In the interests of staying positive and being part of the solution to the problems of the world, and as an antidote to my despair in the last post, I offer the following little piece about how to grow vegetables in containers. Growing your own vegetables is among the healthiest of activities - nutritious food, physical output of energy (i.e. exercise), reduce household bills.
Recently, I taught a workshop at Westmoor Park in West Hartford, CT, on container gardening. The City of West Hartford was giving away an excess of recycling bins (the typical blue rectangular bins used by cities for this purpose) that could be used for growing vegetables.
Here is the gist of what I taught the workshop attendees.
Almost anyone can grow vegetables of some kind even living in an urban apartment. If you have a balcony, a window box, a fire escape, a roof top, a front stoop, you can have a container garden.
TYPES OF CONTAINERS: Boxes, bushel baskets, plastic bags, clay pots, half-barrels, wire cages and plastic pails, are just some of the useful objects that can be turned into gardens. Regardless of the type, all containers must have holes in the bottom to allow for drainage. Punch or drill holes into containers that do not already have them. At least three holes approximately 1/2 inch in diameter are needed in a container the size of a 5-gallon pail. More if the container is bigger.
Containers no bigger than 6 inches across are fine for chives and most other small herbs. A 12 inch pot (diameter) will grow lettuce, radishes, onions, miniature tomatoes and even carrots, depending on the variety. A large tub, 18-24 inches in diameter is adequate for tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, peppers, potatoes or even sweet corn. It may be possible to grow 2 or more types of vegetables in a tub that size.
Hanging baskets are easily used for vining plants such as cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, squash etc. In this case, the plants hang down instead of climbing up.
SOIL: Successful container growing requires soil with certain characteristics. The soil must be lightweight, well-drained and well-aerated - i.e. able to retain moisture and nutrients, and be free from diseases, weed seeds, and insect pests. Ordinary soil from the garden is too heavy and tends to get compacted in a pot causing poor root growth and stunted plants.
An easy option is to purchase a soilless mix from a garden center or hardware store. There are several brands available. Or, you can mix your own potting mixture by using 1/3 garden soil that has been pasteurized (see below), 1/3 clean sand - like sand box sand, not road sand that may have salt included, and 1/3 well-rotted compost - purchased or home-made.
To pasteurize garden soil, spread the soil 2-3 inches deep in a roasting pan and heat in an oven at 180 degrees for 1 hour.
Mix the soil ingredients together with 2 tablespoons of ground limestone per batch of soil for a 5 gallon tub size.
LIGHT: Take a good look at the place where your container garden will be located. Is it a patio where the sun shines most of the day? Or, is it a balcony receiving only a few hours of full sun? Vegetables can be grouped according to their light needs:
Shade Tolerant - lettuce, spinach, kale, arugula, Swiss chard, cabbage, Chinese greens, etc.
Partial Shade - 2-3 hours of sun per day - carrots, beets, radishes, turnips, onions etc.
Full Sun - 6 or more hours of sun per day - tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, eggplants, squash
(all fruiting crops).
Where space is limited, it is fun to grow a shade tolerant plant in the same pot with a sun-thirsty one. Choose a tall, sun-loving plant like tomatoes that can be staked in the center of the pot. Around the edge, plant a circle of leafy greens. Also, a vining, sun-lover such as cucumber could be grown under the tomato since the plant will drape over the side of the pot and away from the shade cast by the upright, staked tomato.
WATERING: All plants need water to live and grow and container plants have special needs in this regard. Potted plants have only the volume of the container from which to draw water. Moisture in the pot is used quickly by rapidly growing plants, especially in full sun and in the heat of summer. High temperature, wind and bright light accelerates the plants' use of water.
Water as often as necessary to keep the soil moist and the plants from wilting. A rule of thumb is to water whenever the soil is dry a finger-length down from the top. Containers may have to be watered every day or sometimes twice a day if the weather is very hot and the plant very large.
Water slowly and use enough to soak the pot - water should run out of the holes at the bottom of the pot. Stop watering and allow the pot to drain freely. Do not let the water collect in a tray under the pot as this will cause the soil in the pot to become waterlogged and poorly aerated. It is important that air circulates through the soil to provide oxygen for the roots.
Use a watering can or small spray nozzle on a hose to water your pots. Put the spout or nozzle over the top of the pot at the soil surface so as not to wet the foliage. This conserves water and puts the water into the root zone where it is needed.
