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#Conserve recipes
askwhatsforlunch · 2 years
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Harvest Liqueur, Chutney, Pickle and Other Conserve Cabinet
As I mentioned when I told you about my Autumn Jam and Jelly Shelf, late Summer to early Autumn is the best time to preserve and conserve your harvest. And there are heaps of ways of doing it, from classic pickles to fermented veggies, squash purées to alcoholic beverages, and all will give you (or the friends you might give a gift to) so much joy in the Winter months! So, here’s my Harvest Liqueur, Chutney, Pickle and Other Conserve Cabinet!
Liqueurs and Fermented Beverages
Damson Gin
Spiced Pear Liqueur
Rose Bitters
Cider (Brut)
Hard Cider (Doux)
Conserves and Preserves
Smoky Beetroot Kimchi
Steamed Butternut Squash Purée
Plums in Ginger Syrup 
Stem Ginger in Syrup
Caramelised Onions
 Anko (Red Bean Paste)
Butternut Squash Purée 
Maple Roasted Butternut Purée 
Pears in Syrup 
Whole Peeled Tomatoes 
Plums in Orange Syrup
Pear and Ginger Preserve
Honey Roasted Pumpkin Purée
Roasted Pumpkin Puree
Chutneys and Pickles
Peach Chutney
Honey-Fermented Carrot Jam
Apricot and Ginger Chutney (Vegan)
Spiced Apple and Pear Chutney 
Sweet Corn Relish
Pickled Cucumber
Mango Chutney
Spicy Apple Chutney
Fig and Apple Chutney
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amid-fandoms · 26 days
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TIT MERCH I LOVE YOU ALREADY
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saltyztuna · 25 days
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Summer may be ending soon but y’know what’s never ending?
That’s right!- This Maniac’s Bloodlust and Competitiveness! Yippeeeeee~~~
(Based on that one ff14 red chocobo meme..)
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#tunasal oc stuff#tunasal art#yunaci! oc tag: yuna#tunasal yuna#tunasal tunazz#yunaci! oc tag: seraphina#viola in the bg like ‘fuccckkk this poor fella is about to get his shit rocked and not in the fun way..’#poor gal does not receive enough pay nor vacation time for this sheet#‘ah yes a nice weekend by the shore enjoying a variety of beverages with my dear friends!!’#and then said friends proceed to destroy some chumps at volleyball and also like#literally destroy some of their bones#I don’t think ser quite has the whole conserve strength to not break literally everything#down yet- so if she isn’t paying attention she will destroy literally everything around her-like a bull in a china shop#that’s just what happens when you accidentally seal a calamity in a kid and just go ‘welp this wasn’t what we wanted..’#‘oh well!! have fun in the wilderness kid try not to get eaten by beasts!’#and then that kid doesn’t get properly socialized or trained really..#then that kid grows up into this chic#who you’d think would be rather well adjusted based purely on appearances?? but like she has a lot of repressed anger+then there’s the#whole dormant calamity thing..#so yeaaa extreme competive nature stemming from a fervent need to improve and get stronger#plus alooottt of repressed frustrations AND a sport revolving around#projectiles= a recipe for disaster and paperwork lots of paperwork..#sera is also not allowed to play uno❌#inette is also there! if only for the icey treats she was promised if she helped- and also maybe cus she just likes to feel included#she’s also lowkey enabling ser haha
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popculturelib · 10 months
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Oatmeal Griddle Cakes
Ingredients
1 cup cooked oatmeal
1 cup whole wheat or white flour
1 1/2 cups milk
1 egg
1 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons baking powder
1 tablespoon butter substitute
Directions
Add the milk, yolk of egg, salt and butter substitute to the oatmeal; beat for three minutes, then add the flour and baking powder and the white of egg stiffly beaten. The batter must be very thin. Bake on a hot well-greased griddle. Serve with syrup, or sprinkle with sugar and cinnamon.
from Recipes for War Breads (1918) compiled by Dr. D. Jayne & Son
This holiday season, we're bringing to you a variety of recipes from the cookbooks in our collection so that you can delight and/or horrify your loved ones at Thanksgiving. We bear no responsibility for the quality of the recipes chosen, so proceed at your own risk. Check out our recipes tag for more ideas, and let us know if you try any!
