My time is being squeezed.
I have to hang my head in shame, but the sustainability of the internet and learning about sustainability is not doing it for me. To teach something that should be inherent, the need to consider others, all things, not just other human beings should be there in the child and in the parent and if the child has to learn it as a student in a university, we are in a bad way. But we are of course.
The educational regime has always been a me, me me, climate. Think about “my” future earnings, “my” families expectations, “my”vision of myself and so on.
Then there is the patriotism thing, “my” culture, environment and country. These divisions are probably something from the tower of Babel, where it was said that god gave everyone a different language so they could not work together? I have no idea. However, the minute we start thinking about ourselves as one huge tribe we'll get somewhere. That everyone needs certain things and that the needs of all have to be met, and some have to give up something so others can come to the same level.
We have to reverse the tower of Babel effect, because that's the way we'll see the value of all other living things on the planet. Then all we have to work on is making certain that those we choose to lead are actually leaders of worth and not self promoters or who wish to feather their nests and attempt to be seen as better than the average. Also ensure the average is identifying the peaks of the human tribe and assisting them to bring the rest up to their level.
We have to think outside any constraints and try to get away from just considering ourselves. In fact we have to think without horizons of any kind.
Not a very good assessment of this section of the course, but it will just have to do for now.
Time seems to be less for this course.
Monday 24 February 2014
Sustainability section 8...
This is the problem. Do we have to manage forests? I suppose we do to stop people illegally logging, but it doesn't. Why do humans think they can manage forests? Just manage what is human things, manage the people who are illegally logging.
By all means build houses but don’t bulldoze forests to do it. In fact build houses that fit into the environment and realise that nothing is forever and can be lost. If building a house in a forest, get ready for forest fires. Prepare to leave or fight. Prepare to rebuild, prepare a place under the house to protect yourself when the house above you burns to the ground. That may not, but will probably happen at least once in a lifetime. Certainly in Oz.
Trees and understorey gets burnt, why should human dwellings not be burnt. Protecting the things one needs is not a bad thing, but that doesn't mean cut down all the trees that could burn and in so doing torch the dwelling one has chosen to build. That's like shooting your neighbour before he shoots you, he may not, but by shooting him you ensure he does not. Forget the trees right to live and forget your neighbours right to live.
All animals stand the chance of losing their homes and their lives in certain situations. That's how the world goes round. A house built in a forest with as little disruption to the area chosen as possible. With the home build a human survival capsule and be ready to lose the dwelling. Be prepared to rebuild it the dwelling. If a place is prone to floods, other strategies will need to be applied.
Manage what we build and create without too much expense loaded onto the natural environment. Leave nature to look after the things with which we have no business interfering.
Another of the problems that we face is that if anyone steps out of the mainstream they are considered at the very least foolish, but generally stupid. Like throwing rubbish in the ground, it's the wrong thing to do, but everyone does it so how can we not doing it make any sort of difference? The slipstream that carries everyone with it is powerful, made up of peer pressure, comfort and many other factors that drag us along with the crowd. The herd has a very strong pull on the individual.
To be different, to be the one who changes and makes changes usually needs a complete rethink, a makeover in fact. Not so easily done. To jettison some of the ideas that were and still are being taught in schools and indoctrinated into those who wouldn't dare to go against the “norm”. To actually think and be a little less selfish and a bit more considerate of everything, not just human beings. Simple. Not for most people.
Something that Kahlil Gibran said: They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price. --Kahlil Gibran
This isn't the “norm”. Neither is trying to keep a tree or trees from being cut down so power lines can go along that path. Yet it happens. The power lines can be redirected away from the trees, but destruction is easier than thinking, designing and building, so “just bulldoze whatever gets in your road” seems to be the credo of the greedy and those who think they are serving progress, which they automatically think is good. [sigh]
It's happened, where the trees were going to be saved and some “hero” came during the night and cut them down. Hundred year old trees, and those that heard the chainsaw working stayed inside and didn't look out so they couldn't let slip who did it, or looked and didn't speak of it because they just wanted the power lines up so they could have electricity a little earlier after living all their lives without it. Then they signed up to a drip feed that slowly sucked then dry.
The buildings that we see going up, and yet few if any think of the quarries that supply the bricks, mortar and plaster, iron ore and coal, the forests cut for woodchips and cut down to allow access to the areas where the stone for building can be found. People say these buildings are great monuments, and they are of course. Great monuments to human stupidity, but then that's stepping out of the mainstream to suggest something like that.
By all means build houses but don’t bulldoze forests to do it. In fact build houses that fit into the environment and realise that nothing is forever and can be lost. If building a house in a forest, get ready for forest fires. Prepare to leave or fight. Prepare to rebuild, prepare a place under the house to protect yourself when the house above you burns to the ground. That may not, but will probably happen at least once in a lifetime. Certainly in Oz.
Trees and understorey gets burnt, why should human dwellings not be burnt. Protecting the things one needs is not a bad thing, but that doesn't mean cut down all the trees that could burn and in so doing torch the dwelling one has chosen to build. That's like shooting your neighbour before he shoots you, he may not, but by shooting him you ensure he does not. Forget the trees right to live and forget your neighbours right to live.
All animals stand the chance of losing their homes and their lives in certain situations. That's how the world goes round. A house built in a forest with as little disruption to the area chosen as possible. With the home build a human survival capsule and be ready to lose the dwelling. Be prepared to rebuild it the dwelling. If a place is prone to floods, other strategies will need to be applied.
Manage what we build and create without too much expense loaded onto the natural environment. Leave nature to look after the things with which we have no business interfering.
Another of the problems that we face is that if anyone steps out of the mainstream they are considered at the very least foolish, but generally stupid. Like throwing rubbish in the ground, it's the wrong thing to do, but everyone does it so how can we not doing it make any sort of difference? The slipstream that carries everyone with it is powerful, made up of peer pressure, comfort and many other factors that drag us along with the crowd. The herd has a very strong pull on the individual.
To be different, to be the one who changes and makes changes usually needs a complete rethink, a makeover in fact. Not so easily done. To jettison some of the ideas that were and still are being taught in schools and indoctrinated into those who wouldn't dare to go against the “norm”. To actually think and be a little less selfish and a bit more considerate of everything, not just human beings. Simple. Not for most people.
Something that Kahlil Gibran said: They deem me mad because I will not sell my days for gold and I deem them mad because they think my days have a price. --Kahlil Gibran
This isn't the “norm”. Neither is trying to keep a tree or trees from being cut down so power lines can go along that path. Yet it happens. The power lines can be redirected away from the trees, but destruction is easier than thinking, designing and building, so “just bulldoze whatever gets in your road” seems to be the credo of the greedy and those who think they are serving progress, which they automatically think is good. [sigh]
It's happened, where the trees were going to be saved and some “hero” came during the night and cut them down. Hundred year old trees, and those that heard the chainsaw working stayed inside and didn't look out so they couldn't let slip who did it, or looked and didn't speak of it because they just wanted the power lines up so they could have electricity a little earlier after living all their lives without it. Then they signed up to a drip feed that slowly sucked then dry.
The buildings that we see going up, and yet few if any think of the quarries that supply the bricks, mortar and plaster, iron ore and coal, the forests cut for woodchips and cut down to allow access to the areas where the stone for building can be found. People say these buildings are great monuments, and they are of course. Great monuments to human stupidity, but then that's stepping out of the mainstream to suggest something like that.
Sunday 2 February 2014
Section 5 - Sustainability
Of Poverty and Other Things.
The social aspect of sustainability is something that will develop, even if it becomes a revolutionary rather than an evolutionary movement. People who have too much, have much, have little, have nothing will be tiers of society that will interact more and more in a physical and violent way.We give aid to third world countries not so much because we feel that they should have better lives, but very much so they don't swarm over to our countries and take, first what we waste and then what we have in excess. Survival of the fittest is paramount in all creatures and flaunting food, potable water and financial wealth is not going to make people stay in the countries where they were born and have little of the aforementioned.
Sustainability is much to do with sharing and caring and looking at the wide picture. Most wealthy countries have too much, and we won't go into that they have this much, in many instances, because they plundered the countries of the third world who now have very little and suffer from the climate changes that the excesses of the wealthy have created. That greed continues. Because it seems we have to dig out every bit of gold from the ground and store it in bunkers and banks and places where it can be easily reached, from which it can be stolen. We have to cut down every tree in the forest and stockpile the trees so they can be easily reached and have them handy before a wildfire burns them. We have to be there first, we have to destroy it first.
The tables will turn.
Enough is not enough any longer. We need more so that we can either demonstrate to our peers that we are better than they or that we can feel secure. Neither of these is achieved. They are chimera of society. The poor, downtrodden and put upon have destroyed kingdoms and armies trained to fight them. That's been proven in the history of human beings again and again and there is much unrest in the world at the moment. The numbers are on the side of the downtrodden who fund and maintain the lifestyles of the wealthy.
