Saturday, January 20, 2007

The American Dream - orig. 08/04/05

I want to thank Maria for pointing out in the last post that spelt bread is not actually well tolerated by celiacs.

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I just sent some emails out asking a bunch of environmental sites if they would be willing to exchange links with earth.toryj.com.

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I was taking a look at “Race to Save the Planet,” episode four which showed how some decentralized communites were able to be self supporting in a sustainable manner. One was a group of rubber tappers in the the Brazilian rain forest and the other groups it looked at were villages in India. It highlighted the devastation of industrial development versus the sustainability of these groups on a local level.

One of the interesting things that came up was the Green Revolution in India. Previously locals were not using birth control as more children allowed more work to be done. Some children would stay on the families land and help work the land while other children were sent to the city to generate income for their families. The Green Revolution allowed greater returns on food which meant there was less need for child labor and as a result the local people began to use birth control.

Bear in mind that the documentary is about 15 years old. According to an article on the Food First Web site the Green Revolution allows more food, but doesn’t lessen hunger as individuals cannot afford to buy the food. It also tends to encourage farming on a large scale by the wealthy who can afford the biotech seeds, fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. The article starts by mentioning, “Monsanto, Novartis, AgrEvo, DuPont, and other chemical companies who are reinventing themselves as biotechnology companies, together with the World Bank and other international agencies, would have the world's anti-hunger energies aimed down the path of more agrochemicals and genetically modified crops.”

The article goes on to highlight Cuba’s success in regards to becoming self supporting agriculturally without the use of agrochemicals, “The Cuban experience tells us that we can feed a nation's people with a small-farm model based on agroecological technology, and in so doing we can become more self-reliant in food production. A key lesson is that when farmers receive fairer prices, they produce, with or without Green Revolution seed and chemical inputs. If these expensive and noxious inputs are unnecessary, then we can dispense with them.”

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I was watching a show yesterday put together by an economist that touted free trade as the solution to pollution; that economic growth is the answer. He used some nice graphs to show that industrial pollution was reduced in industrialized nations and natural resources were preserved although some other forms of pollution increased. What he didn’t take into account was that industrialized countries externalize a lot of their pollution and plunder less developed countries for their natural resources. He also didn’t mention the fact that society not industry forces the change in regards to environmental controls. Once a societies air and water become toxic; when the air burns your eyes and drinking water causes cancer then people tend to get up in arms and force their governments to begin regulating. The show also did not take into account that the world is a closed environment. Pollution in third world countries does not only affect third world countries, but the entire biosphere.

One of the problems I had with the show was that it was trying to find a solution within an unrealistic system. There is no model for perpetual growth in nature. When populations exceed their habitat's ability to support them there tend to be mass die-offs. In the human body unchecked growth (gigantism) causes the individual to die at a much younger age than in an individual that grows to maturity and then stops. The earth is the only environment we have and it cannot sustain unlimited growth.

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Make environmentalism a habit.

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Are human beings really this selfish? Is our need for convenience and comfort, greed and consumerism so much greater than our compassion?

If you want to be able to visit your family then live close to your family. If you have to work then find a job that leaves as small a footprint as possible. Walk to work or at least take a bus. Forget about the American Dream. The American Dream is flawed. I don’t care about your personal dreams of wealth and security. An individual’s dreams are nothing compared to the existence of one single species on earth much less thousands of species. Some of these changes may require pre-planning on your part and you may have to chose between living close to your chosen job and living near your family.

We’ve been screwed by the industrial revolution. But the sacrifices that I am asking us all to make are nothing compared to the suffering that is coming and already exists as a direct result of the world’s pursuit of the American Dream.

You’ve got to let go. A lot of the stuff that we have been taught is wrong and contradictory. You can’t both save the forests and buy a new home. Clear cutting and replanting is not the same as a native forest. Stop buying into it. The American Dream is a sham perpetrated to keep you chasing the carrot and to line the pockets of the wealthy. Take a step back and slow down. It’s alright to get less done in a day.

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I can feel the pressure of my peers everytime I interact with another person. My thinking is way outside right now and the pressure to be a “part of” is tremendous. But I will not rejoin a way of thinking that in sum has already created the worst ecological disaster since the dinosaurs. Scarily, this is probably only a foreshadow of what’s to come.

I am asking you to make these sacrifices. I am telling you that it is your moral obligation to change your lifestyle and to help change our society.

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My vision is of a decentralized society with small towns surrounded by small farms. It could function with various levels of technology. Even though I have started buying organic foods they are still produced by using mechanical tractors etc. that currently are built using destructive production methods as well as requiring and leaking petrochemicals. There is also no reason that everything in our homes needs by be high-tech and made of plastic. This is a bit of a utopian ideal, but it is not beyond the realm of possibility.

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If there were only 10 million of us we could do whatever we wanted. We could all drive SUV’s and live in mansions etc., but there are 6.5 billion people on earth right now who want SUV’s and to live in mansions except for the 100’s of millions who just want to eat. The American Dream is an illusion and it is no longer realistic.

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Many of the ideas I express will require time and pre-planning to initiate. I will continue to search for viable solutions. If you have an idea worth considering or know of an important resource I am overlooking please let me know. I check the message board frequently if you would like to create a post.

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Some practical things one can do are to begin buying organic foods preferrably produced locally. One can also quit travelling for pleasure except by bike and foot. Recycling alone is not enough. One can stop using chemical fertilizers on house plants. (If one dumps the residue from a watering can that has had a chemical fertilizer mixture in it down the drain it becomes a difficult issue with which sewage treatment plants have to contend. I am pretty sure that most treatment plants dump their “cleaned” effluence into rivers or the ocean.) One can also stop using chemical fertilizers on their lawn or agricultural crops as the run-off has been shown to cause environmental problems.

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