Diminishing Biodiversity

Large industrial "argribusiness" farms that can be 100's of acre's in size mostly consist of a mono-culture, one crop, and its usually corn. Each plant is genetically the same as the next, all of the plants are clones of each other through genetical engineering making these plants GMO's (genetically modified organism) . The corn is genetically modified for one purpose, production. After harvest the seeds of these plants are disregarding and new seeds are bought to replace the old ones. This is a complete paradigm shift from the generations before us when farmers collected seeds and used selective breeding to fulfill many needs; to increase the robustness, (resistance to weather and pests) increase output of crops, as well as producing desirable traits such as its nutritional benefits as well as aesthetics, taste and appeal. These two different paradigm I see as the difference of starting a garden where you want to grow a crop such as carrots and your choice it to buy seeds from Monsanto or a seed bank. With Monsanto you would also need to buy pesticides which have been integrated into the process so that they become essential. You may have a few different option of the types of carrots that you could purchase with Monsanto but at a seed bank there could be hundreds even thousands of different varieties of carrots;different colors, taste, and resistances. Having recently harvested some carrots from a small farm with four or five varieties I much more enjoyed the carrot that I picked from the ground no more than a mile and a half away from my house, sweet and crunchy loaded with nutrients, pesticide free, GMO free instead of a grocery store carrot that has traveled halfway across the country or even the globe boring and dull doused with pesticides its whole life cycle and possible being a GMO. Since agribusnisses such as Monsanto are profiting so well, by exploiting resources, polluting genetics and polluting the planet with pesticides, it has allowed them to cut corners from old traditional ways and is quickly allocating their growth making small sustainable farming less profitable by being undercut from the consumption of agribusiness crops vs local and small sustainable crops because of its availability and its usually significant lower price. As Monsanto and other agribusiness continue to grow they are becoming closer and closer to controlling what we eat. Allowing this would eventually make it impossible for small competing farmers to survive as well as the diversity of genetics saved through the seeds that the farmers have collected, traded, and inherited passed down many generations.

Will our world end?

So I am supposed to write about my views on Capitalism. Until recently I was totally oblivious to what that mean't. Growing up in a household that could care less about the government, has made me quite ignorant to politics. I will do my best to compare Capitalism and what i think about Natural Capitalism, well my thoughts on it all I guess. I think that the thought of our society being back to the way it was at the beginning in 50 years, is probably being very optimistic. Just because we are becoming more aware of how things are working or not working for our environment doesn't mean that more people will try to do anything about it. People are thinking that "someone else" will do the work and then we will be fine. They don't realize that EVERYONE needs to do their part to help. Myself included! I am most definately going to try to do my part and be less wasteful and more conservative with what I am purchasing. How long will I use what I am buying and where will it go when I am done? These are things I would not have even thought about without taking this class! As for Natural Capitalism, its a great concept and we have done a lot of things to get "back" to where we began before all the industries came about. I hope that we can get some of nature restored but am pretty sure that we as a whole will keep producing and the population will continue to go up and up and the cycle will keep going on to destroy what little we have left. We are all hoping this does not happen, so we can all try to do our part and help.
I really liked the section about replacing the carpet with carpet squares, not removing the whole carpet, that way people are not wasting the whole piece of carpet, wasting money by moving all the office out, halting production, getting sick from the fumes afterward and the carpet rotting in some landfill for thousands of years. Making a carpet squares and just replacing those when they are worn out, still provides a job for someone and cuts down on carpet that can not be recycled!
I guess without Capitalism in the first place, we wouldnt be where we are now with jobs and making money and people having the power they have, however, if it never happened, we would have probably figured out some other way to distroy our earth, so now we are just gonna have to find a way to fix this problem!

No more chemicals

I love this time of the year, it’s a time for family to get together, and talk about the old days. When things were simpler, and how many things that were being made or developed were made with pride. It was a time of quality not quantity. Cars lasted longer, gas was cheaper, and food was affordable, healthy and it wouldn’t kill you. With all the research and advancements man kind has made don’t you think are food would be more delicious and nutritious? but its not, because people have forgotten about a time of quality and entered a time of mass Production food doesn’t taste or look as good or even last as long but you can get twice as much for the same price. We have genetically made plants to grow when they are not supposed too. Ever had a summer tomatoes compared to a winter tomatoes? the ones grown naturally in the summer are super plump and tasty winter tom’s may look the same but have very little taste. We have also developed plants to be poisonous to pests but have consequence for cattle that may eat the plant. Today unless you are growing organic you’re growing chemicals, which goes in to the soil and water and cause irreversible damage. Can’t drink the water, Can’t eat the fish, and Can’t farm the land.

