Back to Eden

The documentary film entitled "Back to Eden" about permaculture in Washington was just released and is available at the Back-to-Eden website. Over decades Paul Gautschi has used and evolved an approach focusing on mulching with newspaper and wood chips. He has great success with this. Visit his site or read this summarizing article.

Doomsday Preppers

Preparing for the uncertain future might become popular. There is already a small percentage of people doing it today to one degree or another. My personal guess would be that some 5% of the population have consciously done some thinking and performed some actions in order to prepare for a period without electricity, scarce water sources, food shortages, civil unrest, and so forth.

Today I stumbled across a National Geographic TV show that might make "prepping" into a fashionable, socially accepted and respected activity. This is an exaggeration, but it will remove some ill stigma from preppers. The TV series is an easy-viewing show called "Doomsday Preppers". Some episodes or snippets from Doomsday Preppers can be found here. They give some ideas and examples of what can be achieved such as a wood-powered car or an old swimming pool converted into a sustainable ecosystem with a thousand fish.

Urgent Warning

This 5-min video appropriately summarizes the state we are in and the direction we should be roughly heading for. Have a look at Ron Paul's urgent warning.

Visualization of US Debt

This is the best graphical and visual representation of 1 million dollar, one billion dollars, 1 trillion dollars and the US debt. Have a look at these images to get an idea of the size of the US debt. No doubt, one picture says more than a thousand words.

Stop Spending for a Year

Here is a family that decide not to buy anything (except food) for a year. What a project! A whole family unit working together to execute this plan. It made them happier, more free and social. Imagine it for yourself. More freedom through less buying. Have a look at this video.

ECB and Trust

The European Wall Street Journal published this on July 4, 2011:

Some of the European Central Bank's (ECB) notable policy shifts.

• Jan 2010: ECB President Jean Claude Trichet said that the ECB wouldn't change its collateral rules for the sake of any particular country. In May 2010 it suspends these rules for Greek government bonds.
• 
  
• Mar 2010: Mr. Trichet said it wouldn't be appropriate for the IMF to supply assistance for Greece. The IMF later became a a major part of the Greek rescue operation.
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• May 2010: Mr. Trichet said the ECB in its monthly meeting did not discuss whether to buy Greek bonds. Four days later the ECB anounced it would purchase Greek bonds.

It is always the same story. The politicians and political institutions that should stabilize a country change their opinion on a whim and worse, they deny and hide truths up to the moment when it explodes. The WSJ picked the ECB in this example. But I also vividly remember when on a given Friday all Irish politicians denied any rumors of any bankruptcy or collapse, claiming everything is fine, just to announce the following day or the Sunday that the banking system has failed and that they already brokered a deal with the ECB and IMF for a bail out package! How can one play the game if the rules keep changing all the time?

Food Safety

A friend emailed me this link to an article on Mises.org entitled "Restoring the Honor of the Spanish Cucumber". It is a fascinating article how things tend to spiral out of control. It is the story of how a single farmer influenced the food supply of several hundred millions of people, how the situation created by the farmer was misused by the politicians to create new policies in a matter of days, how it allowed politicians to break the rules with nobody complaining, how one country created a special food police in a matter of days, how thousands of people lost their job due to the hype, and how in the end -- as always -- the action of the politicians created a burden of several hundred millions of Euros to the (mostly) European taxpayers. This story shows how everything is intertwined, food, politics, and finance. It is a story of how fast things can collapse in a crisis and how out of proportion "news" can be reported in our times. Nationalistic behavior and propaganda was shown clearly in this incident. Sadly there are real losers in this story as well: the people who died eating contaminated food, their relatives and friends who lost a loved one, the farmers and pickers in many European countries who lost their job, and all the tax payers who have to pay the price to clean up the mess. This case shows the dark side of globalization and centralization.

It seems to be a lot safer and better to join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program and buy a weekly food basket from the local farmer that you know and trust.

