Food historian Rachel Laudan joins Adam Grubb and Sarah Coles to talk reasons why she thinks many in the ethical and sustainable food movements could use a little historical perspective, and it's a fascinating and provocative discussion. See her critique of the Slow Food movement, and her award winning book 2013's Cuisine and Empire: Cooking in World History for further reading. 

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Books mentioned: The Carbon Farming Solution by Eric Toensmeier and Drawdown edited by Paul Hawken.

To discuss we're joined by our friend, ecologist and computer geek, Rafael Schouten. 

We're joined by Dr Chris Williams who researches and teaches about the social, cultural and technical aspects of urban agriculture at the Burnley Campus of Melbourne University. Amongst his many interests he runs the Novel Crops Project which identifies less widely grown food plants for cultivation in Melbourne gardens, for example, sweet potato and taro. The Project is trying to keep people excited about the idea of ‘edible landscapes’, gardens that look great and inviting but also provide food.  Check out Chris's blog: People, Plants, Landscape.

(Photo by MusikAnimal licensed CC BY-SA 4.0)

Later in the show we talk with small farmer Tammi Jonas about her battle with regulators that consider her and other free-range farmer operations legally the same as huge battery operations. She mentions this petition.  

Follow Steve's work at:www.patreon.com/ProfSteveKeen

Craig Byatt is a holistic architect and Liz has a background in sustainability and project management. We spoke about how the demand for tiny houses is on the rise despite the average size of the new Australian home being a whopping 231 square metres.

We discussed the laws around tiny houses and the way that councils are playing a game of catch up in this area. We looked at examples of tiny houses being used in a social justice context, for example, Quixote Village in the US is one of the first tiny house communities set up to address issues of homelessness.

Later in the show we hear from Nick Lamberton who until last week lived in a tiny house (and ran a tropical fish breeding enterprise) in a western suburbs caravan park for eight years. We discuss this article: Reclaiming "Redneck" Urbanism: What Urban Planners can Learn from Trailer Parks, and what life was actually like in an urban caravan park. 

Craig and Liz are coming back to talk about Community Land Trusts, one solution to the problem of acquiring land to put your tiny house on. In the meantime check out the tiny house planning resource, Small Is Beautiful, the tiny house documentary, and this New York Times article about living with a lot less. Sarah makes reference to a tiny house being stolen last week allegedly by a 24 year old man believed to be from Canberra. 

Fleming thought the globalised market economy would, in the not too distant future, begin to fail as it faces limits to growth from resource depletion, and said: “Localisation stands, at best, at the limits of practical possibility. But it has the decisive argument in its favour that there is no alternative.” And his work explores how we can create rich local cultures and economies as an alternative to global capitalism.

Fleming died suddenly in 2010, but his good friend, Shaun Chamberlin has recently turned a manuscript Fleming left behind, into two books: his magnum opus, Lean Logic: A Dictionary for the Future and How to Survive It, and a smaller introductory text, Surviving the Future: Culture, Carnival and Capital in the Aftermath of the Market Economy.  We speak to Shaun by Skype from his home in Devon.  Shaun's also behind the website darkoptimism.org where you can read his rather impressive bio, which includes co-founding Transition Town Kingston, and authoring the Transition movement's second book The Transition Timeline. 

You can find out more about the books at the Fleming Policy Institute.  

We also mention the Dark Mountain Project and Mark Boyle, the Moneyless Man. 

The podcast contains a slightly extended interview than what went to air.

x GtA 

Dr Chetri is in town for some School of Life events.

Heinberg is the author of 13 books, including some seminal works with titles like The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality, and Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World.  His latest book is Our Renewable Future: Laying the Path to One Hundred Percent Clean Energy (available for free online!) co-authored with Berkeley energy expert David Fridley. If you want to do an online course with Richard, check out Think Resilience.  

Also. Sarah reviews pot noodles. 

Later in the show we talk about the concept of 'energy slaves'. Check out this video an Olympic cyclist vs. a toaster. 

Chido’s background is one of the toughest childhoods imaginable, one that saw her orphaned at the age of 7, with her remaining relatives offering more abuse than support, while she was responsible for feeding and caring for her very elderly grandmother, and her malnourished younger brother.  Her long road out of this situation came via the unlikely path of mushroom cultivation, and she now teaches thousands of people across the world – and in particular other vulnerable young women in Zimbabwe – how to grow mushrooms, as a way of gaining some autonomy in their lives.

Later we talk about growing mushrooms at home with keen mushroom grower, forager and educator Nick Ritar of Milkwood.

She now facilitates nature based reconnection retreats and wilderness rites of passage. Find out more at Nature's Apprentice.

And we talk lessons from the dirty ol' bastard of ancient greek philosophers: Diogenese.

Sam's latest books are Just Enough is Plenty: Thoreau’s Alternative Economics and Deface the Currency: The Lost Dialogues of Diogenes. He also mentions The Dark Cellars Project in which artists submit images that make the messages of voluntary simplicity a bit more visceral and visual.

Return guest Simplicity Institute founder Dr Samuel Alexander ponders whether the environment can survive the human brain’s emotional biases, and what can the environmental movement can do to get a message out in a 'post-truth' era?

And we talk lessons from the dirty ol' bastard of ancient greek philosophers: Diogenese.

Sam's latest books are Just Enough is Plenty: Thoreau’s Alternative Economics and Deface the Currency: The Lost Dialogues of Diogenes. He also mentions The Dark Cellars Project in which artists submit images that make the messages of voluntary simplicity a bit more visceral and visual.

Later, Kate talks about My Year Without Matches by Claire Dunn.

Here's a recent article from Katherine and Andy: Learning from Berlin: lessons for emerging collective housing. 

Later in the show we talk with favour makers Ru Norbury and Conor O'Hanlon from Favours who offer *free* services to anyone who just needs a little help!

Later in the show, we pay homage to that iconoclast, raconteur and the godfather of permaculture, Bill Mollison who passed away on Sat 24th Sept at the age of 88.

Later in the show we ponder why environmentally themed music sucks. To listen back to our full show the week before on this topic, complete with really shitty (and some good) music, stream it here.

Where there is smoke there is fire, but the reverse need not be true says Joel. Smoke is merely inefficiently burnt wood, and all those coughs, cancers and deforestation through the eons were sadly for nought. Rocket stoves are almost smokeless and can be built from scrap. 

In the second half of the show we talk with climate scientist Professor David Karoly. He and fellow Climate Change Authority member Professor Clive Hamilton recently released an unprecedented Minority Report arguing that the Authority's latest majority report is politicised and its recommendations lead towards dangerous warming rather than minimising climate change.

See: www.mariamissa.com.au, www.raw-australia.org.au