Archive for December, 2005
Saturday, December 31st, 2005
In a recent article in Grist magazine, author Kelly Hearn describes the South American (esp. Brazilian) effort to create an "ethanol empire". In the wake of the environmentalist reverie over the utopian vision of emissions neutral automobiles, I wonder if anyone has actually paused to imagine what an [...]
Posted in Development, Alternative Energy | No Comments »
Wednesday, December 28th, 2005
Gran Cafe is produced by a cooperative of organic coffee farmers in the Dominican Republic. For the past 10 years the cooperative has dedicated itself to developing the techniques and practices necessary for sustainable coffee production. Managing several hundred small farmers is no [...]
Posted in Development, Organic | No Comments »
Tuesday, December 20th, 2005
After an unprecedented victory in Sunday's Bolivian elections, the triumphant cocalero Evo Morales has left many observers wondering: What's next? Evo has promised an inclusive, socialist government that will break the back of the neo-liberal model and change the course of exploitation and elitism that has dominated Bolivian history [...]
Posted in Development, Politics, Bolivia | No Comments »
Monday, December 12th, 2005
I spent the winter of 99-00 completing my graduate studies in forestry on the snow blown campus of Michigan Tech. The school is situated on the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan's UP, where the warmer air and moisture of Lake Superior combine to dump copious amounts of snow on the [...]
Posted in Environment | No Comments »
Sunday, December 11th, 2005
Americans, if you care about your country then there is one single thing you can do to make it better: support and vote for third parties. Every two years we go to the polls and choose between two parties whose differences have grown unbelievably narrow and whose vitriolic polemics [...]
Posted in Politics | No Comments »
