Monday, July 22, 2013

“Mycelium is Earth’s Natural Internet.”

Six ways mushrooms can save the world.

Paul Stamets gives this wonderful TED Talk about mushrooms that are organisms that cover our earth and are very important for the life on earth.

Paul Stamets believes that mushrooms can save our lives, restore our ecosystems and transform other worlds.




Entrepreneurial mycologist Paul Stamets seeks to rescue the study of mushrooms from forest gourmets and psychedelic warlords. The focus of Stamets' research is the Northwest's native fungal genome, mycelium, but along the way he has filed 22 patents for mushroom-related technologies, including pesticidal fungi that trick insects into eating them, and mushrooms that can break down the neurotoxins used in nerve gas.

There are cosmic implications as well. Stamets believes we could terraform other worlds in our galaxy by sowing a mix of fungal spores and other seeds to create an ecological footprint on a new planet.

Saturday, July 6, 2013

A Farm for the Future

“All of the debts for society’s century-long industrial fiesta are coming due at the same time. We have no choice but to transition to a world no longer dependent on fossil fuels, a world made up of communities and economies that function within ecological bounds. How we manage this transition is the most important question of our time.”       
              ~ Richard Heinberg

A Farm for the Future is a video about changing the way we garden/farm - it is made in the UK, but so much applies here in the U.S. and throughout the world.

This video starts off examining animal farming, but develops into a holistic examination of growing and providing food in the future.  The scope of this video and what changes need to be made in the future are eye-opening and thought provoking. We are all in this together, so it is encouraging to see some successful examples of farms for the future.