FERTILIZING:
As with watering, potted plants have only a small reservoir of soil from which to draw essential nutrients. Also, watering washes (leaches) nutrients out of the soil. Rapidly growing plants have a constant need for nutrients. On the other hand, container grown vegetables are sensitive to excess ferilizer or salt build-up.
To provide the nutrients your plants need, follow these guidelines:
Fertilize regularly with soluble fertilizer such as a chemical product (the blue stuff that comes in little boxes!) or a natural product such as seaweed or fish emulsion. I recommend mixing the fertilizer at half the dose stated on the packet and using that mixture 4-5 times a week. Once each week water with clear water and make sure to use plenty of water to flush out excess nutrients that might create a salt build-up in the soil.
Spring Beekeeping Workshop
Demonstration Hive
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Sunday, June 6, 2010
What is the solution to the wholesale attack on our environment? I don't mean only this one oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I mean THE WHOLE ENVIRONMENT! All over the world are environmental catastrophes at least as gigantic as the Gulf oil spill.
I am complicit in the oil spill. We all are. If we drive a car, get on airplanes, eat supermarket food, and turn on electricity, we are complicit. We have created the demand that the oil and power companies fill. Our demand gives license for the corporations to press Congress to allow our economy to muddle along without necessary changes. Our elected representatives can't make the difficult decision to move us towards a different model.Why?
Because we are too complacent.
I can't describe the pain I feel when looking at the pictures of the damage from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. So I won't try. I've stopped looking at them. I can't stop the insult to wildlife and wetlands and people's lives. Looking at the pictures won't help me to feel more angry or help me to figure out a solution. I'm not there. I can't be there. And, there are people there, more qualified and skilled than I, who are trying to intervene and save ecosystems. If a general call goes out for volunteers, then I may go and lend my efforts. In the meantime, anguishing over photographs of oil coated mammals and birds and oil-slicked coastlines is making me ill and not helping anything.
Are we at a tipping point, at least, where enough people and governments will wake up and start to say, Enough? I think we are close, at any rate. I have to be optimistic that it is not too late to save our planet in a recognizable form. Probably too late for climate change deaths to keep happening. We already saw thousands die in France a few summers ago from unusually high summer temperatures, New Orleans almost wiped out from unusually severe Hurricane Katrina, severe droughts in several tropical countries, etc. These things are not coincidental.
I get discouraged when friends and relatives continue to live in a way that seems oblivious to the problems. Mired in personal struggles for economic security, or hanging on to privileged lives, people don't want to face up to the fact that the oil era is coming to an end. What will that mean? If I bring the subject up, I get blank stares or pat answers. Science and technology will find a solution, they say. I hope that happens but perhaps we cannot wait around for that to happen.
Similarly the subject of toxins in our water, food chain and households has not caused an outcry from the masses, for new standards. Most people must have read that we are literally living in a chemical soup - with industrial and agricultural chemicals, synthetic medicines, antibiotics and hormones all around us in what we eat, drink and breathe. But people carry on as usual.
I speak to relatives and find out too often that someone else has cancer or has died from cancer, at younger and younger ages. Alzheimers disease (possibly connected to our food and chemicals such as aluminum), childhood autism and asthma, food allergies, attention deficit disorder, etc. have increased so much as to be almost epidemic. Young girls reaching puberty at younger and younger ages because of reproductive hormones in our food supply. Young boys with enlarged breasts, for the same reason. You can see these things if you look around.
Many people I know don't want to talk about it or face up to it. Instead, lulled into a false sense of plenty by the shiny, artificially ripened and pumped up fruits and vegetables in supermarkets, we go on and pretend everything is alright.
It is not alright..
We have to make a change.
We need leadership and help to figure out how to live without the oil. How to make a living without oil. How to eat without oil.
It won't change until we each take the responsibility to look this 4-eyed monster in the face and change ourselves.
I know that the change we need starts with me. Right here inside me I must change my own dependency on oil and all the products that come from the oil-dependent industrial model we currently have. And I must find a way to pass this change on to other people in a way that helps them see what we all need to do. Not in an ego way. Not telling people. That doesn't work.
We all have to come to know for ourselves that we all can make change happen if we take the time to look inside ourselves and ask honestly, How am I responsible for what is happening? How can I take responsibility, me, myself, not someone else.
