The Life and Death of Bun-bun.
The death of a newborn rabbit kit, Bun-bun, occasions a lot of thought.
a Small and Delicious Life
Common Sense for the New Times
a Small and Delicious Life
Common Sense for the New Times
Ruben
At the end of the world, there is plenty to do.
“Well, should we just give up then?” If only I had a dollar for every time I have heard this, always from well-meaning people.⊕Well, if I had a dollar for each time, I would be drinking Laphroaig right now, with…
Do street trees increase the environmental impact of cities?
Trees are green, right? And green is good, right? So trees must be good, right? How could trees be bad for the environment? Many of us have a sense that we are not on the right path; in our bones…
The harsh reality of cognitive limits.
Want to Build Great New Habits?Interested in the Stunning Research that Changes Everything?How about The Brain Hack that Makes You a Winner? Clickbait like this is common, alongside more respectable Serious Yet Slightly Breathless News Items. I spent several years…
Vertical farms: A bad solution to the wrong problem.
Sustainable means able to be sustained, and the alternative, then, is things that are unable to be sustained.⊕Bill Rees, the co-developer of Ecological Footprinting, says sustainability is like pregnancy. You either are or you aren’t, no sorta. You can read my…
We have enough Ideas (or, No pie for you.)
Why are we not winning the fight against climate chaos? Why was Trump just elected? Why has there been a slaughter of drug addicts this year? Because we think about change wrong,⊕You can read all my past writings on this…
Vertical farms: the greatest hope for cities, or a band-aid on a sucking chest wound?
I sometimes find myself making negative comments about vertical farming. This happened again today, and the facebook friend to whom I responded replied very openly with, “Well, what then? Green belts?” So rather than continue my terse and impatient crypticism…
How to make Sauerkraut or pickled vegetables the easiest and cheapest way possible (crocks are for holding umbrellas)
Making sauerkraut is incredibly easy to do, and with Fido jars you will be richly rewarded for your few minutes of work.
Free Will: we (might) use it just often enough to think it actually matters.
Our cultural veneration of free will traps us in dead-end expectations that are unsupported by reality. If we want to make effective change, the idea of free will is one of the first things we should jettison, or at least…
Forest fires show the failure of democracy.
Two days ago I awoke to an eerie, silent hellsky. It was dusky dark, even first thing in the morning. The colour and brightness of the sky was all wrong, not just overcast but unnatural. Throughout the day, people described it…
The Compassionate Systems Theory of Change
Most of our attempts to make change rely on a belief that people can change, that change is possible. Of course, this is true—but just barely. So, this is not much of a theory of change, but rather a Theory…
Skill, joy, and shaving.
I wrote this about five years ago, but had no place to publish it. After the topic of his most recent post veered to razors, John Michael Greer suggested I post it. Joy is a thread that runs through our Small and…
Is our localism too artisanal?
I recently reviewed Jean-Martin Fortier’s book The Market Gardener (summary: Excellent. Buy it) and was reminded of a philosophical and yet very practical farming question I asked him over beer. “Since the economy is contracting, and for many reasons we believe…
Review: The Market Gardener. Summary: Excellent.
The first piece of swag to come out of writing this blog hit my mailbox this spring, when I was asked to review Jean-Martin Fortier’s book The Market Gardener. Sadly, they did not also send me a broadfork. Carmen and I…
In which I get sweary about pre-grated cheese.
One of my comfort foods is whole-wheat macaroni with vegetables. Since I am a lazy cook and reluctant dishwasher I have always just grated cheese and sprinkled it on top of the noodles then stirred it into a clumpy and…