Category: Uncategorized (Page 5 of 19)

The sentence that most resonated with me from this weeks discussion was from the movie Inhabit: A Permaculture Perspective when Ben Falk was talking about having a net positive impact on the planet. Most of the conversation that we have about environmental issues are all about how to do less damage, how can we bring our impact on the planet down to the smallest that it can possibly be. Folk challenged the presumption that this is the best thing that we can do for the planet, arguing that doing the least bad is not enough but that we have the ability to do more good. He argues that if our goal is to have the very least impact that we possibly could have, the best thing that we could do would be to stop existing.

I think that this really resonated with me because it’s something that I have struggled with in my own relationship to the earth for a long time. If you believe that the best thing that humans can do for the earth is to have the smallest impact as is possible, then it logically follows, as folk asserts, that the best thing for the earth would be for humans to stop existing. But that seems much too bleak of a view of humanity for em. I’ve always asserted that humans are fundamentally good, and how can I hold that belief while also arguing that we should have the absolutely smallest impact as possible? I think that the idea of permaculture really offered me a solution to this problem.

I think the fundamental idea behind permaculture that really resonated with me was how it reframed humankind’s relationship with nature. It placed humans back within nature, living and working with nature as opposed to being distinct and separate from nature. For far too long humans have been living divorced from nature. We think of ourselves as separate from the natural world, and therefore make no attempt to live within and think responsibly about the world. If we are not one with nature, and there is no way that we could live within nature then we lose all responsibility to even try to design our systems in tune with the natural world. Once we reframe our position within the world, it becomes not only possible but an absolute imperative that we work to design our systems to fit within natural systems. We become part of the ecosystem again, and have to think of our place within that system.

Of course, we never really left the system. But we thought that we did, and so we stopped thinking about the ways our actions impact the system. We got so far removed, that now we are only capable of conceptualizing human interaction with nature in the negative. It is nearly impossible for us to conceptualize a modern society that lives within nature and has a net positive effect. But permaculture opens that door. It reminds us of the responsibility that we have as a part of the system, and offers us solutions for how to live regeneratively.

Over the past week we discussed the idea of permaculture, agriculture that regenerates itself. Growing off of that, we talked about the “do-nothing” technique where humans let nature take its course, the central theme of Masanobu Fukuoka’s “The One-Straw Revolution.” The do-nothing technique was formed as a rebellion to both consumerism and the idea that humans have the ability to scientifically interfere with and out-smart nature. In his book, Fukuoka claims that “the living world is our greatest teacher.”

We can and should approach our world today with the same mindset. As soon as humans try to tinker with and alter natural patterns, we feel the consequences of the positive feedback loop we started. An example of this that we talked about in class was the concept of geo-engineering. Geo-engineering is the idea that we can combat climate change by introducing unnatural substances to the atmosphere to either block the sun, or remove CO2 emissions. One would think that blocking the sun, the earth’s greatest source of energy, would not be on the “To-Do” list for climate scientists but it is. In fact, it’s climbing to the top of many people’s agendas.

The science behind cooling the earth by blocking the sun involves injecting sulfur into the clouds in order to simulate a volcanic eruption which would scatter and reflect solar radiation from the stratosphere. Experts estimate that in order to cool the earth 1 degree it would cost around $20 billion and 6,700 flights to the atmosphere PER DAY. Not only does that sound infeasible, but the fossil fuel it would take to power all of those flights would be devastating.

I don’t know about you, but the thought of spending all of that money in order to simulate the aftermath of a volcanic eruption makes me sick. Not only do we not have a clue about how our atmosphere would respond to such actions, history has shown that the more humans try to get involved with nature, we tend to screw things up. In this instance, I think it’s time we take a page out of Fukuoka’s book and “do-nothing.” Let’s change the way we act instead of trying to change the way earth has been running for over 4 billion years.

Citations: Stockton, N. (2017). Climate Change is Here, It’s Time To Talk About Geo-Engineering. Wired. Retried from: https://www.wired.com/story/lets-talk-geoengineering/

The messages in these two readings were really eye-opening to me! And it is quite important that they opened my eyes. Before reading these pieces, I had sort of believed that having a slightly dramatic, dystopian twist on environmental news was a good thing. Dystopian wasn’t the word that came to my mind, but I did believe that it was important to over-exaggerate the consequences of our potential fate were we not to take action against climate change. I remember reading the dire scenario that Margaret Atwood laid out in the first article that we read and thinking, “This is good. We need more people reading this, we need to frighten people into caring.”

