Civil Eats

Oil is history, and food as it is currently produced and eaten is going the way of the dinosaurs, too. So what are our real options for producing food to feed our population? A great one hour film called A Farm for the Future from the BBC seeks to answer this very question by investigating some of the methods for making real sustainable changes to a livestock farm in Devon, England belonging to the narrator of the film, Rebecca Hosking. There are no easy answers, but she discovers one root of unsustainability on farms is the energy we put into working against nature. While speaking to permaculture expert Patrick Whitefield, she asks if what he is proposing is “to design the energy out, or design the labor out” of the system. To which he replies yes, on both counts. Read More

I grew up in Woodland Hills, Calif., a nominally pastoral, petrocentric Los Angeles suburb, so peak oil prognosticator James Howard Kunstler’s dim view of our car-crazed culture really resonates with me.

Kunstler’s relentless skewering of suburbia, and his penchant for apocalyptic predictions have landed him a reputation as a cranky Cassandra. But as Ben McGrath observed while strolling around Saratoga Springs with Kunstler for a recent New Yorker piece, “Far from the image of the stereotypical Chicken Little, he was more like an amiable town crier whom the citizenry regarded fondly, if a bit skeptically.”

So, when a friend and I found ourselves headed to Kunstler’s neck of the woods for a conference recently, we arranged to have dinner with Saratoga Springs’ resident soothsayer. Contrary to his contrarian reputation, Kunstler proved to be an affable, upbeat guy. Read More

The short flight from Los Angeles to San Francisco is prime viewing time to grasp the enormity of the state’s agricultural land across the Central Valley. But the last time I made the trip the predictable green and brown patchwork of farmland was interspersed with glittering squares: solar panels. I thought to myself, could there really be, in the middle of rural California? As if solar panels had been planted alongside the bounty of alfalfa and almonds, no more or less than any other crop. I grinned from my window seat. But then I started thinking: can solar panels be treated like just another agricultural crop? What is the significance of incorporating them into an agricultural landscape, particularly as one as lucratively productive as California’s Central Valley? Read More

The sale and consumption of “bottled water” continues to grow at an astounding rate throughout the world. This is especially so in the USA. If you have ever traveled well off the beaten path in a third world country, the lack of safe and reliable water for drinking, bathing, and cooking is always a concern. And with good reason—for much of the world, this is a very real problem that leads to countless cases of disease and even death, the likes of which you would not expect in this country. Read More

The Peak Oil story was never about running out of oil. It was about the collapse of complex systems in a world economy faced by the prospect of no further oil-fueled growth. It was something of a shock to many that the first complex system to fail would be banking, but the process is obvious: no more growth means no more ability to pay interest on credit… end of story, as Tony Soprano used to say. Read More

If you’ve been listening to the news in the past month, you’ve probably heard quite a bit about biofuels. Simply put, they are fuel made out of plants – principally corn and soybeans in the United States.

The new Obama administration is solidly in favor of increased biofuels production. Everyone from his Secretary of Agriculture to his Secretary of Energy has voiced their support for this policy. But the production of biofuel is by no means uncontroversial, and solidly at the center of this controversy is Dr. David Pimentel, Professor of Ecology and Agricultural Sciences at Cornell University. Read More

It’s going to be a crowded field for those facing issues in the science of food, farming, ecology, and nutrition in the new administration. As Angie Tagtow points out, the incoming Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, and the new Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Daschle, are going to be forced to work closely together to form important policy for the years ahead.

But they are not alone – a handful of other high-profile thinkers will also be creating important policy decisions that will have implications for food, and it will be anyone’s guess how Obama will manage this diverse stable of talent. Read More

Van Jones was at the First Congregational Church in Oakland last Tuesday, ostensibly to talk about his green-for-all campaign, the subject of his recent bestseller The Green Collar Economy. But seeing as how he was back home, in the heart of his own congregation and community, he reveled in the show he put on and it was like we all had backstage passes. With his wife and two children in the audience and surrounded by old friends, including Ada de Leon (who read some of her poetry) and Alice Walker (who didn’t), he took us from bouts of hilarity to sober reflection and back again with memories of how this extended East Bay family had braved the last few decades and especially the last eight years.  “Barack Obama didn’t create this movement,” he said at one point, “this movement created the opportunity for Barack Obama!” He noted that joy over the Obama victory was twinned with outrage over the passage of Prop 8, adding that it “has an expiration date,” since voters 35 and younger overwhelmingly opposed it. But no one in this group is going to sit by passively and wait for justice to be served up to them. Read More

Gary Paul Nabhan, PhD., is an Arab-American writer, lecturer, food and farming advocate, rural lifeways folklorist, and conservationist whose work has long been rooted in the U.S./Mexico borderlands region he affectionately calls “the stinkin’ hot desert.” This poem was written for Slow Food Nation and will be read at Changemakers Day. Read More