Greece

Today is a special day. The Greek government is deciding on whether to accept the austerity conditions demanded by the ECB (European Central Bank) and IMF for receiving the next slice of the bailout credit. I am fortunate to be in Greece and see and "feel" the situation in person. General strikes have been called for yesterday and today. In one city and one town I have seen permanent tent cities in public squares to protest. These tent cities are similar to the ones found in Madrid and Barcelona, Spain. There, in Spanish, the protesters are called "Los Indignados", the indignants, the angry ones. These groups across various European countries have united under the motto "Direct Democracy Now" or "Real Democracy Now". The site of the Greek branch of this European wide movement is www.real-democracy.gr/en.

Graffiti is on the walls in many places and flyers posted on many shop windows. They are expressing the feelings of the average people of the street. Where I have been the general strike was a partial one. I had no problem with the public transport and many shops, if not most, were open. One store used the term "Crisis Prices" instead of "Sales" to attract customers. A Greek friend commented that his salary was lowered 20% and that the politicians are discussing to lower it by 20% for a second time. Gas prices have gone from €0.80 to €1.75, i.e. they have more than doubled in a single year. To be truthful I have to say that I was nervous about the decision of the Greek government. I favored a rejection of the credit conditions, but that in turn could be the trigger to a domino effect across nations and economies.

A Greek friend expressed his view as follows. He sees this as a giant battle between banks and governments. Not only on a Greek scale, but on a global scale. In my mind a picture emerged like a Greek tragedy with elements from the Greek mythology; in my head a picture of two snakes formed, one representing a few elite world bankers, the other snake representing the world's governments. He continued to explain that he sees it as a fight between financial power and the political system. Furthermore he sees it as a sort of pilot project. If the banks win over democracy then they will take the Greek case study and rubber stamp it on other nations worldwide. He sees it as a reference case that will be repeated and replicated in the near future in other countries.

At the end of the day the Greek government accepted the bailout conditions and in my friend's view the political system gave in to the financial powers. My friend was disappointed with the decision. The political system and the Greek people are no more than slaves to the banking system. With the acceptance of the credit slice the problem is not averted, and certainly not solved. Everybody knows that it is just delayed by exactly 3 months until September when the next credit payment is due. So, the whole Greek tragedy will repeat itself shortly. Each time it will be worse. The only question I have is: How often will it repeat itself?

Artificial Photo Synthesis

MIT professor Daniel G. Nocera has researched artificial photo synthesis and already 2 years ago presented his approach as a highly distributed and highly personalized solution to the world's energy problem. In short, he wants to replace power stations of all kinds with small inexpensive photo synthesis solutions installed in your home. Here are his talks given 2 years ago: Dan Nocera: Personalized Energy (22min) and Personalized Energy for 1 (x 6 Billion): A Solution to the Global Energy Challenge (78min). The idea itself is not new, already in 1912 (no type here) -- 100 years ago -- it was suggested as a solution to our energy needs.

I am not expert enough to qualify his research, but his speech and vision are impressive. It promises democratic and clean energy, auto-sufficiency, individual independence, risk avoidance, pollution avoidance and sustainability. With such promises it is certainly worth investment, but it frightens the establishment as it would be the end of the day of utility companies and remove our energy dependency.

D. Nocera now works with the Indian Tata conglomerate to bring the research into the commercial market. There is hope after all.

Gold Purchases

Who is buying gold? The latest data of state gold purchases and sales have been published by the World Gold Council. This data shows the following countries as leading gold purchasers over the last 10 years:

• China: some 550 tonnes
• Russia: some 420 tonnes
• India: some 200 tonnes
• Mexico: some 100 tonnes

It is interesting to see that there is no European country, not a single one, that has purchased any significant (5 tonnes or more) amount of gold at any point in time. The US hasn't bought any gold either. India and Mexico have been single one-time purchases. China and Russia are continuously buying mid-sized amounts year by year. Europe as a whole has sold around 3,000 tonnes of gold over the last decade.

Saudi Arabia is listed with a one-time 180 tonnes entry, but as far as I can tell this is not a real purchase but a paper adjustment.

It is a telling sign that the US and EU are not purchasing any gold with respect to any future currency decisions the politicians/banks of these countries will make.

