A Farm to Live a Dream.

Our generation is often labeled the generation of “instant gratification.” We are obsessed with immediate results with technology, our bodies, or our food. If it is not immediate it is not worth waiting for. This is, in my opinion, the cause of many a problem in today’s world, and an obvious example is our food system.

We, as a population, are willing to abuse animals so that they can be “grown” more quickly and efficiently, willing to pollute our water, soil, and air from pesticides and mismanagement of animal waste, and fill our bodies with thousands of forms of one plant, just so that we can have our meal “to-go.”

When I learned of these atrocities of our modern industrial food system and more, I became strangely drawn to the idea of having my own farm, an organic subsistence farm that would eradicate my reliance on the supermarket. I felt the urge to distance myself from this instant gratification, and learn the true pleasures of the slow life. I believe there’s a reason that so many are drawn to this bucolic lifestyle, and I wonder if it isn’t because the fast-paced lifestyle we lead is as unnatural as a chicken nugget.

You cannot be obsessed with instant gratification on a farm. You must till the land over the course of hours, plant at just the right time, and wait. Several months later, when the lush sprouts appear, you wait longer for them to grow to fruition. You then must spend hours, maybe days, harvesting plants, and then spend an equally grueling amount of energy processing and preparing them. It is not FarmVille. But even if it is a hard life, it is just as satisfying to know where your food came from, and to enjoy the pleasures of your hard labor.

If everyone knew this feeling, this would be a step in the right direction for not only society, but also the environment. If we were not so obsessed with fast food, we wouldn’t have mountains of corn killing our earth, and McDonald’s wouldn’t be the lord of our economy. If we were willing to work a little harder to make dinner, we would buy fresh meat of happy animals from our local sustainable farms, and make that a lucrative enough business that more would surface. Maybe this is just a distorted dream, but life would be better. As Wendell Berry mentions, this is a hard life. But if it is anything like his writing, I’m in.

The ecological butterfly...and the hurricane

The other day, I was walking out of a class, and I became aware of all the people around me, and I realized something: many of these people who now are so proud of their ecological awareness will grow up to be parents, businesspeople, and professionals. I imagined one particularly rugged-looking student with dreadlocks ten years down the road, as a bleach-blonde soccer mom, driving everywhere in her SUV and showering every day. At this moment, it dawned in me that anything we do now, at college, could be completely forgotten, but always remembered in the consequences it has.
I, for one, do not shower every day. I refuse to. I do not own a car, and prefer to walk somewhere than take a bus or even drive. I bring my own reusable bags to the grocery store. Now, I may look weird with sometimes greasy hair, have a bit of trouble getting around town, or have to carry around extra bags sometimes, but in several weeks, months, or years, no one will care, or even remember. What they will remember, however, is those thousands of gallons of water still there, those millions of carbon molecules not in the atmosphere, and those hundreds of plastic grocery bags not floating in the ocean. Any change we make now is something we don’t have to feel bad about later. It’s some tiny way we can save the earth every day.
And apart from my actions (or any other Goucher student’s for that matter) directly affecting the earth, they can have an indirect effect as well. I’m sure I have convinced someone to skip their daily shower once or twice, or walk somewhere instead of drive, or let them borrow a reusable bag for shopping. And maybe those changes will stick, or they’ll spread the same idea to someone else.
College is a time when you find out who you are. And who you are is affected by and affects in return who you’re with. Providing an environment in which people can come to the conclusion that meticulous personal hygiene may not really be that great, or that walking is more fun anyway, without being judged is one way that I feel Goucher contributes to the ecological integrity of many individuals and the institution itself. We carry what we learn here into the rest of the world, and if I, as one person, can make a difference, how much can thousands of people change?

Victims as victims

The more I learn about climate change, the less fair it seems. And the IPCC report is only reinforcing this view. My overall impression from the reading is as follows: poor populations are done for. It seems that the most severe climate effects are the worst for developing regions and poverty-stricken people. Page 14 notes that “[V]ulnerability to climate change can be exacerbated by other stresses,” including “[C]urrent climate hazards, poverty and unequal access to resources, food insecurity, trends in economic globalisation, conflict and incidence of diseases such as HIV/AIDS.” But all of these stresses seem to be symptoms of poverty.

As if this weren’t bad enough, it seems to me that the most severe consequences climate change has to offer will be present in typically poorer regions. Asia has a projected decrease in freshwater availability, particular in large river basins—where the majority of the populations live. Those living in megadelta regions will be at great risk for flooding, and all will be more susceptible to death from disease associated with flood and drought. In Central and South America, temperature increases are projected to replace tropical forests with savannah. For those that get their livelihoods from the forests, including but not limited to many indigenous populations, this could be detrimental. Those living off the land in a pastoral sense will also fall victim to climate change: crop and livestock productivity is projected to decline, exacerbating food insecurity already present in many areas and increasing the continent’s hunger. Glacier and precipitation will be affected as well, reducing amounts of water available for consumption, energy, and agriculture.

