Food systems, policy, and foodsheds

The second week of my Comparative Food Systems class has readings in Anna Lappé's book, Diet for a Hot Planet, going over Hamm's seven principles for a healthy food system, reading an article by Jack Kloppenburg and others on the foodshed, an article on rural Alaska food systems by my professor, Craig Gerlach, and researching definitions of "food system." In the meantime, I've been working on the Alaska Food Policy Council's introductory paper on food policy and the Alaska food system, so these two projects dovetail quite nicely. It adds up to a lot of reading—interesting, definitely, but a lot of pages.

So, to start: Lappé makes the argument that not only is small-scale, diversified organic farming that caters to a local market sustainable and good for communities, this type of agriculture is climate-friendly because it: produces fewer comparative greenhouse gas emissions than industrial farming; requires less energy inputs from fossil fuels; improves the soil; and actually sequesters carbon in the soil rather than releasing it. Her description of the energy-intensiveness of Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations is horrific—and never mind the inherent cruelty of them, she hasn't even gotten into that so far. She does talk about the unhealthiness of the modern diet in terms of the amount of processing food undergoes: highly processed foods, like Pringles or Pop-Tarts, use a huge amount of energy and resources—and they're just not that good for you.

Lappé describes seven principles of a climate-friendly diet:

1. Reach for real food (food that has fewer ingredients and isn't processed or transmogrified a lot is likelier to be less climate-destructive)
2. Put plants on your plate (eat less meat—most modern meat is grain-fed, which is energy-intensive; if you eat meat, eat meat that is raised humanely and sustainably, because these practices, like grass-fed beef, produce less greenhouse gas emissions—grain-fed cattle produce more methane than grass-fed cattle!)
3. Don't panic, go organic (industrial chemicals require large energy inputs; nitrogen fertilizer produced through the Haber-Bosch process, for example—and then there's all those petrochemicals used for pesticides)
4. Lean toward local (less shipping, for one)
5. Finish your peas…the ice caps are melting (food waste is a waste of energy resources; institutional composting makes use of food waste and reduces land-fill emissions)
6. Send packaging packing (the throwaway society wastes humongous amounts of resources; I think we should institute a law like that in Germany, where the producer or seller of packing must take it back from whoever they sell it to. For example, the customer buys a box of chocolate, but returns the box to the store—the store has to take the box, no charge. Then the store can return their collected boxes to the supplier of the chocolate—and the supplier can't charge them. The cost to the retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers has reduced extra packaging dramatically in Germany. Lappé has not mentioned this law so far in my reading.)
7. DIY food (grow and cook your own food: better for you and lots less processing—and therefore lots less energy intensive)

Hamm's article, assigned last week, was also interesting but a bit less easy reading than Lappé's book. (My editorial eye kept twitching—he'd have had red ink all over his paper had I gotten to it before publication.) His operating principles for a healthy food system are that it would:

1. insure community food security for all residents
2. be community based
3. be locally integrated
4. be reasonably seasonal in nature
5. present primarily opportunities rather than problems
6. connect health across the layers of the system
7. be diverse

This is, of course, not at all what our current food system looks like. Our current food system is highly energy-intensive, unseasonal, deters connectivity between the different layers of the food system, is almost completely disassociated with local communities, is rarely distributed or minimally distributed within a community, and is rife with pseudo-diversity and ultra-processed crud disguised as foodoid items.

You can tell where I'm coming from, can't you?

A concise definition of "food system" comes from the San Francisco Food Alliance's 2005 San Francisco Collaborative Food System Assessment (PDF), which says

A food system describes the cycle of growing, distributing, eating and recycling our food, and all the factors that affect it.

Short and sweet! It's "all the factors" that are the hairy part, however: natural resources and environmental systems, social and cultural systems, political systems, economic systems, technology, research, education, etc. That encompasses a lot of things: disease, hunger, political will, costs, food safety, commodities trading, water rights, the Green Revolution, agribusiness, organic certification, heirloom seeds, and so on. This in turn brings up ideas like food democracy and equity, food sovereignty, fair trade, self-reliance, guerilla gardening, etc.