I know I am making the change. It is hard. It is very hard when people you love, scoff, make jokes, or roll their eyes and change the subject. But I can't take this personally. All movements in history were unpopular in their time before they took on an energy of their own. I think we are close to this energy taking off. We who are involved in trying to change from the inside-out must keep on quietly showing the way, teaching and demonstrating a new way and speaking out, asking for help from those who do have answers and asking for government to help us do this.
I am complicit in the oil spill. We all are. If we drive a car, get on airplanes, eat supermarket food, and turn on electricity, we are complicit. We have created the demand that the oil and power companies fill. Our demand gives license for the corporations to press Congress to allow our economy to muddle along without necessary changes. Our elected representatives can't make the difficult decision to move us towards a different model.Why?
Because we are too complacent.
I can't describe the pain I feel when looking at the pictures of the damage from the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. So I won't try. I've stopped looking at them. I can't stop the insult to wildlife and wetlands and people's lives. Looking at the pictures won't help me to feel more angry or help me to figure out a solution. I'm not there. I can't be there. And, there are people there, more qualified and skilled than I, who are trying to intervene and save ecosystems. If a general call goes out for volunteers, then I may go and lend my efforts. In the meantime, anguishing over photographs of oil coated mammals and birds and oil-slicked coastlines is making me ill and not helping anything.
Are we at a tipping point, at least, where enough people and governments will wake up and start to say, Enough? I think we are close, at any rate. I have to be optimistic that it is not too late to save our planet in a recognizable form. Probably too late for climate change deaths to keep happening. We already saw thousands die in France a few summers ago from unusually high summer temperatures, New Orleans almost wiped out from unusually severe Hurricane Katrina, severe droughts in several tropical countries, etc. These things are not coincidental.
I get discouraged when friends and relatives continue to live in a way that seems oblivious to the problems. Mired in personal struggles for economic security, or hanging on to privileged lives, people don't want to face up to the fact that the oil era is coming to an end. What will that mean? If I bring the subject up, I get blank stares or pat answers. Science and technology will find a solution, they say. I hope that happens but perhaps we cannot wait around for that to happen.
Similarly the subject of toxins in our water, food chain and households has not caused an outcry from the masses, for new standards. Most people must have read that we are literally living in a chemical soup - with industrial and agricultural chemicals, synthetic medicines, antibiotics and hormones all around us in what we eat, drink and breathe. But people carry on as usual.
I speak to relatives and find out too often that someone else has cancer or has died from cancer, at younger and younger ages. Alzheimers disease (possibly connected to our food and chemicals such as aluminum), childhood autism and asthma, food allergies, attention deficit disorder, etc. have increased so much as to be almost epidemic. Young girls reaching puberty at younger and younger ages because of reproductive hormones in our food supply. Young boys with enlarged breasts, for the same reason. You can see these things if you look around.
Many people I know don't want to talk about it or face up to it. Instead, lulled into a false sense of plenty by the shiny, artificially ripened and pumped up fruits and vegetables in supermarkets, we go on and pretend everything is alright.
It is not alright..
We have to make a change.
We need leadership and help to figure out how to live without the oil. How to make a living without oil. How to eat without oil.
It won't change until we each take the responsibility to look this 4-eyed monster in the face and change ourselves.
I know that the change we need starts with me. Right here inside me I must change my own dependency on oil and all the products that come from the oil-dependent industrial model we currently have. And I must find a way to pass this change on to other people in a way that helps them see what we all need to do. Not in an ego way. Not telling people. That doesn't work.
We all have to come to know for ourselves that we all can make change happen if we take the time to look inside ourselves and ask honestly, How am I responsible for what is happening? How can I take responsibility, me, myself, not someone else.
I know I am making the change. It is hard. It is very hard when people you love, scoff, make jokes, or roll their eyes and change the subject. But I can't take this personally. All movements in history were unpopular in their time before they took on an energy of their own. I think we are close to this energy taking off. We who are involved in trying to change from the inside-out must keep on quietly showing the way, teaching and demonstrating a new way and speaking out, asking for help from those who do have answers and asking for government to help us do this.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
"Saving Species an Economic Priority" from The Guardian
In the weekly British newspaper, "The Guardian" of 28 May 2010, there is a story about a major UN report scheduled to be released soon by that august body.
The report is a "biodiversity report" and The Guardian states that the value of saving natural goods and services - things like pollination, medicines, fertile soils, clean air and water, will be so worthwhile as to exceed the actual cost of saving the habitats and species which provide these "services" by a factor of between 10 and 100 times.