Bitcoin Hacked

Amazing. The dollar is crashing. The Euro is crashing. And now also the Bitcoin is crashing. But the crashes are for different reasons, and the causes the resulted in the Bitcoin crash are easier to fix. Read this article on the events of this month in Bitcoins entitled "Inside the Mega-Hack of Bitcoin: The Inside Story".

What we learn from these events are:

• Bitcoin like any other currency is affected by human emotions and speculations. It goes up and down. Its value rises or drops on rumors, politic events and so forth. To this degree the currency does not reflect value but perceptions. Nothing new about this but the drastic rise in value over the last weeks and the following drop has demonstrated it.
• Bitcoin as a currency is still very young and not yet mature. The key issue currently is that some 90% of all exchange operations are traded on a single exchange. The currency is distributed by design, but currently its exchange is nearly centralized through this near-monopoly of the exchange named Mt. Gox. More companies must come forward and build exchanges so we have a more decentralized and less monopolized exchange infrastructure. This heavily used exchange Mt. Gox was compromised and user login, password and wallet data stolen, misused and later published openly. This is equivalent to a master heist in which a major bank is hacked, online bank account data such as account numbers, user names, and passwords stolen to be used later to login and transfer money. Clearly the exchange Mt. Gox is to blame. They had a poor security set-up.

Let's give it some more time to mature.

Beyond Greece

The New York Times as well as the National Herald posted an article entitled "It's Not About Greece Anymore". The content of this article is not surprising and nothing new. The article identifies the fears of the European politicians to let Greece go into bankruptcy as it might cause a bank run in similarly positioned countries like Spain, Portugal, etc. In short, afraid of a melt-down of the European currency or the European Union (several nations have threatened to revert back to their own independent currencies) EU politicians are willing to do about anything to rescue Greece. As always politicians are trying to save their own hide more than anything else and any solution for Greece is only a temporary one.

The article goes on with the authors' suggestion that the Euro must be devalued drastically and then a dramatic political change must take place in order to survive.

What is surprising is the frankness of the article and that it was published in the NYT and National Herald. The writing is not just on the wall. It is in plain view, published by major mainstream newspapers.

Both US and Europe have overspent, gone into massive debts, and despite the crisis since 2008 nobody wants to face the music. We don't want to see and we pretend not to see the root causes and all we do is apply patchwork fixes here and there, billion dollar band aids that will fall off anytime we shake ourselves. What we need is radio and chemotherapy to get rid of the cancer of our times: the bankers and the politicians they have bought.

The End of Money

Franz Hoermann is a professor at the university of economics in Vienna, Austria. Recently he published a book entitled "Das Ende des Geldes". The book is in German and so is most of the available information about Hoermann. There is a good summary TV interview (16 min) he gave after the documentary presentation of "Zeitgeist - Moving Forward".

The title of his book is frequently translated as "The End of Money" or "The Death of Money". He presents some off-the-beaten path ideas of how to eliminate money and suggests a substitute solution that is more just and socially fair. His replacement for money is a new innovative social accounting system based on "units" rewarded for actions valued by society. Each individual receives a base "income" to which he adds more income received for the productive actions he performs. The received units are stored on a credit card like card and can be spent in any store, gifted, traded, etc.

Here is an English translation of an interview given to the Austrian newspaper Der Standard. This article covers several items mentioned in the TV interview. He briefly comments on his view of an unconditional basic income for everyone. Growth and full employment pressures are removed in his proposed system. People have more spare time and more freedom to decide on what they want to work on. This part is similar to concepts presented in the Zeitgeist documentary series.

The Thdrussell blog offers this article which talks about Hoermann's view of money and the currently used double entry accounting system. This article does not go into the suggested money replacement.

On the KeimForm blog is an article with 3 critical comments on the TV interview given after the Zeitgeist presentation.

Here is a 19-page paper of his entitled "Premises and Promises" in which he outlines how he wants to convert today's zero-sum economic "game" into a more cooperative system where everybody can win.