The Browne Popular Culture Library (BPCL), founded in 1969, is the most comprehensive archive of its kind in the United States.  Our focus and mission is to acquire and preserve research materials on American Popular Culture (post 1876) for curricular and research use. Visit our website at https://www.bgsu.edu/library/pcl.html.
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tejoxys · 9 months
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problem: I badly want the delicious blanched spinach recipe, and the beautiful spinach I bought will go bad if I don't cook it, but I don't have the energy for the full blanching process - simmer a pot of water, make the ice bath, add ice cubes as needed to keep it cold, wash the spinach, hold a bunch at a time in the pot with tongs, transfer to the ice bath, squeeze it out, repeat until all bunches are gone, inevitably get spinach water everywhere to mop up, clean all equipment involved. that is not happening when I still have to go to work later.
what I CAN do, I have discovered today, is pour boiling electric kettle water directly through the spinach in a colander over the sink and then blast it with cold water to achieve the same effect. HAHAHAHAHAHA
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swoopyswish · 2 years
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creamy mushroom ragu was stellarrrr last night and so easy to make, new staple!
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empyllon · 2 years
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Recepie from 1904 on how to cook and preserve raspberry jam.
Raspberries ¾ kg. sugar, 1 kg. berries.
Blueberries ½kg. sugar, 1 kg. berries.
The instructions calls to dip the sugar in water to make an even brine, then to boil it until it stops foaming. Then the berries are placed in briefly until they are about to break, then removed with a sieve to their respective jars. The brine is then boiled for 15 minutes and poured over the berries.
...but I'm a bit too lazy for that, so I opted to;
Add the berries with sugar to a pot, run it on medium heat while stirring, then bring it up to max for 2 minutes. After that I ran it on medium-low for 12 minutes and on low for another 6 minutes.
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Easy Homemade Seed Crackers
Another great idea by Lynn Galbreath
My parrots love anything crunchy – wood, cardboard, door jams, baseboards, pellets, Nutri-berries and yes, crackers. Yummy, yummy crackers.
Our Maximillian Pionus came from a Craigslist ad posted by a family that inherited her. They knew nothing about parrots and didn’t want to learn. In the few months that this little MaxiPi was in transition she lived on goldfish crackers and almonds. She was, needless to say, rather addicted to both when she came home with us, as well as being on the cusp of major malnutrition. She is still a picky eater and does not accept new foods well. In fact, she totally refuses all fruit —- what parrot doesn’t like at least some fruits?
We adopted our brown throated conure Sunny AKA Alonzo from Phoenix Landing. Coming through the Phoenix Landing program he was certainly in a much better nutritional place. In fact, Alonzo is a great little eater… if he thinks it’s food he will try nearly anything. His one exception is nuts —- what parrot refuses to eat any kind of nut?
I have two seed cracker recipes that both birds love and are healthy for all of us. These crackers are actually “people food” as well as “parrot food” so it is nice to be able to make something using only one recipe that everyone in my family can (and will!) eat. Crackers, even healthy ones, are obviously not good for a full-time diet but they can and do make wonderful treats or rewards. Also, the two birds are just so cute sitting there munching away while making little happy “this tastes yummy” sounds.
Crackers are easy to make. Crackers are also simple — well at least these recipes are. I don’t cook anything fancy or complex as it’s too much bother. So, if you want a cracker that will take all day and will dirty every dish you own you’ll have to search for some other recipe, because I’m not going there. There are really only 3 tricks to having a great homemade cracker:
#1 Use parchment baking paper so they don’t stick to your pan
#2. Spread the dough mixture somewhat thinly – super thin is more crunchy but a bit thicker makes more sturdy crackers
#3 Keep an eye on them as they bake because crackers can burn quickly (thinness does that)
Here are my two recipes. I have included pictures of the process for making the first recipe – The Basic Seed Crackers.These two types of crackers are similar to each other but also different. The second recipe – KnekkeBrod- has rye flour which the first one doesn’t so it tastes and looks different. As far as I can tell no one in my family of four (1 husband and 2 birds, plus me) has a real preference between the two crackers. The human’s choice of cracker seems to depend on a dip (if one is available); and the avian’s choice of cracker is whatever they can get their little beaks on. One bonus of baking seed cracker recipes is that they are quite forgiving – you can swap one seed for another as you see fit or to use whatever you have on hand. The other bonus is that obviously you know exactly what the ingredients are, and you don’t need preservatives. If you think you cannot eat the crackers in a timely manner they can be frozen.
