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First paragraphs: Sustainable [R]Evolution, edited by Juliana Birnbaum and Louis Fox, is a survey of permaculture (and permaculture-like) projects and communities throughout the world. Multiple authors have contributed short profiles of ecovillages, urban agriculture projects, farms, and teaching centers, interspersed with writings on permaculture design principles. Permaculture was coined—as a word and a design system—by Australians Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in the 1970s as a type of ecologically based permanent agriculture. Mollison's Permaculture: A Designer's Manual stands as the seminal work describing the elements of and values embedded in permaculture. It is an inherently personal form of gardening, tailored to a property's specific microclimates, topography, and use patterns....

First paragraphs: Each time I watch the Growing Local trilogy of short films, my heart feels like I've chosen the wrong profession. The early-morning-mist beauty of these films makes one yearn for more direct participation with farms, farmers, and the business of providing real food to real people. For many people, the public face of local food is their local farmers markets: the hands ingrained with dirt stacking a bountiful rainbow of vegetables and fruit on tables shaded by the ubiquitous pop-up canopy. The Growing Local films showcase some of the other faces of local food: the retiring dairy farmer struggling with how to transfer the farm to his son; the accidental butcher providing fair middle-man services to his meat-producing neighbors; the young couple who feel they were born in the wrong time, creating a vibrant hub for local food and community....