And these examples are only a speck compared to the dust storm of adverse effects that climate change will bring, particularly to poverty-stricken peoples. I feel that this is so unfair not just because people will be suffering—it is that the people suffering will be the ones who have not made the problem as severe as it now is. Like so frequently happens, the rich west is making problems and letting the poor take the fall for them. The report mentions several times that wealthier people will be less severely affected. I fail to see how this is alright, considering the wealthier populations bought their 14-mile per gallon SUVs and leave their lights on for days straight.

But it gets worse: the report mentions dozens of ways that we could be stopping climate change through legislation in wealthier countries, but we refuse to because of the omnipotent economy-god. The masses refuse to do anything that could hurt GDP, even though in 50 years famine and drought probably won’t help it.

The teepee of environmentalism

The idea of resource wars is timeless. I cannot think of a single group of living organisms that does not fight to get what it needs to survive—even vines in the rainforest climb up taller trees to get to much-needed sunlight, suffocating their hosts in the process. This competition is exacerbated and becomes a real problem when the losing party does not just die and become part of the soil that sustains their enemy, but rather take up arms against it, and commits atrocities to get the upper hand. When thinking about preventing global warming or stopping pollution, people forget that there are 44 such conflicts going on in the world today. And these conflicts, of course, deplete the environment’s natural resources even further.Speth mentions that the UN’s “[D]evelopment projects have often failed because they neglected the environment, just as environmental projects have often failed because they neglected development.” I feel that this is a key point to make. I am coming to realize that environmental and social issues are drastically interrelated. In order to solve environmental issues, we must solve social ones, but we cannot solve social issues without solving environmental ones.In order to even begin to solve such complicated and multifaceted issues such as what Speth mentioned as relating heavily to environmental issues, poverty, we must first gather the information necessary about environmental, social, cultural, and economic concerns. After we have found this information, it needs to be incorporated into a multi-pronged solution and implemented effectively. It seems that at this point, we have the first step completed, if that. Many proposed solutions only take into account one aspect of an issue; they are like a lone teepee pole trying to stand up. In order for this construction to be able to stand on its own, it needs the support of other poles. The same is true with social development projects. In order to solve this, the solutions must be as complex as the problems, with each facet, or pole, leaning onto another one to make it complete and self-sustainable.With my understanding of environmental issues, the more I learn, the more hopeless it seems. Poverty and resource conservation, women’s rights and population control, misallocation of resources and affluence, and so many more issues seem to be tangled in a web of environmental destruction. If there is any hope for the earth, we must all begin to consider all aspects of a situation on a global scale and use them together to make a complete, effective, sustainable, solution. No easy task, but it is possible. I am aware of several organizations that provide sustainable relief, but what would happen if all issues could be eradicated in one global solution? It seems that some people have the idea, but socially conscious environmentalism must catch on if we are to get anywhere.

Citizen vs. Consumer

In chapter 5 of Dryzek's Politics, he mentions Mark Sagoff, and his theory on the individual and the consumer. Dryzek states that “Sagoff believes that every individual has two kinds of preferences: as a consumer and as a citizen. These preferences may point in quite different directions for the same individual.”
This idea was like a slap in the face, because it made so much sense. It seems to encompass all of a person’s actions: there is what our conscience feels, and what we usually do, what we want, and what we are frequently told we want. Unfortunately, this consumer seems to have taken over our lifestyles, and the citizen is left to shrivel up and emerge only in the form of a reusable grocery bag.
Although this example is used in terms of Democratic Pragmatism, I think that it would work in any environmental theory. Green-washing is but one example of this natural disposition to do good, even if that is only because it looks cool. Could we use this green-washing movement to its full potential? It would be amazing to have teenagers recycling, reducing their water usage, or giving money to an environmental organization because it’s cool.
I think that making environmental concern a cool social movement could be as longstanding as blue jeans: it began as the movement to rebel, and is now completely mainstream, with its unique fabric permeating not only every type of clothing but anything that could possibly be made of cloth. So, too, should the fabric of environmentalism define us as a culture, or even as a people, or as a population.
But blue jeans have become a timeless icon because it is the consumer that wanted them. Why is it that the citizen is so much harder to harness than the consumer? If Gundersen’s “Latent positive dispositions” towards environmentalism are indeed there, wouldn’t environmentalism catch on like wildfire? Perhaps bringing people to discuss environmental issues could bring power to this natural disposition as it did in his studies. It’s better to argue about how to save the earth than whether or not to.
It seems to me that this dichotomy between conscience and actions is destructive. If there were a way to combine these two distinct personas into one conscientious consumer, this would be ideal. And the only way I see this happening is education.

