The theme for this year’s African Green Revolution Forum (AGRF) to be held in Nairobi from September 6-10 is ‘Pathways to Recovery and Resilient Food Systems’. Yet 15 years after its convener, the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa […]
Bill Gates has radical plans to change our food. What’s on the menu?
If Bill Gates has his way, the food in our future will little resemble what’s on our plates today. Gates and his agribusiness industry partners are proposing to transform our food and how it is produced. To the techno-food industrialists, […]
Help needed: 41 servants and counting
A few years ago, when I began questioning what it really takes to write and publish in our digital era, I wondered about electricity’s true costs. I learned that on average, in order to light, heat and cool our homes; […]
Is resistance futile? The myth of tech inevitability
“There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.” — Marshall McLuhan, The Medium is the Massage The relationship between technology and narrative is long-standing. Indeed, some have argued that it is […]
What did we lose when we lost the stars?
Reading Dante’s Divine Comedy poses any number of challenges to modern readers. This should not, I’ll quickly add, deter modern readers from the attempt, which, in my view anyway, will more than repay the effort. In any case, one of these challenges […]
What to Do When the World is on Fire
This blog is also available in Greek, Russian and Spanish. In December of 2019, my best friend Kit took me and my partner to the place where she grew up, in the remote Thora Valley, in the pristine forested foothills […]
Ten reasons to be concerned about 5G
Once cast, 5G’s inescapable net will have consequences on everything from the night sky down to the cells of our bodies. With two legal cases against 5G roll-out getting underway in the UK,[1] here are just ten of many reasons […]
Convenience, Community, and Late-Stage Capitalism
Yesterday I went to the post office to mail a package to my daughter overseas. She’s been in the military for years, so I’m familiar with the process. Hauling the big box on my hip, I greeted the post mistress […]
Our Robot Overlords
A consequence of the current pandemic is an increase in computer use. Almost everyone’s feeling it: students are doing classes by Zoom, employees are online for team meetings, musicians are performing to their phones, consumers are ordering food, clothes, and […]
The Folly of Farm-Free Food
This blog is also available in Russian and Spanish. “Beware of simple solutions to complex problems. That is a crucial lesson from history; a lesson that intelligent people in every age keep failing to learn.”[1] Having wisely counseled thus just […]