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There was a time I used to think I was doing my part by recycling. I did not know then, this stuff gets ship overseas to be dumped, or that it often gets burned. Or that the ethics of recycling was a result of clever marketing by the corps involved to shift this burden onto individuals. I grew up with it and recycling made be feel as if I was doing my part to help save the planet without really ever considering a change in the way of life. This is exactly what I am seeing with the messaging around “climate change” and “carbon emissions” and “carbon credits”. It allows people to continue with the way of life they are used to and feel good about doing their part. When I say “get connected with the local ecosystem”, I am not espousing a hippie view. Part of our modern way of life insulates us from really understanding at an instinctual and bodily level, what it means to be a part of an ecosystem or a community. I mean it literally: many people do not actually know what it is like to eat an apple off a tree, let alone a relationship with that particular tree, and all the birds, bees, worms, fungi, and microbes involved with that apple. I don’t know how to say this any more literally and directly. Advocating for “doing something about CO2/warming” is so far away from getting your hands dirty, and knowing at a deep level, that this is our home, and we’re not the only ones living here, and that the land can very well provide healthy food, and our actions directly
impacts the land around us. Oh and as for warming — the Soviets were able to adapt warm-weather fruit bearing trees, and we can do the same. There are plenty of heat-hardy edible plants, if we are willing to go beyond the small handful of monocropped “food” we have standardized on. We can try using industrial scale solutions, but we are just kicking the can down the road. It is our way of seeing the world around us that lead us here. |