Kloppenberg's article, "Coming in to the Foodshed," takes the metaphor of the watershed and applies it to food. How does food move through the landscape, the community? One quote from it struck me:

Provided with an apparent cornucopia of continuously available foods, few consumers have much knowledge of the biological, social, or technical parameters and implications of food production in the global village.

Of course, much of the power of agribusiness ultimately depends on farmers and consumers not knowing. If we do not know, we do not act. And even if we do know, the physical and social distancing characteristics of the global food system may constrain our willingness to act when the locus of the needed action is distant or when we have no real sense of connection to the land or those on whose behalf we ought to act. Ultimately, distancing disempowers. Control passes to those who can act and are accustomed to act at a distance: the Philip Morrises, Monsantos, and ConAgras of the world.

(My emphasis added.) In short, it pays the big guys for the public to be uniformed or misinformed.

The thing that I am discovering about an examination of food systems and sustainable farming: food is political, and food politics are radical—because the nexus of the issue is about self-determination, freedom.

Kloppenberg, Hendrickson, and Stevenson go on (and bear in mind that this article was published 15 years ago) to talk about "foodshed work." They describe it so (again, my emphasis):

• A foodshed will be embedded in a moral economy that envelopes [sic] and conditions market forces. The global food system now operates according to allegedly "natural" rules of efficiency, utility maximization, competitiveness, and calculated self-interest. The historical extension of market relations has deeply eroded the obligations of mutuality, reciprocity, and equity that ought to characterize all elements of human interaction. Food production today is organized largely with the objective of producing a profit rather than with the purpose of feeding people. But human society has been and should remain more than a marketplace.
• Community Supported Agriculture also serves as an illustration of our expectation that the moral economy of a foodshed will be shaped and expressed principally through communities.…We imagine foodsheds as commensal communities that encompass sustainable relationships both between people (those who eat together) and between people and the land (obtaining food without damage). …[B]uilding the commensal community means establishment or recovery of social linkages beyond atomistic market relationships through the production, exchange, processing, and consumption of food. …Finally, the standards of a commensal community require respect and affection for the land and for other species. It is through food that humanity's most intimate and essential connections to the earth and to other creatures are expressed and consummated.
• The dominant dynamics of the global food system actively erode both moral economy and community. We agree with those who believe that this destructiveness is an inherent property of the system, and that what is needed is fundamental transformation rather than simple reform.

All this makes having a garden at home look like a revolutionary act. And maybe it is.

More later on Gerlach's article, "Rural Alaskan Food Systems: Problems, Prospects, and Policy Considerations," written for the Alaska Food Policy Council in August 2010.

See my previous posts on this course:

• Food systems and shizen
• Sustainable food systems class

Cross posted at SNRAS Science & News.

Food systems and shizen

Our first week in the Comparative Farming & Sustainable Food Systems course consisted of going over the syllabus, which is long and detailed and actually rather interesting. Professor Gerlach introduced the idea of shizen in it, which he described as "a spontaneous, self-renewing sacred and natural world of which humans are inextricably a part." When I look this up on line, I find shizen noho, or "natural farming," a type of permaculture. Gerlach described shizen noho as the "gardeners of Eden" method. This in turn is a reference to a book by the same title by Dan Dagget, with the important subtitle, Rediscovering Our Importance to Nature. Another one for my reading list, I'm afraid…

This idea, that we are a part of nature, and not apart from it, is one that isn't all that startling on the face of it, but the behavioral consequences that naturally (so to speak) follow are profoundly different than the ones modern industrial culture is creating. The situation we're in now (in terms of our food and social systems and the environmental results) arise from the assumption that we are not part of, or subservient to, Nature. I use the idea of subservience quite deliberately: we are used to the idea of dominion, of heirarchy, in our relationship to the natural world—and each other. We operate as though we aren't part of the natural world, as though there are no consequences to what we do (at least, not ones that affect us). This is true in farming and in our food systems.

