Comments Samantic has made

  • Can your own in glass (and reuse those jars again and again for years of canned, bpa-free local food), buy from a local canning cooperative or start one if it doesn't exist. Also dehydrate foods for long term storage, though in FL those would probably still have to be kept in a freezer or fridge because of humidity but they take up so much less space. On the bean question, dry beans, cooked in a pressure cooker are cheap, require far less energy if they are shipped, and tastier, in my experience. I grew up in South Florida and no one I knew canned, but one can start later in life, as I have.On Ask Umbra on canned and frozen foods posted 1 month ago 23 Responses

  • Blimps.

    Add that to the list of technologies that we could and ought to be investing in now, while we still have the resources for fleet construction available.  And to the list of technologies we will have missed out on by the time we realize we need them.


    They won't give you quick business flights.  But they can transport people over long distances (at relatively low speeds) for cultural exchange or visiting farflung family.  And they can also transport some goods.

    On Ask Umbra on flying less posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago 17 Responses

  • making the case (suite)

    One last comment:

    Research noting the pathogens in vats of milk bound for processing don't really tell us much.  They're only as clean as the standards require.  That's one reason I can't believe anyone who read Fast Food Nation can ever eat another conventional burger.  The producers know it will be irradiated, so it doesn't matter if it has feces in it.  I'd much rather work with a food system and farmers faces who don't have any intention of feeding such things to their friends, to me, or to my family.On Umbra on raw milk posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago 20 Responses

  • making the case

    I was vaguely aware of raw milk before I had kids.  Then I had children and learned everything I could possibly want to know about lactation, and about milk.  Breastmilk, we are warned, should never be heated or pasteurized, because it would lose half the beneficial probiotics and fragile vitamins it offers.  We also learn that because of the flora involved, it can stay safe to drink when left at room temperature for up to 8 hours.  This is an entirely different substance from pasteurized, much less ultra-pasteurized dairy.

    Add to this the fact that I live in the middle of PA dairy country, where raw milk is certified for human consumption by the State Dept of Ag, and believe me, it means my family drinks raw milk.

    However, I don't advocate it for everyone.  I think if you need to get your dairy from a distance and it needs a long shelf life, you should stick with the processed product.  If you're lucky enough to be able to know your farmer, do so.

    I know people who get milk one state over or so, illegally.  Perhaps it ought to be an official part of their foodshed.  But I also know people who have it shipped UPS to LA.  That is beyond absurd.  (Not to mention that only about 2/3 of the eggs make it...)  Clearly folks doing that are intent on the personal health benefits with no concern for the environmental health aspect.

    I have a hard time believing that real food in any way deserves to be called a fad.  It's the processed stuff that should be so labeled.  It's the product of a brief blip in human history -- industrialism run amok.  Gogurt is a fad.  Real milk is, well, milk.On Umbra on raw milk posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago 20 Responses

  • crunching numbers and delectables

    A lot of infighting to protect our preferred positions, as I see it.  Ultimately statistics can be manipulated and, more often, simply misread and/or misinterpreted.  I also see a lot of "strict" vegetarians not willing to look more closely at the thoughtful side of sustainable ecosystems and their possible/likely meat component.

    On the validity of the initial claim about global warming and eating meat, here are some worthwhile comments I came across on the Sierra Club global warming listserv:

    SUV's 'Versus' Meat. By Charles Komanoff, Streetblog.org, August 31, 2007. In reference to the NY Times article above "I spotted one glaring error and one questionable assumption in the U of Chicago article (Diet, Energy, and Global Warming, PDF, 17 pages) that underlies the Humane Society's claim. First, the authors evidently used a figure of around 16 lb of CO2 emitted per gallon of gasoline burned. (They don't give their figure; I backed it out of their Table 1.) But the standard coefficient, easily derivable, is approximately 19.6 lb per gallon. Switching to the correct coefficient would add 22-23% to the 'SUV' side of their comparison. Second, the authors based their 'SUV' calculations on average US per capita miles driven (8,332 miles/yr). The appropriate basis, in my view, would be the number of miles a typical motor vehicle is driven, which is around 12,000 (that's the figure US EPA uses in its calculations of carbon impacts of driving). After all, switching from an SUV to a Camry would mean switching out 12,000 miles, not 8,332. Substituting the higher figure would add 44% to the 'SUV' side of the comparison. Making both changes simultaneously would increase the SUV emission figures by 75-77%, which pretty much invalidates the triumphalist statement by the Humane Society's guy. It wouldn't surprise me if there are similar errors undermining the 'food' side of the comparison. Maybe someone else will take a break from their seitan preparation and check it out. And maybe the Humane Society and their allies can find ways of advancing the worthy cause of vegetarianism that don't require belittling SUV damages and Al Gore."

    Further to that, I would point out that a lot of the furor seems to stem from people who equate fossil-fuel use with driving without really thinking about it.  Clearly fossil fuel use overall (for power generation, industrial production, etc. as well as transportation) outstrips meat production, but when you pull out transportation alone, suddenly it's in the same ballpark as the meat.

    And as to the comparison of the efficacy of eliminating meat from the diet to that of changing cars, again, the stats are obvious, but the spin and interpretation have been off.  Just changing the efficiency of the absurd vehicle we drive does far less than actually using it less, usually by a factor of about 5.  A more consistent parallel would be going from the typical (ridiculous) meat content of the average American diet to just eating chicken (still conventional).  There remain a lot of other significant impact-reducing steps available.  By way of comparison, the fact that my 4-person household drives its single car a third of the US average does a lot more to reduce our impact than its "hybrid synergy drive" does.