A big plus for me is that both these crackers contain ground flaxseed. This is so very nutritious for the parrots and I’m always on the lookout to find things they like to eat that are good for them. The birds become excited when they see me getting the cracker container out of the cupboard, with Sydney the Pionus doing a little twirly dance. Alonzo prefers to signal his excitement with a series of Beep, Beep, Beeping calls.
BASIC SEED CRACKERS
Since these crackers don’t contain anything but seeds, the recipe is dairy-free, egg-free, grain (gluten) free, soy-free, nut-free, and sugar-free. If you take this recipe and make 24 crackers each one is supposed to have 56 calories.
Equipment:
Baking pan or cookie pan
Mixing bowl
Knife or pizza cutter
Measuring cups
Measuring spoon
Ingredients:
¾ cup ground flaxseed
½ cup sunflower seeds
⅓ cup sesame seeds, unhulled has much more calcium
½ cup water
You want the recipe’s amount worth of seeds (½ cup plus ⅓ cup): I have at different times substituted some pumpkin seeds, an organic 6 seed mix that I also use for sprouting, chia seeds, or a few pine nuts and so on for a portion of the official seeds named in the recipe. It actually doesn’t hurt to have just a tiny bit more seeds but too many and the ground flaxseed won’t be able to “glue” it together.
Instructions:
#1. Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven. Preheat the oven to 300*F.
#2. Mix. Add all the seeds and salt into a mixing bowl and stir everything until well combined. Add the water and stir again. After a minute or so you’ll notice the mixture begin to thicken.
#3. Let the mixture sit for a few minutes – 2 or 3 should be enough. The key to making these crackers work is to allow the ground flaxseeds to absorb all the water. It will gel.
#4. Spread. Transfer the mixture onto a parchment paper lined baking sheet. Spread into an even thin layer. A damp rubber spatula is great for this, but you can just wet your hands and kind of pat it down. The thickness of the crackers is up to you.
#5 Bake. (This is easier to do than to describe.) Bake for 10 minutes, then remove and score with a knife or pizza cutter so that breaking it into nice cracker shapes will be easier after it’s done. If you want a rustic look and think breaking into odd shaped pieces is fine, skip the scoring. I’ve done both and to me it doesn’t matter. Bake for another 20 minutes.
At this point, whether you scored the crackers or not you have baked them for 30 minutes total.
Now you need to “flip” the crackers. Take the baking sheet out of the oven. The easiest way to flip the cracker is to slide the parchment paper off from the baking sheet onto a big cutting board or a second baking sheet or even the top of the oven if you are desperate. The crackers are still on the parchment paper. Then take your baking sheet (careful it’s still hot) and cover the crackers. Pick up the cutting board (or the edges of the parchment paper -this is harder) and flip the entire thing over. Now your crackers are upside down on the original baking sheet.
Peel the parchment paper off and bake until the edges are golden brown, about 20 minutes. Adjust the baking time depending on how golden and crispy you prefer. Keep an eye on the crackers now so they don’t burn as that happens quickly. You can feel how crisp the crackers are becoming by poking them with a finger. They also crisp up a bit as they cool.
#6 Cool and Store. Transfer the baked cracker to a cooling rack and let cool completely. This may be unnecessary, I let mine cool sitting on the baking sheet just the way they came out of the oven. Then break the cracker along the scored lines. Store in an airtight container for up to 1 week or in the refrigerator for up to 1 month.
KNEKKE BROD (Norwegian Crisp Bread)
This is a Norwegian Seed Cracker. As a human food you can’t beat pairing it with cheese or jam. As a parrot food it competes with any other treat in my bird’s opinions. The baking method for these crackers is easier than for the Basic Seed Crackers as you do not have to flip them over. I don’t have any calorie amounts for this recipe as it came to me hand-written and passed through the family. I also don’t care enough to struggle to figure it out— if you must calculate calories have fun.
Equipment:
Baking pan or cookie pan
Mixing bowl
Knife or pizza cutter
Measuring cups
Measuring spoon
Ingredients:
½ cup quick oats – (but regular oats will work)
½ cup rye flour
½ cup sunflower seeds
½ cup sesame seeds, unhulled has more calcium
½ cup oat bran
¼ cup wheat bran
¼ cup ground flaxseeds
1 and ½ cups water
I have at different times substituted some pumpkin seeds, an organic 6 seed mix that I also use for sprouting, chia seeds, or a few pine nuts and so on for a portion of the official seeds named in the recipe. I know that’s heresy to some KnekkeBrod purists however at least pumpkin seeds are included in other recipes, so there you go. Parrots First!! 🙂 There are lots of KnekkeBrod recipes on-line with all sorts of tweaks; this is my family’s recipe.
