Yes! This is resistence! This is how we fight the global tyrants, the moneyed elite, the banking cartel! Barter! Trade organic produce, stop using fiat currency!
Credit crunch pinched residents of one Norfolk village have been taking advantage of an inventive means to save the pennies without cutting back on nights out. Thanks to the resourcefulness of their local pub, ‘The Pigs’, they can now barter fresh produce in return for pints of beer.
The pub, in Edgefield near Holt, is one of the few to see business boom since the start of the credit crunch as it encourages locals to trade their home grown produce in return for alcohol.
The sign outside the pub reads: ‘If you grow, breed, shoot or steal anything that may look at home on our menu, then bring it in and let’s do a deal.’ True to their word they’ll negotiate on anything, agreeing a barter price based on the size, quantity and quality of the produce presented.
Green fingered residents have been trading fruit and vegetables for pub meals and drinks, while others have swapped freshly laid eggs and fish or meat they’ve caught themselves for a pint.
Pub manager and brain child of the popular scheme, Cloe Wasey, enthused “We find the home-grown stuff is often much better than what we can get from the suppliers. When we get the good stuff, and it gets on to the specials board, it’s brilliant.”
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I am no techno-utopian. These people who think technology will solve all our problems are fucking nuts and drive me crazy with their idealistic salivating over gadget-solutions to what are structural political-economic-mental issues. Nonetheless, there is a lot to be learned from intelligent thinking and non-traditional approaches to serious issues. This guy has some good ideas. Some great ideas. And that is why none of them will be implemented. The powers that be have no interest in de-centralized solutions to global problems, only solutions that consolidate control. Buckminster Fuller had hundreds of ideas that could have revolutionized the world and almost none of them were implemented because they were too good, and most dangerously, they were too liberating. We can though, take the ideas of idealistic engineers who are busy creating technical solutions to what are principally political problems, and implement their ideas ourselves. Local solutions, community planning, self sufficiency. No gains are ever made because of the benevolence of the powerful, all gains are earned, demanded, and taken by the people. The police state is looming but thoughtful revolutionaries can judo flip the Enemy’s goose step.
Biofuels have forced global food prices up by 75% - far more than previously estimated - according to a confidential World Bank report obtained by the Guardian.
The damning unpublished assessment is based on the most detailed analysis of the crisis so far, carried out by an internationally-respected economist at global financial body.
The figure emphatically contradicts the US government’s claims that plant-derived fuels contribute less than 3% to food-price rises. It will add to pressure on governments in Washington and across Europe, which have turned to plant-derived fuels to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce their dependence on imported oil.
via: New York Times by Jack HedinIF you’ve stood in line at a farmers’ market recently, you know that the local food movement is thriving, to the point that small farmers are having a tough time keeping up with the demand.But consumers who would like to be able to buy local fruits and vegetables not just at farmers’ markets, but also in the produce aisle of their supermarket, will be dismayed to learn that the federal government works deliberately and forcefully to prevent the local food movement from expanding. And the barriers that the United States Department of Agriculture has put in place will be extended when the farm bill that House and Senate negotiators are working on now goes into effect.
As a small organic vegetable producer in southern Minnesota, I know this because my efforts to expand production to meet regional demand have been severely hampered by the Agriculture Department’s commodity farm program. As I’ve looked into the politics behind those restrictions, I’ve come to understand that this is precisely the outcome that the program’s backers in California and Florida have in mind: they want to snuff out the local competition before it even gets started.
The waste free world is possible if we demand it. This is the kind of product that gets buried, or relegated to being some kind of “third world technology” or blocked by government regulation. If it’s recognized as a legitimate solution and used on a large scale, however, we move another step closer to community autonomy. Cooking with shit gas ain’t glamorous, but it’s damn practical.
via: Fortune
Sintex Industries, a plastics and textiles manufacturer in Gujarat, India, is betting it can find profit in human waste. Its new biogas digester turns human excrement, cow dung, or kitchen garbage into fuel that can be used for cooking or generating electricity, simultaneously addressing two of India’s major needs: energy and sanitation.
Sintex’s digester uses bacteria to break down waste into sludge, much like a septic tank. In the process, the bacteria emit gases, mostly methane. But instead of being vented into the air, they are piped into a storage canister.
A one-cubic-meter digester, primed with cow dung to provide bacteria, can convert the waste generated by a four-person family into enough gas to cook all its meals and provide sludge for fertilizer. A model this size costs about $425 but will pay for itself in energy savings in less than two years. That’s still a high price for most Indians, even though the government recently agreed to subsidize about a third of the cost for these family-sized units. “We want to create a new industry for portable sanitation in India that’s not available now,” says S.B. Dangayach, Sintex’s managing director.