Our first assignment was to read an essay by Michael Hamm talking about developing sustainable, or healthy, food systems as a "wicked problem," i.e., one that doesn't have a solution, exactly, because not only do people not agree about what the problem is, but that the solution is different for each stakeholder. This is a very interesting concept. The opposite sort of problem he presented was that of a "tame problem," one in which the answer is inherent in the problem itself, and has a clear end; it's complete when solved. A wicked problem, on the other hand, can't really be completed. It's that nebulous, complex, ever-changing and evolving sort of problem that the real world is full of: a complexity of problem.

Class was canceled yesterday due to no classroom and an ill professor, but we got an e-mail assigning us to find a definition of "food system" and to come to class prepared to talk about it. (Wikipedia once again provides a good starting point.) And of course, if we're going to be talking about sustainable food systems in this course, we'd better know what a food system is.

First post on this class: Sustainable food systems class

Cross posted at SNRAS Science & News.

Nuclear Ester, nuclear Alaska

Jamie Smith sent me this cartoon back in 2005, when Galena was considering Toshiba's offer of a small-scale, self-contained nuclear power plant. More recently, when John Reeves started a bit of a ruckus out here by proposing to install a similar underground self-contained nuclear power plant on his property near Ester, Jamie sent me another cartoon. One of the hazards of living in Alaska is that we are on the Ring of Fire—and that same summer, coincidentally, Ester was plagued with a LOT of earthquakes.

So, it may be of interest to Mr. Reeves and various Esterites that the Alaska Center for Energy and Power is holding a community lecture at the Blue Loon next Tuesday (January 18 at 6 pm) on the very subject of nuclear power in Alaska. Here's their blurb:

The lecture is titled “The Nuclear Option: Are Small Scale Nuclear Power Plants an Option for Alaska.” It will provide an overview of small-scale nuclear technology and its potential applications in Alaska. Design and permitting considerations, safety and security, economics, ownership, resource and environmental issues will be discussed.

Ought to be entertaining, at the least…
ACEP conducted a workshop on the feasibility small-scale nuclear power in Alaska in early December. The link provides some more info on the presentations, including both summaries and a full transcript.

Ester, contrary to previous thought, is not officially a nuke-free zone. The Ester Community Association has never revisited the question. Perhaps we'd best make it so?

GVEA bylaws vote

I have yet to sit down and thoroughly examine the packet GVEA sent us regarding the bylaws, but I did receive an opinion piece from the group GVEA Ratepayers' Alliance. Nancy Kuhn, the author, evaluates GVEA's power generation priorities--and the Healy 2 coal plant should not be among them.

The Golden Valley Electric Association Issues blog recommends voting no on lifting or expanding the debt cap, and I agree. We're in too much debt already. He also gives some information about the subsidy that the Eva Creek wind project would be eligible for, plus a few PowerPoint presentations on the project that GVEA created (but doesn't seem to have on the GVEA website--go figure).

Missed the muckraker

AK Muckraker came up to Fairbanks, briefly, for a panel on Palin sponsored by the Sociology Department, the Political Science Department, the UAF Women's Center, and the Women's Studies Program. I heard good things about it from Jamie Smith, but what was nifty was that I received an invitation from Sine Anahita and Kayt Sunwood to come meet the Raker of Muck -- and then when I came in to work today there was a message from Ms. Muckraker on my phone.

I would dearly have loved to come hang out at Gulliver's for an hour's chat, but unfortunately, the Republic could not wait any longer. The subscriptions were three weeks late, and between that and the previously promised attendance at Phil Loring's dissertation defense, Hans (Le Chauffeur) being sick, and the Lallapalooza pickups, I just could not justify going.

Sigh. Would have been good, though.

Her call and presence up here have got me thinking again about where I want to go with the Republic. It's been the ol' hobby paper/magazine for 11 years now, going on 12, and while I like what it's become, I think it could go a lot farther. However, it won't do it with me being 3/5ths time at another job. I have to devote myself full time to it. And that, of course, means it has to pay me a full-time salary. Plus pay for contributors and staff.

I'd like some feedback on this (assuming anybody's reading this these days). One idea has been the nonprofit grant-seeking type of institution, another has been community-sponsored journalism (sponsorship piece by piece). Do people want to see the Republic continue, and more as a serious journalism venture? and if so, will you put your money where your mouth is, and how?