Too much econ, not enough heart

I agree with Dryzek's concepts of ecological limits mentioned in chapter 2, that the earth can only sustain so many of one thing, including humans. For too long, humanity has used the earth as a tool and not as a home, and it is beginning to catch up to us, assuming it hasn’t already. But although I accept this idea, I have problems with how he proposes to implement a solution, if he does at all.
Maybe I missed it, but it seems that he only points out the problem, and the problem with possible solutions. I would appreciate it if he suggested a way in which humankind could begin to reverse the damage we have done, but see nothing of the sort. The closest he comes is by suggesting a global authoritarian for resource control, but it seems that the larger area a governing groups has power over, the less ecological responsibility and general welfare, or even common sense, overlap. Although we both agree that this is not the best idea, he goes on to what I feel is too far, criticizing the critics of population control in the traditional methods, religion, feminism, and Marxism. One would think that if ideologically focused groups normally not seen as extremists had a problem with an idea, it may be better to look for a more agreeable solution instead of assuming millions of people are crazy earth-killers.
His criticisms beg the question, if all the dissenter groups are wrong, and the survivalists are wrong, who's right? It’s easy to point out the problems in a concept; the hard part is coming up with a better one. I feel that with as much research and reading Dryzek seems to have done on the topic, he would be well suited to work on a solution. He mentions that dissenter groups fail to take on the limits discourse, but does he? He seems to only poke holes in the discourse without presenting an alternative—crashing the canoe before he owns the yacht.
I also seem to find contradictions in some of the ideas that he does present. I once again could be misreading this, but it seemed that in one part he mentioned that giving aid to developing countries is merely aggravating the problem of unsustainable growth, and in another mentioned that the developed countries are hoarding all the wealth and making third-world areas suffer. The only solution to redistributing the developed world’s greedy take on capitalism seems to be giving it to those with less monetary resources. There are sustainable forms of aid (Heifer International comes to mind), would this also be destructive to the survivalist’s plans? I fail to see how Dryzek can say that we should redistribute wealth while at the same time telling us we should let developing countries figure their own survival out without outside help. Or, if there is a suitable economic wealth-distribution method, why doesn’t he mention it?
Overall it seems that Dryzek is looking at population through an economist’s eye, failing to take into account (or sometimes considering and criticizing) emotional, ideological, or psychological factors. Population control is a tricky business. He mentions China’s methods as laudable and simultaneously too extreme. Many consider their methods horrific. I wonder if he sees people as souls or as numbers, and I feel that it’s a very important distinction to make.

Curiosity killed the climate

What will really happen if temperatures rise, sea levels creep up several inches or feet, and glaciers melt? Will we be plummeted into a drought? Will all biomes fluctuate until reaching a devastating equilibrium? What life will survive? What species will go extinct? Will humans survive?

Like most, I wonder what will happen if and when global warming really gets going. But I’m mostly just curious as to what will happen. It’s like a high-stakes bet, a mix of poker and Russian Roulette. Will reindeer become the next wooly mammoth? Will future humans find our remains perfectly preserved in blocks of ice or layers of silt? Will our civilizations become legendary like the Mayans, Akkadians, or Egyptians?

So maybe I’m crazy for not being worried about drowning to death or dying of thirst, but I guess it doesn’t feel real to me. If unpredictable environmental shifts were happening anyway, why worry? Of course I do my best to reduce my effect on global warming, but I don’t really see the point of doing more than that. I don’t think going crazy with worry would help anything. Although it may be completely unreasonable, I figure as long as I stay away from coastal cities and know what’s coming, I should be ok. Like many people have said (including Red Sky at Morning), the people who live off of the land have the most to fear. Although this may seem grossly insensitive, the New Yorker article made it quite clear to me that the destruction of cultures due to climate factors is fairly common, if not inevitable. Yes, this time it’s man-made, but what more can I do? I’m not a politician, or climate activist, nor do I plan to be. I will do my best, but that’s all I can do. That, and wait.

A belief and a wish

I see myself as superior to woodland creatures, deep-sea wonders, and graceful aviators. I believe that a human’s superior intellect deems them of higher value than other creatures that do not possess this self-awareness. I believe that it is natural, even correct, to kill a living creature for food. But I need all other organisms to exist.

Unlike many suburbanites who believe that humans have the right to kill for their survival, I know that this right comes with an even deeper responsibility. Unlike those who see themselves as equal to nature, or even a part of it, as mentioned in Red Sky at Morning, I think that our superiority to the natural world is merely the vehicle for our duty to protect it. The kangaroo does not know the merits of bush fires as the Aborigines do, nor does the deer know the hunter’s impact on the larger ecosystem. Thus, this intellect, innate connection with nature, sense of duty, and propensity for guilt make humankind the master of nature.

But we have begun to realize that we are the master, and have become cruel and insensitive to the needs of our servants. Life was good when we lived as tribes, one with nature and hard-working. We did not suffer from illnesses, because the sick died young. We did not pollute, destroy, or endanger. The earth could bear the burden of our existence, and we could give to it as much as it gave to us. Obesity was not an issue, nor was malnutrition. Starvation did not kill countries’ poor. In a way, I wish the world was still like this. I wish I lived as a part of nature.

I appreciate technology, education, privilege, and modern medicine, but if we as a planet could somehow inch back to our predecessors’ ways, even just a little, we could eliminate infinite amounts of waste, pollution, and famine. I wish that our food system were close to nature, and the nutrients we consumed were not made in a lab. I wish that everything we did daily did not increase our risk of cancer.

But unfortunately, the majority of that can only stay a wish. People do not want to sacrifice their lifestyle for someone they do not know. So I hope only that people can become closer to nature, find their roots, and appreciate the world we should be taking care of; I hope that life will become more important than profit. But it may take a disaster to make that happen.