Friday, August 03, 2012

"Six Degrees" - four years on

A highly recommended read
I read this book back in 2008, it details the likely world changes from global warming, degree by degree, based on a wealth of scientific papers and on computer models. It was terrifying enough back then but with recent news from Greenland and drought-struck mid-west US, following predictions in “Six Degrees,” combined with the CO2 figures and 1.5 degree global warming figure it's even more so now. Gloom and doom it may be, but it's been one of the things that spurs me on to get involved in looking for eco-solutions. We may not even have decades before we slide the past the point of no return towards mass extinction. What will it take to make us change the way we live? I never had any hope that there would be top-down solutions from politicians and multi-national corporations - the real power is within each of us waking up, reading, thinking, talking, making new friends and acting wherever we find ourselves.

Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Greening the desert - amazing!

This is a film that Steve Jones often shows on permaculture courses, it never fails to get a few jaws dropping. Geoff Lawton shows how Forest Gardening and permaculture principles were used to create lush vegetation in a dry, salty and very hot situation.