2009 in review

Once again it is that time of year: resolutions and reflections to gird oneself for adventure and mud-slogging for the days of the coming year. In some ways, this was a pretty rough year. So, here's how it looked last year:

January
The Stones' house caught fire.

A letter from Emmonak was published, and all hell broke loose. Sarah didn't notice, though.

I began my descent into ukulele madness, with the purchase of a brand-new baritone uke. Little did I know that this was the start of serious musical obsession. Woo-hoo!

Obama was sworn in to the presidency, and Service was Restored.

I received notice of my 30-year high school reunion. O gads.

February
Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir assumed the post of Iceland's prime minister. This is notable because she is Iceland's first female prime minister and she is openly lesbian.

The Fairbanks North Star Borough School Board decided that bullying on the basis of gender identity was every bit as nasty as discrimination or harrasment on some other basis.

Dave Lacey died of cancer.

March
The Republic's publisher and contributors and fans celebrated ten years of crazed publishing in a MAJOR party with live music (Back Cu'ntry Bruthers and the Slippin' Mickeys) and the Publisher's Picks.

I joined Facebook and set up a page for the Republic. Now it's become a major time drain…WAY too much fun.

I helped organize the first of a series of CSA roundtables at my university job. The group that has arisen from this, the Alaska Community Agriculture Association, gives me a little hope that Alaska may yet feed itself and with good, wholesome food.

I was invited to speak at the Alaska Press Club annual meeting as part of a panel of bloggers. It was quite entertaining, but I got stuck in Anchorage (flight cancellation on account of belching volcano). One of the big topics was Mike Doogan's outing of Mudflats, the resultant fracas, and whether it was appropriate for bloggers to be anonymous. Hans drove down to fetch me, o noble spouse that he is.

April
The Ester Republic got a new office! Photos here and here. Here too.

John Reeves decided to shake things up in Ester a bit with a nuclear power plant proposal. Ester may or may not be a nuke-free zone.

May
Lee Shauer, Dwight Deely, and Linda Patrick committed suicide, all in one week. Ester was reeling.

The Banana Girls Ukulele Marching Band started practicing for the 4th of July. I started taking strum classes with Jean McDermott.

June
The Ester Community Market began its second season.

Emma Creek West reared its ugly head again. Or rather, Land Management did, with an old, previously rejected development plan. They just don't get it.

July
The Ester Fourth of July parade was GREAT. And the Banana Girls were there.

Sarah Palin's resignation speech got edited by Vanity Fair. More hilarity I haven't had in a LONG time.

August
The Onion once again published prophecy, this time on how Congress works not to provide health care.

Our cat Archie died of throat cancer.

September
I found a great song to learn.

Adam and Kelly Hullin of Wasilla embarrassed themselves publicly in an interview in the Frontiersman. Sadly, they probably have no clue just how stupid they made themselves appear. Sigh. Another blow to the Alaskan reputation.

October
Marjorie Kowalski Cole, scheduled to be the first speaker for the Ester library lecture series, was unable to make it but sent in her talk in written form anyway.

Mike Musick ran for borough assembly again and won, but Luke Hopkins and Tammie Wilson had to go through a runoff.

November
I got serious about Facebook.

Monique Musick gave the first lecture for the John Trigg Ester Library, a slide show and talk on her trip to China in 2008.

December
Marjorie Kowalski Cole died of cancer. I sent her book of poetry to the printer.

Addendum 1/5/10: (I never did a 2008 in review post), 2007 in review, 2006 in review

350 ppm

Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached about 383 parts per million. Our atmosphere is actually mostly nitrogen (78%), with a bit of oxygen (21%) and argon (1%) and a few other trace elements thrown in. Carbon dioxide, the fourth most prevalent gas, is really a very small percentage of the whole when compared to the three major gases: only .04%. But it packs a punch.

When Arctic ice melted so dramatically in the summer of 2007, scientists realized that global warming was no longer a future threat but a very present crisis. Within months our leading climatologists—especially the NASA team led by James Hansen—were giving us a stark new reality check. Above 350 parts per million carbon dioxide, they wrote, the atmosphere would begin to heat too much for us to have a planet “similar to the one on which civilization developed and to which life on earth is adapted.”