More Like "Crap and Trade"

Democracy Now! ran a great story last week about a couple of EPA lawyers who have decided to speak out against the the inadequacies of the Markey-Waxman bill. In their interview, they incorporated a lot of the systems thinking type concepts that we've been talking about and, I felt, did a great job of explaining -- systemically -- why the potential law might do more harm than good. DN! apparently picked up on this story because the EPA tried (with limited success) to censor the couple. The video that landed them in hot water is still up on youtube, though, and is arguably more interesting than the interview transcript:

Industrial Agriculture; What a Waste.

Here we are all of us residing in the U.S. Living on land that was inhabited by a people who knew good stewardship of the land. I am of course speaking of the Indians. They knew how to take care of the land so it could take care of them. Here we are depleting the very source of our existence, mother earth. We are an advanced civilization who needs to take a few steps back in order to go forward. What I mean is industrial production of our food is depleting the soils and using 10 calories of fuel to make 1 calorie of food. This is obviously unsustainable and extremly wasteful.
For the first time in a long time small farms are on a come back in this nation, thanks to a little organic garden on the Whitehouse lawn. The Obama administration gets it. Or at least he has admited that the agribusiness is based on fossil fuels.
We need to put the land first and most everything else in order of prority behind land usage. We are an economy based on agriculture. If our agriculture practices are unsustainable then we are unsustainable. We need new farming practices. For example people need to start growing their own food small home gardens or "victory gardens" as they were called back in WWII. The citizens of this great nation need to get some dirt under their fingernails. Stop expecting everyone else to do everything for us. As far a giants agricorps I hope these new prenennial hybreds Wes Jackson is coming up with can help restore the bread basket of America. I am hopeful that with education and new innovations we can keep the health of our land an indeed the world for future generations to come.

I must admit, I can't say I have really enjoyed the systems reading assignments so far this semesmter. That is until this week. After reading this weeks assignment in depth, I have a greater appreciation of the insight Meadows has brought to understanding "leverage points-places to intervene in a system". My two recent visits to Spencer's farm, and my observations therein have provided me the opportunity to see thes ideas of levergage points at "work in the field" (the pun is intended)

As of this Sunday night, I belive that agriculture does fit into Meadows' ideas of a leverage point for sustainability. Let's consider Meadow's idea from the first line in chapter 6. "So how do we change the structure of systems to produce more of what we want and less of which is undesireable?"

Lets say this model is undesirable:Corporate farming practices all over the globe including, monocroping wopping amounts of acreage, petroleum based pesticides, genetically modified species of plants and vegetables, mineral depleting planting practices, damage to plants and other animals from cross pollination from GMO's and runoff of pesticides into the air and surrounding water systems.

Let us for a moment assume that our "minimum goal" with respect to agriculture is to provide substantial vegetable crop yields per acre, maintain the importance of biodiversity, define and maintain an "organic Quality"standard, minimize the amount of degredation to the soil and the surrounding environmental rescources, create smaller locally based farms, and lets throw in turning a profit as well. This goal is a serious leverage point compared to the previous example.

Here are a couple of thoughts with respect to leveraging the corporatel farm systems that I became aware of while visiting Spencer's farm and the rest of the Intervale system.

