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Food is an issue that galvanizes so many Transition communities, but many of the classic Transition activities around food, like Landshare and Abundance projects, are to some extent ways of making the best of the ever-shrinking space available for ecological growing. Nothing wrong with that, but it meant I was rather excited when – via a post on the Transition Network site in 2011 – I discovered the fledgling Ecological Land Co-operative working on a model for actually reclaimingland from industrialized agriculture and making it available to local, small-scale agroecology and permaculture projects. I quickly got involved, and was elected as a director in the summer of 2012.

Apple Nursery

Since then we’ve delivered three new ecological smallholdings into the hands of eager growers, and plan to reach twenty-five(!) new holdings in the next five years, and then spread from there, influencing planning policy as we go.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Impending Ecosystem Collapse

July 14, 2015

The Impending Ecosystem Collapse

Climate change/global warming is the main protagonist on the worldwide stage of collapsing ecosystems.

The ecosystem is a combination of living organisms in harmony with nonliving elements like air, water, and mineral soil interacting as one whole. But, what if the living and nonliving elements stop interrelating as “one harmonized whole”? Then, what happens?

As things stand today, the planet’s future is decidedly in the camp of “then, what happens?”

Signals of planetary stress are literally off the charts, meanwhile the world continues spinning like always, as people go to work, drive cars, go out to dinner, and watch TV, some read books but not much these days.

Those routines of going to work, out to dinner, and so forth maintain an equilibrium, a daily pattern on the same freeways, the same faces, the same workplaces. By itself, life seems very normal, nothing much to worry about other than making monthly car payments.

Similarly, the natural world experiences its own rhythm, like the everyday cycle of people going to work, on the freeway, to dinner, watching TV. But, radically dissimilar to that everyday cycle that seems so dependable, so routine, the natural world is amiss, chaotic, crumbling apart, bursting at the seams. However, this deep trouble is not noticed, not recognized, not reported in accordance with severe levels of impending calamity. After all, as long as Wall Street goes up, all is well, isn’t it? Yet, all is not well, not by a long shot.

Ecosystem degradation happens in silence, not on freeways, not in theaters, not in malls. There is no ticker tape to watch or CNBC to listen to.

Consider this, what if tire blowouts occurred every day on the commute? What if the television set blacks-out every two minutes? What if faucets unexpectedly turn dry? Those situations could be metaphors for the ecosystem today, anomalous, irregular, variable, faltering! Thus, climate change is very real, and people are already starting to experience ecosystem collapse.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Marxism, Ecological Civilization, and China

June 21, 2015

Marxism, Ecological Civilization, and China

China’s leadership has called in recent years for the creation of a new “ecological civilization.” Some have viewed this as a departure from Marxism and a concession to Western-style “ecological modernization.” However, embedded in classical Marxism, as represented by the work of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, was a powerful ecological critique. Marx explicitly defined socialism in terms consistent with the development of an ecological society or civilization — or, in his words, the “rational” regulation of “the human metabolism with nature.”

In recent decades there has been an enormous growth of interest in Marx’s ecological ideas, first in the West, and more recently in China. This has generated a tradition of thought known as “ecological Marxism.”

This raises three questions: (1) What was the nature of Marx’s ecological critique? (2) How is this related to the idea of ecological civilization now promoted in China? (3) Is China actually moving in the direction of ecological civilization, and what are the difficulties standing in its path in this respect?