—Bill McKibben, Yes! magazine

James Hansen warned President-Elect Obama that the current public policy approaches being taken were not working. In an interview in March in the Guardian, Hansen expressed heightened concern:

What is frustrating people, me included, is that democratic action affects elections but what we get then from political leaders is greenwash.

The democratic process is supposed to be one person one vote, but it turns out that money is talking louder than the votes. So, I'm not surprised that people are getting frustrated. I think that peaceful demonstration is not out of order, because we're running out of time.

We most certainly are. Today around the world there are demonstrations and events centered on this number. 350.org has organized an International Day of Climate Action today, with updates from around the world—including Fairbanks, Alaska.

Alas, our Congressional delegation doesn't get it. Lisa Murkowski, for example, doesn't want the Environmental Protection Agency regulating carbon dioxide from the major emitters: power plants, manufacturing plants, and the like. Or at least not yet. The problem, of course, is that climate change is not waiting. It's happening NOW, and the economy (saving it is the reason that keeps getting brought up for stalling) is going to get wrecked along with everything else if Congress doesn't act soon. Like yesterday.

And, according to this article in the Christian Science Monitor, the public in the US doesn't really get it either. Up here in Alaska, where we are experiencing the changes first-hand (I mean, what happened to October?), we are so focused on the oil drip that we can't see around it to diversify our economy, reduce our emissions, and get the hell away from our dependence on the fossil fuels that are destroying us.

We're screwed

Yep, that's what the headline reads in the New York Post. Well, the edition published by the Yes Men, that is. From the press release:

Early this morning, nearly a million New Yorkers were stunned by the appearance of a "special edition" New York Post blaring headlines that their city could face deadly heat waves, extreme flooding, and other lethal effects of global warming within the next few decades. The most alarming thing about it: the news came from an official City report. [74-page PDF]

Distributed by over 2000 volunteers throughout New York City, the paper has been created by The Yes Men and a coalition of activists as a wake-up call to action on climate change. It appears one day before a UN summit where Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon will push 100 world leaders to make serious commitments to reduce carbon emissions in the lead-up to the Copenhagen climate conference in December. Ban has said that the world has "less than 10 years to halt (the) global rise in greenhouse gas emissions if we are to avoid catastrophic consequences for people and the planet," adding that Copenhagen is a "once-in-a-generation opportunity."

Although the 32-page New York Post is a fake, everything in it is 100% true, with all facts carefully checked by a team of editors and climate change experts.

Climate change is no joke, folks, and it's stunts like these that are attempting to get through the massive cultural denial we have about it. Humor is often effective at reaching people so they can bear to think about a horrible thing—and maybe do something about it.

Alaska, like the city of New York, is actually looking at the effects of climate change, rather than pretending it's not happening. Alaska, of course, is already feeling the effects—the Scenarios Network for Alaska Planning at UAF has produced several reports and projections on climate and how things like hydropower projects, water availability, growing season length, and permafrost will be affected by it.

Possible location and industry for the first oceangoing arcology

Arcology: portmanteau of architecture and ecology. There's only one arcology in existence right now, that I know of: Arcosanti, a village in the Arizona desert. This was originally conceived by Paolo Soleri, who wrote Arcology: The City in the Image of Man.

It seems to me that the perfect location for the next arcology would be the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, also known as the Pacific Trash Vortex.



Numerous architects have experimented with the idea of a city-sized ship (or an artificial, ship-like island), although the floating city in as massive a form as envisioned by science fiction writers and visionary architects such as Soleri, Eugene Tsui, Jean Philippe Zoppini, and others has yet to be designed beyond the art concept stage. From Artect.net:

Despite increasing stresses on our existing societal structure and a world population rapidly growing to unsustainable levels, land based arcologies appear unlikely in the foreseeable future. The answer may reside with the remaining seventy percent of the Earth’s surface, our oceans. Ocean arcologies could utilize ocean thermal energy conversion (OTEC) or derive energy from the ocean’s perpetual motion to provide abundant pollution-free energy. Fresh water would be available via desalination. Despite the inherent dangers and high expense, the surface of Earth’s oceans are already littered with surprising structures from Sea Forts in the Thames Estuary to the famed remnants of Florida’s Stiltsville and of course the ubiquitous oil rig.

