Groundswell and the rhetorical ecology of farming and food
Thoughts on farming, food systems and rhetorical ecology prompted by a documentary film trailer I didn’t much like. #FoodStudies #agriculture #ecology #agroecology #systems
Food Studies
Square pegs, round holes and changing direction
Thoughts on changing approach, calcified systems and why we need a food system like a forest garden, not a plantation
Binary thinking, collapse and food systems
There’s a disturbing trend towards thinking of systemic collapse as being the inevitable and even necessary precursor to a more ideal future. It’s all coming down. Empires must fall. Only that way can we usher in better things. We must make good ruins, as Dougald Hine put it. Chris Smaje imagines cities emptying out in …
Throwing away perfectly good milk
Some UK social media users have been pouring milk down their sinks and toilets in protest at the trial of a new feed additive that claims to significantly reduce the emission of methane gas in dairy cows, reports BBC News. Since Arla announced that it was trialling Bovaer on 30 dairy farms, “social media users” …
Tipping points
This week we covered tipping points, critical thresholds in the Earth’s climate system. Crossing a tipping point can trigger self-reinforcing, cascading shifts in the behaviour of Earth’s systems that can be irreversible. Learning more about tipping points at the University of Exeter with Tim Lenton feels like going to the source. The University of Exeter …
Gaia
This week was lectured by Prof. Tim Lenton, and this module keeps setting off lightbulb moments for me. How did life on earth get to be self-regulating? What is life, and what is its effect on the planet? James Lovelock had started looking at the composition of atmospheres of different planets while working at NASA. …