The Guardian points out that -- according to Hoermann -- money is rewarded with money. We don't reward accomplishment in our system, we reward property. The economists Gunnar Heinsohn and Otto Steiger proved that modern money – worldwide – is not backed by value. Rather, whenever money is created an equal debt is created with it. The systemic problem arises out of the fact that the debt is loaned at interest. The money for this interest is not created. The money for the interest doesn't exist at all. Hoermann's suggested solution eliminates interest completely and creates a solution that rewards actions rather than possessions (as is the case in today's monetary system).

There are several good ideas in his work. The unjust money creation process has been outlined many times before (e.g. The Money Masters). Money as debt and the impossibility to repay the interest is a well understood theme (e.g. Money as Debt). Money should not be rewarded with money. The rat race is equally absurd. We cannot and we should not achieve full employment. We do not need full employment in today's world. As a joke I saw a graffiti that says "We do not lack money, we just have too many thieves". It is so true, we have enough resources, we just spend them unwisely. The thieves are the bankers and politicians. Given our resources we could all live well without putting in so many hours of inefficient and unproductive work. A basic income as suggested brings many advantages, more so than disadvantages. It removes pressures, crime, oppression, not to mention stress and illnesses. No, his plan is not perfect. No system seems to be ever perfect. But we can cherry-pick. There certainly seems to be less evil and risk in his approach than in today's twisted money game controlled by a few bankers.

Worst Emissions Ever

Mankind is not heading in the right direction. The Guardian published an article entitled "Worst ever carbon emissions leave climate on the brink". The article starts with "Greenhouse gas emissions increased by a record amount last year, to the highest carbon output in history, putting hopes of holding global warming to safe levels all but out of reach". The recession has not helped either in reducing emissions. Kyoto, G8 meetings, political campaign promises, ... as one can see it is all just hot air, or shall I say "hot CO2 emissions".

Inside Job

Inside Job is an extremely well made documentary from 2010 that won a series of awards for its content and quality. Interviews with the director Charles Ferguson are on YouTube. It explained the crisis that started showing its effects in 2008 exceptionally well. I loved how the documentary film started, the very first 30 seconds. "Iceland. Population 320,000 inhabitants. GDP $13 billion. Bank losses $100 billion." That first glimpse into the crisis explained it all too well. These 4 partial sentences drove the point home. It made us grasp the issue in a few seconds. 3 tiny local banks borrowed 120 billion dollars. 10 times the size of Iceland's economy. The accounting firm KPMG audited the banks and found nothing wrong. International rating agencies gave them a AAA credit rating. But that all changed in literally an instant. The house of cards collapsed. The full movie can also be found here. Watch it.

Hybris

I am in a phase of pondering human attributes. I was thinking about greed recently. Another personality trait that I am mulling over is 'hybris' or 'hubris'. Often they seem to go together. Megalomaniacs usually think they can't fail and they are greedy beyond measures while believing they alone deserve it all.

Hybris is especially misplaced in areas that deal with the environment and nature. We think we understand it all. We believe our science explains it all. We mess with nature (pesticides, biocides, gene manipulation, nuclear power plants) and we think we can't fail. We should be more humble and understand that there are risks. And often these are risks that are not worth taking. Nuclear power is a good example. Sure it works. But it is more expensive than we are made to believe. We do not understand it all. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl resulted because we did not think of a certain chain of events. And while the crisis was ongoing operators at the plants did not understand the why nor know how to respond or react. It is not worth the risk knowing that there are lower risk alternative energy sources. The same for GM food. It is hubris to think we understand all effects of the production and consumption of GM food over large periods of time. Decades ago we thought we understood it all when we sprayed DDT on wide areas just to ban it later. The list goes on and on. Things we thought we knew, things we thought are explained with our science, just turned out to be different just a few years later.

We must be more humble. Maybe we should read more books from Fukuoka. In his The One-Straw Revolution but also in his other books he speaks about his world view that is based on the idea that we know nothing, that science is too specialized, too focused, too much operating in isolated silos to be able to give us true knowledge. From that he concludes that nature does things better than we can and that by doing less, we harm less and eventually obtain better results.