A few problems exist with dotting the oceans with cities like this, however, one of which is a lack of resources. Undersea mining, of course, is one way to deal with a lack of solid raw resources, but garbage pickup is another. And there's plenty of garbage out there. So, a city floating in its midst could harvest that resource, and thereby improve the health of the surrounding fisheries and the also the beaches of the world.

Sustainability is a big issue with cities like this, so renewable energy and urban agriculture--not to mention fresh water collection or distillation--are factors to consider. Vincent Callebaut is another architect looking at the feasibility of the oceangoing urban structure, as a response to climate change. The illustrations of his Lilypad city are beautiful and very interesting. Worth a look! He also has a concept for another type of floating island/cities.

Even the American Library Association wants single-payer health care

Congress, and in particular the Blue Dog Democrats (which I am increasingly suspecting are actually DINOs, or Democrats In Name Only), need to PAY ATTENTION! Here's what the ALA said in their press release:

ALA Calls for ‘Public Option’ in Health Care Reform
August 19th, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jenni Terry

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Library Association (ALA) today sent a letter [PDF] to all members of Congress, voicing its support for including a “public option” in health care reform legislation.

The association, which represents over 65,000 members, also supports a “single-payer” option and believes removing public options, including potential cooperative arrangements, from the final legislation would not accomplish the strong reform needed.

“Without a ‘single-payer’ provision, ALA is even more committed to retaining a ‘public option’ as reform legislation moves forward,” Emily Sheketoff, executive director of the ALA Washington Office, said. “Like every segment of our society, our nation’s library budgets are being outpaced and even consumed with increasing costs of health care. With the vast majority of librarians and library workers employed in the public sector, the rising cost of providing health insurance has placed enormous burdens on state and local governments. This makes it increasingly difficult for them to adequately fund libraries – and threatens our ability to serve the public.”

Sheketoff said the association has previously informed Congress of its support of health care reforms and is calling upon Congress again to pass significant legislation that will ensure health care is available to all.

An ALA resolution passed at the association’s July 2009 Annual Conference in Chicago states, “The ever-increasing expense of health care benefits continues to inhibit the ability of libraries to create career opportunities for librarians and library workers, stunts improvements in wages and thereby threatens the future of our profession and our libraries.”

“Libraries must be able to offer affordable and comprehensive health care insurance to assure healthy employees, to manage library budgets and to promote healthy communities that our libraries serve. We need a public option to make this happen,” Sheketoff said.

I mean, good god, other countries have been doing this quite successfully at less cost and with better health care delivery for decades! so why can't we?

Or maybe the question should be, why won't we?

On the question of being a nuke-free zone

Memory is a tricky thing. In 2003, three resolutions were introduced to the Ester Community Association at the spring meeting. They were published in the Republic and a poll conducted during the Fourth of July Picnic, where they were overwhelmingly approved by poll participants. However, the actual vote on them did not take place until the fall meeting, at which point two of the three were withdrawn and the one remaining, on making Ester a PATRIOT Act-free zone, was passed.

So when Mike Musick spoke at the GVEA meeting recently (fourth video in the member comments), saying that Reeves' plan to install a modular nuclear power generator might require a bit of discussion with the community association because Ester had declared itself a nuclear-free zone, he was only partly correct. Although the formal resolution was introduced and a public poll conducted, the resolution itself was not passed.

Mark Simpson referred to these resolutions as "hare-brained" in his August 2003 piece in the Republic, "Assemblies and Agendas," but now we are faced with the actual possibility of nuclear power in our neighborhood. Mark's main issue was with what he saw as the politicization of the ECA:

You see, it’s not the anti-PATRIOT Act stance I’m disgusted with—it’s the hijacking of an honorable, useful, apolitical association of people to fulfill the aims of some short-sighted political activists. It puts the ECA on a level with the Berkeley City Council, forever passing wacky pronouncements, rather than the Peace Corps, actively engaged in bettering lives. The ECA could host a forum, a debate, or a “teach-in,” or rent its hall to others to do so, but it best serves its members by remaining above the fray.

