on by Suzanne Whitby

Food in the Anthropocene

Food. A gift and a challenge. Too cheap (considering effort, lives lost, practices, implications to humans, animals and the planet alike), and too expensive and limited (global poverty is real and millions have too little to eat).

Here’s something worth reading. In 2019, the food policy group Eat and the medical journal the Lancet issued a report, Food in the Anthropocene, linking unhealthy diets to the environmental damage caused by the industrial food system. The report argues that changing what we eat and how we produce it is essential not only for our own health but for the health of the planet.

It has apparently become one of the most widely cited, peer-reviewed scientific papers of the past 20 years.

on by Suzanne Whitby

Ginger Balls

Alexina Anatole has a recipe the The Guardian today for Pear and ginger overnight oats. Reading the comments, ofyen the best part of many of these articles, someone mentioned loving “ginger balls” ( with necessary rude remarks a la SA 1990s!).

On further reading, I learned that these are chunks of fresh ginger, cooked in syrup and water to preserve them. Useful in all sorts of cooking, from muesli to Ginger Fool to Ginger Martini. Must give it a go. This Preserved Stem Ginger in Syrup recipe was recommended. Reminder from comments: don’t stir.

Preserved stem ginger. Photo: The English Kitchen.
Preserved Stem Ginger in Syrup
Preserved Step Ginger recipes from The English Kitchen.
Read More
www.theenglishkitchen.co

 

on by Suzanne Whitby

The power of “super-facilitators”

I’ve been reading about “super-facilitators”: people who make teams smarter together by improving how they interact. It struck me how relevant this is to futures and foresight. Futures methods are often treated as the main ingredient, but the real differentiator is interaction quality: who speaks, how dissent is handled, how uncertainty is held, and whether the group builds shared meaning. The future is uncertain; the work is collective. Facilitation is the infrastructure that makes collective intelligence possible.

on by Suzanne Whitby

Tremor, A Movement Disorder in a Disordered World

Chloe Green’s intriguing review of “Tremor, A Movement Disorder in a Disordered World” by Sonya Voumard. Voumard felt her hands begin to shake in her childhood, a tremble she shared with her recently deceased father. Over time, as the tremor grows more potent, and more visible to others, she begins to search for an explanation, an underlying cause, and possibly a treatment. Struck a chord as a family member suffers from tremors.

“What is it about shaking that’s so disempowering? Is it because fear, rage, cold and fever are among its many negative causes. Shaking can also make you look weak, sick, nervous, addicted, not in control, lacking in confidence.”
—Sonya Voumard

on by Suzanne Whitby

Humans: massacring, butchering, and (likely) partly consuming enemies as a means to dehumanise them since the Bronze age

Archaeologists have analysed over 3000 human bones and bone fragments from the Early Bronze Age site of Charterhouse Warren, England, concluding that the people were massacred, butchered, and likely partly consumed by enemies as a means to dehumanise them. An accessible summary of the research is entitled, “Butchered bones suggest violent ‘othering’ of enemies in Bronze Age Britain“.

Well, we may have stopped nibbling on our enemies since then (to my knowledge), but otherwise, I am not sure that much has changed…

“We actually find more evidence for injuries to skeletons dating to the Neolithic period in Britain than the Early Bronze Age, so Charterhouse Warren stands out as something very unusual. It paints a considerably darker picture of the period than many would have expected.”
—Professor Rick Schulting, University of Oxford.

 

on by Suzanne Whitby

The problem with talking about “tipping points”

Climate communicators (myself included) use the term “tipping points” to talk about the thresholds beyond which the Earth’s systems switch into new states, often abruptly and irreversibly. The point about talking about tipping points is to encourage action; the question is whether this phrase is helpful. An interesting read from Kate Yoder at Grist.

“Talking about tipping points, as scary as they are, might not inspire people to do something about climate change. That’s because fear is an unreliable motivator. It might be key to generating attention online, but it can too often leave people feeling defeated and disengaged.”
—Bob Kopp, Climate change and sea level rise researcher at Rutgers University