Naomi Klein gave a talk at TED entitled "Addicted to Risk" arguing for a cautious approach to serious issues such as energy production or global climate control. In her talk she says that Tony Hayward, former CEO of BP, had a plaque on his desk engraved with the following inspirational slogan: “If you knew you could not fail, what would you try?” As we know attitudes like this lead to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The video is here. The text is here. A typical hybris attitude and result.

There are limits to everything. The world's energy, our science, our knowledge, our abilities and our wisdom. Let's start with ourselves, let's be humble and teach humbleness to our kids.

Greed

I often think about greed. What does it mean? Is it learned? Is it conditioned? Is it in our genes? Is it a survival instinct? What role did it play if any in the evolution of mankind? Where does it come from? What are the consequences and direct or indirect effects?

I see it as one of the causes of many social problems and a stumbling block for increased cooperation. Religions even consider it a sin. In the 21st century the social perception of greed does not seem to be very negative. Many of us have some of it in us, I certainly do have my share of it as well.

I was not aware of it, but by chance I stumbled across the US TV series "American Greed". One can watch some episodes here. Wow, I was astonished. The show is scary and entertaining at the same time. What lovely case studies of greed and human behavior surrounding greed. It was not surprising to see that most of the "case studies" shown on American Greed were people that were admired, filling cover pages in magazines and newspapers, awarded with business, social and even philanthropic awards, in shorted respected citizens. They rubbed shoulders with US presidents, Fortune 500 CEOs, and Hollywood stars. Newsweek and Time Magazine presented them to us as role models, people to look up to and imitate, in short our heroes. And usually their fall was rapid, from high flying stardom to fall or prison often in a matter of days or a couple of weeks. Whenever I see an episode or read some similar story in the newspapers I have to think of Enron and WorldCom.

I have no answer to greed, but I do know that enough is enough. How many houses and palaces does one need? How many yachts can one use? How many Bentley's can one drive? For many of us, the term 'greed' should be food for thought and lead to some personal changes.

Resource Economy vs. Freedom

Freedom Force International makes an analysis of the Zeitgeist movies. This analysis boils down to identifying the resource based economy suggested by the Zeitgeist movement as a collective or communist system that is in contrast to the individual freedom. It sees two opposing forces that cannot be unified: resource based economy and freedom. As Freedom Force International is a strict defender of freedom it rejects the Zeitgeist approach.

I am bit like Dustin who wrote a comment on the analysis. I like both freedom and the Zeitgeist vision. Dustin chose the title "The profit motive has to go" (source). The freedom concept is easy to understand. Most people like freedom. Most freedom and libertarian definitions include a phrase like "I have a right to protect myself from harm" (source). The difficult part is being able to see and agree on what actions harm others. My freedom ends where the freedom of the other begins. In order to preserve freedom one must not harm others. In today's world:

• What happens to the individual who pollutes the air? It could be the neighbor with his lawn mower or a corporation like Shell burning off millions of tons of gases in places like Nigeria.
• What happens to the individual who pollutes the water? It could be the neighbor who throws a plastic bag into the ocean or a corporation like BP who spills millions of gallons of oil into the ocean.
• What happens to nuclear reactors? There are clearly risks and many people get harmed (Tokio kids drinking tab water). What happens to the corporations that build and run them?
• What happens to the corporation who genetically pollute? What happens to genetically modified seeds of corn, soy, wheat, etc. that spread out of control? I have the right not to buy GM food. Fine. But the problem is that GM seeds are carried by wind, birds, trucks, and many other means from place to place and after more than a decade of use of GM seeds, GM seeds show up where one does not suspect them. Ecological farmers have found them on the land. GM corn seeds have been found in far away and insulated valleys in Mexico. Organic food is polluted and tainted by GM crops. Who protects the organic farmer and the consumer of their products from harm?

