Cornell University's agriculture and home economics databases

I stumbled upon these collections of online books and journals recently. First, there's the Core Historical Literature of Agriculture, which contains links to thousands of e-books or journals on everything from soil management to barn building. Then, there's the Home Economics Archive that covers everything from plumbing to sewing. Both of these include publications going all the way back to the early 1800s.

For those interested in beekeeping (which is a bit controversial in vegan circles, I know), they have The Hive and the Honeybee Collection -- links to about 50 or 60 e-texts of older books on the topic.

Peak oil in the news

It's funny how just two years ago, I was barely familiar with the theory of peak oil. I'd heard it brought up in a few online vegetarian communities, but no more than that. Even now, many of my friends think it's an extremist and paranoid outlook, since we were born into cheap oil and can't imagine life without it. As my peak oil aware friend J. used to say: ''They just can't hear it.''

Now it seems to be talked about everywhere -- from YouTube videos on building kitchen gardens and sustainable communities, to websites devoted to personal health in a post-carbon world or to basic skills development. What's become most telling, however, is the large number and diversity of articles about it now in mainstream media. Here's a recent AP article, for instance, on the spike in people choosing to homestead or to learn to live off the land in the face of the coming energy crisis. And it seems that everyone wants to talk to Richard Heinberg these days.

There are articles everywhere about supply and demand issues and the uncertainty of what's left as worldwide consumption continues to increase. Even the Wall Street Journal recently published an article about well-respected energy watchdog the International Energy Agency (IEA)'s recent predictions that supplies may be lower than previously thought. IEA plans to release a report sometime in November detailing its assessment of the world's top 400 oil fields.

I recently kick-started a local peak oil discussion group here in my small city and am hoping to get the word out about it over the next few weeks. I've mentioned it to a few friends, and although some feel strongly about issues like global warming, I think they classify peak oil with things like 9/11 conspiracy theories. Hopefully, I'll be able to dig some like-minded folks up out of their root cellars so that we can trade off some skills and knowledge.