Narratives

Ethanol/Grunwald 2: Three Treadmills and a Fuel Tank

Farming, ethanol and the economics of living landscapes — essay 2 of 4 Thorsten Arnold is an environmental scientist and…

Ethanol/Grunwald 1: Michael Grunwald Is Right About Ethanol. But What Actually Spares the Land?

What Does an Acre Produce? Farming, ethanol and the economics of living landscapes — essay 1 of 4 Sep 29,…

Ethanol blog series: Farming, ethanol and the economics of living landscapes

Thorsten Arnold is an environmental scientist and farmer in Grey County, Ontario, working with the National Farmers Union on…

The Future of Ethanol in Canada: Beyond the Bridge Narrative

Why Canada’s ethanol “transition” will not retire itself, and what a credible one would require

We Bet Everything on Farmer Heroes. That Was a Mistake.

Our best ecological farmers are burning out and selling up. The answer is not a braver hero. Over the past…

Agroecology Lost the Narrative—and Then Lost the Budget

  Why Canada’s food-security strategy barely sees ecological farming—and what the agroecological field must build next Dr. Thorsten Arnold Abstract

Artificial Scarcity: Overproduction, Demand Management, and the Ecological Cost of Stabilizing Commodity Agriculture

For more than a century, North American agriculture has lived inside the wrong story about scarcity. The public story…

From Symptoms to Systems: What Participating in a Narrative Network Looks Like in Practice

This blog puts a practical side to my previous blog on “Beyond Production Narrative: Reclaiming Landscapes as Commons”. Leaders…

Beyond Production Narrative: Reclaiming Landscapes as Commons

It is easy to underestimate how culture changes. Not because it moves slowly—though it often does—but because culture change…

Empathy as Wedge: How Care Became Comfort — and Why It’s Tearing at Western Politics

In recent years, empathy has moved from a personal virtue to a political litmus test….