The environmental situation
This is an empirical, logical outline of the current environmental (ecological) situation on Earth. I will not elaborate on any point because the internet (full of insane people) will not comprehend the argument to its fullest extent, but i will give enough so that you comprehend what i mean. Writing in prose is more effective than writing in diagrams, logical deductions, or drawings because people will be able to fill in the subtle logical fill in the blanks where necessary (the whole).
In the agricultural sector we have:
Forest removal and management, this reduces CO2 capture and biodiversity, while facilitating wildcrafted organics which are not sustainable, etc.
Fisheries management is adapting to more sustainability oriented regulations, aquacultures and aquaponics may or may not even be necessary..
Invasive species are not exactly helpful but perhaps we can find a good use for them at times (probably by accident)
Animal ethics is not working out in the CAFOs, the chinese experiments, etc.
Meat consumption (eg China) is just going up, complicating all of this
Desertification or topsoil erosion is just creating a low soil fertility situation which anybody who knows even a little bit about soil biology knows is not helpful or the right way to do agriculture
Basically the last point reduces to seeing the high tech, high efficiency, high capital, large scale, chemically based agriculture based on conglomerization (basically monopolies) as not being effective, farmers have lost knowledge about plant breeding etc and instead rely at times on IPR based seed saving techniques etc because the market and current paradigm of agriculture supports that model, subsidies for “cheap food” (in the short term, as is the trend of this whole unsustainable model) do not help
Greenwashing within the alternative agriculture sector does not help, labeling and certification trends just complicate things providing more choice in an unhelpful and vagueness inducing way, the consumer as an individual feels responsible to use a lower energy washing cycle when they really need to change things from the top down policy wise
Globalized trade for development standards based on population increase after some seeming decolonization is just making this worse - everybody wants processed food, dams, lots of meat, more urban sprawl, year round non-local produce, etc.
In the energy sector:
We find we are reliant on limited fossil fuel technology which only creates more of the problematic emissions and unsustainable supply-chain model
This feeds into the transportation, industrial, agricultural, etc sectors
The effects of the above:
Pollution (eg in the past it would be the creation of a superfund site or the enactment of a bill to clean up waterways or whatever), such as plastic waste, unsustainable trash dumps, effluent waste, soil pollution, and air pollution. These are all public health concerns especially in lower GDP less developed countries where populations live in slums (“environmental justice” concerns)
We find changing global temperature patterns, ice melt, sea rise, and changing weather patterns, none of which are helpful
Ecology begins to change, eg bee or mammal extinctions
There is a struggle to remove ourselves from the neomarxist developmental scheme
So we should:
Geoengineer more carbon capture (even from sustainable agriculture) and other things, plan cities better (single stream recycling, water use, greywater use, rainwater collection, urban & vertical farming, etc.), make the energy grid more efficient, research renewable energy more, eliminate toxic waste/clean up, educate on nutrition/population increase (how many kids to have) (because we cant just force policy on them in the modern ideologically secular world), apply regulation *as necessary,* incentivize sustainable solutions on a much larger scale, scale up sustainable agriculture by changing the supply-chain and production model (increasing market share, reducing prices of sustainable food compared to processed food, etc.), mine more sustainably, research things like fracking more before just doing them, minimize oil spills, not install huge neomarxist pipelines for no good reason, etc…
I welcome debate. Go ahead.
In the agricultural sector we have:
Forest removal and management, this reduces CO2 capture and biodiversity, while facilitating wildcrafted organics which are not sustainable, etc.
Fisheries management is adapting to more sustainability oriented regulations, aquacultures and aquaponics may or may not even be necessary..
Invasive species are not exactly helpful but perhaps we can find a good use for them at times (probably by accident)
Animal ethics is not working out in the CAFOs, the chinese experiments, etc.