Security is no different. There is no security in this life, and being safe in many cases is being greedy and being secure means nothing if there is catastrophe and people on islands are being washed away to neighbouring countries as their land disappears beneath a broiling polluted sea security will be as nothing. Because people who have nothing, have nothing to lose.
The thing that is sustainable is community. People who share, people who care, people who stand up and be counted when things go awry and help their neighbours. The village or town garden, the home gardens the local butcher, baker and candlestick maker who source their raw materials from local people, sell to and barter with local people and buy what they need and don't make themselves from local people.
This does require a change in attitude, it requires the now generation to be patient and eat the foods that are in season. It can easily be detailed to show that this isn't a great sacrifice and will in fact maintain a healthier dietary regime that would suit many.
The best end result will be that it also benefits the environment.
At the moment we are in an ever tightening spiral that will turn us so we can't stop going the way we are because that's all we know. Making everything worse and worse, and when there are masses dying and the population reduced, we may again find an improving environment and an evolution that will centre on what is left, still intact and sustainable and slowly finding a balance.
The Challenge.
The problem we see is not the problem, because there is a great deal more that we don't see. We can't see the icecap, we can't see the water table, we don't yet see acid rain, or not acid enough.
We see weather and that's not climate change. It is the symptom of climate change, Like shrinking icecaps and warming sea water, more droughts and floods and other things that show a planet writhing under the strain. The natural evolved system trying to correct itself, over correcting and under correction happening. It's all happening to fast. The bucket heads see the weather when it's colder or warmer than it should be, as a confirmation that its just normal and there is no climate alteration happening other than what's natural, completely disassociated with human activity on the planet.
Those who are at the lower end of the economic scale will certainly be the first to suffer and perish. Those who are the most wealthy and making the rules and passing the legislation and will be in the best position when it all starts to go pear shaped. They will add to the crisis by using even greater amounts of power and fossil fuels to keep themselves comfortable and the less well off or greedy will sell themselves and their families to destruction keeping the dying, polluting systems running for money in the hope they too will be rich enough to be able to buy their survival.
There are some who think the problems generated now can be rectified very quickly. Good luck with that. No one can put the brakes on a juggernaut so quickly or with any certainty that it won't swerve. It takes quite a while to slow down.
In an attempt to wrest our species from absolute destruction or living in caves underground and grow skin like scales. It's not a matter so much of giving things up as it is about identifying what each of us needs. Then looking at all the other elements of daily life and justifying why we have these things and letting go of those that are not essential.
Just as an example, do you really need to have all electrical appliances on standby? Maybe there are people who do, that would be something they need. But most of us would not. It can't be that hard to press the button to fire up the television before grabbing the remote control? Possibly that's just my thoughts, and no one else agrees.
Spirit Sustainability.
I didn't really get what the TED talk was getting to. Society functions on money, money that belongs to the country and the earnings of individuals. That's fine, though not desirable.
Something that did interest me is that people must value themselves and suddenly money doesn't matter.
How does it **not** matter? Because people are empowered and realise that not eating pheasant or driving a Mercedes doesn't make them lesser beings. The food they eat is good, possibly more sustainable with less input and just as nutritious.
The holidays overseas are fine, but no more satisfying than a trip to the local swimming pool or beach, because most who can afford to travel extensively keep travelling. They have never seen enough. The wealthy keep travelling and the poorer people keep going to the swimming pool, the beach or the zoo. Each a different experience because each time is different.
That the most wealthy have no more of enough than the poorest people. Each wants more, so who cares what anyone has, drives or where they go, as long as they enjoy it?
Is that sustainability? People being happy with what they can do and what they can attempt and love the experience rather than the result? Maybe that's the sustainable thing. People feeling they are no better or worse than anyone else could be the clue to human sustainability? If we have respect and tolerance for other sentient beings on the planet and the form and structure of our planet as if that also has a life force, then we will have a respect and tolerance for one another and a self respect for ourselves that won't be shaken.
What is natural?
What is natural? A question that can't be answered other than anything that's sustainable in the long term because it evolves without the direct interference of humans. We come full circle. We are moving through the realm of where do we come from and what do we rely upon? That's not a specific question, it's a general query which requires no specific answer. We come from the source that is organic and spiritual. Organic being evolution of things that were present in the mud as it dried out. Birthed by the spewing up, morning sickness planet? Or blown in by solar winds. It doesn't matter.
Over time anything that has naturalised in the area where it was cast, planted, washed ashore, rode on the wings or feet of a traveller or whatever, is natural. That it came from another place makes no difference. The whole planet came from another place, and it's natural.
We don't have to break our mind over this and stop eating potatoes and tomatoes because we don't live in the countries where they grow like weeds.
It is an impossibility to be cruel to animals and not transfer that to our own species. There has been some research done on this. And found, humans who treat animals badly, also treat humans badly. Humans who can kill animals, can also kill humans.
The respect for all sentient beings, including plants and insects, if we have it, allows us to live with them, causes us to look to understand them, makes us wiser and more aware and thoughtful of what we do. This expands not only our knowledge but our well being and self worth and ensures sustainability by observation and constant adjustment.
Human beings kill to eat as does every other carnivorous or omnivorous creature. So human beings taken by sharks when they come into their territory or eaten by lions or tigers, wolves or bears is not something to frown upon. Self protection is fine, but to try to destroy or completely remove an animal from its natural environment so that humans are “safe” or “secure” in their activity/recreation in that environment is wrong on so many levels. Absolutely wrong. It shows the disrespect and arrogance of human beings not only for these, but for other humans as well.
We are all creatures of the same material and if asked, and knowing what humans have done, should we think humanity is different from all other species? The most inhuman things are done in the name of humanity, and yet few other creatures are as cruel to their own or other species. So do we really want to cling to humanity rather than something more wholesome?
Learning to live with the animals, toxic, venomous or aggressive is the same as living with humans who have aggressive and toxic tendencies. Yet humans kill what they fear, destroy what doesn't suit or fit in, or competes, because they can and because they don't want to be mindful of anything but themselves and their own comfort and wants.
Can we blame only religion for that? Maybe. Religion is notorious for this anthropocentric justification. Because there is some misinterpretation of the scripture, I hope.
Even the ritual killing of the fatted calf or the sacrifice of the goat showed that the deity of these earlier humans was pleased to receive such a valuable gift. The sacrifice of human beings was also accepted, because they were not inferior to goat of ox, but valued the same.
Human species better than any other? Hardly.
The focus of humans on humans and placing ourselves above all other sentient beings, is what has caused most of the problems we face today. It manifests itself in arrogance and disrespect for all living things and a certainty that we may kill them with impunity and consider some of them as inferior to ourselves, allowing human beings to do some terrible things to other lifeforms, practice for atrocities to our own species.It is an impossibility to be cruel to animals and not transfer that to our own species. There has been some research done on this. And found, humans who treat animals badly, also treat humans badly. Humans who can kill animals, can also kill humans.
The respect for all sentient beings, including plants and insects, if we have it, allows us to live with them, causes us to look to understand them, makes us wiser and more aware and thoughtful of what we do. This expands not only our knowledge but our well being and self worth and ensures sustainability by observation and constant adjustment.
Human beings kill to eat as does every other carnivorous or omnivorous creature. So human beings taken by sharks when they come into their territory or eaten by lions or tigers, wolves or bears is not something to frown upon. Self protection is fine, but to try to destroy or completely remove an animal from its natural environment so that humans are “safe” or “secure” in their activity/recreation in that environment is wrong on so many levels. Absolutely wrong. It shows the disrespect and arrogance of human beings not only for these, but for other humans as well.
We are all creatures of the same material and if asked, and knowing what humans have done, should we think humanity is different from all other species? The most inhuman things are done in the name of humanity, and yet few other creatures are as cruel to their own or other species. So do we really want to cling to humanity rather than something more wholesome?
Learning to live with the animals, toxic, venomous or aggressive is the same as living with humans who have aggressive and toxic tendencies. Yet humans kill what they fear, destroy what doesn't suit or fit in, or competes, because they can and because they don't want to be mindful of anything but themselves and their own comfort and wants.
Can we blame only religion for that? Maybe. Religion is notorious for this anthropocentric justification. Because there is some misinterpretation of the scripture, I hope.
Even the ritual killing of the fatted calf or the sacrifice of the goat showed that the deity of these earlier humans was pleased to receive such a valuable gift. The sacrifice of human beings was also accepted, because they were not inferior to goat of ox, but valued the same.
Human Animal Reltionships.
The relationship with animals and human beings isn't one size fits all. Those who were were interested in wealth, who were becoming farmers for the purpose of making money, and saw animals only as dollar signs on legs had a different relationship with animals than others and were probably never the hunters of the early tribal system.
The relationship with animals for most people is the same as it ever was. A difficulty to kill these animals, any animals persists. Was every male Neanderthal a killer, capable of killing animals or were there some who couldn't do this and traded yams and fruits for flesh?
The reason that farmers are different is through their genes as well as through their outlook and what they want from life. How can anyone love the the animals they breed for no other reason than slaughter?
We see the brutality and cruelty in the live animal trade, and yet farmers are not going to stop selling livestock to the people who abuse them before or, in the act of killing them. In fact farmers are opposed to the groups who are trying to stop cruelty. Farmers breed animals to kill, they have a different outlook from most people.
In Oz the lamb carcases hanging in the butcher shop windows, next to the posters of small lambs frolicking amongst the the long grass and flowers in the sun were removed. Butchers feared their business would suffer if people put the two together. Business, commerce money made by exploiting animals came before all else.
For some of us, there is no difference between the life of a human or cockroach or anything else. We all take our chances and live our lives and try to survive as best we can without impacting on others who are doing the same to survive. Virus's, bacteria and all the things that we have to live with are not evil, they do in fact increase the strength of our species if we allow it, if we accept that all will die, some younger than others. This hasn't changed since medicine has been interfering and no one can predict what this medical interference will mean generations from now. It's certain that the human gene pool has been weakened. Medicine will ensure it is forever needed in this way.
Being ecocentric, I am of as well as from the world that is not only the planet but the universe. It's a belief that there is the universe however far it reaches that connects us all as one large entity and all are part of it even those who think they are not. Because we are connected in so many ways we cannot be different or separate from it, so respect and love must be bestowed on even those we eat to survive and those that eat us to survive as well.
Death is the reward of life, not the end of it. Life is the merely a path and the other creatures that also move in that direction are not lesser than any of us.
It becomes obvious that anyone, human, animal, insect, plant etc., that can live with the sentient beings that it shares the planet and its environment, is to some extent considerate of its surroundings and environment. This species/being learns the old way of living, it discovers that sharing is not onerous and even by doing nothing a balance will slowly develop. An ever changing balance that may not suit the human mind, but which can be gently tweaked and guided to suit. i.e nets on some fruit trees to stop the birds, decoy crops etc.. Because balance is not constant, like evolution it moves on. Not only the weights and elements along the beam and at each end, but also the shifting fulcrum upon which the balance pivots.
The creatures of what might be called the natural world by many are essential for more than just intrinsic reasons. So we, human beings must pull back our tendency to grab any and as much land or area we think we want.
We can share the environment. Gently settle in amongst it, not clear vast areas to build houses and to put down concrete. We must be willing to accept some discomfort and some level of vigilance. An example is that if we live where there are many snakes during summer, we have to be aware where we walk so we don't step on any of these who might think that we are attacking them and therefore bite us. Snakes and spiders do not see us as a food item, but only a threat if we are inconsiderate of their presence.
If we hunt in the sea, we should not have the fish we spear hanging against our body as we look for more. Because a hungry shark who is a species that has terrible eyesight and no finesse will try to take the fish and sometimes accidentally take part of our leg.
Trees we cut for fodder must be checked at any time of the year as there may be a birds nest that we expose to the predators. So many things where we must be aware and awake as well as tolerant and considerate. In this way humans can live with most animals on the planet.
So many things that people have forgotten to watch out for as we build a sterile human only friendly environment, allowing it only to be populated by companion animals over which we think we have control. Not clever, though many will disagree.
Do I have an opinion about this? I know that many have an opinion and enjoy art, as I do myself. But it's a very personal thing and without it there will be other arts that will prevail. No matter that I like one kind of music or only certain pictures, and others by great painters that look naive to me are in fact adored by others? I'm certain it was a great achievement to construct the colour blue from other pigments, but that doesn't intrigue me about a picture.
I love certain pictures that others would consider rubbish or of no value and they can be prints, because the subject speaks to me, and I like it best when the subject has me questioning why I like it. What is the mystique that draws me to it. Good wine is only as good as it tastes to my palate.
I have no real opinion of art, and in music the writer of the words and the one who crafts the music to them is more important than the singer who delivers it, in all except the version I enjoy the most and then they are all equal. I see no nothing about sustainability in this.
The quote on the course page attributed to Confucius is interesting, because I have oft used another that is attributed to him:
All wisdom is rooted in learning
to call things by the right name.
When things are properly identified,
they fall into natural categories and
understanding becomes orderly.
....................Confucius
I'm not certain that things like Global Warming or Climate Change aren't really euphemisms so they don't offend or startle people who really need to be startled and offended so they get thinking.
Having already written about recycling, which could be called: Excess Desperate Reuse there is not much to say.
The reason shock jocks get peoples attention is because they do just that, shock with their language as well as the topics they engage in.
Get real and tell things as they are, and allow people to think about issues that are impacting on [there's one, it should be “destroying”] our planet. Euphemisms are used everywhere.
Getting well behind here.
Sustainability and Art.
Do I have an opinion about this? I know that many have an opinion and enjoy art, as I do myself. But it's a very personal thing and without it there will be other arts that will prevail. No matter that I like one kind of music or only certain pictures, and others by great painters that look naive to me are in fact adored by others? I'm certain it was a great achievement to construct the colour blue from other pigments, but that doesn't intrigue me about a picture.
I love certain pictures that others would consider rubbish or of no value and they can be prints, because the subject speaks to me, and I like it best when the subject has me questioning why I like it. What is the mystique that draws me to it. Good wine is only as good as it tastes to my palate.
I have no real opinion of art, and in music the writer of the words and the one who crafts the music to them is more important than the singer who delivers it, in all except the version I enjoy the most and then they are all equal. I see no nothing about sustainability in this.
Sustainability Language.
The quote on the course page attributed to Confucius is interesting, because I have oft used another that is attributed to him:
All wisdom is rooted in learning
to call things by the right name.
When things are properly identified,
they fall into natural categories and
understanding becomes orderly.
....................Confucius
I'm not certain that things like Global Warming or Climate Change aren't really euphemisms so they don't offend or startle people who really need to be startled and offended so they get thinking.
Having already written about recycling, which could be called: Excess Desperate Reuse there is not much to say.
The reason shock jocks get peoples attention is because they do just that, shock with their language as well as the topics they engage in.
Get real and tell things as they are, and allow people to think about issues that are impacting on [there's one, it should be “destroying”] our planet. Euphemisms are used everywhere.
Getting well behind here.
Some more thoughts:
Not much to write here:
The focus of humans on humans and placing ourselves above all other living organisms, is what has caused most of the problems we face today and as we have seen by the rape and pillage of so many diseases still raging, completely wrong. This assumption manifests itself in arrogance and disrespect for all living things and a certainty that we may kill them with impunity allowing human beings to do some terrible things to other lifeforms, practice for atrocities to our own species.
It is an impossibility to be cruel to animals and not transfer that to our own species. There has been some research done on this. Finding, humans who treat animals badly, also treat humans badly to some extent. Humans who can kill animals, can also kill humans.
The respect for all sentient beings, including plants and insects, if we have it, allows us to live with them, causes us to look to understand them, makes us wiser and more aware and thoughtful of what we do. This expands not only our knowledge but our well being and self worth and ensures sustainability by observation and constant adjustment.
Human beings kill to eat as does every other carnivorous or omnivorous creature. So human beings taken by sharks when they come into their territory or eaten by lions or tigers, wolves or bears is not something to frown upon. Self protection is fine, but to try to destroy or completely remove an animal from its natural environment so that humans are “safe” or “secure” in their activity/recreation in that environment is wrong on so many levels. Absolutely wrong. It shows the disrespect and arrogance of human beings not only for these, but for other humans as well.
We are all creatures of the same material and if asked, and knowing what humans have done, should we think humanity is different from all other species, or better in any way? The most inhuman things are done in the name of humanity, and yet few other creatures are as cruel to their own or other species. Do we really want to cling to humanity rather than something more wholesome?
Learning to live with the animals, toxic, venomous or aggressive is the same as living with humans who have aggressive and toxic tendencies. Yet humans kill what they fear, destroy other species that don't suit or fit in, or competes, because they can and because they don't want to be mindful of anything but themselves and their own comfort and wants.
Can we blame only religion for that? Maybe. Religion is notorious for this anthropocentric justification. Because there is some misinterpretation of the scripture, I hope. However, an anthropocentric religion is one that has little regard for animals and is therefore able to commit atrocities on people, men women and children through not only sexual acts, though they are the ones that are in the news at the moment, but other brutalities as well. Any group, tight or loosely bound that has a respect and concern for all the other creatures of the earth does not harm it's own species to the same extent, nor does it have the same taboos.
Even the ritual killing of the fatted calf or the sacrifice of the goat showed that the deity of these earlier humans was pleased to receive such a valuable gift. The sacrifice of human beings was also accepted, because they were not inferior to goat of ox, but valued the same.
The change in attitude toward animals:
That could be the case, that human beings when they started to tame animals thought they owned them, were the master. Domesticating them was another step toward control, and we have seen what control can do in the catholic church and the salvation army, or wherever people have control over something those of their own who are weaker and subservient. There is abuse of the power, trust and affection is destroyed and fear and helplessness grows in those that allow themselves to be controlled.
The focus of humans on humans and placing ourselves above all other living organisms, is what has caused most of the problems we face today and as we have seen by the rape and pillage of so many diseases still raging, completely wrong. This assumption manifests itself in arrogance and disrespect for all living things and a certainty that we may kill them with impunity allowing human beings to do some terrible things to other lifeforms, practice for atrocities to our own species.
It is an impossibility to be cruel to animals and not transfer that to our own species. There has been some research done on this. Finding, humans who treat animals badly, also treat humans badly to some extent. Humans who can kill animals, can also kill humans.
The respect for all sentient beings, including plants and insects, if we have it, allows us to live with them, causes us to look to understand them, makes us wiser and more aware and thoughtful of what we do. This expands not only our knowledge but our well being and self worth and ensures sustainability by observation and constant adjustment.
Human beings kill to eat as does every other carnivorous or omnivorous creature. So human beings taken by sharks when they come into their territory or eaten by lions or tigers, wolves or bears is not something to frown upon. Self protection is fine, but to try to destroy or completely remove an animal from its natural environment so that humans are “safe” or “secure” in their activity/recreation in that environment is wrong on so many levels. Absolutely wrong. It shows the disrespect and arrogance of human beings not only for these, but for other humans as well.
We are all creatures of the same material and if asked, and knowing what humans have done, should we think humanity is different from all other species, or better in any way? The most inhuman things are done in the name of humanity, and yet few other creatures are as cruel to their own or other species. Do we really want to cling to humanity rather than something more wholesome?
Learning to live with the animals, toxic, venomous or aggressive is the same as living with humans who have aggressive and toxic tendencies. Yet humans kill what they fear, destroy other species that don't suit or fit in, or competes, because they can and because they don't want to be mindful of anything but themselves and their own comfort and wants.
Can we blame only religion for that? Maybe. Religion is notorious for this anthropocentric justification. Because there is some misinterpretation of the scripture, I hope. However, an anthropocentric religion is one that has little regard for animals and is therefore able to commit atrocities on people, men women and children through not only sexual acts, though they are the ones that are in the news at the moment, but other brutalities as well. Any group, tight or loosely bound that has a respect and concern for all the other creatures of the earth does not harm it's own species to the same extent, nor does it have the same taboos.
Even the ritual killing of the fatted calf or the sacrifice of the goat showed that the deity of these earlier humans was pleased to receive such a valuable gift. The sacrifice of human beings was also accepted, because they were not inferior to goat of ox, but valued the same.
The change in attitude toward animals:
That could be the case, that human beings when they started to tame animals thought they owned them, were the master. Domesticating them was another step toward control, and we have seen what control can do in the catholic church and the salvation army, or wherever people have control over something those of their own who are weaker and subservient. There is abuse of the power, trust and affection is destroyed and fear and helplessness grows in those that allow themselves to be controlled.
Sunday 26 January 2014
Week 4: Sustainability Course - Organisations and sustainability
4.1 EXPLORING RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN HEALTH AND SUSTAINABILITY
That certainly is something to think about, though one has to wonder just how much one should consider health when living is not a matter of preserving life, but is rather about living it. Something that seems to have been lost on much of the population.The problem is that like with most things in our modern times, we are moving away from the natural to the fads, fashions and routines of the masses. Technology has us sitting on our behinds a great deal more than we possibly should and yet that wouldn't be the case for someone in a wheelchair. It still might take too much of their time away from getting upper body exercise if they would remain as healthy and active as is possible for their restrictions. Motorised wheelchairs make things easier but not better.
Food has very much become a thing to enjoy more than anything else in life and it is more easily obtained than it ever was, especially the exotic and out of season. Cooking shows don't specialise in the what’s in season or local. The best tasting food is heavily laced with salt and sugars that should probably be taken in moderation and of course, as all cooks know, fat is flavour and makes eating a comfort. Big meals are not a problem as long as one does big work. The labourers of old ate huge meals three times a day and worked them off during the long hours of toil in which they participated. Now most people do less physical work or anything for that matter and have to watch their weight, want flavour without the fat that kills.
Few people work that hard or as long in this day and age so we have to eat accordingly.
Then we have to take into account the individual persons metabolism. Some people burn energy in great quantities even when they do very little, others have been survivors through the ages because they put their food in a good skin and do well on little. Becoming obese when they eat a bit much without labouring to burn the energy that the body then turns to fat. Their metabolism being fond of fat will first take reserves from muscle tissue because it an be more easily replaced in hard times than fat, so losing the weight is not easy.
As mentioned previously, sustainable eating is consuming food in season in our locality. It being both fresh and using very little fossil fuel to transport it to our plates. None at all if we grow it in our garden, which also helps to burn energy if we maintain it ourselves. We also know what has been put into or on our home grown food. Organically home grown foods greatest advantage is that it doesn't contain any chemical residue. Because the jury is still out on the issue of that it's better than conventionally grown food.
Eco friendly toilets is something that should have been legislated to be in all new housing estates for decades at least. Using fresh clean water to wash away waste is a silliness and I wonder who could think up such a thing?
To correctly compost toilet waste will produce a earth smelling nutrient rich fertiliser that, due to what is eaten in the way of bought food, may be a bit too overloaded with heavy metals because of this addition to the diet. But is otherwise a desirable addition to fruit trees even if not the vegetable garden. Human waste not properly composted can be a health hazard, but if it isn't used in the vegetable garden, in contact with root vegetables and those grown on the ground and buried deep enough to prevent flies from accessing it, will generally become very useful fertiliser over time through the actions of soil flora and fauna.
Most people have a distaste and even a fear associated with human or animal waste and that makes them want it out of the way and out of mind as quickly as possible. Sadly this aversion is also going to ensure the seas and river waters and all who live in it are going to remain polluted.
Human beings become more plentiful and therefore must start taking responsibility in all these matters, be sensible and reason through their fears and worries about the natural elements of the world
Sustainable Mental Health.
The physical health aspect of washing your own car rather than going to a car wash, or doing your own gardening, rather than have the double cost of paying a gardener and paying a gym fee is well known.Sustainable mental health is not so much mentioned. Time for contemplation or giving something the opportunity of life or of living when planting a seed or seedling. Exercising the mind when planning a garden or the tasks to be done in a garden. The calm and pleasing aspect of owning a pet.
Physical things done that allow the mind to wander, to let go of thoughts that enter it, creating a flow of cleansing energy for the mind.
The feeling of well being and comfort from mind relaxed and muscles revived.
These are sustainable pleasures that have no hidden cost or any cost at all.
Sustainable Sanitation.
I've explained our system of sanitation. But will do so again in this module.
Ours is an outside toilet. This partly because the door remains open and we look out on a garden area with Tagasaste trees that is alive with all manner of birds from Superb Wrens and Shrike Thrush's to honey eaters and rosellas and at night brushtail possums.
We use a toilet bucket rather than a long drop, septic tank or anything like that. The septic tank is not a good system for us because we need to be frugal with water, septic tanks still require water to flush the waste out of sight out of mind.
The toilet itself has a large block of wood where you place your feet, that puts you into the squat position by lifting your feet some 250 mm above the floor and the seat is also lower than the average toilet seat height.
Once the toilet discipline has been finished there is a bucket of wood ash from the fire that has a scoop in it, and one scoop of ash is sprinkled over the waste each time someone uses the toilet.
The bucket is emptied when about half full. It is emptied into a hole that has been dug when the last bucket of waste had been buried. The digging of the new hole is what covers the hole where the bucket has been emptied.
There are several aspects to this that might be considered sustainable and healthy:
- The squatting position
- The second time use of the wood ash from the fire which is generally more alkaline and therefore adds another element to the personal waste
- The exercise required to dig the hole and wash the bucket
- The improvement of an area of the property that is generally not rich in nutrient nor very efficient in holding moisture
- The planting of fruit or fodder trees in that area
- The area can be reused for the purpose of waste disposal again after 12 months or the area is just expanded.
The water use is minimal, because washing the bucket and pouring that water into the hole is not wasted and creates a ideal environment for the soil flora and fauna that will value add the waste.
Over time, an area like this actually maintains the flora and fauna that break down the waste, breaking it down faster than was the case when soil that hadn't had this valuable addition.
Waste water from shower and bathroom and kitchen sinks water a walnut tree and mint bed as well as some of an ornamental garden. Very little soap and detergent is used for washing.
Corporate World.
[Disclaimer]
I don't trust corporations of any kind, any more than I trust governments. Both function of a different level from that which is good for communities.
[end disclaimer]
So I will just say this:
The shaking hands photo of the corporate clones turned out by universities and other institutions is a bit disconcerting to me. To use sustainability in the same sentence as corporations of any kind just doesn't sit right. Business, corporations are created and nurtured to generate wealth for owners and shareholders who do nothing except risk what they have in ample supply. Money. Or if they don't have it in ample supply are willing to risk what they have because of greed.
Business people, and those who serve them have different priorities to an average man like myself.
So I don't can't get excited about the changes that businesses and corporations say they will make. The priority they have is profit at any cost to appease the shareholders.
Best I don't say more, other than, if sustainability isn't first on the list the things of a business or corporation, like well being of employees, safety etc., and profit last. It means nothing. It's sustainability that will always be eroded, the loser.
Monday 20 January 2014
Comments on Section 3
Precious Water
Our water is harvested from the roof during rain and is caught and stored in water tanks. In very wet conditions, a lot of rain we find that we don't have sufficient tanks, and the water run off ends up in a dam at the bottom of the property. All the water on the 40 acres doesn't go into that dam. To contain the water from the whole property and allow none to travel down through the usually dry creek and into the dams of people who live further down the mountain from us, we would need 4 dams.
We don't do this, the first and main reason being:
- that we don't want to keep all the water that falls as rain and runs off from our property and deprive those further down the foothills
- we want to allow the dry gullies to once more become wet and therefore function as nature intended
- we are not greedy
- there is also always the lack of money, but even with sufficient money we would not entertain the idea.
We would have to build dams and improve the clay of the dam with something like bentonite clay. The soil where the dams would be built are not water holding soils. We could place the dams into clay and use water races to direct the run off into the dam that way.
The dam we have built has or rather had, a water race leading past it with flags that would direct the water into it. At the start, after the first flush of water, it with all the debris on the water race was allowed to pass by and run into the gully off the property. Then when the water was clear, we would direct it into the dam with flags.
However we have so little water that actually runs off that we have abandoned the flags and directly feed even the first flush of water carrying sticks and leaf matter into the dam. We hope the water creatures find these as food and homes and this material will hopefully not be so plentiful that it will fill our dam with a rich soil.
Our water to the cottage is gravity fed from header tanks that are higher on the slopes.
We use a gas, on demand water heater. That way we think we conserve and husband energy.
Our washing machine is modern, with reasonable rating for water and electricity use and has many settings which allow us to try to use the least possible water and power. We have solar power over deep cycle batteries with a generator backup.
Water Use:
[quote]
All water that is piped into homes in the UK is treated to very high EU quality standards. Much of the water we use domestically is consumed in non-potable uses such as gardening and flushing toilets. Only uses including drinking, cooking and for baths and showers need to be potable for health reasons. These uses account for only around one third of total supply.
[end quote]
We don't treat our water, but as the air becomes more and more polluted there is a chance that our rain water will pick up pollution from the air. Already people are talking about acid rain, and that could be a problem even in our environment in the future.
We don't have a flush toilet. We have a dry toilet and allow the material to become plant nutrient by composting in the soil. We just refuse to use good quality rain water to flush away our personal waste. By not doing so we improve the nutrition and water holding capacity of our dry soils.
Living with a finite water supply:
We live with an unpredictable and unreliable water supply. That means we gauge the weather constantly and attempt to make certain that we have enough water in reserve for such things as fire fighting, in case a fire should impact our home. We adjust our water usage by the amount that's available, we have shorter showers, save our household shower and washing water to water the plants as the water supply gets less.
Often rain is forecast, but we also know the forecasters, they are generally wrong, so it's up to us in the main. We have to take responsibility for the things that many people take for granted and if there is insufficient, have someone to complain to. We have only ourselves to blame and that makes us a bit more careful a bit more frugal, but we have an internal water gauge, the same as we have an internal power meter. Knowing just how much water we are using and how much electricity we are using when we have a laptop computer or washing machine or both on at the same time.
It's not particularly clever, just something that develops with time and we don't think anything of it any more.
Water Footprint:
The end result said: Your total water footprint = 2074 cubic meter per year.
Laughing. I suddenly realised that ours is not going to be average.
We do one load of washing each day, and that's mostly for soiled animal bedding. We are a wildlife shelter and so our dairy, or marsupial milk replacer consumption is higher. I also realise that I drink about 10 to 15 cups of coffee a day, does that really lift the bar? Not the water in my cup, but the water used in the production of the coffee bean and the process that grinds it? Maybe even the water beneath the keel of the boat that carries it across the ocean. [laughing]
We eat a lot of vegetables but very little if any meat at any time. Not because we don't like it, but because we can't afford it, we have marsupial milk replacer and food to buy. Meat is so expensive buy. So when we do eat meat, usually we kill our own sheep and poultry. Eat a lot of eggs during spring and summer that our free range Pekin bantams produce.
So what else is making this much water use? I drink about 2 litres of water a day, sometimes more depending what I doing outside in the warmer months and 1 litre or more a day during the winter. I don't think our dam holds that much [2074 cubic metres] water, our water tanks hold about 12,000 gallons of water, 5,000 of that is never touched, held for fire fighting.
It seems to me it's more to do with what commercial growers use to grow the vegetable plants the people want. There are better ways to grow vegetables than the French raised bed method, though it's easier to lose vegetable crops in a wet year if grown in a different way. There is a requirement to have a better idea of weather conditions that might present in the future if vegetables are not grown on a raised bed.
Hydroponics might be a better use of water?
Our apple trees are not irrigated and we have about 25 varieties. In a drought they lose all their apples before the birds can get get them. Most other years we lose a lot to the crimson rosella's and bower birds. We have to start looking at nets to keep the birds off the ripening fruit. Making nets might use a lot of water.
We have bees, and they do use water, but I'm not certain of their consumption, maybe not that much as they could find evaporation of moisture from the nectar to produce the honey is enough for their needs?
Our vegetables are grown with less water than some people use. But then our crops and vegetables are not as large as some, and sometimes a little more fibrous.
Did the guide on the page take an average of how vegetables were grown commercially? Was water wastage taken into account? I have seen market gardens that have water flowing down the paths between the rows as the sprinklers just keep pumping it out. There is a lot of water wastage.
We never wash cars, except in the rain and we don;t have any driveway aprons or such to wash down.
Anyway, the amount above was presented when I did the survey.
The language of food.
The language of food for us is simple instruction.
We eat what we can afford, mainly what we can grow and a great deal of what we can buy cheaply trying to maintain a reasonably low level of fat, sugars and salt in any processed food we buy.
It's not rocket science really. We bottle fruits that grow on our trees that the birds have left for us. Wild craft asparagus, cherry plums, mushrooms. blackberries, rose hips and anything else that we find in the area round us.
These “natural” foods often seen as weeds rather than plants out of place are shunned by many who find it quaint that anyone would eat these things. The danger is that farmers spray blackberries that cover areas of pasture which doesn't yield as much in volume of grass as the berry thicket.
Wasteland, what a crazy term, grows much of this food. It's there for the taking and is taken by people who are aware of its value.
The food we eat probably shows that we are not well off financially or as I think, that we have other priorities that must attract our money. We are fortunate in that we never go hungry, and though we may not feed on caviar or such luxuries, are not deprived in any way having hardly ever tasted them even as an experiment.
There is no security, so therefore there can be no food security for the simple reason of weather, though not alone. Pollution of areas previously clean and the madness of price and price wars that impact not only on food for the consumer, but food production. What we really need is food adaptability.
I have always been of the opinion that food should be eaten as was intended since time began, in season. When apricots are ripening, they should become a staple with any other food that's coming into the season. Spring and summer is the time to eat eggs, and winter is the time to kill and out aside meat, in the cold climates the animal fats that will keep people warm.
Since modern times we have no more need of the animal fats as most people heat their houses so that they can walk round in shirt sleeves in every part of it. This isn't the way humans evolved, there was a time when we needed to put on more clothes, but now summer is all year round.
If we move back a bit, and use the seasons as a guide, we wouldn't be pulling food from across the seas, where the growers might be using chemicals banned in our own country and many more things like that.
Further to this, if technology is sustainable then how physically strong and big do people have to be? To reduce the body size will also mean in most cases, reducing the food consumption size.
Waste is a real problem and there are many people who already look through the rubbish skips of larger supermarket chains to find the food marked as not suitable for sale, but quite edible, though in most cases the packaging is just broken and in the most sever cases the food might just need a bit of attention to remove parts that are either unsightly or slightly off.
Food Sources Ignored.
Looking at the Mesolithic food pyramid one wonders that it wasn't what created the more active brain activity which is exhibited in humans and yet doesn't happen in the apes. Though the apes do eat small amounts of meat, consuming mainly meat in the form of flesh from fish and other animals and birds was probably the difference, and if the truth be known is important for the developing brain of the child? Just an idea.
So where do we go from here, where the grains nuts and vegetables are the most sustainable as far as land use is concerned?
There are many pests that are edible and just killed and allowed to rot. Foolishness that makes no sense, locusts being one such, feral pigs in places all over my country, deer of various kind that are shot and killed only so their heads can be caped out and hung as a trophy on a wall. Even wildlife like kangaroos are culled and allowed to rot, instead of being used as all creatures should be to give their lives and deaths meaning and purpose.
Rabbits have been poisoned and inflicted with disease myxomatosis and calcivirus [Viral Haemorrhaging Disease] rather than harvested for food. Yet it's well documented that in earlier times poor Australian farming families lived on rabbits, many have used the skins of rabbits in past decades to better their financial situation.
The situation with people now expecting to buy the “bred” or manufactured is something that has developed and even been encouraged by the government. Few people keep cows for milking even on farms and most hobby farmers don't even keep a got or two for milking or sheep for house rations. It seems people are afraid of what? Disease?
I wonder how many people died of zoonosis in the days of yore?
Though they are so versatile and food valuable, few people keep poultry, preferring to put their scraps which are generally too plentiful, into bins to go into landfill.
Pigeons are good to eat labelled a pest and no longer kept and eaten. The advantages of many of these feral and other animals that take very little maintenance and supply rich and varied sources of protein are seldom part of the modern families lifestyle. Milk and eggs both come from the supermarkets in cartons, albeit a bit different to one another.
Many reasons can be found why we don't use a local resource. There is the killing and cleaning actions most people don't enjoy because they may get dirty or they can't eat a cute and cuddly rabbit, but can buy and eat lamb chops. These are meat and they are divorced from the image of a lamb frolicking in amongst the spring flowers on the pasture. Denial? Convenience?
Food Depletion.
Having been born to parents who came through and survived a war, I have found myself like them, looking at things differently. All food is good and as we all know, food is medicine. If it sustains us, supplies our needs and satisfies our taste food of any kind serves the purpose.
Usually the people who have a food “culture” know how to preserve the source of that food by not over harvesting or such. There are certain things that must be observed which cannot always be controlled if many people, not versed in the food sources need harvest it. Things like asparagus must not be harvested for at least the first year and every year after that it's wise to allow the last spears of the season to remain unharvested and to grow as the plant intended to replenish it's roots with food ready for next years growth.
Is there any food of my culture that is not sustainable? All food, if the population keeps growing and eats all the breeders as well as the seed. Not allowing plants to regain their strength before harvest the following year. Cloning plants that will not be able to adapt to the changing conditions they find through their seed.
Artificially inseminating animals with what appears to be a sire of desirable traits that could be later discovered to have some hidden flaw, as has happened in the dairying industry. Food sources are threatened if we restrict diversity, if we think we know best in a world we don't know very well.
Cloning and artificial insemination is madness. Science responding to treating the symptom rather than the cause. Though that's what science is best at and of course gets us into trouble. Was DDT the first of these things that made us start to suspect science, or was that the atomic bomb?
So.........
It's really the never ending story of humanity being so superior that we think we know everything. That we think depositing out bodily wastes into the sea or rivers or such places is acceptable because out of sight out of mind? We believe that if we buy “meat” we don't have to think of the things that were done to animals to put this product into the butcher shops or supermarkets. That we can just poison pest or feral animals and leave them to rot instead of eating them where they are food very suitable for human beings. Thus creating a double cost, the cost of the toxic chemicals that are manufactured and labour to administer them out in the field and the damage to the environment.
That the energy we use is not so bad but is wasteful at the moment, that governments don't subsidise or encourage renewable energy and most politicians are not even aware what that is.
There are things we can do better. Not use computers would be a good energy saver. [laughing] But using a laptop is better for us because we have solar only power, and of course in our heads is a metre that records what we are plugging into power sockets, turning off all “standby” appliances and generally aware of our electricity use.
We are the same with water. Very frugal use of water and using water twice if that's possible and it is in some instances.
Waste? Well there is waste. The kitchen waste goes out to the poultry and water fowl and dogs, the human waste gets buried in the ground where the soil flora and fauna compost it and create a beautiful fertiliser for plants. Mainly for trees and pasture grasses, and the animals that eat these feed us with flesh and eggs. In the case of poultry they also keep the pests away from the vegetables we grow, and supply other rich sources of manure to sustain these plants.
We see plants out of place as something desirable. There is a little work involved to keep blackberry thickets at a reasonable size by allowing sheep and goats to keep them trimmed, subsidising the animals feed. The few thistles that grow as a source of nectar and pollen for the bees and and so are not useless, nor do they need destroying, because the grasses grow vigorously and there are little open earth in which they can take a hold.
Water is stored in food grade polypropylene tanks and is our main water supply.
We have satellite television and internet connection and live simply, in that we don't go out to restaurants or plays or the movies.
I think that we have much to learn from nature. The bee and ant colony, the forests the pasture. The way things grow in natural harmony which includes rivalry and even wars, there is survival and sustainability.
Wednesday 15 January 2014
Our situation..........
We attempt to have the smallest possible footprint, carbon or otherwise. It's actually quite difficult to achieve, we question everything and identify needs and wants.
By having no electricity grid connection solar power only, we are not electricity sufficient. We do need to run a petrol engine generator at times, to do anything that our 700 watt inverter can't handle. Try to use the generator as little as possible. Sweep rather than vacuum, have wooden floors rather than carpet, don't iron clothes and don't go to places where ironed clothes are expected to be worn. Such things suit our natures.
We recycle our organic waste matter in that we put it in the ground to be modified and enriched by by the process of earthworms feeding, and the earthworms help in feeding the poultry and waterfowl and these in turn manure the garden and so on and on.
We catch our own water in tanks off the roof of our modest, fully insulated walls and roof, warm in winter and cool in summer cottage. With the only water supply being that which falls from the sky onto our land, and that's not much. At the bottom of our property is a dam, which catches some but not all the run-off we can't harvest.
We use propane gas as a cooking fuel and to run our refrigerator, burn wood sourced from our own property for heating. It does the job thrice, once when we walk up the hills to get it, once when we chop or saw it and once when we burn it, then it becomes slightly alkaline source of potash, and so it goes.
It can be seen that all this is not ideal. It's an attempt to make a difference but it's not anywhere near what possibly a third world country person is doing to preserve the environment.
By having no electricity grid connection solar power only, we are not electricity sufficient. We do need to run a petrol engine generator at times, to do anything that our 700 watt inverter can't handle. Try to use the generator as little as possible. Sweep rather than vacuum, have wooden floors rather than carpet, don't iron clothes and don't go to places where ironed clothes are expected to be worn. Such things suit our natures.
We recycle our organic waste matter in that we put it in the ground to be modified and enriched by by the process of earthworms feeding, and the earthworms help in feeding the poultry and waterfowl and these in turn manure the garden and so on and on.
We catch our own water in tanks off the roof of our modest, fully insulated walls and roof, warm in winter and cool in summer cottage. With the only water supply being that which falls from the sky onto our land, and that's not much. At the bottom of our property is a dam, which catches some but not all the run-off we can't harvest.
We use propane gas as a cooking fuel and to run our refrigerator, burn wood sourced from our own property for heating. It does the job thrice, once when we walk up the hills to get it, once when we chop or saw it and once when we burn it, then it becomes slightly alkaline source of potash, and so it goes.
It can be seen that all this is not ideal. It's an attempt to make a difference but it's not anywhere near what possibly a third world country person is doing to preserve the environment.
Working with the natural world, leave ego and arrogance behind:
The thing that people think is great or even heroic, is fighting and beating something that's bigger and stronger than themselves, bending this to their will. A horse, or the natural world, and yet neither need to be fought if we lose the ego and take up the soft, clever option of working with it. The horse can be trained and finally help us, work with us, all but the most brutish people realise the that training is better than breaking a horse.
Working with weather is sustainable, but what do people do. They develop new technology and by loving this new toy they try to justify it's existence by showing what it can do in the fight against nature, the natural order of things. We are fighting nature to show we can beat it and losing, destroying it in the process.
Instead of trying to to fight against drought, learn to predict it, learn to live with it, develop plants and plans that when a drought is coming that the plants which are best suited to it are planted in the field. In arrogance, ego we lay huge acres of land aside to catch water using huge resources to create the storage to maintain a fragile insipid plant in not even a drought, just a dry year.
We still spend millions on sprays that poison people to kill locusts which are eating the fragile plants. We should be allowing them to do just that, not call it a plague but a blessing and eat the locust. You don't have to be a lateral thinker to realise that. You just have to look around you to discover that meal worms are a great source of protein and deliver more of that per kilo to feed them than any cow.
I'm tired and might not be thinking straight. What we're doing is not sustainable, but we can have sustainable systems working if we are both flexible and cleverly working with the natural world.
In Australia, there is a conflict with all wildlife that moves, all animals that do not produce meat, wool or any product in demand by human beings. All creatures that are outside the farming system that has been developed here are blamed by farmers for their plight of not being the wealthiest people on the planet and poison and shoot them all.
There are some farmers who are exceptions to this barbarism, but not many. All point back to generally, their English ancestors who like in the Lord of the Rings tore down forests to create something more ugly, but better suited to the introduced animals that they wanted to husband
This place we live is special now. We have pulled together the things we love and at first pulled together the things we thought we loved and then jettisoned the ones we couldn't use, or weren't possible to have round us here, leaving those we love and would endure. That's what makes the place special, it was never about landscape or weather, it was all about having close at hand the interests that we like to pursue and could fit into the natures configuration for this area.
I often muse on why people go on holiday, if they go to all the trouble and expense of buying land and building, generally a large home, and then leave it each year and dread coming back off their holiday, what value does it have to them other than a status symbol in a society that has lost the understanding of value.
The old chestnuts come out, of having a stable family life for the kids, yet it entails both parents working more hours than is wise, never seeing their kids or the house [dream home] as they strive to get enough money to pay the mortgage, the child minder, pay for the holiday that they love. Which takes them away from their dream home into another place where they argue with their kids. They should have bought the long term holiday rather than the house and land.
Their is a certain madness in humanity. People generally have no idea how to seek out the things they really want, and not just show off to everyone but from which to create a meaningful sustainable lifestyle.
I am reminded of the farmer who rang the the agribusiness extension officer and said that he wanted to know of ways to be able to make more money from his land. The extension officer asked if that was really the idea. He was assured it was the thing this farmer wanted. A visit to the farm by the extension officer was arranged.
The day arrived and the extension officer sat the farmer down and asked again if making more money from his property was what the farmer wanted and was again assured this to be the case. So they discussed the farm and the extension officer said that he would now have to look around the property to be able to make suggestions.
The first paddock they came to had grass aplenty and as high as the bellies of the few sheep that were grazing in it. The extension officer said to the farmer I can increase the production of this paddock alone by about 5 fold just from the look of it here. That simply by increasing the stocking rate to what it is at least five times as the the sheep are over fat and there is too much grass not being utilised. The farmer looked at his adviser in horror, “Oh no, I couldn't do that he said. I want my next door neighbour to look over our dividing fence and say, “look at all the fat sheep and the long grass that man has. He is a great farmer”.
It's the same as the wool grower who wants to have the wool bales only filled to the minimum weight, so he can tell his cronies at the pub how many bales of wool he cut off his acreage. To fill them as heavily as allowed would halve the amount of bales, would halve his cartage costs and halve his wool store/auction costs, but that didn't matter to him.
Do we really want to become sustainable or do we just want to be seen to be living sustainably and have everyone admire us for our commitment? It's easy for us, because we have made the decision commitment for just about all our lives. We would have had a lower footprint had I stayed travelling maybe, but it would need some figuring out to see if that's actually true.
In Australia, there is a conflict with all wildlife that moves, all animals that do not produce meat, wool or any product in demand by human beings. All creatures that are outside the farming system that has been developed here are blamed by farmers for their plight of not being the wealthiest people on the planet and poison and shoot them all.
There are some farmers who are exceptions to this barbarism, but not many. All point back to generally, their English ancestors who like in the Lord of the Rings tore down forests to create something more ugly, but better suited to the introduced animals that they wanted to husband
The Best Place:
In my youth, from the age of 14 years I travelled and there were many places that I loved living, even if it was only for a short time, but by the time I reached my early 30's suddenly realised that every place I ever lived was good. That none were better than any other, and we ended up the mountains that some people couldn't stand, because of the winding narrow roads leading in and out. Mountains instead of a desert as it is mostly known, with drifting dunes and otherwise flat land and gibba plains.This place we live is special now. We have pulled together the things we love and at first pulled together the things we thought we loved and then jettisoned the ones we couldn't use, or weren't possible to have round us here, leaving those we love and would endure. That's what makes the place special, it was never about landscape or weather, it was all about having close at hand the interests that we like to pursue and could fit into the natures configuration for this area.
I often muse on why people go on holiday, if they go to all the trouble and expense of buying land and building, generally a large home, and then leave it each year and dread coming back off their holiday, what value does it have to them other than a status symbol in a society that has lost the understanding of value.
The old chestnuts come out, of having a stable family life for the kids, yet it entails both parents working more hours than is wise, never seeing their kids or the house [dream home] as they strive to get enough money to pay the mortgage, the child minder, pay for the holiday that they love. Which takes them away from their dream home into another place where they argue with their kids. They should have bought the long term holiday rather than the house and land.
Their is a certain madness in humanity. People generally have no idea how to seek out the things they really want, and not just show off to everyone but from which to create a meaningful sustainable lifestyle.
I am reminded of the farmer who rang the the agribusiness extension officer and said that he wanted to know of ways to be able to make more money from his land. The extension officer asked if that was really the idea. He was assured it was the thing this farmer wanted. A visit to the farm by the extension officer was arranged.
The day arrived and the extension officer sat the farmer down and asked again if making more money from his property was what the farmer wanted and was again assured this to be the case. So they discussed the farm and the extension officer said that he would now have to look around the property to be able to make suggestions.
The first paddock they came to had grass aplenty and as high as the bellies of the few sheep that were grazing in it. The extension officer said to the farmer I can increase the production of this paddock alone by about 5 fold just from the look of it here. That simply by increasing the stocking rate to what it is at least five times as the the sheep are over fat and there is too much grass not being utilised. The farmer looked at his adviser in horror, “Oh no, I couldn't do that he said. I want my next door neighbour to look over our dividing fence and say, “look at all the fat sheep and the long grass that man has. He is a great farmer”.
It's the same as the wool grower who wants to have the wool bales only filled to the minimum weight, so he can tell his cronies at the pub how many bales of wool he cut off his acreage. To fill them as heavily as allowed would halve the amount of bales, would halve his cartage costs and halve his wool store/auction costs, but that didn't matter to him.
Do we really want to become sustainable or do we just want to be seen to be living sustainably and have everyone admire us for our commitment? It's easy for us, because we have made the decision commitment for just about all our lives. We would have had a lower footprint had I stayed travelling maybe, but it would need some figuring out to see if that's actually true.
Monday 6 January 2014
Musing Sustainability
I was mainly thinking about sustainability on the level of the environment when I joined this course. Imagining the flow on effect of sustainability in the natural world, upon which we depend for survival as individuals and a species, would permeate through every aspect of society and each individuals life. People who hurt and kill animals can and quite often do hurt and sometimes even kill people. There is a flow on effect that seems to be at work there, so maybe in the other direction it will work as well, or so is my thinking.
However, once conversant with the importance of sustainability in the world we inhabit people would no longer do things that was destroying any more of the natural world and the balance evolution was trying to restore. The problem is bending peoples minds round to the obvious can be extremely challenging.
Having attempted to introduce people to another way of thinking on other subjects and aware of the difficulty, think, in all areas one must first consider and attempt to get through to the members of the human race. Not because we are the most clever species, but rather because they are the species with the greatest capability of destruction. This capability would not be a dangerous thing in the hands of a clever species, but in our own it's incredibly worrying and constantly used to achieve some horrendous outcomes.
For the moment moving past the base of our existence and the sustainable continuation of our tenure here, the planet and its environment. We can examine sustainability in other areas and they will lead us back to the base at any rate and the lack of respect we have for the planet.
The new generation of beekeeper. A sustainable transition which the natural world can handle without any stress or needing to tighten up. Much is lost as children find the new cities the place to be. Maybe this one will find it the same. But as he is my grandson he will first be introduced to and taught how wonderful the natural world is, and how to survive in it, so he will ever have a safety net that will not only assist him with understanding, but catch him should he ever fall.
If all goes well he will never be far from the sound of cicadas, the sweet scent of nectar being cured to become honey in the air and the lovely surprise of a wallaby or wombat stumbled upon in his day or night wanderings.
