In the summer of 1969, I was 18 years old with a job driving an ice cream truck in a small New England town. One July afternoon the weather was hot and humid – ideal for ice cream – but business was dismal, the streets almost deserted. Eventually someone ran out and flagged me down, but he wasn’t interested in ice cream: “Come in the house!” he yelled, “it’s happening now!” I knew immediately what he meant: the first lunar landing was under way, and Neal Armstrong was about to step onto the … [Read more...]
Local Food and the Art of Tractor Maintenance
The way we describe local food systems can make it seem as though just two parties are involved: we talk about “linking farmers and consumers”, or “shortening the distance between production and consumption”. But a healthy local food system is not just a reciprocal relationship between food producers and consumers. It is more akin to an ecosystem, with complex webs of interdependence among participants filling dozens of niches. And as with an ecosystem, the whole requires the health of all the … [Read more...]
7 billion for dinner? Here’s how to feed them
At this time of year – the Thanksgiving season – more Americans are celebrating conspicuous food consumption than giving thanks for a successful harvest. But in either case it’s a good time to consider how to feed not only America’s population in the years to come, but the rest of the world’s 7 billion inhabitants. Most people – even many of those who support small farms and eat organic food – believe that there’s no way to feed the global population without the use of chemical fertilizers … [Read more...]
Bringing the Food Economy Home
By Helena Norberg-Hodge and Steven Gorelick Today's mounting social and ecological crises demand responses that are broad, deep, and strategic. Given the widespread destruction wrought by globalisation, it seems clear that the most powerful solutions will involve a fundamental change in direction - towards localizing rather than globalising economic activity. In fact, 'going local' may be the single most effective thing we can do. Many people will find this claim exaggerated and … [Read more...]
Tipping the Scale
By Steven Gorelick Looking back on the latter half of the 20th century, a dominant theme that emerges is the way large scale has steadily supplanted small scale. This scaling-up is closely linked to globalization — shorthand for the relentless expansion of the western industrial model — and has expressed itself in several interrelated ways: * Urban areas have grown exponentially, while rural life has become increasingly marginalized. By the late 1990s, there were 20 more cities with … [Read more...]
Personal Virtue and Public Responsibility
By Steven Gorelick 2006 By now there is little doubt that the effects of global warming will be calamitous within a generation or two, if not sooner. There is no way to predict precisely what the impact will be in any given place, though it is clear that human habitation will be exceedingly difficult in many areas, no longer possible in others. As a consequence, hundreds of millions of people will be displaced, creating tremendous waves of environmental refugees with nowhere to go. The … [Read more...]
Is Local Organic Food Elitist?
By Steven Gorelick 2005 ISEC helped launch the movement for local food because it is such an effective solution-multiplier: local food helps family farmers and other small businesses survive, thereby revitalizing rural economies; it minimizes the need for a wide range of inputs, from pesticides and chemical fertilizers to preservatives and packaging; it increases agricultural biodiversity, adding to long-term food security; and by reducing unnecessary food transport, it lessens our fossil … [Read more...]
Peak Oil and Localization
2005 Whether we're seeking stronger communities, a cleaner environment, better prospects for the Third World, reductions in greenhouse gas emissions or limits on corporate power, there is a clear way forward: economic localization. Lately a lot of other voices have joined ISEC in this refrain, as the implications of 'peak oil' become more widely known. … [Read more...]
The Farm Crisis
The Farm Crisis (60.63 kB) Glamorous excess is a staple of the mainstream media, even in its economic reporting. Stories about soaring corporate profits, exorbitant CEO salaries, improbably high stock prices, and the billions made by obscure dot-com start-ups so dominate the news that one could easily believe the globalised economy is making everyone (else) rich. But high-flying winners are the exception in today's economic casino, and no-one is losing out more … [Read more...]