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  • From: georg <georg@2012.org>
  • To: "permaculture" <permaculture@franklin.oit.unc.edu>
  • Subject: Re: magic formula/land use
  • Date: Fri, 25 Jun 1999 17:46:36 +0200


>*Taking other species into account, how much of the Earth's total land
> can humans ethically alter from a natural state?

there is no such thing as a 'natural state' - 'everything gardens' is one
of bill's key statements, evry tree 'alters the natural state' by improving
the soil, every animyl poos and thus 'alters...' - what is natural as
opposed to 'unnatural' - is it 'unnatural' to control animals? but many
ants do exactly that. is it unnatural to export plant species into
different ecosystems? but birds, winds and sae-currents do axactly that,
that is exactly the way daisies and dandelions came to europe and
biscuitroot to the americas. is it unnatural to pave the land and destroy
habitats? but many volcanoes do exactly that. so please, what is unnatural?

my opinion: natural and unnatural are mental concepts, nature doesn't know
these, All life on this planet is coming from nature and ruled by nature's
laws.


>*Are there just too many people now, and if so how do we ethically
> reduce our numbers? And what do we do in the meantime?

who is 'we'? we humans on this planet? this is no 'we', no common uniting
spirit. we gaia? we will reduce it by our very own laws of balance, just
like foxes and rabbits keep their dynamic balance, or aerobic and anaerobic
bacteria in a given substrate - the only way to do this 'ethically'
(=without putting loads of leople to quite painful and possibly slow death
prior to the end of their biological lifespan) i can perceive of is by
collective enlightenment - in which case humans could simply stop
regenerating themselves for the most part - numbers could be down to a
fraction within two generations. while i certainly would love this
opportunity i would rather count on more physical means of re-balancing
gaia...


a viable question along the line of the stated questions would be for me:

* how much land may i dominate and still feel good about it (=be in harmony
with my inherent godliness/ethics) ?


(i am the son of a geologist, i grew up looking at the world development in
spans of hundreds of millions of years. my father used to call mankind
a'marker fossil' - a few hundred millions of years in the future some
geologers will be greatly aided by determining the age of certain mineral
layers by cocacola cans and other similar remnants of human dominance, just
like todays geologists are aided by the leftovers from ammonites... )


*



georg


********
follow your heart -
it is the only way to heaven on earth.. . .
******************* * * * * * * * *



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