I saw the no-nukes resolution then not as a political issue, but as a health and safety issue, and I still do. And now is when having our community on record about it in the form of a resolution would have been a good thing.

The few people I've spoken with out here or conversed with via Facebook about the nuclear power plant aren't taking it seriously. They seem to see it as a quack idea with no real merit. However, two other commentators at the GVEA meeting besides Musick spoke about it, and they seemed to be taking it quite seriously. (The first spoke in favor of it, the second pointed out the hazards of it.) I think it's a mistake not to treat this as a genuine possibility. From what I've read, the Hyperion power plant would be an order of magnitude of improvement over the large-scale types that are causing such problems around Fort Greely [PDF] (not to mention the big headline-grabbers like Chernobyl).

Even if Reeves decides the price tag is too steep, the fact remains: small-scale nuclear power is fast becoming the Next Big Thing, despite the ever-present and apparently intrinsic drawback to this kind of power: mind-bogglingly long-lasting deadliness. It is becoming cheaper, more accessible, and more tempting to communities across the world as a power resource, and Reeves won't be the last Alaskan to think about it as a reasonable option.

Note: Bill Stringer wrote a letter to the editor in yesterday's News-Miner about the waste heat problem a small generator might cause. In the comments, it is quite clear that there are many people who see nuclear power as a feasible option for Alaska. A few useful links in the comments include:

New Commercial Reactor Designs, a list from the Energy Information Administration of the US government;

"Galena Electric Power—A Situational Analysis," the draft final report prepared for the Department of Energy by ISER and dated Dec. 15, 2004;

and a list of civilian nuclear accidents from Wikipedia.

Open house at the Republic tonite

Yuppers, tonight's the night. From 5 to 9ish tonight, the Ester Republic Press office will be be open for snacks, conversation, and a bonfire of old and damaged papers. Come on down, BYOB, and converse with the publisher.

See! a clean desk for perhaps the -- ONLY -- time in the Republic's history!

Meet! the Publisher AND the Editor, who will be all gussied up for the occasion!

and best of all,

Burn! old copies of the paper, that left-wing liberal rag! (We'll see if that brings any of those right-wingers out of the woods!)

Hoo!

Directions: (traveling from Fairbanks) head to Anchorage. On the right side of the Parks Highway, after a bit of a hill, you will see a large grey building at 2922 Parks Highway. This is the Annex gallery and art space. On the right end of the building is a door, leading to a stairwell, up which one must trudge to get to studio #2, the new Republic office.

If you get lost, call 451-0636, and we'll talk you through the way there...

Office essentials

So, boys and girls, I went shopping today with the Delivery Dude and picked up a couple of office essentials: a coffee maker and a microwave. Alas! When I unpacked the nuker (chortling in anticipation) I discovered that it had taken a fatal blow in the midsection and the glass door was shattered. Hans' driving was quite sedate, I assure you—it was a problem with the box when we bought it. What we'd thought was a handle hold was actually a dent--the hole in the front was there when we got it. So now we have to take it back and exchange it for another.

I am sore annoyed.

Not, of course, that I had any food bits lying around to microwave, but still.

I also got a card reader, so now I have unloaded photos from my camera of the new setup, as of a couple of days ago. First, The Door:



The Desk:



The Boxes O' Junk:



The Totem Cartoon:



Since this stage of affairs, the New Office has acquired a bicycle, a chair (cozy, musty, sans cushions), another chair (plastic orange mod), a drafting table and tall swivel chair (also known as Amy's Desk), and sundry articles of clothing. We need a coat tree and more lights.

About freakin' time!

One of the more amazing things about the Bush years was the willingness by the White House, various members of Congress, and a huge number of the (supposedly) Christian crowd to embrace the use of torture (so long as that icky word wasn't used). This country descended into a pit of depravity and destructive amorality so fast the supersonic boom of horror it left stunned those of us who blithely assumed that Americans would of course understand it for the evil that it is. The Bad Guys, the guys in Black Hats, those were the people who did that kind of thing.

Lest anyone forget, our congressional delegation all--every single one of them (count them, the three of them)--supported "harsh interrogation techniques." Ol' Uncle Ted, Sweet Lisa, and Yon Dung.