Marx’s Ecological Critique

In the late 1840s the German biologist Matthias Schleiden observed in his book The Plant: A Biography: “Those countries which are now treeless and arid deserts, part of Egypt, Syria, Persia, and so forth, were formerly thickly wooded, traversed by streams.” He attributed this to human-generated regional climate change. At the same time as Schleiden was developing these views, the German agronomist Carl Fraas was making similar observations in his Climate and the Plant World, arguing that “the developing culture of people leaves a veritable desert behind it.” Marx and Engels, who were becoming increasingly interested in ecological degradation and regional climate change were influenced by these ideas. In 1858, Marx, following Fraas, wrote: “Cultivation — when it proceeds in natural growth and is not consciously controlled . . . leaves deserts behind it.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

An ecological look at vegetable gardening systems

June 2, 2015

An ecological look at vegetable gardening systems

I’ve examined some different systems of growing vegetables in earlier posts, viewing them primarily from the standpoints of yield (pounds produced per unit area) and inputs required. Now I want to view them from another perspective: that of ecology. What does the science of ecology suggest about how we might best grow vegetable plants, and how do different growing systems support ecological insights or work against them? Fighting against the ecological tendencies of a plant makes extra work for the gardener and causes the plants to grow less well than they otherwise would. If we understand the ecological needs of the vegetables we want to grow, we can create a garden habitat that is better able to meet their needs. That might lead to a better yield of the vegetables that we grow or if not a better yield, at least a better use of our limited time as folks with lives outside the garden.

Caveat: I am not a trained ecologist. While I have studied aspects of ecology that relate to gardening, I cannot guarantee that I have applied them correctly. I think this topic deserves more study, especially by people who know a lot more about ecology than I do.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The California Water Shortage: A Case for Aesthetic Ecosystem and Ecological Design

May 31, 2015

The California Water Shortage: A Case for Aesthetic Ecosystem and Ecological Design

A reservoir showing the effect of drought conditions in California

In recent news, there has been significant coverage of California’s struggle with its below average precipitation in the past several years. Yes, they call it a drought.

Governor Jerry Brown and California State Water Resources Control Board have come forward with restrictions on water use, primarily in urban and suburban areas.

People are ripping up lawns.

Landscape designers are drooling (not too much) over the opportunity to redesign so many areas for better water conservation. Many are replacing lawns with cookie-cutter designed ‘xeriscapes’ or ‘desertscapes’ such as this one.

Urbanites are pitted against agrarians saying the other is more responsible.

One recent interview on NPR highlights cemetery caretakers wondering “if cemeteries, particularly for veterans, shouldn’t play by different rules than, say, a suburban lawn”?

And now, there’s a struggle between allowing salmon to spawn and the ability of Bay area residents to drink water that doesn’t taste funky.

This is where I follow up with saying, ‘The end is near!’

OK so perhaps I’m making light of the situation a bit. This is a serious situation. But we have gotten ourselves into this mess. We have been deliberately diminishing our water resources in the western US for a long time.

It’s just that the thought of water scarcity is a bit more evident now.

The good news? We’ve gotten ourselves into this mess, and we can get ourselves out. But it won’t be easy and it won’t be painless. Those in California are already beginning to feel the pain.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Preempting a Misleading Argument: Why Environmental Problems Will Stop Tracking with GDP

May 17, 2015

Preempting a Misleading Argument: Why Environmental Problems Will Stop Tracking with GDP

I hate to say I told you so, and could be too dead to do so, so I’ll tell you in advance: One decade soon, environmental problems will stop tracking with GDP.

But the reasons? Well, they probably aren’t what you think, especially if you’ve been drinking the green Kool-Aid.

For decades, big-picture ecologists and eventually the “ecological economists” pointed out the fundamental conflict between economic growth and environmental protection. Every tick of GDP came with the tock of habitat loss, pollution, and, as we gradually realized, climate change. A growing GDP requires a growing human population or a growing amount of goods and services per person. In the American experience of the 20^th century, it was easy to see both – population and per capita consumption – spiraling upward, and just as easy to see the environmental impacts reverberating outward. Much of the world saw the same, although in some countries GDP growth was driven almost entirely by population growth.

