permaculture

["Jeremy Sharp" <jez@monitor.net>]

hey john you must have enough time on your hands  come help us no dead
horses here  thanks for the bludgeon sticking  gracias
----------
>From: John Schinnerer <John-Schinnerer@data-dimensions.com>
>To: "permaculture" <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
>Subject: RE: [permaculture] Sustainable, Non-exploitive, Space Exploration
>Date: Tue, Jun 8, 1999, 8:33 AM
>

>Aloha,
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: brookse@igc.org [SMTP:brookse@igc.org]
>> 
>>...sustainable systems of food production and
>>distribution are much easier to create and manage when they are set up for
>>people on vegan diets as opposed to diets with meat and/or dairy in them.
>
>Try telling that to the tribespeople in dryland Africa whose subsistence
>culture revolves primarily around domesticated goats (for just one of
>countless age-old examples - there's also the Lapps, etc.).  It all depends
>on where one is and what one has to work with.
>
>Anyone have examples of ecosystems large enough to be potentially
>self-sustaining that both include vertebrates (especially mammals) and are
>"vegan?"
>
>>Simply look at veganism, not as static, but as a temporary state of being
>on
>>a greater continuum. That, the continuum of doing as little harm to the
>>universe and biosphere around you, while going about the business of
>>surviving and enjoying life. All of us kill. The point is to do as little
>>killing as necessary, and create as little damage in our wake as possible,
>>because to -not- do so endangers our -own- survival and happiness.
>
>So where along this continuum do we stop killing billions of innocent
>plants?
>
>>To rely, at all, on meat and dairy, is to introduce unecessary
>complications
>>and damage into a system. 
>
>Damage (or not) would depend on *how* "meat" and "dairy" relate to other
>systems, how they are "implemented."   
>Complexity can be a very desirable characteristic for ecological systems -
>makes them more robust, flexible, adaptable to changes in larger systems and
>thus more likely to continue in some recognizable form.  That's a feature I
>like in ecological systems that keep me alive!  It also seems to be a
>fundament of permaculture, or at least of the natural systems we claim to
>pattern permaculture designs after.
>I would like to hear more about where animals of all types fit in to your
>master plan for this planet (or some other one, as the case may be).  If
>they threaten your vegan food sources (whether by trampling, grazing, using
>them for habitat, or whatever), what do you do?  There are countless
>essential (to life as we know it, anyhow) symbiotic/balancing/cyclical
>relations between plants and animals to consider, as well, in this
>interconnectedness you mention.
>
>>Only in the most extraordinary circumstances,
>>(such as those presented to one living a non-technological life in the
>>arctic tundra), does such reliance make any sense.
>
>I suspect most humans live in circumstances more closely related to the
>"extraordinary" cases than to the situations of the privileged few
>first-worlders who can easily and affordably live and/or advocate a vegan
>lifestyle.
>
>>It is likely that the next phase of human civilisation will eventually
>>reject animal slavery, just as it did human slavery. I certainly do
>already.
>
>I can see many ways to "reject animal slavery" and still eat meat
>occasionally - probably much happier and healthier meat, too.  "Free range"
>fish, grandpa's venison - neither of those critters are "slaves" in any way
>I can imagine; certainly no more so than domesticated crops in a
>human-cultivated garden.
>
>>I also see it as ethically imperitive that any future human civilisation in
>>space, follow a rock solid doctrine of noninterference with other life
>>forms, when they are discovered.
>
>If they are "discovered" in such a way that they have any experience of your
>existence, they will have been interfered with.  So not "discovering" them
>is the only sure way to not interfere...
>
>>It is much more likely that vegans would
>>hold true to such an ideal. Meat and dairy eaters, because they have not
>yet
>>come to terms with even their -own- unecessary causation of damage and
>>suffering to other living things, would be much less likely to stay true to
>>that doctrine when circumstances challenged it.
>
>Now this really starts to sound familiar.  With apologies to Pastor
>Niemoller:
>
>"First they came for the red-meat eaters, and I did not speak out because I
>do not eat red meat. 
>Then they came for the fish and poultry-eaters, and I did not speak out
>because I do not eat poultry or fish.  
>Then they came for the ovo-lacto vegetarians, and I did not speak out
>because I do not eat eggs or dairy products.
>Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me..."
>
>;-)
>
>John Schinnerer
>
>
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