permaculture

[Marimike6@cs.com]

In a message dated 6/13/2003 7:51:54 AM Eastern Standard Time, Gaden@ziplip.com writes:

Anne Schwarz said: "The problem is, where do those people go?  There are so many densly populated places that are not self sustainable."

Sure, the maximal productivity (sustainability) of a given region is certainly a significant factor. I think there is a more fundamental (and more immediate) consideration.

Wastefulness. Sounds silly perhaps but most people today lack the ability to frugal with their existing resources. Frugality doesn't mean to live 'poorly' but simply within one's means. Maximising the use of available resources and redirecting excess to others (or storage).

I just saw a program on PBS, The Harriman Alaska Expedition, that was a fine tale of the colonization and development of Alaska. They chronicled the rise of the salmon industry, when canneries opened at every river mouth and set their nets and lines across the river every salmon had to run to spawn. They caught every last one, at which point that particular population was dead and gone-- then they closed that cannery and moved on to the next river mouth. Old b&w photos showed mountains of dead salmon on the cannery floor, each individual of which was of a size that today would be worth thousands on the gourmet market. It was a tale of waste, in which a very few people made a lot of money and we all got a taste of salmon.

It was a good example of why we are all here today-- to attempt to educate the public as to the wisdom of sustainable use of our resources. The old mentality, that the only waste is the resource that goes unexploited, has been so built into the American frontier vision that it will be a long time before the message sinks in among the people who could benefit most from it. That core group of exploiters that still determines how our remaining resources are allocated is out there now, filling web sites with the idea that anyone who warns about the perils of over-use is some lefty eco-freak terrorist out to destroy Amurcan progress and plenty. Please, everyone, don't just garden-- spread the word! We need to combat this nefarious mind-crap and show people the numbers just don't add up when we continue wasteful practises.

We haven't been the first nation to work itself out of an environment. 4-5,000 years ago the Indus Valley civilizations created a system of irrigation that made the desert bloom, making possible for the first time in that region concentrations of many thousands of people under one nation. Naturally, they wanted to create mighty capitols for the extra people to live in. So they designed gigantic brick metropolises like Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, with wide avenues and built-in sewer systems, laid out on the world's first grid plan.

The only problem was that in order to fire all that brick they had to cut down all their available forests to make charcoal. And once they did that, the albedo was changed and the rain moved away. That was around 1700 BC, and the rain hasn't moved back since. Today, hardly anyone lives there. It seems we haven't learned much from history. Maybe we're not bright enough to learn from the experience of others, and have to repeat the experience ourselves for it to sink in. I hope not-- it's a nice planet, and still has some freshness left.

So get the word out about sustainable use. We expect to have eleven billion people here within the next fifty years. They're all going to want an SUV. I think education is the answer.

Mike Elvin