But these pieces have me thinking otherwise, which is pretty important considering I am currently working on a venture that requires us pitching the consequences of climate change over and over again.  It is, of course, a fine balance between not being overly pessimistic but also not underemphasizing the risks. The opposite of dystopia is utopia, but I don’t think we should be infecting our stories with utopias because everyone’s utopia is different and so many utopias are often actually quite harmful. Hope is the correct thing to infect our news and stories with because we can still present factual information about list all of the threats of climate change, but we can instill a sense of hope in readers in doing this so that they can be inspired to take action, which seems to be much more effective than terrifying them into action (since, as we discussed in class, usually people just decide if there’s no hope at all, why should they even bother?). Solnit’s “Grounds for Hope” did a great job of doing this, in my opinion. She expresses a lot of the same concerns as Mieville: people find hope in the wrong things, widespread pessimism/lack of hope often prevents people from acting at all, we losing track of hope in general. However, her tone throughout the piece is a hopeful one, so the reader finishes the piece feeling inspired. Mieville, hypocritically enough, writes about how we must get the depressing stuff out of reports and climate news, yet writes with such a tone in this piece that you are left feeling kind of depressed at the end of it.

Learning the value of sharing stories of hope and using positive tones when writing about the complex issue of climate change is of great use to me. I plan to not present the consequences of climate change in such a drastic and depressing light the next time I pitch Phyta, our algae farm initiative. Additionally, my backup career (in case I can’t be an algae farmer forever) is to do something environmental communications-related. My current top choice would probably be PR for an environmental organization, but no matter what option I may pursue, it is important to remember to keep hope at the forefront of my writing.

The image of the tree in Rebecca Solnit’s “Grounds for Hope” fit seamlessly with her words, something about this image flows and takes shape within the piece. I stopped and reflected for a time on the artwork. A wealth of potential analogies come with the symbol of a tree. Whether this expresses our tendency to anthropomorphize, or the common elements of nature running through life that make such analogies abundant and compelling, I don’t know. Regardless, I think the tree as an analogy remains a powerful statement. A tree begins in the ground, grassroots. When Solnit writes about “grounds of hope”, she doesn’t just talk about the present, the surface, the place where our world is right now. She also speaks of within the ground, history, memory, past.  “Uprisings and revolutions are often considered to be spontaneous, but less visible long-term organizing and groundwork— or underground work — often laid the foundation” (Solnit). The ground is where life begins. The past is where our present begins.

Take a seed. If the seed could not imagine itself a tree, it would not grow to become one. A seed must first find open grounds, and if they’re not open, fit itself into a place of its own. A seed must somehow know that the ingredients for life are packed within – it just needs the right ground, the right environment, to grow. If a seed never imagined the possibility of a tree, would it grow? In the same way, “if an alternative to this world is unconceivable [can] we change it?” (Miéville). I agree with Miéville in that we need a utopia to give us a vision, an alternative imaginable. And I also agree with Solnit that we need the memory of our past to remind us that change is possible. We need to dream like a seed: dig deep into the grounds of our history, the landscapes and ancestors that have been weathered and worn into our foundations, see the potential within ourselves to dream of light and life, and then grow and root and branch and breathe, and never forget our dreams of a tree.

Miéville, China. The Limits of Utopia | Salvage. http://salvage.zone/in-print/the-limits-of-utopia/. Accessed 10 Apr. 2018.

Solnit, Rebecca. (2017). Grounds for Hope. Tikkun 32(1), 30-39. doi: 10.1215/08879982-3769066

In class this week, the conversation that we had that captured my attention was the idea of hope. I think that when studying the environment and what is going on in the world it can be extremely upsetting and when there are sobering statistics such as that species are going extinct at 10,000 times the background rate, it can be difficult to remain hopeful for our future. In her piece “Grounds for Hope,” Rebecca Solnit provides the importance that hope must play if we are to accomplish the ambitious goals that have been set by activists and scientists alike.

I thought that when she discussed the 24-hour news cycle and how this has influenced our thinking it was a very accurate statement. She writes, “News cycles tend to suggest that change happens in small, sudden bursts or not at all.” Her statement perfectly encapsulates the way that I tend to think about what is happening right now in the world around me. The news has changed my perspective from looking at movements that take a long time to achieve their success, but rather I see it in short time bursts that appears as if nothing is happening. The environmental degradation has occurred over thousands of years and will not be fixed immediately. The ideas that are being put forward now could potentially promote a more sustainable earth for our children to inhabit. Take for example the energy transformation that Germany is currently trying to achieve. Look back at the ruins German was in after World War II and how they were able to rebound and use the destruction of many of their buildings and cities and use that to spur on the most ambitious energy reform ever seen. Germany aims for renewable energy to supply 80% of its power by the year 2050. The change in Germany can be seen as the fruition of the anti-nuclear protests that took place in the 1970s and continued into the early 2000s. Being able to see that the progress achieved by Germany was not an overnight phenomenon is critical because the groundwork that was laid 30 years ago had a significant contribution to the decision to go to renewable energy. Solnit’s article was incredibly influential to me because it reminded me that even when the work being done now may seem like a hopeless cause, we never know the benefits that could come from the research down the road. For me, it was another reminder not to look at the success in the moment but instead to look at the hope it can bring for the future and hope for the future remains one of the most influential tools for conservation.

