HOME a film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

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Robert Newman's History of Oil

Escape from Affluenza and The Story Of Stuff

"Sustainable Table"

Insights on Resilience from the Recent History of Totnes. 4: Shopping

Clearly the markets weren’t the only source of food. The High Street contained a far higher proportion of shops selling food than today. The way the shops were run was very different to today. ML describes a trip to the shops in the early 1950s; “I used to go to the grocers and I [...]

Design Students Build Prosthetic Arm: Core77's Allan Chochinov Shows How

We're fans of Core77, "a gathering point for designers and enthusiasts alike". Clogger Allan Chochinov also teaches at the School of Visual Arts in New York, in a course called "MFA Designer As Author" where they look at the issues of design and-

Our focus is on authorship in the broadest sense: Beginning with a viable concept we encourage students to write, edit, film, compos...

It’s De-Lousy, It’s De-Testable, It’s De-Flation…

Stoneleigh over at The Automatic Earth has done a really spectacular series of pieces lately on the nature and reality of deflation, and why hyper-inflation isn't a real danger.  I find her work very, very compelling, and I think she's just plain wonderful to sit down and spell out the ...

With Help from Species Survival Plan, Red Wolves May Have a Future

Photo from Gregory Koch Red wolves are one of the rarest mammals in North America. They are a mere 100 strong in their native habitat of North Carolina’s Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. But with the help of the Wolf Conservation Center (WCC) in South Salem, NY, the Canis rufus may grow in number…first in New York, and then in North Carolina....

Coal State Electric Bills Rising 7% To 100% - Even Without Cap & Trade

Monthly US Natural Gas Electric Power Price. Image credit:US Energy Information Administration. As the title indicates, some of the nation's most coal-dependent states face dramatic price increases for electricity without a Cap & Trade mechanism in place. One cause is the de-regulation of electrical utilities, a process begun while Congress was also busy deregulating the financial industry. More recently, investments in new coal-fired plants became a contributing factor, as did price increases in the best grades of coal. What's wit...

Insights on Resilience from the Recent History of Totnes. 4: Shopping

Clearly the markets weren’t the only source of food. The High Street contained a far higher proportion of shops selling food than today. The way the shops were run was very different to today. ML describes a trip to the shops in the early 1950s; “I used to go to the grocers and I [...]

Coming Soon: ‘Local Food’, a Transition guide, and an interview with the author

September 17th 2009 sees the publication of the keenly awaited ‘Local Food: how to make it happen in your community’, the first in a series of Transition Guides exploring different aspects of Transition at a community level.  You can download the blad here (blad stands for ‘book layout and design’ and is a small document [...]

Insights on Resilience from the Recent History of Totnes. 3:Local Farmers and the Town’s Markets

The farmers who surrounded Totnes were much more directly engaged with the town than they are now, as the town provided the key markets for their produce. DM farmed 250 acres (which had grown to 300 by the time of his retirement in 1989). When he started work on the farm, it was still [...]

Insights on Resilience from the Recent History of Totnes. 2: The Market Gardens

Totnes featured 3 commercial market gardens within the town itself, Heaths, Gills and Phillips/Victoria Nursery. The largest, at least initially, was Heath’s, started in 1920 by George Heath senior (see left), and then run by his son, also called George, until its closure in 1981. Much of the south-facing area of the town [...]

Insights on Resilience from the Recent History of Totnes. 1: Back garden food production

Over the next few days I will be sharing some of the output from the oral histories I have been doing in Totnes and its surroundings, as which will make up part of the introduction to the EDAP and also part of my research.  I did about 15 interviews, and have condensed the outputs from [...]