Tag: Alternatives Journal

Education and Learning

Urban Homesteading

Concerns for our unsustainable, fossil-fuelled lifestyle underlie Rachel Kaplan and K. Ruby Blume’s book, Urban Homesteading: Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living. The book provides a colourful overview of what each of us can do to build a more self-sufficient future. It explains the principles of homesteading and permaculture, and provides a wide range of ideas and how-to projects for the urban dweller. Presented in a straightforward and accessible manner, skills depicted range from growing and preserving your own food – both plant and animal – to natural building and grey water recycling. The authors explain how even small changes we make will benefit our communities, our environment and ourselves. is a revised edition of a book that addresses the common feeling that the planet is in trouble and we have little control over the outcome. Author Frances Moore Lappé tackles the issues of the world by acknowledging the problems and the overwhelming task of dealing with them, and then doesn’t waste any time offering up solutions.Click through for our full review… Continue reading Urban Homesteading

Books and Resources

Book Review: Getting A Grip 2

Getting A Grip 2: Clarity, Creativity and Courage for the World We Really Want is a revised edition of a book that addresses the common feeling that the planet is in trouble and we have little control over the outcome. Author Frances Moore Lappé tackles the issues of the world by acknowledging the problems and the overwhelming task of dealing with them, and then doesn’t waste any time offering up solutions.Click through for our full review… Continue reading Book Review: Getting A Grip 2

Community Stewardship and Living, Education and Learning

Getting A Grip 2

Getting A Grip 2: Clarity, Creativity and Courage for the World We Really Want is a revised edition of a book that addresses the common feeling that the planet is in trouble and we have little control over the outcome. Author Frances Moore Lappé tackles the issues of the world by acknowledging the problems and the overwhelming task of dealing with them, and then doesn’t waste any time offering up solutions.Click through for our full review… Continue reading Getting A Grip 2

Community Stewardship and Living

The Secret Life of Stuff

The underlying message in Julie Hill’s book, The Secret Life of Stuff: A Manual for a New Material World, is one of conscious simplification. Not one to slap the wrists of consumers, she professes a love of shopping and the joy she gets from the perfect “find” for pennies. She does, however, question the ways in which we currently try to “green” our buying habits.Click through for our full review… Continue reading The Secret Life of Stuff

Around the Web

The Ptarmigan’s Dilemma

If I were asked by a visitor from outer space for the best information on the history and ecology of life on Earth, I’d offer this book. Deservedly short-listed for the 2010 Writers’ Trust Non-Fiction Prize, The Ptarmigan’s Dilemma covers all the bases, bridging the authors’ decades of research into animal ecology and their many engaging encounters with animals. From Alternatives Journal 37.3: EcoBooks, published May 2011
Click through for our full review… Continue reading The Ptarmigan’s Dilemma

Books and Resources, Energy

Rocking the Environment with Alternatives Journal (37.4)

Musicians have always drawn inspiration from the world around them, but what happens when that world is in trouble? For an increasing number of environmentally minded artists, their efforts are moving off-stage. Instead of writing green lyrics, they are setting up foundations, leading conservation drives, greening their tours, and changing the faces of both environmentalism and music. Continue reading Rocking the Environment with Alternatives Journal (37.4)

Education and Learning

The Munk Debates: Volume One

What do you call four adults viciously attacking one another in front of a sold-out audience screaming for blood? No, this is not the next generation of ultimate fighting. This is debating, Munk style. The Munk Debates consists of transcripts of the first five debates hosted by the Aurea Foundation. According to its benefactor, businessman Peter Munk, the purpose of the debates is to “create a forum that attracts the best minds and debaters to address some of the most important international issues of our time.” From Alternatives Journal 37.3: EcoBooks, published May 2011
Click through for our full review… Continue reading The Munk Debates: Volume One

Around the Web

Living Through the End of Nature

You are probably aware that nature is dead. This may be why you are gloomy all the time. We tried so hard to ensure that biodiversity wasn’t lost and climate change didn’t spiral (further) out of control, but only an extreme idealist can maintain the illusion any longer. We have lost. Species disappear on a daily basis and we fail to enact even a semblance of the climate change policies required to stem the tide. Some of us have even surrendered to the dark side of fabricated landscapes and a geo-engineered Earth. If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. From Alternatives Journal 37.3: EcoBooks, published May 2011
Click through for our full review… Continue reading Living Through the End of Nature

Books and Resources, Food and Health

AJ Update: Just Food available now!

The first and most important thing to say about food,” writes Wayne Roberts in this issue of Alternatives, “is that there is no first and most important thing to know about food.” This apparent riddle summarizes the message in our latest issue “Just Food.” Food is ubiquitous, affecting health, social welfare, agriculture and the economy. By thinking of food holistically – as our report on Belo Horizonte, Brazil, demonstrates – we will begin to implement policies and adopt systems that will result in a healthier population and a more robust economy in which farmers are fairly rewarded for their labours.

We invite you to dig into this tasty issue, and decide for yourself whether a food revolution is really in the making. Continue reading AJ Update: Just Food available now!

Community Stewardship and Living

The Story of Stuff


Leonard, a self-described “systems thinker,” aims to debunk the entrenched “growth at all costs” model. She does so by discussing the materials economy and its underlying paradigm of economic growth, but opts to not lay the blame with individuals or inspire feelings of guilt. … Readers, however, should not be misled by her bubbly prose: Leonard gets to the heart of serious subjects and exposes the inter-connectedness of today’s consumption, environmental, social and economic crises.
Click through for our full review. Continue reading The Story of Stuff