Food and Climate Change

The most interesting area in my line of research that’s been occurring recently is the link between Climate and Food. This is actually the main direction of Anna Lappe’s Organization, Take a Bite, and has been a subject of my former work in the US and Costa Rica (See some of my work on the subject: Coffee and Carbon Footprint of Farms, Life Cycle abstract). It’s something that I’ve been working on for a long period, and is finally coming into it’s element.

To summarize, we worry about climate change because it affects thee well-being of people and wildlife. Solutions based on alternative energy, carbon storage and capture, etc. can prevent climate change, but it cannot provide immediate relief to the poor or habitat for the displaced wildlife. Sustainable land management, on the other hand, directly solves the emissions aspect of climate change, while incentivizes good care for the environment.

If I were an Anthropologist…

I would probably come study Cartago

Originally passing through for motorcycle repair, gas, and to see the church, I ended up staying the night when I met a mechanic who offered me passage for the night. What I found was a pleasant city almost devoid of alcohol or bad influence.

A Different Perspective: Participatory Action Research

Coffee Action! research…

This is the introductory post to my new place for the Summer. I am now in Coopabuena, Costa Rica… about 30 miles from the Costa Rica-Panama border. One thing I am trying to do recently is keep my writing as grounded as possible. It’s too easy to use dogmatisms and concepts and miss real life in writing. See if you notice in this history/diretions post.

Julio

Check out the crazy new format! Inspired by twitter (follow me: http://twitter.com/eddiemill/), let me know what you think of it. Do you have time to read long posts?

Today’s post is about Julio, the man with the most beautiful farm in the world, my good friend and co-founder of a model farm that will change the world.

“Anda tranquilo”: Nicaragua and World Growth

Hello all,
Just finished a week of traveling and studying the case of the brilliant but under-represented Nicaragua, just North of Costa Rica. During my time there I read Nicaragua: What Difference Could a Revolution Make? by the good people at FoodFirst Institute for Food and Development Policy, and The Open Veins of Latin America, a very incendiary telling of Latin America’s abusive colonial history. This, with my experiences on the field, lead to the main content and recommendations of this post.

Nicaragua has taken its toll in the eyes of this woman.

How to develop a country?

Into the Wild

I’m on my way now to the mountains- a quiet mountain town is having a huge festival and I’m going to check it out. The lodge nearby is very rural, with hammocks and a great view. The weekend should be a great opportunity to reflect a bit. (see you on the other side!)

Two books I recently finished have left an impression.
Firstly “Chasing Che” by Patrick Symmes follows his motorcycle journey as don Patricio follows Ernesto’s route through the course of South America. He describes his experiences and attempts to visit the same places that el Che did nearly 50 years ago. Things have changed, and he comments on a lot of the situation there. (hint: avoid Lima, Peru). Reading it has rekindled my sense of adventure. A motorcycle will be the first purchase of this summer in Costa Rica.

Secondly, Blink by Malcolm Gladwell: Gladwell is an author that has had a profound effect on me. The author of The Tipping Point and Outliers has a solid view of the world, and an insatiable intellectual curiosity. He experiments with people, and the profound effects of little-things-you-never-knew-existed. This one’s about the first impression and how it uses us without our conscience knowledge. Very applicable lessons, and also a quick read. Highly recommended.

My intellectual pursuits continue in new and varied ways..

-Ed
http://eddiemill.wordpress.com/

Culture Shock

“Bienvenidos a Costa Rica: paraíso ecológico para invertido y diversión.” So welcomed the customs sign on arrival in Costa Rica, my new tropical home.

Already my old kinship with this country is returning. The spectacular mountain views, tranquil field school, dense tropical rainforest and home gardeners grab and hold my attention. The town of Atenas where we are staying provides a close-knit community for locals while accomodating for large gringo tour groups seeking National Geographic’s famed “best climate in the world”. Indeed, the warm weather helps (70s and windy every day).

The first thing I notice this time around is the communications crevasse. Costa Ricans are not connected in the ways that we are, lacking high bandwidth internet and even cell phone service in some places. Lives simply aren’t as connected here to machines we have come to rely on. So far, underestimating this chaotic tendency has cost me an application for Echoing Green phase 2, a meeting with my farmer, and an amazing Forestdance festival in the South. It will take some adjusting and much advance planning to deal with this new reality.

Classes are great nonetheless, as I start Tropical Field Ecology, Sustainable Development Economics, Sociological Impacts of Tourism in Costa Rica, and Intro to Natural Resource management this week. I have already gotten to know all my professors, and the students are cool. It’s very close-knit. I see a lot of opportunity here to really expand my horizons.

Look for more updates soon. 2 weeks is the end of the honeymoon, now starts my real time exploring this beautiful country!