Unfortunately, a lot of time was spent overcoming fallacious but slick-sounding shibboleths like “green growth,” “dematerializing” the economy, and the “environmental Kuznets curve.” It seemed these were – or easily could have been –designed by advertisers on Madison Avenue, Big Money in general, or economists in their service, to prevent consumers and policy makers from responding rationally to environmental deterioration. Suggestive phrases such as “consumer confidence” spurred the consumer along, buying more stuff to increase the profits of corporations and, in turn, the campaign purses of politicians.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The systems view of life – a unifying vision (part 2)

May 4, 2015

The systems view of life – a unifying vision (part 2)

In this episode I have the great honor of connecting with scientist, educator, activist, and author Fritjof CapraP.hd. He was born in Vienna, and studied physics and systems theory, and became well known for his first book,The Tao of Physics (1975). In this book, and in his subsequent work, he has explored the ways in which modern physics has changed our worldview from a mechanistic to a holistic and ecological one. Synthesizing various schools of thought and practice has been on of his prime interests. Together with his friend and colleague Professor Pier Luigi Luisi, who has also been a guest on this show, he has published a groundbreaking book titled the Systems View of Life – A Unifying Vision (2014). We base our dialogue on the perspectives put forth in this book, and with a special emphasis on how his work ties into that of Arne Næss and deep ecology. Also, I’m glad to announce that Capra will be in Norway May 19, at the University of Nordland, Bodø. He will also conduct a 6-week teaching tour through Europe in relation to the publication of his book, so check his schedule for more information on this. Feel free to contribute with your own reflections below the interview, and please share this resource with people who might be interested.

(4:00) Ove Jakobsen and ecological economy
Connecting to the Norwegian context, Capra mentions his friendship with Professor Ove Jakobsen at the University of Nordland, Bodø. Jakobsen has been an important advocate for ecological economics, or circular economics, and it’s this dialogue and exploration they intend to investigate further when they meet in May. Capra points out that the ideas embedded in the systems view of life correspond in many ways to what Jakobsen has found out in his own field of study.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article and listen to the podcast…

Commentary on Bounding the Planetary Future: Why We Need a Great Transition

April 24, 2015

Commentary on Bounding the Planetary Future: Why We Need a Great Transition

“Planetary boundaries” research constitutes an important advance in our ability to identify and quantify the components of global overshoot. Permit me to suggest that all presentations on planetary boundaries should include a discussion of Liebig’s Law—an ecological truism that can be boiled down to “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link.” We don’t have to wait for all nine boundaries to be transgressed before global calamity threatens; all it takes to shred the ecosystem web is for one boundary to be breached far enough, long enough. Seen in that light, the fact that four out of nine identified boundaries are already far behind us should be cause for profound concern.

Nevertheless, Johan Rockström’s exposition follows the familiar and necessary formula: industrial civilization is propelling us toward planetary collapse, but there is still time to change civilization’s operating system so as to ensure survival and well-being for everyone, even as population continues to grow. I have used that formula in essays and lectures any number of times, and, each time I do, I catch myself feeling just a bit disingenuous. Yes, as public intellectuals, it is our job to prescribe the medicine we think will improve the patient’s (i.e., civilization’s) condition. But is our prescription really capable of curing the disease?

Let’s face it: our patient’s condition is worsening. Further, we have seen cases like this before (i.e., there have been previous civilizations that overshot their environment’s carrying capacity), and in all instances, the outcome was dire. Nevertheless, following the discursive formula, a hypothetical treatment is proposed, consisting of energy substitution, massive resource efficiency improvements, wealth redistribution, and global governance; though it has never been tried, it seems to be our only hope.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Adjusting the Fifth to a Finite Planet, Part II

March 19, 2015

Adjusting the Fifth to a Finite Planet, Part II

Editor’s Note: This is the second piece of a two-part post. You can read Part 1 here.

Among the avenues by which Takings case law could be adapted to the reality of a finite planet are these three:

One: Change the default by changing the definition of what constitutes a reasonable investment expectation. It is no longer reasonable for an individual to expect to profit from using property in ways that would destroy or diminish the property’s ability to provide ecosystem services to the public at large. Instead of the general public having to pay property owners the going market rate for land burdened by regulation–a rate that reflects the most intensive economic use of the land that can be imagined by infinite-growth-believing, financial-risk-taking optimists–land owners would have to compensate the general public when their acts diminish the flow of ecosystems services.