By creating smaller more conscientious farming models, a possible leverage point could be subsidies and tax incentives to enhance more of this type of growth. Spencer's model of small succession plantings is a buffer which "allows for more flexibile response to demand needs."the intervale system is a coop of small sytems that allow for rather simple and less expensive stock and flow changes compared to the idustial model. The smaller 1/2 pint model and succession plantings substantially decrease any concern of delays with the worse case scenerio resulting in product put in the cooler as a way to regulate other system changes. The Intervale's smaller farming model is an excellent way to manage the balancing feedback loop. The leverage comes from smaller crop sizes coupled with the ability to react quickly the "directness and size of corrective flows."Spencer's tight monitoring of weekly yield to sales ratios, helped him with greater control of the flow elements. The 1/2 pint 7 year business plan demonstrated the strength of the reinforcing feedback loop. The more they were able to meet their projected goals the more willing they were to increase the goal for the next season. The information system flow was one of the most apparent leverage tools I observed. Spencer and his wife keep excellent weekly records and were able to quickly adjust to trends. By sharing information with others at the Intervale and taking their observations and conclusions on the road, it has a deffinite affect on the larger systems, and ultimately benefits others. Another important area of possible leverage would be reframing the "rules". Incentives for farmers to move to this type of model. Perhaps a sytem where cooperative land use, increased yields using natural methods, improving soil and environmental conditions of the land, would be incentive options. Even a tax break or waiver for donating a percentage of yield to the community. Another obvious leverage point is the self organization piece. As in Ausubel's example of the Native americans being stewards and having some positive influence in the self organization of California' garden of eden, the smaller cooperative model allows farmers to be a symbiotic player from inside the system, even an advocate for this evolutionary process, enhancing not controlling the systems process.

I observed the 1/2 Pint Farm as an example of redifinigng goals. The cooperative structure of the Intervale system with many different farming models being tried and tested at the same time, including a pretty substantial enhanced composting project, is in turn modelling that a new paradigm is possible with a reasonable and concerted effort. The farm seems to flourish with its 250 species of biodiversity, on 1 & 1/2 acres and models several leverage points with respect to the current corporate farming model.

Americans are buying into the idea that we have the power to make real fundemental changes perhaps the single voice for paradigm shift will be representative of many voices from all over the world speaking as one harmonious voice. When that voice speaks loud enough and the sound is one that is attractive to more and more people, then we may very well have come to that "tipping point" that has been referred to so many times in the recent past. Perhaps then yoga needs to be our mantra or prerequisite to change. Because before we can dance with these new concepts we are going to have to limber up muscles of possibility. Flexibiltiy will allow us to stay on task as we continue to push up against our own resistance to change.

Impresive Practices

The culture we call our own is much like many that have come before ours, living on this planet, using its resources, exploring its lands and settling its "wilderness". It is considered normal practice to move into a new area, exploit its natural riches, dispose of waste; human and other, and even pollute its waters. Now, not every culture does this, although we are certainly guilty, the native Americans that inhabited California in the late eighteenth century coincided very well with mother nature.
In part two of Natures Operating Instructions there is a nice passage explaining some of the aspects to the native American culture and what steps they took to preserving their homeland. The settlers that were exploring California in the 1780's were surprised and unaware of the Indians involvement with the homeland and assumed they had lived in California for thousands of years without altering the land.
But in fact the the natives practiced very specific laws regarding the resources of their land and using them. Managing the land began with a deeply detailed knowledge of place, or climate, season, soil, etc. For example, When the elderberry appears it means the shell fish are now poisonous and can no longer be collected and eaten. But when the berry ripens in the fall, its the signal to start collecting the fish again.
When the wren starts to sing, the salmon will be around in a few more days. All sorts of little natural occurrences are indicators of other occurrences. The indians learned these and followed the way of the earth. The natives also would have large rabit hunts, for food and fur of course but also because the rabit was in direct compotition with people for other crops and had to be controlled.
One of the most interesting practices of the natives was to burn the land. Settlers came and did not understand this, thinking the Indians were crazy and even creating laws against it. But the fires cleared out the undergrowth allowing the larger trees to prevail. The settlers remarked on how a walk in the woods was like a park, this was due to the burning of the undesired plants.
I found all this very interesting because how far we live from nature. We all love a good walk in the woods here and there but as a society we bend nature to live around us. We do what we want whether its good for mother nature or not. And because of all this bending, nature is starting the break.
We are pushing our resources to the extreme and do not moderate our consumption. The native Americans for example had a quarry which was their source of chert. This hard rock was used for tools and weapons and it was also pretty rare. Each man was aloud to go in their once a year, take one swing with a hammer and keep what fell off. This was such an unbelievably good idea, preserving the valuable stone for generations to come. I think if the modern world we lived in was able to base life of the preservation of nature we would all be way better off. But unfortunately we are using up oil like water and polluting our oceans faster than we can clean them. I'm not sure if we will ever be able to live life the way the California Natives did and surely seem to face a certain terrible fate.

