time capsules Archives

Time Capsules: Food production

Old books are time capsules and there were plenty on offer at the North Queensland Conservation Council (NQCC) garage sale six months ago. I intercepted some which were otherwise bound for the recycling bin, being too interesting to simply discard but not relevant enough to keep. Here’s one from 1985.

Have we learned anything since then?

Given the steady grind of news about our two major supermarket chains, I doubt it.

We need to reclaim our autonomy, buying as much fresh and local food as possible. There are lots of reasons for doing so and many of them are covered in Eating for the Planet, here on Green Path.

More time capsules – activism, global affairs, etc., and indigenous history.

Time capsules: The myths we live by

The two books here, like my previous time capsules, came from the North Queensland Conservation Council garage sale in June. They are more philosophical than the others but motivation drives action so understanding motivation is every bit as important as understanding facts.

(1) Economics

Cover of The Mystic Economist by Clive Hamilton

Back cover of The Mystic Economist by Clive Hamilton

Clive Hamilton: The Mystic Economist (1994)

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Time capsule: Global Affairs

One of a collection old environmental nonfiction books from NQCC’s fundraising garage sale in June. Not good enough to keep, The Gaia Peace Atlas was too interesting to pass over completely.

The lavish production and big-name contributors (Gorbachev, Desmond Tutu and more) don’t make up for the fact that the authors assumed their future would resemble their present – but perhaps their timing was just incredibly unfortunate.

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Time capsules: Energy in the 1970s

Every book is a time capsule, preserving knowledge and attitudes current at the time of writing, as I said in my previous post.

The NQCC garage sale donations which provided these time capsules were particularly strong on the nuclear debate. It was an urgent issue in the 1970s, with Peak Oil on the horizon and the dangers of nuclear technologies very much in the public mind from Hiroshima (1945) and the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962).

Renewable energy was so paltry that the energy debate was simply nuclear vs fossils. CO2 emissions did not figure in the energy debate at all, either. Why not?

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Time capsules: the Daintree Blockade

The recent North Queensland Conservation Council garage sale attracted a wonderful collection of old environmental books – mostly 1970s – 1990s, reflecting the age of the organisation and its older members.

Every book is a time capsule, preserving knowledge and attitudes current at the time of writing. This one was more in-the-moment than most.

The Trials of Tribulation by The Douglas Shire Wilderness Action Group is a 60-page book written in haste during a pause in the very physical blockade of the bulldozers pushing a road through Cape Trib rainforest in 1983.

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