    Ultimately, I find this a really worthwhile topic, but don't get that much in the way of useful content out of it.  I would like to see a thoughtful and thorough consideration, by bioregion, of true carrying capacity and sustainable food system structure.  The further I get into all this, the clearer it is to me that pigs are incredibly useful, but I want to know if that means a pig for a neighborhood for a year, or a pig for the whole town, plus take into consideration the realities of husbandry... The same goes for poultry and, in some regions, beef, etc.  But I can't seem to find anyone who can talk about this reasonably, without getting totally defensive, aggressive and touchy (on both sides).

    I'm not ready to be definitive about it, but it does at least appear that absolute veganism is a luxury of modern life which we may not be able to afford in the long run.  Wouldn't it be better to think carefully about productive ways of shifting our food system towards sustainability?

    There was at least one early post that did start to talk about the health benefits, ecosystem benefits, and animal welfare benefits of local, organic, sustainable, pastured meat.  It's not as cut and dried as most of the vegetarians would have it.

    In the meantime, thanks for the reading material.
    On The subjects of PETA and vegetarianism ... posted 2 years, 2 months ago 15 Responses

  • not really getting at the problem

    I know I'm weighing in way late on this.  I am mainly using it to clarify my own thoughts on the issue.  Unfortunately I don't think Umbra has it right when she says preparing will only be a good move, regardless of what happens.  I am part of a local environmental group struggling with what end up being diverging responses to the threat of peak oil.  On the one hand, there's a lot of survivalist personal preparation one could engage in.  That tends to be uncomfortable for most in our group on moral grounds.  But the alternative appears to be so milquetoast as to be essentially ignoring the problem we set out to respond to in the first place, namely, working on increasing awareness and expanding local resources/options for people in our area (we are an isolated small town, complete with strip and few options on some of the more important fronts, like transportation and energy choice).  For the time being we are headed (headlong, with lots of energy, projects and enthusiasm) down path number two, but all the while actual preparedness seems to elude us, even receding while we're distracted.

    I should also say that education and awareness where we are are a tall order.  Green, sustainable, triple-bottom-line, whatever -- it's all foreign, largely discounted and actively reviled.  For the benefit of those sitting in the midst of primed enlightenment, it's just a wake-up call about middle-American willful blindness.

    Entirely separate from all that are the difficulties associated with choosing one's battles between as Umbra mentioned global warming and peak oil.  Keeping both in one's sights, along with the greater good, acheivability and a major overhaul of the insides of most American's heads has me a bit dizzy.On Umbra on peak oil posted 2 years, 11 months ago 6 Responses

  • It does have a name: Relocalization

    There is a word for it.  It's called Relocalization.  It encompasses local economies, local food supply and distribution and local, distributed power generation.  As well as a massive retooling of the insides of heads to remember once again how much energy you're really expending at any given moment.  It also entails limiting home heating demands by hyper insulation (where feasible), small houses, and recovering the idea of having summer quarters and winter quarters within the same structure.  Plus smart passive solar and dreaming of accessible active some day.  The Postcarbon Institute (postcarbon.org) is promoting this rethinking and providing support for those trying to pose alternatives to the hopeless quest to replace the current system with alternatives on the same scale.  They also have programs to help localities cope with abrupt onset of energy constraints (powerdown project), promote development of locally appropriate power sources, and work toward strong local food networks.

    What they don't have is a bully pulpit or a lot of media coverage.  Would someone take them up on all the good thinking they've been doing and go national with it already?  Or rather not do what happened to the Center for Appropriate Technology, which was to have it become an invisible piece of the machine.

    How does one go global with "localism"?  We need a champion.
    On Talking point: The environmentalist yes posted 3 years, 3 months ago 13 Responses

  • more ecotopia references

    Our local organization for change has been discussing this very thing this week.  Here are more suggestions from a professor of mine.  As to whether there's a point to thinking about what the future will look like, I say it's not a matter of prediction or precision, but rather a question of giving people hope and a toolkit for imagining it in a positive way, replacing the predominance of negative vision currently in the offing.  Utopia can be a tool for social change, criticism, education.  The alternative, as we are learning, is "ecophobia" and complacency bred of despair.

    Here's the expanded list:

    Ernest Callenbach's "Ecotopia Emerging," probably more important than ever

    Gioconda Belli's "Waslala," one of the most powerful ecological and utopian novels of recent years, unfortunately available only in Spanish and German

    E.F. Schumacher's "Small is Beautiful. Economics as if People Mattered." Needs no comment

    A collection of short stories, edited by Kim Stanley Robinson "Future Primitive. The New Ecotopias"

    "The Green Reader. Essays Toward a Sustainable Future," edited by Andrew Dobson

    And last but not least a title that says it all: "Fighting for Hope" by Petra Kelly

    Enjoy!
    On Drop that apocalyptic vision and start imagining a positive future posted 3 years, 4 months ago 56 Responses

  • A reading/viewing list

    For people interested in the upside of an environmental vision of the future, I recommend reading Ecotopia by Callenbach and Pacific Edge by Kim Stanley Robinson (also the Mars Trilogy, but it has more dystopic stuff and is long).  You should also see "The Power of Community:  How Cuba Survived Peak Oil" produced by the Community Solution.

    The depressing stuff, though I see it and know it to be depressing,  ends up energizing me instead.  I think this is because I'm a designer and planner and it just gives me more to work on.  People who don't have a background in design tend to assume that the status quo has more power than it does or that a clearly articulated vision is an inevitable trajectory, rather than something to be countered, revised/revisioned, and editted into something presentable, livable and lovable.

    The references above give good exposure to the possible basics of a delightful, sustainable future from several angles.On Drop that apocalyptic vision and start imagining a positive future posted 3 years, 4 months ago 56 Responses