The report's author, Pavan Sukhdev, states "We need a sea-change in human thinking and attitudes towards nature: not as something to be vanquished, conquered, but rather something to be cherished and lived within". This would be a completely new idea for humans, wouldn't it? Since the industrial revolution which started in Britain, the world has increasingly and continuously treated nature as something to use up, destroy and from which to move on, in a never-ending search for greener undepleted resources.
The report will be recommending "massive" changes in the global economy to factor in the natural world.
Let's face it, environmental collapse has started all over the world. We need radical, local and immediate changes in the way we live, work and play. Changes are needed in what we value in our lives, in what we buy and what we eat.
On the same page in The Guardian is an impressive photograph by Fred Dufour showing the "Greening of Paris". In Paris last week, the entire Champs Elysees, "one of the busiest, traffic-friendly avenues in Paris, became a grass-covered landscape" thanks to farmers who brought in 8,000 plots of earth (literally!) and 150,000 plants with sheep and cattle. This was done along a one kilometer stretch of the famous avenue in an effort to make "French consumers reflect on what they have on their plates and how it got there. Among the agricultural products trucked in were "wheat, mustard, grapevines, Limousin pigs, and an array of flowers and 650 fully grown trees".
How about it American farmers - greening Times Square or Washington Mall? Go for it!
Did we hear about the UN report or the French farmers' demonstration from the New York Times or any other national US media? If so, I missed it. Wake up America!
What I'm seeing every day in our media is oil industry executives making every excuse under the sun for why they haven't been able to stop a gigantic oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and lying about their company's responsibility for it. Also, politicians doing the typical double-speak about why this doesn't mean we have to stop all further off-shore drilling. What is the matter with us for allowing this to continue?
I wonder if BP's pledge to cover "all legitimate claims" will extend to compensation for trauma to the population who are watching the destruction of their beautiful coastal wetlands and all the nature along the coast. What about the loss of livelihood and way of life for untold numbers of people?
Thanks for reading and I welcome feedback.
The report is a "biodiversity report" and The Guardian states that the value of saving natural goods and services - things like pollination, medicines, fertile soils, clean air and water, will be so worthwhile as to exceed the actual cost of saving the habitats and species which provide these "services" by a factor of between 10 and 100 times.
The report's author, Pavan Sukhdev, states "We need a sea-change in human thinking and attitudes towards nature: not as something to be vanquished, conquered, but rather something to be cherished and lived within". This would be a completely new idea for humans, wouldn't it? Since the industrial revolution which started in Britain, the world has increasingly and continuously treated nature as something to use up, destroy and from which to move on, in a never-ending search for greener undepleted resources.
The report will be recommending "massive" changes in the global economy to factor in the natural world.
Let's face it, environmental collapse has started all over the world. We need radical, local and immediate changes in the way we live, work and play. Changes are needed in what we value in our lives, in what we buy and what we eat.
On the same page in The Guardian is an impressive photograph by Fred Dufour showing the "Greening of Paris". In Paris last week, the entire Champs Elysees, "one of the busiest, traffic-friendly avenues in Paris, became a grass-covered landscape" thanks to farmers who brought in 8,000 plots of earth (literally!) and 150,000 plants with sheep and cattle. This was done along a one kilometer stretch of the famous avenue in an effort to make "French consumers reflect on what they have on their plates and how it got there. Among the agricultural products trucked in were "wheat, mustard, grapevines, Limousin pigs, and an array of flowers and 650 fully grown trees".
How about it American farmers - greening Times Square or Washington Mall? Go for it!
Did we hear about the UN report or the French farmers' demonstration from the New York Times or any other national US media? If so, I missed it. Wake up America!
What I'm seeing every day in our media is oil industry executives making every excuse under the sun for why they haven't been able to stop a gigantic oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and lying about their company's responsibility for it. Also, politicians doing the typical double-speak about why this doesn't mean we have to stop all further off-shore drilling. What is the matter with us for allowing this to continue?
I wonder if BP's pledge to cover "all legitimate claims" will extend to compensation for trauma to the population who are watching the destruction of their beautiful coastal wetlands and all the nature along the coast. What about the loss of livelihood and way of life for untold numbers of people?
Thanks for reading and I welcome feedback.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
No, I haven't fallen off the face of the earth! I know it seems as if I have, but I'm back in gear and totally alive and well with lots of good things to share.