-Eddie Miller
BU ‘10
emiller@bu.edu

Http://eddiemill.wordpress.com/

The journey continues…

Starting in a few days, I will be leaving from here.

Going to a land untouched by the perils of hectic inner turmoil. From the land of privilege to the land of not enough but somehow, amazingly, contentedness. What could be a better way to spend this year? One’s life? Than to know that you are well on the path to work that will be a large part of the world. This semester puts me on par to become a master, entrepreneur, and farmer. Maybe I’ll arrive back and have funding money waiting for me. Maybe another calmer and happier year at BU before leaving. Grad school; or just assemble a team and go:: just following a path at this point, and not looking back. No matter what happens, I’m already well endowed with the resources for success.

I will be gone in total for 8 months– from February 2nd to August 31st– in Costa Rica, Central America and traveling the Andes mountains. My main method of transportation will be the motorcycle, and my main communications the internet. This is the combination of school program and farm internship through which I hope to find myself. Look for my return, I want to experience all your stories.

If you want to contact me, you can email at ::
eddiemill@gmail.com

I will also check facebook and this blog regularly, so a comment would really be a great help for me.
<http://eddiemill.wordpress.com/>
Thank you for your support that makes this possible. As I embark this week, you’ll be on my mind.

-Eddie Miller
Boston University
440.935.5434

Change to the masses

Social systems are very interesting to me.

When we look at society, ecosystems, or our planet on a systems scale, it appears to be resilient, stable. In general, large systems are averse to change, and we’re happy to assume things to be constant. But every so often, catastrophic transformations take place in a very quick time period. Ecosystem collapse builds on itself, and suddenly total species live in a world completely foreign to them. Coral reefs may be going through a mass extinction from climate change within the next few months, as algae are suddenly multiplying thousandfold in the warmer water. If these “rainforests of the ocean” are coming to terms with large tipping points in their lives, what does that mean for the human environment 4 degrees warmer?

I believe that social systems are the same way. If you consider it, the bloom of algae happens once conditions exist for them to prosper. It’s not complex, it’s really simple. The old status quo (old-world economic systems) rely on the same nutrients (resource surplus) being there, and cannot backtrack nor adjust to new realities. The discipline now faces hard issues like backwards-incorporating ecological realities, social equality, or generational risk. While the bottom-liners turn a blind eye, these are the issues we must deal with! And that means the rules of the game have to change. Cultures don’t cut back on their own: As in the barrier reef, new conditions bring organisms to either adapt to the new conditions and multiply, or die with this global crisis, and good riddance. *Obama’s election means that overall this evolution will be positive.*

Socio-economic change: each person [and company] responding to new opportunities in a predictable way brings about systemic, evolutionary-level change.

Now I’m not saying that losing a reef is a good thing, it’s actually quite terrible to see things go and hurts a lot of people. But the example can be a good model for the one thing that can spread like bacteria: human word-of-mouth. Once a new reality emerges, there’s surprisingly little holding the former winners in place. What does this mean? Now will be the time when people question the validity of long-standing military-industrial-government rule, and now we finally have choice in what lives and dies. Even a small preference, shared over dinner/conversation/the web can become a huge impact. During a recession, climate meltdown, internet revolution and world political change following Obama’s inauguration, my bet is on the peasants to make out alive. The silent masses will have a say in the new world order.

For small farmers, why submit to the hierarchy traditionally imposed on you if you can become a natural farmer and change your family, your country and homeland? The answer is often that they haven’t had the choice. If a few leading industries can now make it possible for everyone to be a part of a new worldview, the system will follow. Enough people on the supply and demand side can create a new equilibrium that is more peaceful, sustainable and just.

Change to the masses: it’s coming in more ways than you think.

-Eddie Miller
http://eddiemill.wordpress.com/

One to the team!

Just this Wednesday, I got a positive word from a long-time friend Jake Mercer. He studies Economics and non-profit management at Baldwin Wallace college, and is in to make this happen. This brings the team to two currently, and adds valuable fund-raising and farm experience to the venture. Let’s do this, Jake! Thanks for reading!

Things are happening very quickly now. The planning has passed the agriculture test, passed an economic analysis, with me in all the right places to make it happen. Next is deciding the structure: venturing into supply chain and cooperative design. This will be very well suited for my planned 7-month stay in Costa Rica, where I want to start. (For more information on this, visit:
Plan

This is an open invitation: do you want to join the team and work on this? There would be job options domestically or abroad, in any number of areas still to be defined. Please let me know on this, or any advice now before I go.

As an interim project, I’m taking a class with Oberlin College students in January on permaculture, an interesting variant on Organics. More on this soon!

-Eddie Miller
BU ‘10
http://eddiemill.wordpress.com/