Meat consumption (eg China) is just going up, complicating all of this
Desertification or topsoil erosion is just creating a low soil fertility situation which anybody who knows even a little bit about soil biology knows is not helpful or the right way to do agriculture
Basically the last point reduces to seeing the high tech, high efficiency, high capital, large scale, chemically based agriculture based on conglomerization (basically monopolies) as not being effective, farmers have lost knowledge about plant breeding etc and instead rely at times on IPR based seed saving techniques etc because the market and current paradigm of agriculture supports that model, subsidies for “cheap food” (in the short term, as is the trend of this whole unsustainable model) do not help
Greenwashing within the alternative agriculture sector does not help, labeling and certification trends just complicate things providing more choice in an unhelpful and vagueness inducing way, the consumer as an individual feels responsible to use a lower energy washing cycle when they really need to change things from the top down policy wise
Globalized trade for development standards based on population increase after some seeming decolonization is just making this worse - everybody wants processed food, dams, lots of meat, more urban sprawl, year round non-local produce, etc.
In the energy sector:
We find we are reliant on limited fossil fuel technology which only creates more of the problematic emissions and unsustainable supply-chain model
This feeds into the transportation, industrial, agricultural, etc sectors
The effects of the above:
Pollution (eg in the past it would be the creation of a superfund site or the enactment of a bill to clean up waterways or whatever), such as plastic waste, unsustainable trash dumps, effluent waste, soil pollution, and air pollution. These are all public health concerns especially in lower GDP less developed countries where populations live in slums (“environmental justice” concerns)
We find changing global temperature patterns, ice melt, sea rise, and changing weather patterns, none of which are helpful
Ecology begins to change, eg bee or mammal extinctions
There is a struggle to remove ourselves from the neomarxist developmental scheme
So we should:
Geoengineer more carbon capture (even from sustainable agriculture) and other things, plan cities better (single stream recycling, water use, greywater use, rainwater collection, urban & vertical farming, etc.), make the energy grid more efficient, research renewable energy more, eliminate toxic waste/clean up, educate on nutrition/population increase (how many kids to have) (because we cant just force policy on them in the modern ideologically secular world), apply regulation *as necessary,* incentivize sustainable solutions on a much larger scale, scale up sustainable agriculture by changing the supply-chain and production model (increasing market share, reducing prices of sustainable food compared to processed food, etc.), mine more sustainably, research things like fracking more before just doing them, minimize oil spills, not install huge neomarxist pipelines for no good reason, etc…
I welcome debate. Go ahead.
Comments (21)
Congratulations! You are person number 1,000,000,001 to say all of these things.
Please explain how any of the ideas you propose would be carried out. Saying it is one thing, doing it is something else.
What's that?
I have an image of a pipe full of the oppressed...
It's a bit rich to insist on a detailed project plan at this stage... a bit like asking for a second engineer's report when the wing has fallen off.
About that pipeline thing, I was referring to some literature I liked quite a bit about the oil and gas situation in the middle East, after conflicts, the installing of pipelines to fuel the bonkers princes and kings and get us cheap resources at the expense of the populace (because of their Uber bonkers ideologies) there. Honestly, the reading was so convincing I've co opted their perspective to call it neo Marxist. I mean I guess they have money but I wouldn't say the situation is devoid of power dynamics in an unethical way.. just me. I wish I could find the book but I read it in undergrad a few years ago so my synopsis is Uber shitty. But you're smart, you'll figure it out
https://www.amazon.com/Carbon-Democracy-Political-Power-Age/dp/1781681163/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=the+carbon&qid=1555811532&rnid=2941120011&s=books&sr=1-3
The carbon democracy, Timothy Mitchell
Not really insisting, more like asking if he has any new ideas that are maybe not as well known as those we see in the news papers everyday.
Basically the post is a summary of what most reasonably informed people know already, but they known for years and very little is being done to fix any of the problems.
Supermarkets now want to sell/fine you for using plastic bags, but half of the products you buy are wrapped in one use plastic. And the common person does not give a shit about it.
Not many want to give up their cars and take the bus or the train and it would cause havoc the day even 20% percent of them did actually try.
There are too many people in the world and they are living longer but no one can stop people from having kids. China tried and look what happened to them.
There is not enough food to feed all of the people in some places, but tons of food are thrown away everyday in other places.
Up until now I have heard lots of people saying that something needs to be done, but I have not heard of really feasible plans to do it.