Human Keystone

The study of keystone species is something that I have learned about only recently. The extent to which keystone species effect or control their environment was something that I hadn’t fully considered until now. Looking at the interconnected web that they hold together, the extent to which ecosystems have mutualized seems very clear. The essays by Malcolm Margolin, and Dennis Martinez in part II of Natures Operating Instructions were really quite eye opening. Fallowing with the current paradigm I had always considered humans as an external disturbance to the workings of a natural ecosystem, rather then another biotic species interconnected and included with in that ecosystem. I think that this understanding is imperative for us to fully grasp the effects, both positive and negative, that we can create in our environment.

Waste equaling food or is it food is wasteful?

In cradle to cradle McDonough mentions that for example when trees bloom and then drop cherries, it is then absorbed back into the soil, making it better soil for the environment around the tree and for the tree to produce better cherries the next time around. By being absorbed back into the soil, it becomes reusable, for food rather than waste. If we could get a really great composting system in place for say, 8 out of 10 households, we would cut down waste going to our landfills and we could nourish the soil or gardens in those households. I myself have a really big composting pile, for leaves and food leftovers. We have only minimal waste when going to the dump every 2 weeks or so compared to when we weren't composting. Coffee grounds and egg shells are very nutrient based for certain flowers and can really help the gardens grow bigger and heartier. We had to test out certain styles of fencing and bariers for the compost pile, the animals love food scraps! So definately do some research before trying to build one!

Material recycling, well that is pretty complicated. We as a whole have made certain things that we can recycle but other things are clearly marked as "unmarkables". We need to phase out the products that are never going to be known as recycleable and start replacing those items with chemicals and materials that can be recycled. I just wish there was someone out there that cared enough to start doing that instead of taking up space in rented lots or storage spaces for these "unmarkables". I guess it would require someone pretty high up that constructed these materials (pvc) to change them. Why change something that is already done and they are getting the money for it? right? I helped my friends up at Mt. Norris last year build a fence for the waterfront, PVC was the cheapest and sturdiest material to make this fence. If I would have known then what I know now, I probably would have suggested something else for that fence, probably wood of some sort! I was part of that problem im sorry to say!

As for what I think of Suzuki's zero-waste challange, I think its a good idea, it actually got me thinking about what I buy at the grocery store, what I "NEED" or don't need to have for hair products! I think that if you took all the crap that I have in my bathroom closet and put it in a pile, I could pollute my whole town for a day with the airosole hairsprays! I don't always use this stuff but if i need it, I have it, but did i need it? Probably not. I am definately going to be more consious of what I am purchasing for "girls stuff" in the future! Guess that is one chapter I did understand!

Waste=Food

Although the information from Suzuki's reading is helpful and interesting, I find it too unoriginal and bland. It seems more like a to-do list rather than idea's that could help us become more efficient in the future. Instead of expanding on the ideas I thought were helpful in Suzuki's reading, I would rather go into the idea of waste being used as "food" brought up in McDonough and Braungart's reading. Sure, recycling and using less resources is a must in our journey towards a more sustainable planet, but in our time and day, it's not enough. Recycling can only save so many resources, and eliminate so many harsh chemicals being emitted into our atmosphere. Even if everyone in the world recycled everything they used I don't believe it would solve our problem. The idea of up-cycling is a different story. By creating products that consider up-cycling as the most important aspect of the product, we can truly move towards a better world. Imagine a world where every product is re-used into the makings of either the same product over, or other products (or both), this would be truly amazing. McDonough mentions that products must either be able to be re-used in the industrial cycle, or used to benefit the biological cycle, although he also mentions that with some products today, it is impossible for either one or the other. But is this true? Aren't we able to come up with ideas that are maybe considered, "far out" or "impossible"? What if space travel became so regular and inexpensive that we could dispose waste out there that are unable to be dispose on Earth. Could there be elements or chemicals floating out in space or on other planets that could aid in the break down of products that would otherwise be "impossible" to break down? I do not know, but I do think it's important that we keep exploring different, and possibly bizarre, ideas.

Waste=Food