The past few months have flown since our Permaculture Design Certification course ended and yours truly earned that certification and shifted into high gear to put my new credentials into action. More about that later.
Then, garden season hit really early this year and that's where I've been, when not working. My apologies to any of you who are, in fact, reading my musings! Between an expanded garden, assessing wetlands (my day job!), teaching and the other commitments of life - well, I didn't think about my blog! Shame!
Here's a little preview of what my garden is expected to do this year - strawberry season is off to a magnificent start. I picked about 3 pints today. Some will go in the freezer and some right in our tummies. Yum!
Salad greens have been in full swing for months but with temperatures hitting nearly 90 degrees F today, I'm not sure how lettuce and spinach will hold up. I'll let you know. Also, I see a little problem developing with root maggots in my radishes. That does not bode well for all the root crops I have planted - beets, carrots, turnips, and tons of onions of all different varieties. I'm removing all affected plants and destroying them and their little beastie guests.
The past few months have flown since our Permaculture Design Certification course ended and yours truly earned that certification and shifted into high gear to put my new credentials into action. More about that later.
Then, garden season hit really early this year and that's where I've been, when not working. My apologies to any of you who are, in fact, reading my musings! Between an expanded garden, assessing wetlands (my day job!), teaching and the other commitments of life - well, I didn't think about my blog! Shame!
Here's a little preview of what my garden is expected to do this year - strawberry season is off to a magnificent start. I picked about 3 pints today. Some will go in the freezer and some right in our tummies. Yum!
Salad greens have been in full swing for months but with temperatures hitting nearly 90 degrees F today, I'm not sure how lettuce and spinach will hold up. I'll let you know. Also, I see a little problem developing with root maggots in my radishes. That does not bode well for all the root crops I have planted - beets, carrots, turnips, and tons of onions of all different varieties. I'm removing all affected plants and destroying them and their little beastie guests.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Courses Offered
I will be teaching the following courses at Gateway Community College, North Haven, CT:
Soils and Land Care:
Practical Applications for Sustainable Development
What is soil and what is it composed of? Understand the soil food web ecosystem and its ability to sustain life on earth. This intensive session shows how soils influence non-toxic edible food and human nutrition. Learn about soil minerals, organic matter and chemical characteristics.
Learn how soil is classified using soil survey information and topographic maps to assess soil on a particular piece of land. Understand what soil composition and analysis mean on a practical level in relation to landscaping, gardening, and building construction. Learn what steps we can take to improve soil in home gardens to enhance nutrition plus measures we can take in our communities to reduce environmental pollution. Understand how “vermi-composting” – indoor small-scale worm composting – can be used to improve soil.
CRN: 2732 1 Session: 5/22
Day: Saturday
Time: 9:30 am – 12:30 pm
Location: North Haven – TBD
Course Fee: $35
Instructor: Rabinowitz
Contact for More Information:Cynthia
Landscaping to Protect the Environment
Protect the environment when landscaping by employing time-honored practices. Learn to consider the communal environment, as well as your personal needs and wants, when landscaping your home grounds.Learn about aquifer protection, water quality protection, biodiversity and waste management by designing rain gardens, dense, multi-purpose plantings, reducing lawns, creating peaceful outdoor seating areas and front entry gardens. Increase habitat for birds and butterflies. Plan gardens to grow beautiful ornamental and edible plants for your own consumption.
This class will cover site assessment and site design and the use of maps and simple diagrams to develop landscape plans. Learn about absorbing the essence of a place by developing your intuition and observational skills. This three-hour class includes lecture and practicum. Participants are encouraged to bring a map or drawing of their home property.
CRN: 2734 1 Session: 6/5
Day: Saturday
Time: 9:30 am – 12:30 pm
Location: North Haven – TBD
Course Fee: $35
Instructor: Rabinowitz
Contact for More Information:Cynthia Rabinowitz: cynthia@hgconnsoil.com, www.connsoil.com,
Soils and Land Care:
Practical Applications for Sustainable Development
What is soil and what is it composed of? Understand the soil food web ecosystem and its ability to sustain life on earth. This intensive session shows how soils influence non-toxic edible food and human nutrition. Learn about soil minerals, organic matter and chemical characteristics.