Instructions:
#1. Heat oven to 325*F
#2. Mix together and let it sit for 10 minutes.
#3. Spread thinly on parchment baking paper. You will probably need 2 large cookie sheets for this amount. I have discovered the mixture also bakes fine in a casserole dish if you only have one cookie sheet. A damp spatula or damp finger works well to spread and smooth the mixture. Try not to leave any holes because the edges of the hole will probably burn.
#4. Bake for 10 minutes. Then remove from oven and score crackers with a sharp knife or a pizza cutter. You don’t have to cut all the way through the crackers and they do not have to be separated because when they bake they don’t “rise” they merely dry out.
#5. Return to oven and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. Keep a close eye on the crackers that last 15 minutes as they can burn quickly. Turn off oven, open oven door, and let them cool in the oven. They cool slower this way and it’s supposed to assist their crunchy-ness. I don’t know if that is true or a family KnekkeBrod legend but I’ve always done it.
#6. Then break the cracker along the scored lines. Store in an airtight container. These seem to keep very well.
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petnews2day · 3 months
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Cat Torture Ring in China is Sweeping Across the Internet – One Green Planet
New Post has been published on https://petn.ws/pYelu
Cat Torture Ring in China is Sweeping Across the Internet – One Green Planet
The issue of cat torture in China has gained international attention, with distressing reports and footage highlighting the severity of the problem. Across the internet, there are horrendous communities of people who are sharing their depraved instances of cat torture through videos and photos. In response, groups like Feline Guardians Without Borders and PETA are taking […]
See full article at https://petn.ws/pYelu #CatsNews #AnimalConservation, #AnimalRescues, #ConsciousConsumerism, #ConsciousConsumers, #ConservationNews, #CrueltyFree, #EcoFriendlyLifestyle, #EcoFriendlyPetProducts, #EcoFriendlyFashion, #EcofriendlyShopping, #EnvironmentalNews, #GlutenFreeRecipes, #GMOFREE, #GoGreen, #GreenFashion, #GreenLiving, #GreenNews, #GreenTips, #PlantBasedHealth, #PlantBasedLifestyle, #PlantBasedRecipes, #RawLifestyle, #RawVeganRecipes, #Recycling, #SocialJustice, #Sustainability, #VeganDesserts, #VeganDiet, #VeganFashion, #VeganHealth, #VeganMeals, #VeganProducts, #VeganProteinPowders, #VeganRecipesVeganFood, #VeganSupplements, #Veganism, #VegetarianFood
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Ruby Grapefruit Marmalade
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text] When given a massive bag of citrus fruit, including ruby grapefruit, I decided to try my hand at making marmalade. I didn’t bother to look at how others made their marmalade; instead, I just went ahead and cooked it up just like I would a jam. However, I was aware that marmalade has the skin of the fruit in it. Because the pith of grapefruit is so bitter, I…
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archivediver · 10 months
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Food Administration - Anti-Waste Campaign - Copy of food conservation propaganda sent broadcast through the United States in plate form by the U.S. Food Administration
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rotzaprachim · 11 months
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omg not Jamie gellar
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rifoodwars · 1 year
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Patriotic Propaganda
The United States Food Administration advertised corn as a patriotic substitute for wheat. Ads appeared in the newspaper and as full color posters. Got corn?
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Read more at American History: A Virtual Museum
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Marshmallow Longtermism
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The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this week!
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My latest column for Locus Magazine is "Marshmallow Longtermism"; it's a reflection on how conservatives self-mythologize as the standards-bearers for deferred gratification and making hard trade-offs, but are utterly lacking in these traits when it comes to climate change and inequality:
https://locusmag.com/2024/09/cory-doctorow-marshmallow-longtermism/
Conservatives often root our societal ills in a childish impatience, and cast themselves as wise adults who understand that "you can't get something for nothing." Think here of the memes about lazy kids who would rather spend on avocado toast and fancy third-wave coffee rather than paying off their student loans. In this framing, poverty is a consequence of immaturity. To be a functional adult is to be sober in all things: not only does a grownup limit their intoxicant intake to head off hangovers, they also go to the gym to prevent future health problems, they save their discretionary income to cover a down-payment and student loans.