Two: Change the default by promulgating the notion of an ecological servitude. All property that abuts navigable waters in the U.S. is held under a navigational servitude: the public’s interest in maintaining navigable waters trumps the interests of waterfront property owners. As Justice Jackson put it in United States v. Willow River Power Co., “Rights, property or otherwise, which are absolute against all the world are certainly rare, and water rights are not among them.” Given the legitimate authority of government to pursue the public interest in establishing and maintaining navigable waters, he said, “private interest [in the disposition of waterfront property] must give way to a superior right, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that, as against [the public interest represented through] the Government, such private interest is not a right at all.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Land Literacy

January 5, 2015

Land Literacy

How many people could recognize an ecological wound if they saw one?

Could we tell a natural arroyo from an eroding gully? Could we tell if plant pedestaling was a sign of proper land function or a sign of erosion? If we recognized a headcut in a wet meadow, would we be able to deduce why it was there or where it originated? Could we tell if a channel was aggrading or degrading or why we should care?

This issue hit home for me years ago when I heard Dan Dagget, an environmental activist, tell a story about a professor of environmental studies he knew who took a group of students for a walk one day in the woods near Flagstaff, Arizona. Stopping in a meadow, the professor pointed at the ground and asked the students, not so rhetorically, “Can anyone tell me if this land is healthy or not?” After a few moments of awkward silence, one student finally spoke up. “Tell us first if it’s grazed by cows or not,” he demanded.

The implication was clear: if cows grazed here, the land had to be unhealthy. If cows did not graze there, then things were “natural” and therefore fine. Dan’s point was that the actual condition of the land, visible as signs of health or ill-health, had become secondary to the political positions of the observers. The point that stuck with me over the years, however, was this one: we’ve become mostly land illiterate.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Radical experiment in land regeneration at Western Australia’s Wooleen Station proves successful – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

November 24, 2014

Radical experiment in land regeneration at Western Australia’s Wooleen Station proves successful – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation).

As drought tightens its grip on Western Australia, one young couple’s radical experiment in land regeneration has survived years of next to no rain.

David Pollock and Frances Jones manage Wooleen Station, a half-million acre property in the Murchison Rangelands, seven hours’ drive north of Perth.

Eight years ago, at age 27, Mr Pollock inherited the family’s pastoral lease.

Having observed the property’s decline due to drought and decades of over-grazing, he took the radical move of destocking all cattle from the station.

Intent on “nursing the property back to health”, he also turned off all man-made watering points to reduce kangaroo and wild goat populations, and built infrastructure and earthworks to replicate natural ecosystems.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Are We Hard-Wired to Think We Can Grow Forever? « Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy

October 31, 2014

Are We Hard-Wired to Think We Can Grow Forever? « Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy.

Humanity is an irrational lot, prone to denial and short-termism. If rational arguments were primary catalysts for social change, perhaps a steady state economy would already be a reality. Research in behavioural economics and cognitive psychology is beginning to help us understand why human beings don’t always make decisions that are in their best interests. Can we overcome our irrational, maladapted mental hard-wiring to thrive in a post-growth future?

Trailblazing behavioural economists like Daniel Kahneman have discovered that human beings are highly irrational creatures prone to delusion, cynicism, and short-termism. In ecological economics, Bill Rees has argued that our mental genetic presets have hard-wired us for overconsumption and ecological doom. And now, according to a new theory by Ajit Varki and Danny Brower, perhaps it all stems from an overarching psychological predisposition to denial.

In ecological terms, denial might be characterized as the failure to accept the deleterious consequences of economic growth in favour of accepting comfortable fictions that reinforce the status quo. Head-scratching environmentalists often use the word “denial” to reference the irrational “climate change deniers,” who accept the science of familiar things like internal combustion engines, modern appliances, or GDP growth, yet are dismissive of climate science and planetary boundaries. Why are human beings so good at denial?

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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