Learn how soil is classified using soil survey information and topographic maps to assess soil on a particular piece of land. Understand what soil composition and analysis mean on a practical level in relation to landscaping, gardening, and building construction. Learn what steps we can take to improve soil in home gardens to enhance nutrition plus measures we can take in our communities to reduce environmental pollution. Understand how “vermi-composting” – indoor small-scale worm composting – can be used to improve soil.
CRN: 2732 1 Session: 5/22
Day: Saturday
Time: 9:30 am – 12:30 pm
Location: North Haven – TBD
Course Fee: $35
Instructor: Rabinowitz
Contact for More Information:Cynthia
Landscaping to Protect the Environment
Protect the environment when landscaping by employing time-honored practices. Learn to consider the communal environment, as well as your personal needs and wants, when landscaping your home grounds.Learn about aquifer protection, water quality protection, biodiversity and waste management by designing rain gardens, dense, multi-purpose plantings, reducing lawns, creating peaceful outdoor seating areas and front entry gardens. Increase habitat for birds and butterflies. Plan gardens to grow beautiful ornamental and edible plants for your own consumption.
This class will cover site assessment and site design and the use of maps and simple diagrams to develop landscape plans. Learn about absorbing the essence of a place by developing your intuition and observational skills. This three-hour class includes lecture and practicum. Participants are encouraged to bring a map or drawing of their home property.
CRN: 2734 1 Session: 6/5
Day: Saturday
Time: 9:30 am – 12:30 pm
Location: North Haven – TBD
Course Fee: $35
Instructor: Rabinowitz
Contact for More Information:Cynthia Rabinowitz: cynthia@hgconnsoil.com, www.connsoil.com,
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Educational Programs Coming Up
I will be speaking at the Pomperaug River Watershed Coalition public educational event on Saturday, March 20, 2010. My talk is entitled "Landscape Design to Protect the Environment". Please check PRWC's website for location details. The program is free to the public.
Stuart and I will be speaking on May 1, 2010 at the EcoCreative Collaborative event at the Litchfield Community Center, Litchfield, CT. We will be talking about what we learnt in the Permaculture Design Certification Program we are just completing. We also will have a table display during the entire event. I will give more details here as I get them.
Also, I will be teaching a soils course at Gateway Community College on May 22, 2010. It is a half day class and the charge is $35. As I get more information about registration, I will post it here.
Thank you to all the people following my postings. I love to get the feedback! Thank you!
Stuart and I will be speaking on May 1, 2010 at the EcoCreative Collaborative event at the Litchfield Community Center, Litchfield, CT. We will be talking about what we learnt in the Permaculture Design Certification Program we are just completing. We also will have a table display during the entire event. I will give more details here as I get them.
Also, I will be teaching a soils course at Gateway Community College on May 22, 2010. It is a half day class and the charge is $35. As I get more information about registration, I will post it here.
Thank you to all the people following my postings. I love to get the feedback! Thank you!
Peak Oil and Climate Change
When I think about PEAK OIL and CLIMATE CHANGE, there are obvious concerns that are worrying, but there are also opportunities too.
A lot of people are concerned about the ramifications of oil running out. Even economists working for oil companies recognize that this is going to happen, or is already happening.
To quote Asia Newspaper, 4 May 2005, "Fifty years ago, the world was consuming 4 billion barrels of oil per year and the average discovery was around 30 billion. Today we consume 30 billion barrels per year and the discovery rate is approaching 4 billion barrels of crude per year."
Fox News, of 28 April 2006 stated "Energy experts no longer debate about whether Hubbert's peak will occur, but when." M. King Hubbert, geologist, predicted in 1956 that the US would peak in production in 1970, was ridiculed but then proved correct. (The Transition Handbook, Hopkins, P22.)
In the Sunday Times of 9 September 2007, Zac Goldsmith says "Peak oil informs everything. People ought to know about that, but they don't. When it's going to peak or if it's happened already I don't know, but if oil ran out tomorrow we would be stuffed. We depend on it for everything."
If you haven't read about this issue for yourself, by now you are probably thinking I've lost my marbles or that I'm one of those people who believe in doomsday - that the end of the world is coming and all that kind of stuff. But that would be wrong. I am an optimistic person and I believe we have a chance to sort ourselves out before it is too late.
Nevertheless, I do have worries. How will my family travel to see each other when getting to other countries or parts of this country will become like getting to the moon?
