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permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Major histocompatibility complex

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  • From: Marimike6@cs.com
  • To: permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Major histocompatibility complex
  • Date: Thu, 20 Mar 2003 09:05:10 EST

In a message dated 3/20/2003 2:56:00 AM Eastern Standard Time, georg@websuxxess.com writes:
>is weedlike behavior in the extreme, and has grave consequences for the
>planet.

this is peoplecentered exaggeration. no need to worry for the planet, not
even for gaia, the living, humid film on its surface. its just a small
fraction of all species, that is threatened by peoples foolishness - namely
big animals and plants, and of course humanity. but the biggest parts of the
web of life consists of insects, fungi, protoctista and bacteria - most of
them are quite safe.


>demographers tell us will be our childrens' eleven-billionth piece of the
>planet.

yep, that is the main point we need to worry about - the future of our own
genes, of our species. so there is no need for apparent altruism, plain good
old egotism, farsighted egotism will do.

georg


Hey, Georg--

Wow!  You really take the long view when it comes to Gaia, don't you? I'll admit that by comparison I'm pretty people-centered. Would it be all the same to you if we had a nuclear winter or an asteroid strike that wiped out all life above the level of slime mold? It's true the total weight of biomass might stay the same, but to me it would just not be quite the same. I'll confess a fondness for the warm fuzzy things-- like the birds, mammals, flowering plants and the like. I hope they stick around for a while.

Hence my concern for our proliferation. This is obviously a system out of balance, where nearly every ecosystem on the surface of the globe has been subverted from its original function to be made over in the service of homo. We are creating monocultures and exterminating diversity, even when we just grow lawns that have to be 100% fescue or we're just not happy. A lot of the planet's best land is now in use as suburban lawn. If a native wildflower pops up, we have to get out the Black Leaf to eradicate it.

A good example on a large scale is the tropical forests. Japanese money for instance has converted nearly the entire Malayan rainforest into that very pretty patterned chipboard you see in the stores. Left behind has just been that ugly slash that you have to walk in the flesh to be able to truly appreciate. Not much in the way of islands has been left for radiative recolonization to occur. And now that the virgin forest is nearly gone, I'm sure they are beginning to plant it in tree farms, with huge uniform stands of the fastest growing species they've selected.

So in time there will be about the same quantity of biomass there as there was before, but it won't quite be the same. No tree frogs, no birds of paradise, no hundreds of varieties of mushroom.....  There will still be a few of the hardiest beetle species, but nothing like the insect diversity there was. That's why I'm less philosophical about it. I see this as a problem that education can go some way toward alleviating.

Right now in North Carolina there is a crisis in farming, and I suspect there is where everyone reading this lives as well. Farmers can no longer make any money doing what they have been doing for the past few generations, so we are at what the educators consider to be "the teachable moment".

The problem is not that good methods of farming without degrading the land have not been developed. The problem is that not enough ways to make decent money from farming this way have been developed. One can be a purist and take the high road if you like, electing to eke out a humble but pure living, close to the soil, but we're not going to make many converts that way. We need to get real if we're going to have any impact.

The problem is Americans, and everyone else on earth who plans to live like an American. We demand high incomes and have expensive kids we need to put through expensive colleges. We like to drive expensive sport utilities that can seat six in the cab and have room on the bed to haul a septic tank. So to me, it matters little that a small group of purists can live fulfilling lives while leaving the lightest of footprints on the land-- they are maybe one or two percent of the people using the land, and can't make that much impact on the planet by just living the good life for themselves. We also need some people who can convince Big Agri-business that they can make better money by using better methods.

I'm trying to teach the hog industry that their waste (ten million hogs and growing, in this state) is a valuable resource to be used wisely, and not just a pollutant they need to bribe politicians in order to be able to easily dispose of. I like to think I'm doing God's work with projects like this.

I wish some other people could jump into this conversation and add their own observations. There are a lot of you out there who are reading this and not contributing your own knowledge or opinion. Do you think this is an important approach to husbanding the planet that we need to be taking? Please let us know.

Mike Elvin
Fuquay-Varina, NC





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