Quoting Banno
My dad used to say that it was like inquiring about the pumps when the officers mess had water on the floor. The bloody ship is sinking.
https://paularbair.wordpress.com/2019/03/21/a-modest-suggestion-for-the-worlds-climate-strikers/
Quoting Banno
Or the newly oppressed? It looks like there may be plenty of those in the near future!
Edit; Oh shit! I've just gone and done what I decided I ought not have...so much for self-discipline!
That'd be at least probably a move in the right direction...
The article you cite, on a quick read, says that governments won't act because they haven't previously acted.
Perhaps this situation is different enough to break that inductive logic.
Our present prosperity and the projected prosperity of the third world is reliant on cheap energy; and it's difficult to see how else the first could be sustained and the second brought about. Fossil fuels are far cheaper than they should be; they are currently subsidized to the tune of something around 5 billion dollars globally according to some of the reports I have read.
Could we make a rapid transition that halted, or even significantly reduced, fossil fuel use at all, and even if we could would it not collapse the current economy which is so debt-laden that it relies on constant growth, which even in the existing system is looking more and more impossible? Even if the political will were there in our leaders, would the plutocracy allow the necessary changes?
And even if it could be done without fossil fuels, what would be done with all the existing cars, trucks, planes and so on? Would most people be prepared to give up their vehicles and international flights and use public transport for local travel only, and even if they were, would the existing infrastructure be able to cope with all the extra people? Is there enough lithium to sustain a massively increased demand due to a burgeoning battery industry for very long? So, many questions, so few answers, it seems!
I think the article warrants a close read.
Quoting Nasir Shuja
This is all stuff we should have done back in the 1970s, at the latest. 40 years worth of C02, methane, and humanoid accumulation later, it's a bit late to start doing that.
Oh, don't worry about population, by the way.
Quoting Nasir Shuja
Maybe we can't, but old Mother Nature has no problem forcing policy on people in the modern ideologically secular world. Her methods tend to not be very nice, but as policy goes, she's good at reducing populations--starvation and disease for starters. She can throw a population crash like nobody's business. Most likely she has some policy solutions in mind for us wealthy, industrialized nations too, especially pompous secular ones. Bad air, poisoned environments where pollinators go extinct, not enough electricity, rising ocean, not enough food (especially those out-of-season strawberries), new diseases, drug resistant bacteria and fungal diseases, running out of oil, people going crazy, formerly civilized places turning into behavior sinks...
We don't know shit from shinola when it comes to the kinds of revolutionary changes that could have saved us from the grand comeuppance we are headed for. We have all these institutions that are beyond our control, never mind changing the behavior of 300 million Americans, 500 million Europeans, 2 billion Asians, etc. For instance, we have NO IDEA what we are going to do when we run out of oil--which we will do. And so much of our civilization depends on that marvelously energy dense, portable, AND LIMITED supply of petroleum. Not just gasoline, but a vast array of chemical industries. Polyester anyone (dimethyl ester dimethyl terephthalate (DMT) and monotheluene glycol)? Nylon? Plastic plastic plastic? Where do you think this stuff comes from?
I rather suspect that Mother Nature has already set new policies into motion, most of which we're not going to enjoy very much.
Definitely not a proponent of eugenics, at least as far as eugenics implies 'racial' purity ect. I mean anti-natalism, at least to begin with, encouraging people not to have biological offspring. People can try to be as 'eco-friendly' as possible, but the most eco-friendly thing you could do, is not produce more humans to add to the ever-growing carbon footprint/consumer basis. There are millions of children in the world who are suffering and need love, resources, ect. both in developing countries AND domestically. We must make the adoption process more accessible, and less stigmatized so very few people feel the need to produce more children. Populations by country can be supplemented with smart dispersal, based on space + available resources and economy. These are simple mathematical equations that can be used to organize people and children needing families.
Anyways I did a quick drawing of various agricultural themes based on natural patterns, perhaps people here might be able to elaborate on any systems patterns they find within agriculture that are of any import here.
Agriculture: rivers to rhizomes
https://photos.app.goo.gl/izCFZWRAVckeSNCv8