I’ve recently found a new blog. It’s called How Eric Lives and it’s excellent.
Check out his latest post—Energy and the future of food
I’ve always maintained that most people don’t understand energy. They don’t know or understand the Laws of Thermodynamics and their application to how life on earth functions. They think that anything is possible if you throw enough money at it. But money is a human construct and the planet does not need it to function (nor does it need humans). Energy is what powers life on Earth.
If only the people in power who control all our lives could be locked in a room together and be made to read this post and not be let out till they understand its implications. But they will never understand because their brains are not wired that way. And while we, the sheeple, are still stupid enough to vote them into power over us (not me; I don’t vote), nothing will change.
Some of us do understand and we are changing the way we do things. We’re building resilience into our lives by growing our own food and providing our own water and fuelwood. Given the stupidity of the majority, we might not survive, but we’re giving it our best shot.
While no one can wave a magic wand and change food systems today, we each have the power to shape the future of food production, processing, distribution and consumption by abandoning old problem-solving strategies in favor of new, more innovative ones. There are many approaches to food provision that are far less energy intensive than our modern industrial approach, and a healthy mix of acknowledgment, discernment and investment can turn currently marginal approaches like wildcrafting, natural systems agriculture and permaculture into tomorrow’s mainstream ideals. While the challenges of producing tomorrow’s food are many, the future of food will be what we make it.
Foodnstuff 
November 23, 2014 at 3:31 pm |
Yes, nice blog.
The future is uncertain, but there are things we can do on a personal level (when communities and society in general appear to be blind to the need) to reduce some of those uncertainties as they apply to ourselves.
Saving or collecting seeds, learning how plants work and actually growing some, procuring necessary hand-powered tools, and attuning the body to thrive on what may be available, are all good places to start.
Even then, as ever before, life comes with no guarantees.
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November 24, 2014 at 4:24 am |
Off to read it now. In total agreeance (and I didn’t vote for this mingy lot 😦 ) the future of food is in the hands of the people and we need to vote with those hands held high or we won’t HAVE a food future. Our local and state governments are hell bent on selling Tasmania to the Chinese at the moment…anything for a quick buck :(. Allowing psychopaths to dictate the mandate is only going to end up in tears and misery.
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November 24, 2014 at 3:48 pm |
Well, even if the Chinese cover Tassie with crops, when the oil runs out they won’t be able to transport them back to China, so the Taswegians can scoff the lot 🙂
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November 24, 2014 at 7:06 pm |
I love it! The silver lining effect ;).
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November 24, 2014 at 4:40 pm |
I vote, but who I vote for has yet to get into “power”. It’ll happen, eventually. It has elsewhere. I save seeds, and grow them, and share them and save them again. This is power. Food safety must be in the hands of the people to really work. Mon-San-To probably has me on their list of evil and rebellious seed savers…
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November 24, 2014 at 5:47 pm |
Me too, probably. But they will go belly-up eventually, like the rest of industrial civilisation. Something to look forward to.
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