This isn't asceticism, though: it's a mature decision to delay gratification. Avocado toast is a reward for a life well-lived: once you've paid off your mortgage and put your kid through college, then you can have that oat-milk latte. This is just "sound reasoning": every day you fail to pay off your student loan represents another day of compounding interest. Pay off the loan first, and you'll save many avo toasts' worth of interest and your net toast consumption can go way, way up.
Cleaving the world into the patient (the mature, the adult, the wise) and the impatient (the childish, the foolish, the feckless) does important political work. It transforms every societal ill into a personal failing: the prisoner in the dock who stole to survive can be recast as a deficient whose partying on study-nights led to their failure to achieve the grades needed for a merit scholarship, a first-class degree, and a high-paying job.
Dividing the human race into "the wise" and "the foolish" forms an ethical basis for hierarchy. If some of us are born (or raised) for wisdom, then naturally those people should be in charge. Moreover, putting the innately foolish in charge is a recipe for disaster. The political scientist Corey Robin identifies this as the unifying belief common to every kind of conservativism: that some are born to rule, others are born to be ruled over:
https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/01/set-healthy-boundaries/#healthy-populism
This is why conservatives are so affronted by affirmative action, whose premise is that the absence of minorities in the halls of power stems from systemic bias. For conservatives, the fact that people like themselves are running things is evidence of their own virtue and suitability for rule. In conservative canon, the act of shunting aside members of dominant groups to make space for members of disfavored minorities isn't justice, it's dangerous "virtue signaling" that puts the childish and unfit in positions of authority.
Again, this does important political work. If you are ideologically committed to deregulation, and then a giant, deregulated sea-freighter crashes into a bridge, you can avoid any discussion of re-regulating the industry by insisting that we are living in a corrupted age where the unfit are unjustly elevated to positions of authority. That bridge wasn't killed by deregulation – it's demise is the fault of the DEI hire who captained the ship:
https://www.axios.com/local/salt-lake-city/2024/03/26/baltimore-bridge-dei-utah-lawmaker-phil-lyman-misinformation
The idea of a society made up of the patient and wise and the impatient and foolish is as old as Aesop's "The Ant and the Grasshopper," but it acquired a sheen of scientific legitimacy in 1970, with Walter Mischel's legendary "Stanford Marshmallow Experiment":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_marshmallow_experiment
In this experiment, kids were left alone in a locked room with a single marshmallow, after being told that they would get two marshmallows in 15 minutes, but only if they waited until them to eat the marshmallow before them. Mischel followed these kids for decades, finding that the kids who delayed gratification and got that second marshmallow did better on every axis – educational attainment, employment, and income. Adult brain-scans of these subjects revealed structural differences between the patient and the impatient.
For many years, the Stanford Marshmallow experiment has been used to validate the cleavage of humanity in the patient and wise and impatient and foolish. Those brain scans were said to reveal the biological basis for thinking of humanity's innate rulers as a superior subspecies, hidden in plain sight, destined to rule.
Then came the "replication crisis," in which numerous bedrock psychological studies from the mid 20th century were re-run by scientists whose fresh vigor disproved and/or complicated the career-defining findings of the giants of behavioral "science." When researchers re-ran Mischel's tests, they discovered an important gloss to his findings. By questioning the kids who ate the marshmallows right away, rather than waiting to get two marshmallows, they discovered that these kids weren't impatient, they were rational.
The kids who ate the marshmallows were more likely to come from poorer households. These kids had repeatedly been disappointed by the adults in their lives, who routinely broke their promises to the kids. Sometimes, this was well-intentioned, as when an economically precarious parent promised a treat, only to come up short because of an unexpected bill. Sometimes, this was just callousness, as when teachers, social workers or other authority figures fobbed these kids off with promises they knew they couldn't keep.
The marshmallow-eating kids had rationally analyzed their previous experiences and were making a sound bet that a marshmallow on the plate now was worth more than a strange adult's promise of two marshmallows. The "patient" kids who waited for the second marshmallow weren't so much patient as they were trusting: they had grown up with parents who had the kind of financial cushion that let them follow through on their promises, and who had the kind of social power that convinced other adults – teachers, etc – to follow through on their promises to their kids.
