act:ualise | what we think

Michael Pollan our new truth-about-food hero, who has done a great deal to bring attention to the Slow Food movement and the Locavore movement, is coming to Vancouver. He is most recently credited with influencing the Obama family with planting a vegetable garden at the White House. His only stop in Canada, he will be [...]

This is a long-overdue response to SavageSays’ excellent post rebutting the idea that protectionism (even if in the form of buying local or FairTrade) can ever be a good idea. He argues that buying local isn’t necessarily better for the environment, citing three pieces of research: A study by Lincoln University in New Zealand arguing [...]

Michael Pollan, author of ‘Omnivores Dillemma‘ and ‘In Defense Of Food,’ on NPR discussing the reasons why the US must modify its food policies given the impact of food production has on climate change, national security, energy independence and healthcare.

Much has been made of Iceland’s economic demise and the stepping down of the then government leadership. Their dramatic and undignified end was widely reported, the male bankers and ministers all shown leaving in a flashbulb frenzy, scurrying back to their multi-million Krona homes. What a surprise then that little to no mention is made [...]

Piers Fawkes asked on the PSFK blog recently “is buying local considered protectionist?” It’s a current question given the softening of the protectionist language in  Obama’s stimulus package bill. And the answer is, yes, it is protectionist. Any action to restrict trade between nations (whether through buy-local requirements, tariffs, quotas or whatever else) is protectionist. But [...]

My two previous posts present a worrying possible conclusion to the way we’re living and the impact that we’re having on our own social fabric and environment today. It’s always easy to criticise and find the negative in our situation, so I’ve been thinking about what we can do to improve the situation, and what [...]

Picking up on the urban migration thread, I’ve been researching what’s been driving that mass exodus from the world’s rural areas. In my travels, I came across The Story of Stuff, which I highly recommend. I love it for giving such a succinct explanation of such a huge and complex subject, for the wonderful way [...]