In the definition of freedom Freedom Force Intl says "one of the primary functions of a just state is to protect each individual from the greed and passion of the majority". I feel that today the vast majority of people needs protection from a few greedy individuals/corporations. Millions get exploited and live in unhealthy conditions exclusively because of the greed of a few driven by the insatiable profit and hoarding motive. Billions of people are being harmed by polluted water, by polluted soil, and by polluted air. This includes all the "developed" world countries like the US and Europe. Just to give an example: We all have plastic molecules in our blood. Pesticides are found in the breast milk in many countries around the globe.

Where is my freedom on all these issues? How do I protect myself from being harmed in respect to these issues?

I believe that many corporations in today's government controlled society have far too many "freedoms". Their "freedom" infringes on my individual freedoms and harms me. Deep sea oil exploration, nuclear energy and GM food all have one thing in common: They carry a very high risk, an unnecessary risk as their output can be achieved through safer means (e.g. energy savings, reduced energy consumption, alternative energy sources, conventional or organic food). They have done and will do harm to people and hence violate personal freedoms. Why are these projects being implemented then? I'd say because of the profit thinking. They exist because of the greed of a few and for the profit of a few.

I see some common ground between freedom and the resource-based economy. I can use both to justify the elimination of pollution (air, water, soil, food, ...). I also see that both "ideologies" are basing themselves on equality. One of the three commandments of freedom is "equality under law" (source). The basic promise of communism (including the Zeitgeist Movement) is equality. Often I feel that special interest groups (governments, corporations) have more rights than I. Both, the implementation of true freedom as well as the resource based economy would eliminate (or at least try to eliminate) these special interest groups.

The governments would look quite differently according to the two systems. The freedom movement would reduce the government to a minimum, to only the freedom-protection functions. The Zeitgeist movement would on one hand reduce government, but on the other hand take on new massive roles like resource management and resource distribution.

Ownership also plays a big role. Who is the owner of what? Zeitgeist takes a communist approach. We are one world, one planet, one people, we should use the resources for the good of all, for the good of the common. The freedom movement also talks clearly about ownership and property. But what happens to the resources. Oil created through millenniums is found under the ground of some country whose existence is defined by some lines drawn on a map. That country might only exist for a few decades as political borders have changed frequently in the last century. Does that make the government of this country owner of the oil? I am not so sure. What about an underground lake of oil that stretched into two bordering countries? Who is the owner of the oil? The country who pumps it faster? Who is the owner of the rain water? The owner of the wind? Clouds form over the ocean. The oil was in existence way before countries were created and populated. So, who's the owner? Doesn't it make sense that we are all the owners? Shouldn't we strive for a common solution and a common use?

But what is the bottom line? What's better? Freedom or a resource-based economy? Can we have both? Are they mutually exclusive? I believe that in a complete implementation both movements are incompatible and mutually exclusive. In a society where freedom overrides everything we will not be able to build a resource based economy. The same on the other side. In a society where the common good of the resource based economy overrides everything we will not find full individual freedom. There are some common grounds between these two though as I have indicated above. Both also share some objectives. Both systems want to eliminate the current control held over us by financial institutions, corrupt governments, and industrial exploitation of people around the globe. Since we cannot have both, shall we look for a compromise? But the core values of both movements are unshakable and hence uncompromisable. Sounds like a compromise is out of the question, at least for the hard core defenders of these two "ideologies".

On an emotional level, I feel that the profit thinking often (but not always) goes against the good of the common. I feel that we should seek and would benefit immensely from common solutions. I am also a believer in freedom and choices. Yet, I wonder if in a purely freedom-based system we wouldn't come to a grinding and halting deadlock. Nearly any action we perform does harm to someone. At least in today's world. If you drive a car who harm someone due to air pollution or noise. Nearly all manufacturing processes pollute either air, water or soil. Certainly all agroindustry today pollutes soil and food and thereby harms people and generations to come. In short, all production (energy, food, consumer goods) and all distribution do some harm to someone. In a pure extreme freedom system they would all have to be outlawed. They would all have to be pollution free. Who defines pollution free? How about noise pollution, light pollution, visual impacts and so forth? Oversimplified, when one builds a nuclear facility across the road from my home, it harms me and (according to the freedom laws) I should be able to defend myself from these harms and the governments role should be to defend me as an individual. How does the freedom system avoid this complete system shut down because everything does some harm to someone? I don't know. In reality, countries then used the excuse "for the common good" to allow certain polluting corporations, violating the freedom rules.

