Category Archives: Agriculture

Chemical industrial farming is unsustainable. Why poison ourselves when pesticides don’t save more of our crops than in the past?

Posted on March 16, 2017 by

Pesticides, herbicides, and insecticides destroy soil, ecosystems, and a third of the crop is still lost to pests, just as in the many millennia of farming before chemicals. [ This is a book review of Dyer’s “Chasing the Red Queen”, … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Agriculture, Biodiversity Loss, Chemicals, Overshoot, Pesticides, Soil | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Chemical industrial farming is unsustainable. Why poison ourselves when pesticides don’t save more of our crops than in the past?

After the harvest – protecting food from rats, mold, insects, fire, and bacteria

Posted on January 28, 2017 by

[ Current post-harvest storage is totally out of scale with what future generations will need. Now we have mainly gargantuan grain elevators, some so huge they can store enough grain for most of the U.S. for weeks at a time.  … Continue reading →

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Livestock diseases, Science Mag Review of “Arresting Contagion”

Posted on May 7, 2015 by

Science 17 April 2015: Vol. 348 no. 6232 p. 294 DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa7672 The fever on the farm Arresting Contagion Science, Policy, and Conflicts over Animal Disease Control Alan L. Olmstead and Paul W. Rhode Harvard University Press, 2015. 477 pp. … Continue reading →

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Become a Bison rancher

Posted on September 21, 2014 by

Far more buffalo can be grazed per acre than cattle. It’s likely wild bison will return to the Great Plains in the future.   Already there are fewer people in areas where the Ogalla aquifer has been depleted than when Native … Continue reading →

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A book review of “Russia’s Food Policies and Globalization”

Posted on April 16, 2014 by

by Alice Friedemann Wegren, Stephen K.  Russia’s Food Policies and Globalization. 2005. Lexington Books. Governments that can’t feed their people lose their legitimacy and risk widespread social unrest.  The Russian government has made many mistakes in the past, such as … Continue reading →

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Who Lives, Who dies in a never-ending energy crisis. Book review of Nothing to Envy. Ordinary Lives in North Korea

Posted on April 6, 2014 by

Who lives, Who Dies in a Never-Ending Energy Crisis a book review by Alice Friedemann of: Barbara Demick. 2010. “Nothing to Envy. Ordinary lives in North Korea”. North Korea and Cuba were the first countries to lose oil, the lifeblood … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Energy, North Korea | 1 Comment

Muscle Power

Posted on March 1, 2014 by

Steven Vogel   Prime Mover: A Natural History of Muscle    W. W. Norton Reviewed in June 2004. Natural History Magazine Today we have machines for making people move in place: run, walk uphill, push pedals back and forth or up and … Continue reading →

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Book Review of Paleofantasy: What Evolution really tells us about sex, diet, and how we live

Posted on August 3, 2013 by

Alice Friedemann’s review of: Marlene Zuk. 2013. Paleofantasy: What Evolution really tells us about sex, diet, and how we live. My first introduction to Evolutionary Psychology was “The Adapted Mind” which posited we’re unhappy because of the tremendous difference between … Continue reading →

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Northern California marijuana harms ecosystem, has huge carbon footprint. Legalize ASAP!

Posted on July 30, 2013 by

A book review by Alice Friedemann of Emily Brady’s 2013 book: “Humboldt. Life on America’s marijuana frontier.” The tales I hear from my friends in Mendocino and Humboldt counties fascinate me.  There are stories of mayors and sheriffs on opposite … Continue reading →

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Science book review of Vaclav Smil’s “Approaching the Limits”

Posted on July 14, 2013 by

Steven W. Running  Science 15 March 2013: Vol. 339 no. 6125 pp. 1276-1277 DOI: 10.1126/science.1235886 Approaching the Limits Harvesting the Biosphere What We Have Taken from Nature by Vaclav Smil MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2012. 315 pp. $29, £19.95. ISBN … Continue reading →

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