Looking Back, Looking Forward

This is no swan song; no sad farewell. Maybe, though, it’s time to pause a while and think back to what has been said. After more than 4 years writing a mixture of research articles, contrarian polemic, calls to arms and personal expressions of my search for something better, it is no surprise that the power of words sometimes needs reinforcing in its fragile, ephemeral state.

My friend Guy McPherson inspired this partial anthology of essays from The Earth Blog; his review of “greatest hits” on Nature Bats Last is dispassionate, letting the words speak for themselves. However, there is a proviso - the essays shown in this specially produced volume exist for a reason: writing on The Earth Blog is hard, often so hard that essays can take months from idea to publication. Each essay means something important, and the essays presented here I consider to be particularly important in reflecting the way I feel we must approach and tackle the problems inherent in the collapsing mess we were once proud to call Earth.

It is not an exhaustive set by any means; some important pieces, such as my interview with Carolyn Baker, and “100 Ways To Undermine The Industrial Machine” just don’t fit, so the web sites (The Earth Blog, The Unsuitablog and A Matter of Scale) and my book “Time’s Up!” - which some of these essays are extensions of - remain the primary source of information.

The essays are unedited, unabridged, and often very intense. The order in which they are presented is in the form of a branching journey, culminating in the only piece of complete fiction published on The Earth Blog. If there is a stepping-off point where you can most surely take charge of your own destiny, then that is probably it.

Over the course of the years I have been fortunate to come into contact with some very imaginative, brilliant and life-affirming people: I do not want to name individuals for fear of missing someone out; but rest assured, their influence runs through the lines of these essays. Invention may be the domain of the individual, but change is the destiny only of those who are prepared to come together and make it happen.

Keith Farnish August 2010,
Scotland.

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To download "Dispatches from The Earth Blog" or read it online, simply click on the following link, or paste it into your browser address bar:

http://www.archive.org/details/DispatchesFromTheEarthBlog

The mini-book is designed to be printed double-sided on A4 with long-sided stapling. It has 28 pages (7x4) so can also be printed in booklet form using appropriate formatting. Note: text is generally 10pt, and sans serif, so reduced will be small, but readable.

xk67Hey Keith, have not logged on to your site in ages as we have been on the move! Somehow things truly magically came together and we have a place in 10 acres of breathtaking old woodland, with access to hundreds of acres more of forest and hills. I swear that when the sun shines like flames through the trees, or the moon is full over the lake, and it is so peaceful, it is like time has stopped and somehow we are all back at the beginning again, and getting a chance to do it right this time. The kids are home-edding, picking blackberries, studying fungi, marvelling at the flight of the dragonflies, and squelching through acres of mud .... and the old man is making violins! This global economy is relentlessly stupid but keep on planting 'seeds' Keith - wild ones that will flower in rubble... and don't you give up.

[Oh, you lucky things. Maybe it could be a place for a small community - set aside a bit of land for "campers", and see if they want to be part of something better. That's a dream I had if we had got our own land - maybe later. Keep me updated :-) K.]

hi keith, this is definitely the kind of direction that i want to head towards ... and i will keep you updated. "Campers" in inverted commas eh ... this has given me something to think about this Winter. Cheers, Mandy.