As stated by China Mieville in The Limits of Utopia, throughout a lot of our modern history, Environmentalism and Social Justice has been seen as mutually exclusive with many Environmental Movements working to protect the environment at the expense of the poor. However China argues that environmentalism and social justice are not and should not be mutually exclusive but should work together to make the world a better place. Environmental Justice is “acknowledging that there a no whole earth, no ‘we’, without a ‘them’. That we are not in this together”. Instead it is giving everybody an equal chance and opportunity at fighting unfair environmental policies as opposed to letting the poor be taken advantage of because they lack the resources to defend themselves.

While this way of thinking may be true in that the environmentalist movement has largely been a product of wealthy white individuals preserving nature for its “inherent value (to them)”, it creates two distinct factions between them and those in poverty who may need the land and who may not have the resources or freedom to take part in such movements.

In fact, this directly relates to the Catherine Flowers’ talk in which she states that the sewage system in his hometown of Alabama was a huge environmental concern, however due to the lack of infrastructure in the poor areas due to lack of funds and money to maintain these systems, the poor were unfairly punished.

That is why we should not put our own standards on others without understanding their circumstances. Although it may be true that some actions and environmental policies may be better for the environment, it may not be right for environmental justice and create an overall detrimental result. Therefore there is still hope for the future of not only the environment but also humanity as long as they work together because the two are not mutually exclusive.

The question that stuck with me from our class on Friday was: Are we a hopeful nation? I think there is no easy or clear answer to this question. In the wake of erratic politics, growing presence of violence, from terrorist attacks to shootings, to sexual harassment, and the looming threat of climate change, its easy to see how people could feel hopeless. The narrative in the news is often that of doom, gloom, disaster, and tragedy. Despite this, I would argue that America remains a hopeful nation. The functioning of democracy requires hope. People need to feel as though change can be made, and as if their vote counts. People must feel that it is worth the effort to participate in the democracy, and this requires hope.

Despite all of the negativity seen in the news and in the world, American’s are coming out in spades to take action for things they believe in and protest things they want to see changed. From social media to large scale national protests, Americans are taking action because they are hopeful that things can change. Participating in these actions demonstrates the hope that our nation harbors, because a large component of hope is doing something regardless of the outcome or difference that it makes. It is participating in these actions with only the mere hope of change, not the assurance of it. As the narratives of our world seem to grow darker and more discouraging, people seem to be demonstrating the hope they have for our nation and our world. Not only are people harboring hope, but change is being made, and that change generates new hope in bigger change. Hope and change are building on each other, and propelling people, actions, and governments.

We all live on the same planet, but not all of us live in the same world. Some live in a world where the biggest complaints are of low battery life, difficult assignments, lack of free time, and not knowing what to watch on Netflix. You probably just thought of the term “first-world problems” and there’s a reason for that: those concepts are completely isolated in the first world. However, others live in a world where the biggest complaints are of a lack of housing, dying children, inability to obtain resources, and having essentially no say in the grand scope of things. The latter live in a completely different world than the former, but the former so often refuse to acknowledge that, and continue on living in their “perfect” world.

China Miéville, in his piece “The Limits of Utopia”, brings this concept to light toward the end of it, when he exclaims “we live in utopia; it just isn’t ours.” What he means by our utopia, presumably, is the one that benefits everyone equally; however, the one that “we” live in now excludes the majority of the planet in exchange for larger profit for corporations and more government power in the first world. Think about the United States, and set aside your first world Netflix-and-Hulu-style problems for a minute: we live in our own little utopia. “We” have the unlimited power to force smaller nations out of their homes so that we can extract more oil for our energy necessities. “We” can power our homes (for now) with that oil, polluting and destroying the beautiful world that others live in. “We” will continue to be able to act however we want in international affairs, never acknowledging the terrible impact that we have on those around us.

Think about it – in the big picture, we can do whatever we want, whenever we want, with no consequences. But what does this mean for the the rest of the world? Usually, it mean that others suffer so that the US can continue to live “perfectly”. In order for the world to achieve the necessary utopia that Miéville raves about, we are going to have to acknowledge the differences between the utopia that we want and the dystopian-style utopia that we live in now. We can do this by thinking more about the big-picture consequences of our day-to-day actions and raising awareness about how our “ordinary” decisions affect others around the world. Only then will we all live in the same world, rather than merely walk the same earth.