Resilient Reading — What we can learn about fire from Australia
Like the wildfires and landslides of the western U.S., Australia's bush fires are a fact of life. Just because they've been around forever doesn't mean they aren't getting more severe, however. The Guardian reports that, while "[c]limate change does not create bushfires... it can and does make them worse [sic]." …. Australia's situation is dire, to put it mildly, and it isn't clearing up anytime soon. Here are seven books you should read to fully comprehend the bush fires and what they mean for both Australia and the world:

How to Save the World: Turning a big negative into a big positive
Author Courtenay White describes the huge potential for soil to capture and hold carbon from the atmosphere. He goes over the numbers describing the deterioration of soil that  comes from our current land use practices and argues convincingly that the answer is no till agriculture. Regenerative agriculture means using cover crops to control weeds, crop diversification, and applying animal manures to soil to boost soil health. "Nature doesn't till, why should we"? This is the basic question we must ask. The challenge is changing generations of accepted ag practice but the benefit could mean that we can slow down the trajectory of harmful climate change. The article includes lots of references, links to short videos and a lot more. Highly recommended, find the article here.

Gathering in Groups as Society Falls Apart
Vicki Robin crafted an essay for the Jem Bendell blog that provides insight that our Western emphasis on individualism presents obstacles to living and working in groups. "Everyone wants community. Unfortunately it involves other people," she observes. As fossil fueled civilization seems headed for devolution, it may be that people will migrate to smaller and more tightly knitted community. Working together in such settings to meet the challenges of the future will require skills that many of us will need to learn. Working from the experiences of intentional communities, Robin provides some practical suggestions for things we can work on. Find Robins essay republished at Resilience.org here.

Petroleum Junkies of the World, Unite!
This is a great meditation on the joys and miracles that our precious fossil fuels bring into our lives. All that righteous environmentalist talk about reducing our carbon footprint, they don’t know what they’re asking. They want us to cut back? Or even go without? Bah humbug! How dare they? Don’t they realize how very... precious it is? Imagine going without, it would be like the taste of cold turkey on Thanksgiving. Or to consider "mutiny"? Which the author defines as "an act of courageous desperation that reasonable people consider reluctantly."  The link to the essay is here.

"Healing the rift between Political Reality and Ecological Reality:
Q & A with Shaun Chamberlain"  
Ecological reality says we need to urgently and dramatically bring down carbon emissions to avoid catastrophe. Political reality offer incrementalism, market based carbon trading schemes and top-down approaches.  In this article Chamberlain reviews the work of David Fleming who helped develop a concept called "Tradeable Energy Quotas" or TEQs. TEQs start with a hard emissions cap based on climate science then divide up the carbon budget between households, institutions and societal sectors. TEQs are a system of rationing that would be a bottom-up approach and  could earn buy in from a critical mass of people because its fairer than more regressive options. It could also leverage societal creativity and innovation. Find the article at Green Social Thought here. 

Food After Oil: how urban farmers are preparing us for a self-sufficient future. 
From The Guardian and author Richard Benson, this is an article that describes efforts in Bristol that show how small parcels can feed people in a City while it helps them connect to each other. The obvious benefit of minimizing energy lost on transportation of food is but one benefit. This is a great article with wonderful photography that delves into the history of modern agriculture and asks the question, how would we grow food if we wanted or needed to minimize the use of fossil fuels? Find the article here.

Seeds of Life: The Plants suited to Climate Change
If we consider the many challenges of climate change we must ask ourselves what we can do to make the inevitable crash a soft landing? What should we try to save and what can we let go to prepare for the Great Simplification? One of the things I hope we can save is agriculture and the key to this is seeds. This fascinating article from BBC News by Matthew Tucker, reports on efforts underway at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew. It takes a very close look at seeds in amazing detail, the pictures are stunningly beautiful. Please enjoy and find the article here. (Also, see the post below on seeds that also mention our local Organic Seed Alliance.)

Oceanic Carbon Cycle Tipping Point Approaching Fast
One week ago MIT published fresh new work by Professor Daniel Rothman.  Fresh attention is now focused on the issue of ocean acidification, that co-equal threat to our world's ecosystem that gets far less attention than global warming. Dr. Rothman shows that while the oceans buffer excess CO2, there is a dramatic tipping point after which rapid change promises likely mass extinction. Click here for the MIT News report on this brilliant analysis of the Carbon Cycle. 

This is a wonderful article from the New York Times in which the work of organizations like Port Townsend based Organic Seed Alliance is highlighted.  I especially liked the vivid pictures and descriptions of plants like the "Vibrant Ultraviolet" Asian  mustard. It tells how we have lost much of our plant diversity due to corporate agricultural practices, and why it is so important that we reclaim the very basis of our food system and maintain a local connection to how we grow food. Locally, we are fortunate to have the Organic Seed Alliance and other such program like the Seed Library at WSU Extension Jefferson County, as well as a large community of seed growers, vendors and enthusiasts. Buy Local! Grow Local!