ESSAYS

BEFORE2030 - A LIVABLE FUTURE For people, planet, and all life

ESSAYS: HERE YOU'LL FIND MY MORE ATTITUDINAL ESSAYS
Monotheism’s New Nature Imperative
Sustainable Soliloquy
Regional biosphere collapse – nothing new; upcoming Worldwide biosphere collapse – new
Permaculture Perspectives

Monotheism’s New Nature Imperative
Christian monotheism may not appear to address the preservation of Nature specifically with instructions like, “shall have dominion over the Earth,” and other such phrases, but it is implicit in the prayer, “Thy will be done.” Therefore, it is incumbent upon the Judeo/Christian/Islamic people to acknowledge the will of God in Nature. And what is that? Let’s explore from the empirical evidence.
There is ‘succession,’ the tendency for all land to go through stages from bare ground to rain-forest.
A neighbor said to me, “My garden has a will of its own.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he said, “I’m forever cutting it back and trying to control it, but it won’t do my bidding.” So, I asked him, “If you clear a piece of land to bare soil, what happens?”
“Weeds grow.”
“Correct. They hold the soil in place, preventing erosion, drying out and blowing away. We call those pioneer plants, first in the succession. Then, you get perennial weeds. Then, small bushes and different plants, next fruit trees maybe, their waste all the time building soil until some larger trees can establish themselves and eventually the giant broad leaves, maples, beeches, etc. Now, you might get enough trees to create a self-sustaining rain-forest, where so much moisture evaporates through the leaves of the plants (as much as 300 gallons a day from a large tree) that they create their own atmosphere above the forest, so laden with moisture that it falls back down as rain, and this cycle continues until someone or something, like a fire, destroys the mass that makes this happen. Think Amazon and Congo forests.”
So, Nature undisturbed, does this, if you’re a believer and consider this God’s creation, you could conclude that this is God’s will. If we keep cutting these forests down, are we against God’s will, when in fact some pray, may God’s will be done? From this, you could even say humans owe their existence to weeds, that’s humbling!
Now, we have free will – which is also the will to destroy ourselves, so we must use it carefully, otherwise, as is happening, we will destroy that which supports us. As we become more human, which many aren’t, we realize we don’t have to kill biology to eat. We can maintain ourselves botanically. That’s a quantum compassion step. Thou shalt not kill – so much! And if we do that correctly, we will even be healthier and possibly live longer.
God’s will, being the Amazon and the Congo, therefore to destroy them is inhuman will, whereby a human, if we equate human with closeness to God, should be in line with the will of God.
Instead of learning from the Native American tradition, that preserved the ecology of the Americas well into the 17thcentury, whereas the Middle East and Europe’s ecology was trashed by 8,000 BCE., the invading Christians had the audacity to educate indigenous people, all over the world, because of their deluded supremacy. An education that backs up their system, praising their ways saying, “this is how technically advanced people live,” maybe as a shield against a more egalitarian system that Jesus might promote. Is it possible to equate a trashed ecology – alienating us from Nature – with the root causes of modern society’s violence?
We need a new modern lifestyle that is compatible with God’s will and with Nature, in all its relationships: climate, biodiversity, ecological harmony, resource limits/balance, soil, water, air and marine life.
The hubris of the early European settlers in the Americas, led them to see the Native Americans as mentally inferior because they hadn’t developed technological achievements, or the practice of large-scale agriculture. But these invading people had trashed their own ecology millennia before and so had to develop such things.
The Native Americans knew they were living in their food pantry and treated it with so much care it was still supportive of their lives, so they didn’t need steel and weapons of mass destruction and ploughs.
What we see in the U.S. today is a desert compared to pre-invasion. The abundance that the invaders encountered was immediately exploited, sold, transported elsewhere, and trashed. The indigenous people, watching this unfold, must have thought they were watching the devil’s children, not the so-called followers of a non-materialistic prophet, like Jesus. How many wild fires will it take, even now, to change their course? The reckoning may be nigh!