And still, the Obama White House and the Democratic-led Congress can't seem to recognize how important it is that war crimes and abominations like these policies, even if described with pretty words, are still abominations and the people responsible for them need to be brought to justice. That's called complicity.

But the Spaniards are finally calling the Bush White House on its shit.

CSA Roundtable

My personal life and my UAF office job seem to be converging in some ways. I've been working on arranging a CSA Roundtable that will be happening this Thursday on campus, where members of the School of Natural Resources & Agricultural Sciences (SNRAS for short) will be meeting with CSA operators to discuss what the U can do to help farmers better succeed. You know, research, better curriculum, demonstration/training/instructional CSA garden on campus, that sort of thing.

It's interesting to have this crossover in the interests I hold. I'm finding myself more and more interested in local agriculture, small-scale economies, community supported anything. As Grace Lee Boggs says on Yes! magazine:

Every day it becomes clearer that we are approaching the end of the short-lived (less than 300 years) industrial/capitalist epoch.

So people in communities, rather than the workplace, have begun to create another America.

One obvious sign is the mushrooming urban agricultural and local foods movement.

Yet, speaking with a person working here at the school, he said to me this morning, "I'm a fan of the industrial model of agriculture." CSA agriculture doesn't allow for the kind of market expansion, he says, that the industrial version does. But then I think of the kind of non-local expansion/invasion of local markets here in Alaska that Full Circle Farm is guilty of, and I wonder. Any model can be abused.

But Boggs is right, in a limited way. It's not just the US that's changing, it's the world's attitudes. Today I walked in to the office and found a copy of the 2008 Slow Food Almanac on my chair. It's a book that I will read. The Slow Food movement started in, I think, Italy. It has spread throughout the world. The Slow Food Movement, like many other aspects of the green/turning/community movement, is about humane living, not just living by quantity.

Flying press releases

ZAP! ZING! POW!

The Immoral Minority uncovered some juicy press releases flung back and forth between Governor Sarah Palin and Representative Jay Ramras. Dermot Cole's got some good excerpts, too. Tssssss! Hoo, they're hot. Palin's complaining that Jay's ignoring her and all the good stuff that the state did for Emmonak and other Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta villages, and says he's picking on her, just like a good old boy. Jay, in a dudgeon, is "shocked and appalled" and has called the governor's "derogatory comments" "fool-hardy and Clinton-esque [sic]".

Well, this little catfight may be entertaining, but I know that Jay Ramras has in fact been working for quite a few months at the very least, with UAF, on getting the Bush communities a measure of food self-sufficiency. And Sarah and the state executive branch haven't distinguished themselves in the Leaping to the Rescue Department, much less the Preparing for and Nipping Disasters in the Bud Department. Good thing the public at large has been helping out.

Andrew Halcro puts it nicely:

The dire situation in Western Alaska was not a surprise. Former Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan, warned of impending problems due to a poor fishing season when he was fired by Governor Palin in July. The Alaska Federation of Natives warned of the looming crisis at their annual convention in October.

In response to a growing crisis in villages like Emmonak and Kotlik, Representative Ramras spearheaded a food drive to help gather donations to help his fellow Alaskans. His efforts have been extremely successful.

Dear, dear, dear.

Attention: Service Has Been Restored

My dad sent me this hilarious (and painfully true) little service announcement that he received via e-mail earlier this week:

Dear World,

The United States of America, your quality supplier of ideals of liberty and democracy, would like to apologize for its 2001-2008 service outage. The technical fault that led to this eight-year service interruption has been located, and the parts responsible for it were replaced Tuesday night, November 4th.

Early tests of the newly-installed equipment indicate that it is functioning correctly, and we expect it to be fully functional by January 20th. We apologize for any inconvenience caused by the outage, and we look forward to resuming full service --- and hopefully even to improving it in the years to come.

Thank you for your patience and understanding,

*The USA*

It is apparent that the new equipment is functioning properly, and that the damage done by the faulty parts is rapidly being repaired. Let's just hope that it is up to task before it: those loose cogs and wrenches did a lot of damage before they were extricated from the works.