Saturday, October 20, 2012

The podcast and video list that kept me sane in my office job for the last two years

Podcasts and videos:
http://fic.ic.org/video/ - Visions of Utopia
http://www.ic.org/resources/ - Intentional Communities resources
http://unfccc2.meta-fusion.com/kongresse/dpi64/templ/play.php? id_kongresssession=3859 - Vandana Shiva webinar
http://www.treehugger.com/sustainable-product-design/what-slow- design-and-where-did-it-come.html - "slow design"
http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmpr/?Page=article.php&id=2827 - debate between mckibben and russ roberts
http://www.econsoc.hist.cam.ac.uk/podcasts-saito.html - Japanese Peasant household economics lectures
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=CWt36I8JgVQ - Sustainable mining

Other Resources:
http://www.stockholmresilience.org/ - Stockholm Resilience Center

Advsa "Favorites" Bar:
lynda.com
SALT - seminars about long term thinking
Thingiverse
CBCpodcasts - http://www.cbc.ca/podcasting/
saveourskills.com
Nature's Harmony Farm
Survival Podcast
Self-sufficient gardener
The Independent Entrepreneur - http://www.indybizshow.com/
Stanford University Entrepreneurship Corner podcasts - http://ecorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html
Agroinnovations
Vegetable Gardening (with mike)
Permaculture Magazine
Mother Earth News
Permaculture Media Blog
Permaculture Planet
Prepper Podcast Facebook
E.F. Schumaker Society lectures
Kauffman Foundation - Infectious talk
Growing Local Economies - Resources - http://growinglocaleconomies.com/resources
Podcasts - LSE
Future Primitive Podcasts interviews with authors, visionaries, and innovators - http://www.futureprimitive.org/
Columbia Podcasts Archives - http://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/podcasting/podcasts/
Edible Radio - http://www.ediblecommunities.com/radio/
Sustainable World Radio - http://www.sustainableworldradio.com/
DIY Scholar - International Relations
DIY Scholar - http://diyscholar.wordpress.com/
Equal Time Radio - http://www.equaltimeradio.com/
Miller Center of Public Affairs rss - http://feeds.feedburner.com/millercenter
TED
The History Network podcasts - http://thehistorynetwork.org/
UC Berkeley webcasts - http://webcast.berkeley.edu/
Radio Open Source - http://www.radioopensource.org/
Small Farmer's Journal - http://smallfarmersjournal.com/
The Urban Farming Guys - http://theurbanfarmingguys.com/ Inspiration Farm classes - http://www.inspirationfarm.com/newif/Classes.html
Organic Gardening Magazine - http://www.organicgardening.com/
MIT OpenCourseWare - History - http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/history/
Wriggly Wrigglers podcast - http://www.wigglywigglers.co.uk/podcasts/
Ken Druse garden podcast - http://www.kendruse.typepad.com/
A Way to Garden - Margaret Roach - http://awaytogarden.com/
Princeton University WebMedia - http://hulk03.princeton.edu:8080/WebMedia/lectures/
Open Culture - www.openculture.com
The Self-Sufficient Homestead - http://sshomestead.com/
NewHouse Farm (Dick and James Strawbridge, BBC show) - http://newhousefarm.tv/
Root Simple - http://www.rootsimple.com/
Kunstlercast
12 dozen places to Educate Yourself Online for Free - http://www.marcandangel.com/2010/11/15/12-dozen-places-to-self- educate-yourself-online/
Make Magazine blog - http://blog.makezine.com/
Make videos and podcasts - http://blog.makezine.com/video/
Permaculture Activist magazine
The Long Now Foundation
Whole Earth Catalog - http://www.wholeearth.com/index.php
Chelsea Green - http://www.chelseagreen.com/
Chelsea Green Podcasts - http://www.chelseagreen.com/radio/
FORA.tv - http://fora.tv/
Global Guerrillas
Ushahidi - open source information platform - http://ushahidi.com/
Fast Company
Backwoods Home Magazine
Radio Free Dylan
Santa Fe Institute videos
12 podcasts for the creative class - Fast Company
Inc.
MIT Opencourseware
Introduction to Electronics - http://www.makingthings.com/teleo/products/documentation/teleo_user_guide/electronics.html
www.makingthings.com
http://www.sustainableworldradio.com/Permaculture_Podcasts_7941.html
Acres USA
Farm Dreams
The Simple Good Life Network
Geek Farm Life
French Organic Gardening Magazine - http://www.terrevivante.org/

Friday, February 3, 2012

Institute For The Future's "Resilience Principles"

Flexibility
Be ready to change your plans when they’re not working the way you expected; don’t count on things remaining stable.

Diversity
Not relying on a single kind of solution means not suffering from a single point of failure.

Decentralization
Centralized systems look strong, but when they fail, they fail catastrophically.

Collaboration
We’re all in this together. Take advantage of collaborative technologies, especially those offering shared communication and information.

Transparency
Don’t hide your systems; transparency makes it easier to figure out where a problem may lie. Share your plans and preparations, and listen when people point out flaws.