There are practically endless reasons to opt out of the consumeristic rat race capitalist death trap. Environmental, psychological, sociological, and economic reasons abound. Kevin at Cryptogon has a brief essay outlining the politically strategic reasons. Simplicity as resistance. The war machine runs on our toil. Rather than throw our bodies on the gears, lets just walk away.
In America (and wealthier parts of the “West” in general), people don’t have to blow up a natural gas pipeline and shut down a factory or cut enough fiber to crash the NYSE and the NASDAQ market systems for a few minutes, hours or days. Voluntary simplicity, or, living well on very little money, kicks evil people in the nuts and gouges out their eyes. (Pacifists may think of this as sending the enemy Joy and Happiness if they desire.) Doing this in the U.S. has a force multiplier effect because the U.S. is the largest source of the funds that keep the global ponzi scheme running. When people in wealthy countries opt out, the action causes major economic damage to the machine.
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It’s a matter of hacking The Matrix in an efficient and innovative manner to reduce your monthly expenses to a fraction of previous levels. The extraction/domination system in the U.S. has few effective defenses against people who opt out—to the extent possible—by making smart use of available resources. The system assumes that you’ll stay hooked forever on a lifestyle built around profligate waste and going deep into debt to buy crap that you don’t really want, or need. Indeed, most people are content to go through life this way.
Living simply on very little money kills the system slowly.
div class=”entry-body”>Games help us understand life. Swaddled in the limited-risk environment of the game, we can use meaningful choices to pursue challenging goals. We can explore and transgress in order to better understand our world. We leap and capture in order to more deeply engage with humanity. Games teach us confidence, help us steady our aims. Games are safety nets and training wheels. My avatar can kill zombie armies and kung-fu grip helicopter landing gear while flying through Manhattan. In my physical body, I limit my bodily risk to appropriate situations. Games help us reach flow states, and in flow there is no fear. With our fear controlled, games can also help us critically examine difficult issues. Continue Reading »
div class=”entry-body”>This month, I have spent much time thinking about design and responsibility. I’m thinking about how we make things, why we make things, and why we make things how we make things. I’m thinking about how we distribute and consume the world’s resources. Continue Reading »
It is simply incredible that the world has been duped into relying almost solely on petroleum to solve its energy needs. Monopolisitc systems fail in nature. Pluralism rules the day. The world is teeming with free enrgy and even human waste has the potential to power our civilization. Why do we invest all the energy into growing and processing food jsut to throw it away unused? Instead of the wealthy Upper East Siders fighting to keep waste transfer stations away from their homes; communities would eagerly install waste-powered energy plants to save money.
Anyone who’s seen Back to the Future remembers when Doc Brown came back at the end with his garbage-powered Delorean. As absurd as it might have seemed then, researchers at the University of California Davis are taking a cue from Christoper Lloyd with a device that turns food scraps into clean, usable energy.
Students and faculty involved in the Biogas Energy Project have developed an anaerobic digester that uses bacteria to break down organic matter. During decomposition the matter releases hydrodgen and methane, which can then be used to produce energy.
The team currently receives 8 tons of leftover food scraps weekly from San Francisco area restaurants to produce enough energy to power 10 large homes during that time. Led by Professor Ruihong Zhang, the Biogas team has partnered with a company called Onsite Power Systems, and will operate on a larger scale in coming months as they bring the technology to farms, dairies, and other companies that produce organic waste.
Between a biodiesel (or electric) powered City Harvest-type operation and the waste power plant, urban food waste could become an absurd memory.
Zero-waste systems are cost-effective. Small business owners need to understand this so they can jump on the trend early, and undercut bloated corporations still using toxic manufacturing processes.
The World’s Larges Laundromat contains 153 washers, 147 dryers, and 36 water-heating roof panels. Tom Benson, owner, says he did it for purely financial reasons, but his customers thank him daily for helping the environment.
That’s right capitalists; nobody’s asking you to grow your hair long, eat granola, and swear off profit. But we are telling you that if you want our money you’re going to play by our rules. A solar powered laundry combined with safe detergents and day care would be a great benefit to any community.
The waste free world is possible if we demand it. This is the kind of product that gets buried, or relegated to being some kind of “third world technology” or blocked by government regulation. If it’s recognized as a legitimate solution and used on a large scale, however, we move another step closer to community autonomy. Cooking with shit gas ain’t glamorous, but it’s damn practical.
via: 
