Monday, March 27, 2006

Oil For Breakfast

There's a classic bluegrass fiddle/mando tune called Whiskey For Breakfast. I've played the song dozens of times, but only a few occasions have I actually had whiskey for breakfast. Honestly, I prefer granola or a fried egg and toast.

Anyway, as it turns out, no matter what I have for breakfast, whether it be of the free-range hormone-free variety, or of the twelve-year-old black label variety, what I'm really eating is petroleum.

This recent article from the SF Chron. does a great job to illustrate the connection between our diets and the fossil-fuel-derived energetic requirements for providing us with nutrition. Apparently it takes about 7 calories of fossil energy to produce 1 calorie of food energy -- not such a good tradeoff. This makes clear the urgency of humans' transition to some kind of sustainable food system.

Monday, March 13, 2006

I'm moving to Norway...

Apparently, the taps run beer instead of water in Norway. Scandinavians really do have the highest quality of life in the world:

Woman Gets Beer From Her Kitchen Faucet

"OSLO, Norway (AP) -- It almost seemed like a miracle to Haldis Gundersen when she turned on her kitchen faucet this weekend and found the water had turned into beer..."