Skip to Content.
Sympa Menu

permaculture - Re: [permaculture] Kim S Robinson, Terraforming Earth & Permaculture

permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org

Subject: permaculture

List archive

Chronological Thread  
  • From: "Ben Martin Horst" <ben.martinhorst@gmail.com>
  • To: permaculture <permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [permaculture] Kim S Robinson, Terraforming Earth & Permaculture
  • Date: Wed, 26 Dec 2007 13:34:49 -0800

I guess this isn't so much a question as an observation, but maybe
there's a query of some sort hidden in here:

I liked Robinson's books. They weren't exactly great literature, but
they were fun reading. The thing that bugged me about Robinson's
climate change thrillers was that the people doing something effective
about climate change wasn't us grass-rootsy folks. It was policy
wonks, well-to-do biologists in swanky GMO labs, career
scientist-bureaucrats, and an entirely unlikely greenie president (a
bizarre mesh of FDR and Al Gore). I just can't buy it. I mean sure,
most of these people are nice enough on a personal basis, in real life
as well as in the books. They'd be fun to go out and have a drink
with. But in the historical and contemporary context they are exactly
the movers and shakers driving the earth-engulfing, planet-destroying
system that Robinson supposedly has them fixing in the books. And even
in the books, they're doing exactly the same things they're doing in
the real world -- unaccountably spreading GMOs across hundreds of
miles, dumping thousands of tons of stuff into the oceans, etc, etc --
but somehow in the books these things all magically act to solve
global problems instead of causing them, which is what we've been
seeing in the real world.

So what gives? When will people (read: "Robinson and his readers")
stop expecting the big pooh-bahs at the top to roll over some day and
think, "Oh crap. We've got to fix this"? Because it isn't going to
happen. They're invested in the destructive system. Sure, there might
be a few defections now and then, but overall, the governments and the
corporations are going to keep on accelerating the planet's
destruction unless stopped by the little people. Us.

So I guess I do have a question after all:

Why's Robinson so optimistic about corporations and government in the
face of overwhelming negative evidence? When's he going to write about
the people who are actually --in the here and now-- working to turn
things around? When's he going to write about the people who actually
have a chance (however slim) of halting the world-eaters in their
tracks? When's he going to write about us -- the real permaculturists?

Ben

On 12/23/07, Keith Johnson <keithdj@mindspring.com> wrote:
> I'll be sure to ask him... ;-)
>
> Graham wrote:
> > can you ask him why Red Mars (which seems to be required reading in UK
> > permaculture circles these days) gets so flippin boring round about page
> > 400????
> >
> --
> Keith Johnson
> "Be fruitful and mulch apply."
> Permaculture Activist Magazine
> PO Box 5516, Bloomington, IN 47407
> (812) 335-0383
> http://www.permacultureactivist.net
> http://www.PermacultureTradingPost.com
> Switch to Solar Power the Easy Way
> http://www.jointhesolution.com/KeithJ-SunPower
> http://www.PowUr.com/KeithJ-SunPower
> Blog: http://kjpermaculture.blogspot.com/
> also Patterns for Abundance Design & Consulting
> http://www.permacultureactivist.net/design/Designconsult.html
> also Association for Regenerative Culture
> http://www.ARCulture.org
> also APPLE-Bloomington (Alliance for a Post-Petroleum Local Economy) It's a
> small world after oil.
> http://www.relocalize.net/groups/applebloomington
> also Bloomington Permaculture Guild
> http://my.calendars.net/bloomingtonpccal/
> _______________________________________________
> permaculture mailing list
> permaculture@lists.ibiblio.org
> Subscribe or unsubscribe here:
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/permaculture
> Google command to search archives:
> site:https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/permaculture searchstring
>
>
>




Archive powered by MHonArc 2.6.24.

Top of Page