Sustainable Soliloquy

SOLILOQUY FOR OUR TIME
To be, or not to be sustainable, that is no longer the question: ‘Tis the imperative.
Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
in the form of rising energy prices or take arms against a sea of troubles
with the insulation of your choice, and by opposing end them. To die, to sleep – No more:
We shall build a locally resilient food system, and by a sleep to say we end the heartache,
and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to. Therefore, take care of the soil
and do not abandon plant diversity. ‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep –
To sleep, perchance to dream: Of an eighty percent energy descent future. Ay, there’s the rub,
for in that sleep of death what dreams may come of main street bustling while Wall-street is divested?
When we’ve shuffled off this mortal coil, dreams of universal basic income must give us pause - there’s
the respect that makes calamity of so long life. For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
th’oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely, but soon a steady state economy,
shorter work weeks and more joy in sharing more community? The pangs of despised love,
the law’s delay, but then, fair trade for all and yes, GMO labeling. The insolence of office, and the spurns
that patient merit of th’unworthy takes, when they try to patent nature! When he himself might his
quietus make with a bare knife? Who would burdens bear, to grunt and sweat under a weary life,
when Permaculture advises mulch, of various kinds to prevent the need for weeding, but that the dread
of something after death – then have you not seen how crumbled compost revives the land?
The undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns, puzzles the will, that most of our food
travels more than fifteen hundred miles from farm to plate and makes us rather bare those ills we have,
than tell our bodies to revel in working the land again, so we fly our food from others that we know not of,
instead of supporting our farmers’ markets. Thus, conscience does make cowards of us all.
So, no more waiting for the government: Conserve energy, plant a garden, create community, relocalize
our economy, and enterprises of great pitch and moment must occur now otherwise, with this regard
their currents turn awry, and lose the name of action.
(Shakespeare & tony buck)
Regional biosphere collapse – nothing new; upcoming Worldwide biosphere collapse – new
A microcosm of societal collapse, similar to where we are as a world right now, can be studied in Azby Brown’s book, Just Enough, Lessons in Living Green From Traditional Japan.
“Japanese society once faced the prospect of collapse due to environmental degradation, and the fact that it did not is what makes it such an instructive example. Japan entered the Edo period in 1603 facing extreme difficulties in obtaining building timber, suffering erosion and watershed damage due to having clear-cut so many of its mountains for lumber, and virtually unable to expand agriculture production to the degree necessary to feed a growing population. The needs of urban population, particularly those of the capital city of Edo, but also of Osaka, Nagoya, and numerous other growing cities, conflicted with those of the rural areas…”
During the approximately 250-year period, the population, under great stress at the beginning, was about twelve million. At the end of the era it supported more than double that, by implementing the mentality of “Just Enough,” they managed to live in a sustainable society, with enough for all, something no one alive today has ever known. This was a time of living smart, as opposed to now, which is reckless, we’re going to have to smarten up!
The Hanover Principles for sustainable design, drafted by William McDonough and Michael Braungart for the Hanover Expo of 2000, is a guide for what needs to happen:
Insist on human rights and sustainability
Recognize the interaction of design with the environment
Consider the social and spiritual aspects of buildings and designed objects
Be responsible for the effect of design decisions
Insure that objects have long-term value
Eliminate waste and consider the entire life cycle of designed objects
Make use of “natural energy flows,” such as solar power and its derivatives
Be humble, and use nature as a model for design
Share knowledge, strive for continuous improvement, and encourage open communication among stakeholders.
During the Edo period, Azby Brown shows that Japan met most of these criteria. They even recycled human manure. We haven’t got there yet, but by 2100 we might be initiating that. Sound crazy? Think, if an adult only urinated one pint a day, that’s 365 pints or about 46 gallons a year of nitrogen-high liquid to put on the garden. Less need for fertilizer from other sources, especially when you consider that fossil fuel sources might be scarce by then. Consider that all the manure from animals could supply half the world’s need for fertilizer if stored and processed correctly. Now, most of it goes to waste, contaminating land, rivers and oceans. Essential to being sustainable will be the circular economy.
We know so much about Japan during this period because the people were very literate and produced lots of written manuals for instruction. Just Enough: “There is no substitute for education. An educated person should be able to make use of historical knowledge, to access technical information and apply it, and to design. He should be capable of creative work expressing individual and cultural identity. Finally, an educated person should be able to feed himself, build or make most of what he needs, monitor and improve his environment, and communicate and collaborate effectively with people of different backgrounds and who have different concerns. Current education systems do a poor job of helping us develop these essential skills. They are grossly inadequate to the task at hand.”
Further info:
Azby Brown, Just Enough, Lessons in Living Green From Traditional Japan, 2012
Permaculture Perspectives
Permaculture offers a decision-making framework using ecological principles to help design sustainable human communities. It’s whole-systems thinking. What does that mean? Systems thinking focuses on the relationships among different parts and the synergy that emerges from these relationships. It’s how the parts come together to make a greater whole. This is the key to sustainable living, as opposed to ‘silo’ thinking, where the focus is on just one part of the system.
PERMACULTURE has 3 Ethics: Earth Care, People care, Fair share (Share surplus)
And 12 or more Permaculture Principles in the Garden:
1.Observe and interact: By taking the time to engage with nature we can design solutions that suit our particular situation.
2.Catch and store energy: By developing systems that collect resources when they are abundant, we can use them in times of need.
3. Obtain a yield: Ensure that you are getting truly useful rewards as part of the work that you are doing. 3 benefits from each action
4. Apply self-regulation and accept feedback: We need to discourage inappropriate activity to ensure that systems can continue to function well.
5. Use and value renewable resources and services: Make the best use of nature's abundance to reduce our consumptive behavior and dependence on non-renewable resources.
6. Produce no waste: By valuing and making use of all the resources that are available to us, nothing goes to waste.
7. Design from patterns to details: By stepping back, we can observe patterns in nature and society. These can form the backbone of our designs, with the details filled in as we go.
8. Integrate rather than segregate: By putting the right things in the right place, relationships develop between those things and they work together to support each other.
9. Use small and slow solutions: Small and slow systems are easier to maintain than big ones, making better use of local resources and producing more sustainable outcomes.
10. Use and value diversity: Diversity reduces vulnerability to a variety of threats and takes advantage of the unique nature of the environment in which it resides.
11. Use edges and value the marginal: The interface between things is where the most interesting events take place. These are often the most valuable, diverse and productive elements in the system.
12. Creatively use and respond to change: We can have a positive impact on inevitable change by carefully observing, and then intervening at the right time.
(Expanded explanation) http://www.holmgren.com.au/