Healthy soil and sustainable growing

[Dieter Brand <diebrand@yahoo.com>]

Paul,

I know there are data to suggest the relation between naturally or 
organically grown food and health in humans.  However, the correlation is not 
strong enough to convince the public.  There are all kinds of factors to 
contribute to the increase in degenerative disease: longer lifespan, 
increased stress levels, wrong lifestyle (lack of exercise), environmental 
factors (asbestos, pollution, etc.) overeating, abuse of drugs and alcohol, 
etc.  We can assume that denatured modern food is an important factor in the 
equation, but proof it?  I don’t think so.

>You're right, we're a consumer society. That's what we do. But I have to 
>counter 
>that as long as we only change what we consume we're still consuming the 
>lion's share of the planet's resources (and food), and we're still in the 
>proverbial 
>handbasket headed you know where.

As long as we are alive we’ll have to go on consuming.  The question is what 
we consume.  Does the consumer choose locally grown sustainable produce grown 
naturally through the interaction of sunlight and an organically fed soil, or 
does she choose conventional produce grown in dead soil with mined inputs 
from fossil fuels, natural gas, phosphorous, etc.?

>Yet the economic contraction that's sinking us already may be the silver 
>lining - the way we're forced to reduce consumption. 

That’s correct.  Nearly 20 years of talking about climate change and starting 
all kinds of carbon saving projects have had almost no results; while the one 
or two years of economic contraction due to the financial crisis have already 
put a dent into carbon emissions.  The trouble is this sort of medicine is 
not agreeable to the population, and even if politicians are aware of this 
fact, they cannot act accordingly because talking about this bitter medicine 
is not popular and will not win votes in the elections.

The truth is quite simple and easy to understand: unlimited growth is not 
possible in the limited system of planet Earth.  People are in denial mode 
because they are attached to a wasteful lifestyle.  Many would rather perish 
than do without all the material comforts we have come to take for granted.  
Hence we produce all kinds of fictions.  Political and economic leaders tell 
us that we can have the cake and eat it too if we only develop green 
technology.  In the meantime we blame others.  We want others (the rich, the 
powerful) to change so that we can go on living without changing our 
lifestyle.  The problem is not the handful of very rich people, the problem 
is that more than a billion people in the developed World has grown 
accustomed to a wasteful lifestyle with far-distant travel and material 
possessions that even the nobility of old could not have afforded.  And the 
remaining 5 billions won’t rest until they are as wasteful as we are.

Dieter Brand
Portugal