Articles by Erik Hoffner

Coming to a city near you?

The New York Times ran a story this week on a grassroots effort that aims to demonstrate the potential for growing food in our cities. NY Sun Works' Center for Sustainable Engineering has a sustainable energy and hydroponics project floating on a barge in the Hudson River, and it's causing a minor buzz ...

Trends on an ever-shrinking planet

I was at Coop Power's excellent annual renewable energy summit in western Massachusetts recently. Richard Heinberg was there as a presenter. He discussed his well-regarded peak oil projections, and he then put that curve next to his peak uranium and peak coal projections. That visual drew gasps from the crowd -- especially the peak coal bit.

Sure we've got lots of coal, but its quality ain't what it used to be, and won't go as far. Check his data. This got me thinking of all the indexes we might put forward to track important trends on this ever-shrinking planet.

The next one I'd promote, given our perilous reliance on the mobile hives that are driven from farm to farm to pollinate our crops, plus this winter's mysterious honeybee population crash, would have to be peak bees. And how about peak freshwater. What would you propose?

Press conference on Tuesday in NYC

A delegation of grassroots groups from around Appalachia will be at the UN's Commission on Sustainable Development meetings this week to discourage further MTR abuse and advocate for alternatives (More on them here: www.stopmtr.org). New Yorkers, turn up for this if you can:

Paul Hawken on the remaking of the world

Paul Hawken's new book Blessed Unrest is a much-needed analysis of the movement that's poised to change the world as we know it. It's a must read, (excerpted here in Orion magazine) even if you're not a self-described grassroots activist. In it, he states that "the movement to restore people and planet is now composed of over one million organizations" working toward ecological sustainability and social justice. Maybe two million. And that:

By conventional definition, this is not a movement. Movements have leaders and ideologies. You join movements, study tracts, and identify yourself with a group. You read the biography of the founder(s) or listen to them perorate on tape or in person. Movements have followers, but this movement doesn't work that way. It is dispersed, inchoate, and fiercely independent. There is no manifesto or doctrine, no authority to check with.

Like we witnessed with the success of Step It Up 2007, the movement can't be divided because it is composed of many small pieces, forming, gathering, and disbanding quickly as need be. The media and politicians may dismiss it as powerless, but "it has been known to bring down governments, companies, and leaders through witnessing, informing, and massing."

This is one of his main conclusions: