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Food & agriculture

Food & agriculture

l'arpent nourricier The Incredible Secret Future Of Videogames | Rock, Paper, Shotgu By Jim Rossignol on March 3rd, 2010 at 11:43 am. This is a heavily revised version of an article first published in PC Gamer UK, last year. It’s based on a presentation given by Ray Kurzweil at GDC 2008, and subsequent conversations I had with the author Charles Stross and the game designer Eskil Steenberg. This article began back in 2008, when I was sat in the audience for GDC’s keynote speech by futurist Ray Kurweil. “Games are the harbinger of everything,” Kurzweil was saying, as he delivered his take on the future of everything (with slight emphasis on games) to the assembled design-masses. The controversial technologist, who regularly talks about his hopes for technological immortality and transhuman ascension via artificial intelligence, was arguing that games were where the future manifested itself. One such writer, a man who is regularly questioned about the future, is Charles Stross. For Stross, the catalyst of his imagination is the current trajectory of technology.

About GEO | Grassroots Economic Organizing Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO) is a decentralized collective of educators, researchers and grassroots activists working to promote an economy based on democratic participation, worker and community ownership, social and economic justice, and ecological sustainability--a "solidarity economy"--through grassroots journalism, organizing support, cross-sector networking and movement-building and the publication of educational and organizational resources. Since 1991, GEO has edited and printed a bi-monthly publication called GEO Newsletter, providing news, analysis and an open forum on grassroots organizing to build and finance worker- and community-owned, democratically run, solidarity-based, ecologically sustainable enterprises and organizations. In 2007, due to the increasing challenges of print publication and our desire to reach a wider audience, we shifted to an all web-based publication here at www.geo.coop. We welcome you to this website and invite you to participate! Our work.

Permaculture - Wikipédia-Namoroka La permaculture est, à l'origine, une conception de l'agriculture et de l'horticulture durable fondée sur l'observation minutieuse des écosystèmes et des cycles naturels et leur imitation. C'est un mot-valise anglais formé à partir de « permanent (agri)culture » ; en français : « agriculture durable » ou « culture permanente ». Cependant l'expression « agriculture durable » a aujourd'hui pris un sens plus large. Elle a été élaborée dans les années 1970 par le biologiste australien Bill Mollison et son élève David Holmgren. En 1981, Mollison reçoit le Right Livelihood Award pour son travail. La notion de permaculture a progressivement été étendue à une conception systématique de l'environnement et à une éthique normative définissant des modes de vie et un fonctionnement de la société souhaitables. En Europe, la permaculture est pratiquée aussi bien dans des jardins privés que dans des fermes de taille moyenne. Définition[modifier | modifier le code] Histoire[modifier | modifier le code]

PeePoo Bags Sterlize and Compost Human Waste Where Toilets Are a The mismanagement of human waste is a serious health problem for the 2.6 billion people who don't have regular access to toilets. In fact, in the slums of Kenya, waste management is so haphazard that residents dispose of feces-filled plastic bags by simply flinging the bags away without concern about where they land. And it was discovering those flying sacks of waste that inspired Anders Wilhelmson to invent the PeePoo, a chemically treated toilet bag that sterilizes human waste and converts it to fertilizer, all for only two or three cents. The secret of the PeePoo lies with the urea coating on the inside of the bag. Once its filled and buried, enzymes in feces naturally breakdown the urea into ammonia and carbonate. Most importantly, because these problems affect the poorest 40 percent of the world population, the bag is cheap. Every year, 1.5 million children die from diarrhea caused by poor sanitation. [The New York Times]

RESILIENT COMMUNITY: ENERGY/FOOD IRA/401K Here's a think piece on how to generate the huge funds required for a shift to resilient communities. Still need to work this through, but it offers some amazing opportunities for financially bootstrapping local organizations working on community resilience. The American consumer is likely dead. A new frugality has swept the nation in an attempt to ward off lower standards of living in the future. The question now becomes: what comes after frugality? High debt (up to 375% of GDP, 85% over the peak in 1929, in the US and still growing) and the death of the American consumer will lead to slow or negative growth in GDP for years to come. A Real Ownership Society The judo move to pull this off is the creation of community -- county, town, neighborhood, etc. -- funds/mechanisms that enable individuals to move a portion of their tattered/depleted tax protected savings in IRAs/401ks into accounts that build/own/operate local solar energy production and food production. Cost per kWh: $0.20

Pattern Literacy The limits to environmentalism – Part 2 « Political Climate Posted by Matthew Lockwood In the second of two posts, Political Climate takes a critical look at an example of the new anti-growth literature, Growth Isn’t Possible: Why we need a new economic direction by Andrew Simms and Victoria Johnson at the New Economics Foundation. Growth isn’t possible (GiP) does raise profoundly serious issues about the limits to economic growth and the need for urgent decarbonisation of energy systems. But part 1 argued that NEF’s approach is seriously weakened by the fudging of energy consumption and carbon emissions in the report, its thin understanding economic growth and its dismissal of innovation. A third weakness about GiP is its narrative about economists. The authors seem almost compelled, like Tourette’s Syndrome sufferers, to make constant jibes about the profession, beginning with the pronouncement that: “for decades, it has been a heresy punishable by career suicide for economists to question orthodox growth”. Like this: Like Loading...

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