A great read as usual. Especially cool that you did not devolve into speculation on our "doomed" planet. With that observation, I'll do just that.
Your garden and millions more like it are salvation. Your gardening does not count carbon atoms in a tiny linear segment of a worldwide cycle. Rather, it embraces that carbon cycle, feeds humans, and places them in, not outside, Gaia's natural system. We have certainly altered Gaia's system through technology combined with linear thinking. For instance, we ignored the roll of living soil in the carbon cycle as we addressed the last global crisis of the 1950's; feeding an upward trending population that we assumed would always be upward trending (linear thinking). The Haber Bosch process, (N fertilizer for the green revolution) along with herbicides and pesticides killed our soils and with them the carbon and water cycles they sustained. One third to 1/2 of the carbon in our atmosphere came from, and can be put back into, our soils. Carbonless soils don't hold water, which is a much more potent green house gas than CO2. Waterless soils can't grow plants that photosynthesize (remove atmospheric carbon). Wow, that is sounding cyclical.
If we can somehow realize that our Goldilocks zone of habitation is alive due to self sustaining cycles that humans are part of, we can move forward. This will entail dropping our infatuation with counting carbon atoms and cow farts. Instead, we can focus on regenerating Gaia's cycles of life, death, and decomposition. No need for the 1st world to escape to Mars, or wreck economies and move third world countries back to the dark ages of human suffering. Rather, a dose of systems thinking, and a side dish of food grown from living soil are the antidote.
Cheers,
Grady
PS: Don't be surprised if a few ribeyes fall at your door step from a Mars bound space ship or a UPS truck.
To Grady (the substack UI has a bug that wouldn't let me reply).
Thanks for commenting (and subscribing)! I'm flattered and honored, my friend.
One of the things I preach constantly in my gardening group is the folly of "point solutions" to just about anything. I suppose you might think of these as specific instances of the linear thinking that you discuss. I'm not sure how many people get what I'm trying to convey -- not that it's particularly deep or profound. It's just frustrating that our system trains people into the delusion that we can cherry pick our targets within ridiculously complex systems, and those systems will somehow read our mind, only adjusting what our minds want to adjust. Obviously, the world doesn't work that way -- gardens certainly don't. To me, this is magical thinking at its worst, despite all pretenses to the contrary. But most people want simple fixes, never quite catching up to the fact that yesterday's simple fix caused today's new set of problems. And the irony of ironies is that the true remedies to most garden issues are also generally simple. They just require some time and patience.
I'm sure some of the proponents of other worldly colonization would argue their vision houses humans within a domed, artificial but Earth-like replication of our environment situated on the surface of Mars or the moon. I'm also sure the authenticity of the experience of truly "being" in communion with an unadulterated space is not high if even present on their wish lists. Their loss. The moment any of this new tech era space relocation manages to materialize, the Zen-like yen for true experience will fuel a reciprocal Luddite era for those of us voluntarily Earth-bound.
It might not matter. What the Musks of the world think they know is that our home planet we've evolved to inhabit may soon be incapable of sustaining us. So they're mapping their escape plan. The Twilight Zone revival in the 1980s covered this convincingly, if not prophetically, and we can in real time now witness the billionaire bro aristocracy revving their engines. The plan doesn't include us, and I only wish the joke were on them. But as you suggest, their misplaced investments could be rectifying some of what's tarnishing our native Earth's appeal. Instead, they will forge ahead plundering natural resources, intensifying climate chaos, denying the urgency, and even manipulating what passes for "truth" while climbing into their escape hatch. Or, in the words of Joseph Conrad, "[climbing] upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind."
Sorry to go so dark. Before your post I glanced at the news.
Thanks, Tom, for maintaining your perspective and sense of humor.
A great read as usual. Especially cool that you did not devolve into speculation on our "doomed" planet. With that observation, I'll do just that.
Your garden and millions more like it are salvation. Your gardening does not count carbon atoms in a tiny linear segment of a worldwide cycle. Rather, it embraces that carbon cycle, feeds humans, and places them in, not outside, Gaia's natural system. We have certainly altered Gaia's system through technology combined with linear thinking. For instance, we ignored the roll of living soil in the carbon cycle as we addressed the last global crisis of the 1950's; feeding an upward trending population that we assumed would always be upward trending (linear thinking). The Haber Bosch process, (N fertilizer for the green revolution) along with herbicides and pesticides killed our soils and with them the carbon and water cycles they sustained. One third to 1/2 of the carbon in our atmosphere came from, and can be put back into, our soils. Carbonless soils don't hold water, which is a much more potent green house gas than CO2. Waterless soils can't grow plants that photosynthesize (remove atmospheric carbon). Wow, that is sounding cyclical.
If we can somehow realize that our Goldilocks zone of habitation is alive due to self sustaining cycles that humans are part of, we can move forward. This will entail dropping our infatuation with counting carbon atoms and cow farts. Instead, we can focus on regenerating Gaia's cycles of life, death, and decomposition. No need for the 1st world to escape to Mars, or wreck economies and move third world countries back to the dark ages of human suffering. Rather, a dose of systems thinking, and a side dish of food grown from living soil are the antidote.
Cheers,
Grady
PS: Don't be surprised if a few ribeyes fall at your door step from a Mars bound space ship or a UPS truck.
See comment below -- The substack UI has a bug that won't let me post a longer reply here
To Grady (the substack UI has a bug that wouldn't let me reply).
Thanks for commenting (and subscribing)! I'm flattered and honored, my friend.
One of the things I preach constantly in my gardening group is the folly of "point solutions" to just about anything. I suppose you might think of these as specific instances of the linear thinking that you discuss. I'm not sure how many people get what I'm trying to convey -- not that it's particularly deep or profound. It's just frustrating that our system trains people into the delusion that we can cherry pick our targets within ridiculously complex systems, and those systems will somehow read our mind, only adjusting what our minds want to adjust. Obviously, the world doesn't work that way -- gardens certainly don't. To me, this is magical thinking at its worst, despite all pretenses to the contrary. But most people want simple fixes, never quite catching up to the fact that yesterday's simple fix caused today's new set of problems. And the irony of ironies is that the true remedies to most garden issues are also generally simple. They just require some time and patience.
I'm sure some of the proponents of other worldly colonization would argue their vision houses humans within a domed, artificial but Earth-like replication of our environment situated on the surface of Mars or the moon. I'm also sure the authenticity of the experience of truly "being" in communion with an unadulterated space is not high if even present on their wish lists. Their loss. The moment any of this new tech era space relocation manages to materialize, the Zen-like yen for true experience will fuel a reciprocal Luddite era for those of us voluntarily Earth-bound.
It might not matter. What the Musks of the world think they know is that our home planet we've evolved to inhabit may soon be incapable of sustaining us. So they're mapping their escape plan. The Twilight Zone revival in the 1980s covered this convincingly, if not prophetically, and we can in real time now witness the billionaire bro aristocracy revving their engines. The plan doesn't include us, and I only wish the joke were on them. But as you suggest, their misplaced investments could be rectifying some of what's tarnishing our native Earth's appeal. Instead, they will forge ahead plundering natural resources, intensifying climate chaos, denying the urgency, and even manipulating what passes for "truth" while climbing into their escape hatch. Or, in the words of Joseph Conrad, "[climbing] upward on the miseries or credulities of mankind."
Sorry to go so dark. Before your post I glanced at the news.
Thanks, Tom, for maintaining your perspective and sense of humor.
Perfect.