How will people feed, clothe, and house themselves when we are dependent on oil to bring EVERYTHING to our locales? If you don't believe this, check the products around your house to see where they are made. How many are made in your town? Your state? Even your country? Think about the products you depend on every day and how they are made. Most need oil as part of their material and all need it for transportation. How about the medication you rely on? How about the latex gloves you protect your hands with? Your household cleaners? Cosmetics? Clothing fabric? Insulation? Fertilizer? Pesticide? Food? Grocery bags? CD's, DVD's? No point in going on, you get the picture.
At our house, we have taken steps over the past 30 years to become more self-sufficient and could, with adaptations live here with little or no electricity or petroleum. We know how to do it even though it will feel like deprivation after our easy life of oil dependency.
But what about the community or world at large? People are not preparing. I worry about war and chaos resulting from the coming lack of oil. Our government is arguing over distractions that keep them busy from addressing the real problems we are facing. They are certainly not telling the public what even the big oil companies know and have acknowledged in industry-wide publications or forums.
My POSITIVE vision for the future is everyone pulling together. We do not need to wait for the government to tell us what to do. We need to draw together as bioregional communities to grow and distribute food, building materials, clothing fiber, fuel, and, of course, water.
I believe we CAN do this if enough people start waking up and working together to plan for the transition into cooperative communities instead of the consumptive "every household for itself" mode of living we are seeing now.
I highly recommend the book "The Transition Handbook:From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience" by Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition Movement, published by Chelsea Green.
It is normal to dismiss this kind of thing as alarmist nonsense and continue on in denial. That would be a mistake.
A lot of people are concerned about the ramifications of oil running out. Even economists working for oil companies recognize that this is going to happen, or is already happening.
To quote Asia Newspaper, 4 May 2005, "Fifty years ago, the world was consuming 4 billion barrels of oil per year and the average discovery was around 30 billion. Today we consume 30 billion barrels per year and the discovery rate is approaching 4 billion barrels of crude per year."
Fox News, of 28 April 2006 stated "Energy experts no longer debate about whether Hubbert's peak will occur, but when." M. King Hubbert, geologist, predicted in 1956 that the US would peak in production in 1970, was ridiculed but then proved correct. (The Transition Handbook, Hopkins, P22.)
In the Sunday Times of 9 September 2007, Zac Goldsmith says "Peak oil informs everything. People ought to know about that, but they don't. When it's going to peak or if it's happened already I don't know, but if oil ran out tomorrow we would be stuffed. We depend on it for everything."
If you haven't read about this issue for yourself, by now you are probably thinking I've lost my marbles or that I'm one of those people who believe in doomsday - that the end of the world is coming and all that kind of stuff. But that would be wrong. I am an optimistic person and I believe we have a chance to sort ourselves out before it is too late.
Nevertheless, I do have worries. How will my family travel to see each other when getting to other countries or parts of this country will become like getting to the moon?
How will people feed, clothe, and house themselves when we are dependent on oil to bring EVERYTHING to our locales? If you don't believe this, check the products around your house to see where they are made. How many are made in your town? Your state? Even your country? Think about the products you depend on every day and how they are made. Most need oil as part of their material and all need it for transportation. How about the medication you rely on? How about the latex gloves you protect your hands with? Your household cleaners? Cosmetics? Clothing fabric? Insulation? Fertilizer? Pesticide? Food? Grocery bags? CD's, DVD's? No point in going on, you get the picture.
At our house, we have taken steps over the past 30 years to become more self-sufficient and could, with adaptations live here with little or no electricity or petroleum. We know how to do it even though it will feel like deprivation after our easy life of oil dependency.
But what about the community or world at large? People are not preparing. I worry about war and chaos resulting from the coming lack of oil. Our government is arguing over distractions that keep them busy from addressing the real problems we are facing. They are certainly not telling the public what even the big oil companies know and have acknowledged in industry-wide publications or forums.
My POSITIVE vision for the future is everyone pulling together. We do not need to wait for the government to tell us what to do. We need to draw together as bioregional communities to grow and distribute food, building materials, clothing fiber, fuel, and, of course, water.
I believe we CAN do this if enough people start waking up and working together to plan for the transition into cooperative communities instead of the consumptive "every household for itself" mode of living we are seeing now.
I highly recommend the book "The Transition Handbook:From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience" by Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition Movement, published by Chelsea Green.
It is normal to dismiss this kind of thing as alarmist nonsense and continue on in denial. That would be a mistake.
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