Exactly. Grr! If a small proportion of government spending was put into useful solutions like this, it would be a great boost. But it won’t. Although maybe right on the edge, governments will be forced to acknowledge that these are the most important practices for our future.

I also take exception to this comment: “when no research at all is going on into efficient affordable woodstoves” — wood-burning stoves are absolutely not the direction we need to look. The resource is somewhat renewable, but if you think having hundreds of millions of wood burning stoves is a good idea, think again. With a much smaller population, London saw incredible smog when its heating systems depended on wood-burning stoves. In fact, wood-burning stoves are illegal in Denver for much of the winter, for the same reason — they contribute considerably to air pollution. Each wood-burning stove is the pollution equivalent to several SUVs.

I think we all need to step back and think about what would be practical in a postpeak world. Just like biodiesel would not be practical, wood burning stoves wouldn’t either — for all the same reasons, but with even more detrimental environmental consequences.

The kind of miracle breakthough stories I have been focusing on are those which indicate that more and more mainstreamers are getting a glimpse of the power-down. Not merely power-down with regards to energy consumption, but with regards to a panorama of issues, from toxic chemicals, to lower-tech living.

Consider this, from Sunday’s Los Angeles Times. Speaking of Brazilian sugar farmer Leontino Balbo: “He threw away things his family had learned. He embraced things his family had forgotten. He turned the farm organic, abandoning pesticides, chemical fertilizers and methods of planting and harvesting that had served the family’s bottom line for years.” (LAT 4/9/06 “Opportunity, Cubed” by McMahon & Martin) The article goes on to describe his use of parasitic wasps for pest control, his protection of beneficial critters, and returning some of his acreage to woodland, bringing back wildlife and reducing soil erosion.

Beautiful, isn’t it? Here it is, in widely published media (not some obscure tiny paper) that a return to simpler ways is wiser, is the wave of the future, and can be -ohmigosh- profitable …

Yes, I agree that the “hi-tech will find our salvation” folks are desperate, and the miracle they seek just will not appear. I think they sense that; hence their desperation. But I also assert that there is a subtle, substantial, and therefore powerful undercurrent who are taking matters into their own hands, slowly and steadily moving forward, to wiser ways, despite what the tech headlines read.

I’ve started tracking it, making a list of links to these positive environmental news stories as I find them (http://legacyla.net/transformation/?cat=3). These stories depict progress in all aspects of society – transportation, housing, food & agriculture, economics & politics, health & spirit. They are both top-down (Big Business and politics), and grassroots (you and me, and our local communities), both international and right around your streetcorner. Welcome to hard evidence that the Transition Culture is underway all around us.