Once you understand this, the lesson of the Marshmallow Experiment is inverted. The reason two marshmallow kids thrived is that they came from privileged backgrounds: their high grades were down to private tutors, not the choice to study rather than partying. Their plum jobs and high salaries came from university and family connections, not merit. Their brain differences were the result of a life free from the chronic, extreme stress that comes with poverty.
Post-replication crisis, the moral of the Stanford Marshmallow Experiment is that everyone experiences a mix of patience and impatience, but for the people born to privilege, the consequences of impatience are blunted and the rewards of patience are maximized.
Which explains a lot about how rich people actually behave. Take Charles Koch, who grew his father's coal empire a thousandfold by making long-term investments in automation. Koch is a vocal proponent of patience and long-term thinking, and is openly contemptuous of publicly traded companies because of the pressure from shareholders to give preference to short-term extraction over long-term planning. He's got a point.
Koch isn't just a fossil fuel baron, he's also a wildly successful ideologue. Koch is one of a handful of oligarchs who have transformed American politics by patiently investing in a kraken's worth of think tanks, universities, PACs, astroturf organizations, Star chambers and other world-girding tentacles. After decades of gerrymandering, voter suppression, court-packing and propagandizing, the American billionaire class has seized control of the US and its institutions. Patience pays!
But Koch's longtermism is highly selective. Arguably, Charles Koch bears more personal responsibility for delaying action on the climate emergency than any other person, alive or dead. Addressing greenhouse gasses is the most grasshopper-and-the-ant-ass crisis of all. Every day we delayed doing something about this foreseeable, well-understood climate debt added sky-high compounding interest. In failing to act, we saved billions – but we stuck our future selves with trillions in debt for which no bankruptcy procedure exists.
By convincing us not to invest in retooling for renewables in order to make his billions, Koch was committing the sin of premature avocado toast, times a billion. His inability to defer gratification – which he imposed on the rest of us – means that we are likely to lose much of world's coastal cities (including the state of Florida), and will have to find trillions to cope with wildfires, zoonotic plagues, and hundreds of millions of climate refugees.
Koch isn't a serene Buddha whose ability to surf over his impetuous attachments qualifies him to make decisions for the rest of us. Rather, he – like everyone else – is a flawed vessel whose blind spots are just as stubborn as ours. But unlike a person whose lack of foresight leads to drug addiction and petty crimes to support their habit, Koch's flaws don't just hurt a few people, they hurt our entire species and the only planet that can support it.
The selective marshmallow patience of the rich creates problems beyond climate debt. Koch and his fellow oligarchs are, first and foremost, supporters of oligarchy, an intrinsically destabilizing political arrangement that actually threatens their fortunes. Policies that favor the wealthy are always seeking an equilibrium between instability and inequality: a rich person can either submit to having their money taxed away to build hospitals, roads and schools, or they can invest in building high walls and paying guards to keep the rest of us from building guillotines on their lawns.
Rich people gobble that marshmallow like there's no tomorrow (literally). They always overestimate how much bang they'll get for their guard-labor buck, and underestimate how determined the poors will get after watching their children die of starvation and preventable diseases.
All of us benefit from some kind of cushion from our bad judgment, but not too much. The problem isn't that wealthy people get to make a few poor choices without suffering brutal consequences – it's that they hoard this benefit. Most of us are one missed student debt payment away from penalties and interest that add twenty years to our loan, while Charles Koch can set the planet on fire and continue to act as though he was born with the special judgment that means he knows what's best for us.
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On SEPTEMBER 24th, I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!!
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/04/deferred-gratification/#selective-foresight
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Image: Mark S (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/markoz46/4864682934/
CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/
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reasonsforhope · 8 months
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"In response to last year’s record-breaking heat due to El Niño and impacts from climate change, Indigenous Zenù farmers in Colombia are trying to revive the cultivation of traditional climate-resilient seeds and agroecology systems.
One traditional farming system combines farming with fishing: locals fish during the rainy season when water levels are high, and farm during the dry season on the fertile soils left by the receding water.
Locals and ecologists say conflicts over land with surrounding plantation owners, cattle ranchers and mines are also worsening the impacts of the climate crisis.
To protect their land, the Zenù reserve, which is today surrounded by monoculture plantations, was in 2005 declared the first Colombian territory free from GMOs.