Foresight
You can’t predict the future, but you can hear its footsteps approaching. Anticipate and prepare.

Graceful Failure
Failure happens, so make sure that a failure state won’t make things worse than they are already.

More from IFTF's Food Map 2020:
In a world of rapid change, resilience is the key to products, processes, and organizations that have staying power. It’s the capacity of a system to withstand unexpected shocks, to repair itself when necessary, and to thrive when conditions are right. The underlying assumption of resilience is that, yes, failure happens, but it is possible to design systems that can quickly bounce back from failure.

It often requires embracing behaviors and principles that run counter to expectations, or that
are seen as contrary to “what works” — even when “what works” is prone to catastrophic failure when problems arise. Established leaders and institutions may even find aspects of resilience threatening. For many organizations, the challenge of resilience will emerge in the recognition that efficiency, particularly production efficiency, can be problematic — or, rather, what we do to increase production efficiency can run counter to the demands of resilience.

And as it pertains to agriculture:
resilience is the capacity of our food networks, relationships, technologies, and industries to continue to provide nutrition to the world during radical, even unprecedented, environmental and economic disruptions. In this century, our ability to foster resilient food systems will be essential, not only to our organizations, but to human survival. The principles of resilience thus provide the rules of thumb for anyone who is responsible for designing or managing activities within the the global food web."

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Assets = greater financial resiliency

Definition of Asset building from guest speaker at today's class:
Asset building is the process by which individuals and families gain control of their existing resources, allowing them to build and leverage savings and develop tangible financial assets, leading to greater financial resiliency.
I like this definition. It works in all sorts of economic contexts, as much for a farm or shoeshine gear in the third world as for Individual Development Accounts in the first. Compare this to the definition of asset building offered by the Washington Asset Building Coalition:
Asset building is defined as “engaging in long-term saving and investment behavior as a means to increasing financial independence.”
According to Washington University:
Asset building refers to strategies that increase financial and tangible assets, such as savings, a home, and businesses of all kinds.
Also framed rather narrowly.

Sunday, January 15, 2012

From Gene Logsdon's "Living at Nature's Pace"

Jerome developed a formula for self-reliance in his community that his offspring and a a few of his neighbors followed: own a little farm for subsistence and stability, do your own building and repair, operate a small business, and work long hours. He'd get one after another of his own children started on this formula and then he'd step back...
p173
This sounds like the integrated life. The question is: is it still a viable model? It sounds like a model that could survive anything. But if it is resilience perfected, where did all these small farms and businesses go?

This book, Living at Nature's Pace, is perhaps the book I would give to someone to inspire them toward the new farm revolution, which is really the old farm revolution with some new suggestions for economic survival. It does a great job of talking about agricultural policy in America, what traditional 120 acre family farms looked like and how they functioned, Amish farms and Amish economics, not to mention the best rendering of a barn-raising I've read. It also has a few good meditations on farm ecology. An excellent and inspiring read, although I'd say the required reading stops at the end of chapter 16.

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Biodynamic Farms in Western Washington (videos)

S&S Homestead on Lopez Island:

Henning Sehmsdorf S & S Homestead from Candice Cosler on Vimeo.


Jubilee Farm in Carnation:

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Organics in Thailand

Truth on the ground in Northern Thailand (post):
Since joining in 1999, she has now become the head of the Northern Organic Standard Association, which currently has over 20 member farms in the Chiang Mai region. She told me that only 0.2% of Thailand’s population currently knows and understands the dangers of chemical use. The foreign companies have inundated the radio stations, television, and newspapers with advertisements. According to Nang, they have manipulated governments to promote their poison, and now the soil fertility is decreased, the seed varieties have been lost, the farmers are broke, and the pests are everywhere. I admired her presence. She commanded respect and was definitely the matriarch of this farm. She spoke kindly and softly, “If we grow for the market, we need good yield and appearance to survive. This is why Thai farmers use so many chemicals. When you grow for yourself, you don’t need to use chemicals. If we use organic methods, we become friends with the environment and can survive together..."

I asked about organics here and why more farmers do not try it. Inquiring, “Do they sell for higher prices at the market? “ She replied, “The community here is not very supportive, but the NGO’s are. They help to teach farmers to grow organically, but they can’t compete with the advertising power of the chemical companies. Now the farmers have too much debt to try organics. They are scared and worried about low yields.”
And from this article on the Asok movement:
After a large economic collapse in Thailand six years ago, communities began hosting seminars on organic agriculture and self-reliance. Eventually, these were even funded by the government, in an effort to relieve the debt of poor farmers who had invested too heavily in chemicals and agricultural equipment. This is often felt to be a bit ironic, because it was the government, lobbied by companies, which promoted modern farming practices in the first place.

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Tribal Asset Development

A new thread: assets.

What is the difference between assets and capital? Nothing, according to Marieka, except perhaps that assets tend to refer to the less tangible of them.

From a publication on from the First Nations Development Institute, Native American Asset Watch: Rethinking Asset Building in Indian Country: