We’ve spent a long time looking outside of ourselves for reasons and explanations for the myriad problems we face globally, whether that be social, economic, or ecological, or all of these. We are so fixated on trying to pin blame that we forget that we are the co-creators of our existence (we went along with it all). Once we let go of looking outside ourselves for answers and solutions, we get to the point that we realize that we ourselves are the answers and the solutions! We keep waiting for the magical ‘They’ or ‘Them’ to bring us a solution or policy to fix everything. You want a sustainable world? What can YOU do now? How can you be the start of a solution that inspires others? That’s what I mean when I say, “We are the solutions we want to see.” As long as we persist in seeing ourselves as separate from everything, or as victims, we will perpetuate the conditioning that the hierarchies have imposed on us over millennia.
The New Agricultural revolution is as much a revolution in mindset as it is a system of different techniques. If we don’t see that then we will simply carry on ‘protecting’ ourselves from some kind of ‘other’ (be that germs, insects, climate disruption, corporate systems, banks, other countries, etc.) that is a threat to our belief systems of who controls the world. We might believe ‘They’ somehow control it, but WE control it simply by how we live and the choices we make every day. Too many people seem driven by the need for certainty before they make choices.
As I explain in a previous post (see link) certainty is a kind of curse because it fuels extreme rationale to procrastinate or worse, wait for some hierarchical authoritarian to tell us what to do, as if they really know. The curse of certainly is a stumbling block for many everywhere. There is nothing certain, so as in Pascal’s Environmental Wager applied here as to whether to act or not act for a sustainable future, the odds of success in acting outweigh the odds in waiting to be told what to do. Science is never certain despite the memes that we should trust science. We can trust the scientific process when done properly and impartially, but as I have said often, facts are always contextual and are always up to change as new information is discovered. A problem with certainty is that, “Certainty leads to dogma and that usually leads to violence in ego defense of that dogma” Martin Butler (Physicist and cosmologist).
So, as we collectively procrastinate in working for a sustainable future, let me state that a Pascal’s Wager approach is better for us now, because even if we might harbor any doubts about whether social, economic, or ecological collapse is imminent, making decisions now that it might be, yields us a better, fairer and more sustainable future. And after all, isn’t this what we all want? The Cabalistic hierarchy has gotten it wrong (at least for the 99.9% of us) for over 6000 years, so maybe it’s our time to make the big decisions. Do you want to gamble that technocrats will have solutions for food and energy failures, based on promises that sound more like politicians running for election, or act now and put control into our own hands?
I call it the New agricultural revolution, but it is really the old agricultural systems with a new and modern understanding of how food systems work. Until a mere century ago, all food was organic, you didn’t need to wonder if your food was harming you. Farmers might not have known the biological intricacies of it all, but they knew, either instinctively or through generations of practice, what worked and didn’t work in growing food. It was when misguided science coupled with corporate greed and ‘food science’ all got together that we have the fickle and harmful food systems we currently rely upon.
We now understand what a healthy biotic system looks like. For instance, in our human health we now understand that the microbiome is critical to understanding whole body health, even if allopathic medicine is slow in catching up or even accepting of it. We now understand how the smallest aspects of life (microflora) are not threats to health (less than 1% are harmful) but actually essential to healthy functioning and dynamic ecosystems at all scales.
Do you want heathy food, then grow if locally where you (and your community) can control how it is grown and then delivered to your table. We can still get exotic foods all year round, but if we know how those foods are grown and transported, we can make mindful choices about whether the ‘eMergetic’ cost is worth it? Actually, knowing the emergy costs would help us determine if setting up local greenhouses or climate-controlled growth-domes make more sense for exotic foods. This would allow regular farmed crops and continually fresh crops to be grown year-round, especially in temperate climes with cold winters.
The key here is local control by local communities. Whatever permaculture system works best for your area would be under our control and not corporate control. Healthy food comes from healthy soil that has a vital mix of biotic and abiotic components. Soil is not just dirt, as it has become in many modern Big Ag farms that have to add chemicals to get growth. Soil is alive with myriad organisms, most small and invisible to the naked eye; but they give us a host of micronutrients that work with our microbiomes for optimum health of both the ecosystem and ourselves. It is estimated that the mass of living organisms: bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes, earthworms, small insects, and many small creatures in the top one foot (30cm) of healthy soil comes to 11 tons/acre (0.998 tonnes/acre). Just like our bodies, soil is an active and dynamic organism in its own right. It needs to be nurtured just as much as we do. Left alone, natural intelligence does all this. Only humans think that can mess around and interfere with a system they do not fully understand and somehow get continuously positive results.
In my college permaculture class, my final assignment had students working in large groups, to design a 640 acre community using the principles from Bill Mollison’s Intro to Permaculture text. The guidelines: It just had to fit the concepts of permaculture and be a plausible long-term and successful community. They had to clearly define the 640 acre plot, its landform and climatic location. I simply let them think their way through the process over 16 weeks. When asked, I offered advice and critique, especially when an idea seemed outlandish or dependent on too much financing.
As an extra full class project, they had to design, create and actually build a permaculture design garden on an unused 100 square meter grassy area on the campus. The result was a highly creative garden encompassing the concepts of permaculture design, and phenomenal heirloom organically grown vegetables and herbs for the Summer and Autumn months (see pics1, 2, 3). I ‘allowed’ the students to think autonomously, and they did so with great relish and enthusiasm. They didn’t need me as an authoritarian overlord, just someone to offer advice, help obtain some funding for tools, supplies and heirloom plants, and work through the bureaucracy of getting permissions from the university to do the permaculture demonstration garden.
That first harvest, we gave baskets of produce to the university President, Provost and certain Deans to show how successful this garden had been from just 16 weeks of work outside of the class and study time – some volunteers offered to tend the garden during the summer until harvest time. We had so much produce that the students had to place a box in front of the garden each morning for anyone to help themselves to the plethora of food the garden produced. Except for myself, where I remained Laissez-faire, the class worked collaboratively and effectively on their projects.
The results of the final 640-acre permaculture projects from that class were equally as creative and functional. While they didn’t actually have to build this kind of sustainable community, each plan was so well developed, I believe it would have been as easy for them to create a permaculture-based community as they had done with the garden.
To Be Continued …………….
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