Category Archives: Agriculture

Muscle Power

Preface. Below is a review of “Prime Mover: A Natural History of Muscle: from Natural History Magazine. Since both my books explain why we will be returning to biomass and muscle power, here’s yet another preparation opportunity: breed horses and … Continue reading

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Book review: the politics of California’s central valley levees

Preface. This is a book review of Robert Kelly’s “Battling the Inland Sea”.  But it is much more than that, better than any book I know if explaining the human nature of “conservatism vs liberalism”.  It drives me nuts that … Continue reading

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From wood to fossil fueled civilizations — the greatest tragedy mankind will ever know

Preface. These are my notes from this book about how we went from an organic sustainable economy to a temporary fossil-fueled one.  It’s one of the few books I’ve found that explains what life was like before fossil fuels in … Continue reading

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How horses changed native cultures after 1492

[ This is a very brief overview of Peter Mitchel’s “Horse Nations”.  As oil and other fossils decline, will we will almost certainly return to using more horse “muscle power” as we did in the past. Alice Friedemann   www.energyskeptic.com  author … Continue reading

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Book review of “1493 Uncovering the new world Columbus Created”

[ This book will be included in the “must read” category of my giant booklist when I get around to updating it. This book isn’t just about the past, the implications reverberate into the postcarbon future.  Will slavery return without … Continue reading

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

Preface. It’s hard enough to protect crops before a harvest. In New South Wales, Australia a plague of millions of mice has multiplied after a bumper grain harvest and eating whatever they can find. Mice can produce 500 offspring a … Continue reading

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The Back to the Land Movement: why it failed and why we need to try again

[ This is my book review of “Back from the Land: how young Americans went to nature in the 1970s, and why they came back”.   Some succeeded, but most failed, and there are lessons to be learned from the previous … Continue reading

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Livestock diseases, Science Mag Review of “Arresting Contagion”

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

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”

Preface.  Today Russia exports a substantial percent of wheat, and now that oil prices are surging is in much better shape than after the Fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.  But with peak oil likely in 2018, and money … Continue reading

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