by _sabotage_ on Mon Jan 26, 2015 12:13 pm
A good place to start would be to stop poisoning land out of production.
I think I have pointed out a lot of these methods, so I'll try to keep it brief:
Havana recently moved nearly all of its food production within the city. Cities are generally built on the best agricultural land around. This is why people moved there and why the area was able to develop large populations. Similar things have been seen in Detroit.
Recycling of organics, including food waste, human waste and biological waste adds to the nutrient levels and biodiversity of soil. If we weren't wasting these resources on bringing the natural cleaning of water down to an artificial one of 5 minutes, there is an abundant of usable material in these resources. Hot composting, or the Berkeley method, takes 18 days, produces extractable heat, results in much more organic material than regular composting. Equipment for simplifying the process is in the works.
Decentralizing composting, human waste treatment, agriculture would already provide double the food.
Permaculture successes: India, made agriculture without outside inputs profitable, healthier and created a better community. Jordan, turned a desert into an oasis, with the mushrooms desalinating the site. Africa, turned desert into agricultural land. China, turned barren land into productive agricultural land. Australia, turned an acre into a food forest capable of providing the total needs for 4 people per acre with 520 annual input hours.
Hemp, produces as much paper as 4 times the amount of land used for trees.
Onsite resources. One theory on the building of the pyramids was the use of geopolymers, that is basically a different recipe for concrete for materials found onsite. Cob, a material which is also made from onsite materials (soil which has been separated by density) contains most of the elements. One thing I'm working on is better methods for extracting, purifying and then reconstituting materials so that a building may be made from 90% onsite materials (in conjunction with HC).
By decentralizing materials and food production, we open up a lot of land for other uses, a lot of time for other things, a lot of space for transport. This will be furthered with 3D printing technology.
Earthships incorporate onsite greenhouses. Greenhouses have been developed that can be used with zero energy input. Incorporating a system which makes use of organic matter, converts it to extractable energy and plant food, that can then be used in a zero energy greenhouse to supply year round food, which means homesteading will be very different in the future.
Eventually, it will be completely automated. It will require less effort to compost than it does now, and the composter will see a return (whereas now they must deal with it for nothing and let the dump trucks haul it away).
Ipad is going nuts.
Metsfanmax
Killing a human should not be worse than killing a pig.
It never ceases to amaze me just how far people will go to defend their core beliefs.