If you don’t believe that co-operative human energy produces amazing results please link to Victory Garden.
One sentence alone tells a big story:
“In 1943, Americans planted over 20 million Victory Gardens, and the harvest accounted for nearly a third of all the vegetables consumed in the country that year.”
Amazing results? Absolutely.
The sentence reminded me of another one sent by Jessica in response to an earlier post re gardens and chicken coops:
"You begin to see that growing even a little of your own food is, as Wendell Berry pointed out 30 years ago, one of those solutions that, instead of begetting a new set of problems--the way "solutions" like ethanol or nuclear power inevitably do--actually beget other solutions, and not only of the kind that save carbon." [From an article by Michael Pollan called "Why Bother"]
I haven’t read the entire article yet (four pages in length), but will. His book, The Omnivore’s Dilemma [see Read This, right hand margin] also touched on the value of gardens.
***
Will I have a busy spring? I think so.
re gardens - back yard, front yard, or both? or participate in a community garden?
.
2 comments:
Thanks for the tip Gord. Great example of the kind of 'social capital' we need more of. Another thought: how many more calories do we consume on average now (and how many more calories get 'consumed' in animal feed, manufacturing and distribution processes without actually being eaten by people)? I wish I knew enough about statistics to figure this out. The amount of food we'd have to homegrow to match those 1943 proportions would probably be pretty staggering, to put the decadence of our age into perspective.
my oh my; i bet we consume 5 - 10 times the earth's capital (and calories) than did folks in the 1940s.
The Omnivore's Dilemma by M. Pollan provides some answers re calorie count (related to food and fossil-fuel use over the years, especially related to the production of corn, a product we cannot escape.
The Long Emergency is another related book, 307 pages, thick paragraphs; be prepared for the long haul.
cheers, brian.
GAH
Post a Comment