Thursday, March 26, 2009

Deep Economy

The book by Bill McKibben "Deep Economy" gives a very good insight of things to come. As we look at economic shifts in agriculture during the industrial revolution we see that we have developed an unsustainable system. The economy of the world being more interconnected and interdependent has produced a set of vices that have to be addressed. One of these vices is the way that we measure the cost of our energy. Energy that like food allows us to continue with our species existence. The amount of energy in say lettuce compared with the amount of energy required to produce and transport that same lettuce is so small that it seems ridiculous to eat lettuce for the sake of energy. Of course there are other factors for which we eat lettuce besides "energy" but looking at this balance within a more holistic view a lot can be learned if we do the calculations and put some numbers to work.

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