February 25, 2006
Economics of scale is what conventional industrial economies are all about, finding ways to more profitably and efficiently exploit nature. But the scale of economics is what the economies of the future must be about, finding ways to live so that healthy communities may foster a healthy earth. There are only two essentials to consider in coming at the problem of the optimum scale for an economy to produce and distribute goods and services: the natural ecosystem and the human community.
September 14, 2007
When I heard Michael Ableman, of the Center for Urban Agriculture, speak in Vermont last year, there was one statement he made that I have returned to frequently throughout the year—“pleasure is a better motivator for change than guilt.” He continued, “How do we provide an invitation, rather than a harangue?” It is hard to determine what thing or combination of things motivates social change—this is a question that traverses disciplines, whether studying educational change or political change.
October 14, 2008
April 18, 1775, Dijon, France: An angry mob gathered outside the shop of a wealthy miller suspected of mixing bean flour with wheat flour to cut costs. The miller was assaulted and his house and mill plundered for flour, then burned to the ground. In the weeks that followed, similar scenes followed at bakeries and mills throughout France. Everywhere, people were angry about the same things: flour was too expensive, often of poor quality, and bread, priced at fourteen sous nationwide, was unaffordable to many. At dawn on the second of May an angry mob arrived at the gates of Versailles, demanding action. Surprised and outnumbered, the commander of the palace guard managed to disperse the crowd with assurances that the king would lower the price of bread.
May 14, 2009
“What will you eat?” is a good question to ponder whether or not you support secession. In James Howard Kunstler’s recent novel, World Made By Hand, food becomes a kind of currency after the governmental and economic infrastructure collapses. People in this story are forced to eat locally because they have little access to the outside world. Although secession is a much different scenario, it is worth considering what types of questions would need to be answered and what areas of the food system might need to be built up for Vermont to have true food security, and even food sovereignty.
September 17, 2010
Food is a logical rallying point for the localization movement. Agriculture is the most fundamental of all economic activities, because food is essential to life. Food self-sufficiency, as Eliot Coleman (and Thomas Jefferson long before him) suggested, is the basis for independence. The corporate centralization of our food system has turned us into passive, unskilled consumers, utterly dependent on the money economy and on the availability of cheap oil.
April 14, 2011
CSAs have become commonplace in Vermont. It is cool to say that you belong to one and even cooler if you belong to two or more. And, for the most part, farmers in Vermont have done a good job holding up their end of the bargain with Community Supported Agriculture models. So it is easy to forget the concept behind CSAs.
February 24, 2014
I know that many people in this movement for secession and decentralization are libertarian-leaning, and are invested in the movement because of their dissatisfaction with overreach […]
March 10, 2014
Current events in the Ukraine are reaching a global crisis level that needs to be discussed. The United States and EU have initiated a war for […]
March 10, 2014
I’d known it was coming for a while but it was on a miserable winter day that it all came crashing in on each of us. […]
March 27, 2014
Cold penetrates my neck, creeps down my backbone, seeps into my limbs…cold…I am cold…my arms …fingers…toes. Thirty days of below zero weather since December, not counting […]
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