit.

7Wannabe5
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Alphaville:

Snob! What if I possess the last extant copy of the recipe for Fireman’s Casserole? Also, I am kind of known for my MidCentury Midwest Persian fusion creations such as pomegranate jello salad.

@Hristo:

IME, it can go either way. My millennial adult kids consider me to be more eco-minded. Of course, another 20 years will likely be a different story .

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Alphaville
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by Alphaville »

7Wannabe5 wrote:
Wed Dec 02, 2020 11:22 am
@Alphaville:

Snob! What if I possess the last extant copy of the recipe for Fireman’s Casserole?
who? no need to be hermetic, kindly elaborate

(hard pass on the jello but yes to pomegranate though :D )

7Wannabe5
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

@Alphaville:

Just kidding. I went through a phase where under pressure to create meals for gatherings including vegans, hard-core carnivores, ethnic traditionalists, and picky children, I decided to amuse myself by adding recipes from the White Trash Cookbook and/or MidCentury Midwestern Back of Box to the mix. The problem was that while I was entertaining myself with kitsch, the kids who are now adults were establishing dip recipes that require entire jar of mayonnaise as family classics :lol:

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Alphaville
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by Alphaville »

:lol:

but who am i to laugh? i’m slowly working through a gallon of gmo soybean mayo i bought during the pandemic. was the only one i could find, and my stockpile of fats was low, so i took the chance: industrial oil beats starving.

i gotta eat it, appears otherwise non-biodegradable and dangerous to discard in the wild.

i eat it with fries. not the tastiest, but spicy mayo fries remind me of this falafel place that used to sell them. iow, i’m ingesting fantasies.

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Alphaville
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by Alphaville »

went to supermarket today, got:

-pinto beans (regional) over argentinian black beans
-new hampshire frozen blueberries over argentinian ones (by airplane? frozen?)

sure, lower fuel to buy closer, but am i dooming argentina to underdevelopment? they sure need the currency... no solution to this gordian knot.

got also: apples from washington + tangerines from california. hey, it's just half a small continent away! not like crossing siberia the long way.

red cabbage from who knows where

california frozen broccoli and spinach for backup.

and no meat, which was weird.

and no irish butter, which was terribly sad. got some american pastured version which was actually cheaper. we'll see...

this is all arbitrary and will lead nowhere :lol:

but i gotta do what i gotta do.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satisficing

Papers of Indenture
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Re: Food and climate change

Post by Papers of Indenture »

white belt wrote:
Mon Nov 30, 2020 11:50 pm
Old brick rowhome cites like Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Richmond. End of row houses can have pretty generous yards. I lived in a neighborhood in Baltimore called Hampden and had a few neighbors who gardened intensively and raised chickens.

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