Sustainable government is not what we have in most developed countries, because the politicians are **not** the servant of the people as they claim. They are the masters, the gods of our society. They ask for a chance to represent by serving the communities of their electorate and once they have the votes become the master, a representative of their own ideas. Though some do listen when many of their constituents get behind a cause even if only to save their job. The result is not always good. As we are aware most popular is not always best and it may not be sustainable, but it does allow the most people to get their way.
Sustainable government is to know about legislation before it's presented to parliament. First to discuss it with friends and family and with modern technology have that legislation go to the people and allow them to have their say. If their elected representative wants to sell it to their electorate, they have to meet the people and get their message across before they are asked to have an electronic vote on the legislation.
This will come into being slowly, as the electorates representative get briefed and then go out and try to convince their constituents just how good is, and why they should vote the way of the party that is in government. That will be sustainable, because people will feel they own their governance.
When the people with all the information available to them, have a chance to speak and be the main driver in decision making, are in fact the shakers and movers. A government is sustainable and only those in government who do the wrong thing will need to be removed.
 |
| Too Precious to Lose |
However, once conversant with the importance of sustainability in the world we inhabit people would no longer do things that was destroying any more of the natural world and the balance evolution was trying to restore. The problem is bending peoples minds round to the obvious can be extremely challenging.
Having attempted to introduce people to another way of thinking on other subjects and aware of the difficulty, think, in all areas one must first consider and attempt to get through to the members of the human race. Not because we are the most clever species, but rather because they are the species with the greatest capability of destruction. This capability would not be a dangerous thing in the hands of a clever species, but in our own it's incredibly worrying and constantly used to achieve some horrendous outcomes.
For the moment moving past the base of our existence and the sustainable continuation of our tenure here, the planet and its environment. We can examine sustainability in other areas and they will lead us back to the base at any rate and the lack of respect we have for the planet.
 |
| The sustainable next generation of beekeeper. |
Just a moments aside.
The new generation of beekeeper. A sustainable transition which the natural world can handle without any stress or needing to tighten up. Much is lost as children find the new cities the place to be. Maybe this one will find it the same. But as he is my grandson he will first be introduced to and taught how wonderful the natural world is, and how to survive in it, so he will ever have a safety net that will not only assist him with understanding, but catch him should he ever fall.
If all goes well he will never be far from the sound of cicadas, the sweet scent of nectar being cured to become honey in the air and the lovely surprise of a wallaby or wombat stumbled upon in his day or night wanderings.
Sustainable government.
Sustainable government relies on the ballot box, but it also relies on people then accepting what has been decided by the majority's vote for the term agreed upon by plebiscite of referendum. However, democracy is not all that great, but it does give every individual of voting age in the population the opportunity to make a mistake. Which can be corrected when the vote comes round again.Sustainable government is not what we have in most developed countries, because the politicians are **not** the servant of the people as they claim. They are the masters, the gods of our society. They ask for a chance to represent by serving the communities of their electorate and once they have the votes become the master, a representative of their own ideas. Though some do listen when many of their constituents get behind a cause even if only to save their job. The result is not always good. As we are aware most popular is not always best and it may not be sustainable, but it does allow the most people to get their way.
Sustainable government is to know about legislation before it's presented to parliament. First to discuss it with friends and family and with modern technology have that legislation go to the people and allow them to have their say. If their elected representative wants to sell it to their electorate, they have to meet the people and get their message across before they are asked to have an electronic vote on the legislation.
This will come into being slowly, as the electorates representative get briefed and then go out and try to convince their constituents just how good is, and why they should vote the way of the party that is in government. That will be sustainable, because people will feel they own their governance.
When the people with all the information available to them, have a chance to speak and be the main driver in decision making, are in fact the shakers and movers. A government is sustainable and only those in government who do the wrong thing will need to be removed.
Education:
Education as it stands currently is not sustainable. More and more parents are already starting to home educate their children. Why? The reasons are different. In some cases people are starting to believe that the education system is driving their children to become one of a few that will have only academic tools and need to challenge others with the same tools for the same few jobs. A wider practical education is more important, something that builds the child, reinforcing their strengths and strengthening their weaknesses is more important in their lives than just a one string bow of academic achievement.
Education has slipped to making people expert in a very small area of expertise rather than helping them become a whole person.
Education is focussed on turning out people who will be fodder of industry and for corporations, rather than a whole people who have wide interests and skills, deriving pleasure from more, and generating it in their job.career.
The way education is evolving isn't sustainable in the long term because there is no horizon, there is no pleasure except that which money can buy. Self satisfaction is less and self worth gauged by being advanced by employer accolades or lost because of mistakes made or being dismissed from their job or career because there is another who can perform better.
Education should be a series of nodes where the population of all ages can go to for information, visual and tactile, which is learning, for instruction verbal and hands on, which is also learning, to discuss ideas and thoughts which is also learning.
Education should bring people together, those who know and those who want to know and those who think they want to know, who can drop out when they discover they have made the wrong choice and have the option to find something that suits them better. Educating the community rather than just the young. By bringing in those who can recount their mistakes so the person new to the discipline or trade is forewarned but not forbidden to attempt the same thing in a different way.
Education a huge subject and the reason that centres of “learning” attendance is falling is because it's not serving the needs of people and community and is only catering mainly for those who wish to be in the academic workplace rat race. This isn't sustainable and will create enormous rifts in society. It wants to implant knowledge it believes a student should have rather than have it searched for and be found by an interest for it.
Someone in, or should that be on, the course suggested that the mention of over population is “taboo”. But I think not. What the planet can't support will perish and that's already happening except, that those more “advanced” countries and societies are exploiting those who are not as well situated keeping them down as servants to their wants.
It's possible to sustain the population we have now if our consumerism can be reeled in and controlled. Birth control left to the individual will probably not create the outcome that will save the planet. Like all species, just about every human wants to create children of their own. This is again where humans like the idea of god, and create people in their own image.
A sustainable population is one that realises what sustainable means and acts accordingly. Human beings become a dangerous planetary parasite the moment they create injury to their host and this is happening as well. A parasite that is symbiotic with it's host, is part of it, nurtures it, this is a clever parasite which knows it's survival relies on the host it inhabits and is a well governed community.
People in numbers too numerous for the planet to sustain are poison. There is no other way to describe it. People on the planet demanding more from it than can be obtained, weakening it will destroy it, but destroy themselves first. Using all manner of dubious enhancements, i.e. cloning, chemical fertilizers, genetically modified organisms and generally chasing production without looking out past that aim are the most toxic and treating again, doing what humans do best. Treating the symptom rather than the cause.
Over Population:
Someone in, or should that be on, the course suggested that the mention of over population is “taboo”. But I think not. What the planet can't support will perish and that's already happening except, that those more “advanced” countries and societies are exploiting those who are not as well situated keeping them down as servants to their wants.
It's possible to sustain the population we have now if our consumerism can be reeled in and controlled. Birth control left to the individual will probably not create the outcome that will save the planet. Like all species, just about every human wants to create children of their own. This is again where humans like the idea of god, and create people in their own image.
A sustainable population is one that realises what sustainable means and acts accordingly. Human beings become a dangerous planetary parasite the moment they create injury to their host and this is happening as well. A parasite that is symbiotic with it's host, is part of it, nurtures it, this is a clever parasite which knows it's survival relies on the host it inhabits and is a well governed community.
People in numbers too numerous for the planet to sustain are poison. There is no other way to describe it. People on the planet demanding more from it than can be obtained, weakening it will destroy it, but destroy themselves first. Using all manner of dubious enhancements, i.e. cloning, chemical fertilizers, genetically modified organisms and generally chasing production without looking out past that aim are the most toxic and treating again, doing what humans do best. Treating the symptom rather than the cause.
The Feel Good Factor of Recycling:
The conundrum of certain “good” habits.
Recycling is a much touted desirable thing to do. This isn't all bad, though it would be better in the “good” sense if it was called repairable. Instead of throwing away the things that are broken we become once more the society that repairs and doesn't discard so easily. That cleans rather than renews everything.
In that sense recycling would be very desirable. But in the other sense, recycling packages we are again coming in from the attending to a symptom rather than a cause. To educate manufactures to use less packaging, to use better packaging and to possibly create packaging that has a practical reuse other than being put in the recycle instead of the rubbish bin and made into something lesser.
Products made from recyclable material are much more expensive in some cases than that made from the raw material. This makes one wonder?
It can be assumed the process to recycle, remove and transport the particular material and then the resources needed to manufacture the product from this substance after it's been cleaned of impurities attached to it or contained in it are enormous. Hence the high price. But it could also just be because the “feel good” factor allows the manufacturer to suspect that it will be favoured and place a larger mark up on the product because people will buy it?
Either way, recycling would be better if there was less packaging and better, purposeful and other use packaging first and then, becomes the lowest common denominator, recycled material is used to manufacture items that don't actually use huge amounts of resources like electricity and water.
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