"We need the rain." So I was looking for information on water conservation and usage systems, and I found some useful resources. Here's a forum. [more inside]
posted by aniola on Jan 5, 2013 - 3 comments

Now the future is a kind of attenuating peninsula; as we move out on it, one side drops off to catastrophe; the other side, nowhere near as steep, moves down into various kinds of utopian futures. In other words, we have come to a moment of utopia or catastrophe; there is no middle ground, mediocrity will no longer succeed. So utopia is no longer a nice idea, but a survival necessity. "Remarks on Utopia in the Age of Climate Change," from Kim Stanley Robinson. Previously.
posted by gerryblog on Dec 22, 2011 - 15 comments

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack has ordered his staff to revise a computerized forecasting model that showed that climate legislation supported by President Obama would make planting trees more lucrative than producing food. Planting trees puts the land in a lower tax rate in many states. And as the fossil fuels that drive the economy becomes harder to get to market unless the Matt Simmons Ammonia Fuel idea becomes widespread a common fertilizer may just not be an option. [more inside]
posted by rough ashlar on Jan 2, 2010 - 28 comments

A Farm For The Future. Wildlife filmmaker Rebecca Hosking, previously in the public eye campaigning for the banning of plastic bags in the UK, is moving back to the family farm to take over from her father. This "deeply hopeful but realistic film" describes her investigation of the steps she could take to change it from a traditional beef pasture farm to a truly sustainable permaculture environment. [more inside]
posted by Happy Dave on Mar 28, 2009 - 23 comments

The Transition Handbook should be helpful to you if you are a proponent of planned energy descent and independence from fossil fuels and would like to start a Transition Town of your own. [more inside]
posted by sciurus on Feb 21, 2009 - 9 comments

I first encountered the concept of forest gardening in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's Herland (1915) [relevant part pages 79-80]; the fictional race of women in her book have completely remade the forests to contain only beneficial and food-bearing plants, which live harmoniously together and replenish the soil naturally. This is actually being done, less than a hundred years later. More; similar, similar.
posted by fiercecupcake on Jul 7, 2008 - 25 comments