...
In the Zenù reserve, issues with the weather, climate or soil are spread by word of mouth between farmers, or on La Positiva 103.0, a community agroecology radio station. And what’s been on every farmer’s mind is last year’s record-breaking heat and droughts. Both of these were charged by the twin impacts of climate change and a newly developing El Niño, a naturally occurring warmer period that last occurred here in 2016, say climate scientists.
Experts from Colombia’s Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology and Environmental Studies say the impacts of El Niño will be felt in Colombia until April 2024, adding to farmers’ concerns. Other scientists forecast June to August may be even hotter than 2023, and the next five years could be the hottest on record. On Jan. 24, President Gustavo Petro said he will declare wildfires a natural disaster, following an increase in forest fires that scientists attribute to the effects of El Niño.
In the face of these changes, Zenù farmers are trying to revive traditional agricultural practices like ancestral seed conservation and a unique agroecology system.
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Pictured: Remberto Gil’s house is surrounded by an agroforestry system where turkeys and other animals graze under fruit trees such as maracuyá (Passiflora edulis), papaya (Carica papaya) and banana (Musa acuminata colla). Medicinal herbs like toronjil (Melissa officinalis) and tres bolas (Leonotis nepetifolia), and bushes like ají (Capsicum baccatum), yam and frijol diablito (beans) are part of the undergrowth. Image by Monica Pelliccia for Mongabay.
“Climate change is scary due to the possibility of food scarcity,” says Rodrigo Hernandez, a local authority with the Santa Isabel community. “Our ancestral seeds offer a solution as more resistant to climate change.”
Based on their experience, farmers say their ancestral seed varieties are more resistant to high temperatures compared to the imported varieties and cultivars they currently use. These ancestral varieties have adapted to the region’s ecosystem and require less water, they tell Mongabay. According to a report by local organization Grupo Semillas and development foundation SWISSAID, indigenous corn varieties like blaquito are more resistant to the heat, cariaco tolerates drought easily, and negrito is very resistant to high temperatures.
The Zenù diet still incorporates the traditional diversity of seeds, plant varieties and animals they consume, though they too are threatened by climate change: from fish recipes made from bocachico (Prochilodus magdalenae), and reptiles like the babilla or spectacled caiman (Caiman crocodilus), to different corn varieties to prepare arepas (cornmeal cakes), liquor, cheeses and soups.
“The most important challenge we have now is to save ancient species and involve new generations in ancestral practice,” says Sonia Rocha Marquez, a professor of social sciences at Sinù University in the city of Montería.
...[Despite] land scarcity, Negrete says communities are developing important projects to protect their traditional food systems. Farmers and seed custodians, like Gil, are working with the Association of Organic Agriculture and Livestock Producers (ASPROAL) and their Communitarian Seed House (Casa Comunitaria de Semillas Criollas y Nativas)...
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Pictured: Remberto Gil is a seed guardian and farmer who works at the Communitarian Seed House, where the ASPROL association stores 32 seeds of rare or almost extinct species. Image by Monica Pelliccia for Mongabay.
Located near Gil’s house, the seed bank hosts a rainbow of 12 corn varieties, from glistening black to blue to light pink to purple and even white. There are also jars of seeds for local varieties of beans, eggplants, pumpkins and aromatic herbs, some stored in refrigerators. All are ancient varieties shared between local families.
Outside the seed bank is a terrace where chickens and turkeys graze under an agroforestry system for farmers to emulate: local varieties of passion fruit, papaya and banana trees grow above bushes of ají peppers and beans. Traditional medicinal herbs like toronjil or lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) form part of the undergrowth.
Today, 25 families are involved in sharing, storing and commercializing the seeds of 32 rare or almost-extinct varieties.
“When I was a kid, my father brought me to the farm to participate in recovering the land,” says Nilvadys Arrieta, 56, a farmer member of ASPROAL. “Now, I still act with the same collective thinking that moves what we are doing.”
“Working together helps us to save, share more seeds, and sell at fair price [while] avoiding intermediaries and increasing families’ incomes,” Gil says. “Last year, we sold 8 million seeds to organic restaurants in Bogotà and Medellín.”
So far, the 80% of the farmers families living in the Zenù reserve participate in both the agroecology and seed revival projects, he adds."
-via Mongabay, February 6, 2024
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