The resource based economy would take away our freedom. And the freedom system would shut most of current infrastructure and production facilities down. We are in a dilemma. Neither system is perfect, both systems have their problems. Maybe a compromise is still in order? We use a little bit of this and a little bit of that? Or maybe we implement both systems in parallel and give the people the choice. Do you want to join a) the freedom system or b) the resource-based economy? Of course, the compromise as well as the parallel implementation of both lead to new problems and even more questions. More thinking is needed. Certainly for me.

12 Countries to Go Belly-Up

AdvisorAnalyst.com has released a ranking of the countries most likely to go belly up according to financial risk. Here is the article. Fascinating reading.

Here are the top 12:

• Italy (1)
• Belgium (2)
• France (3)
• Sweden (4)
• Germany (5)
• Hungary (6)
• Denmark (7)
• Austria (8)
• Japan (9)
• United Kingdom (10)
• Finland (11)
• Greece (12)

Notably Spain and Portugal, the PIIGS countries, are not in the Top 12, while Germany - the strongest European motor - is.

Food Prices

About 2 years ago I realized that food has to take a more central role in our life. Certainly I placed food close to the center of my thoughts. Very slowly - at the pace of a turtle - I am taking mini-steps to deal with this. The key reasons for putting more focus and emphasis on food is the continuing erosion of quality of food in the market. Every year, food products are more industrial, more artificial, more polluted, more genetically modified, less transparent in respect to their ingredient list, and so forth. That boils down that we need higher quality food with better nutrition for a better health. Secondly, food has to move more into our focus due to quantitative problems and distribution problems that are foreshadowed. That means we need more local food and more self-grown food. Peak oil will let food production cost rise drastically. Last year food cost has risen 30%. Imagine in a year with little official inflation, food prices have soared. See this article entitled "Will increasing food prices lead to more revolution?". Rich people like us in the "developed" world spend a small percentage on food, and we did not notice the 30% increase. But poor people that spend 50% of the income on food have painfully and instantly noticed.

Peak oil will not only cause food production (seeds, fertilizers, pesticides) to become more expensive, but also transport costs will increase drastically. Add to that issues like peak phosphorus, peak water, peak arable land, etc. The good way out or at least a form of insurance policy to this upcoming storm is to engage in a more local food economy. In short, it seems to be a good idea to make friends with local farmers, know where to buy fruits or eggs. Join a local food basket service. And lastly, we must grow a little bit of our own food. I took some courses on gardening and food conservation. I always sharpen my ears when I meet people who grow their own food. This year I will also start with a tiny 2 square yard vegetable garden. These are all tiny baby steps. With a 2 square yard garden I will not be able to produce any noticeable amount of food for my family. It will literally be a drop in the bucket. It might be 1% of our family food consumption. Still, 1% is 1%. I also have to look into the future. I will learn a skill, i.e. farming. Maybe next year I can do 2%. Anyhow, it is crystal clear to me that local food supply and home grown food are essential to a sane life style. I recommend container gardening and square foot gardening to everyone. I hope to see green roof tops and back yards that replace lawns with veggie beds in the near future. I would not mind seeing a certain amount of the Cuba-approach around here.

Not everyone will agree with me. Have a look at this OilDrum articles entitled "The Fallacy of Reversibility" that argues that in the future due to peak oil there will be even more industrial, even larger-scale agrobusiness. One can join this opinion or not, but even if we follow this argument, it is clear that the final cost of this even more industrial, even larger agro-business will be carried by the consumer. In short, even in this scenario, or better said, especially in this scenario, the food prices will go up.

Food is so close to the human heart and soul, there are many things we can live without, but food is not one of them. Instead of outsourcing it to others (agro-business, big chain supermarkets) we should keep this core skill within our family or at least within our community. And on top of that we should mentally prepare for further price hikes,