Comments on: “Energy Crisis” Vs. Rewilding

By: ’s no business like snow business « Rugged Indoorsman

’s no business like snow business « Rugged Indoorsman — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 22:44:35 +0000

[...] All of this tells me that our version of capitalism can never have a day off; that we, as slaves to it, must continue to grow this thing which we call ‘our economy’ (no matter how few of its ‘benefits’ we receive) as fast as we possibly can. Any time we take out of this endless grind will be measured in the hard currency of what we could have accomplished – of all the living systems we could have killed and turned into exploitable ‘resources’ – under ‘ideal conditions’. I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to say this in so many words, but fuck the growth economy. It is using us to kill the planet, and after driving us to the point of desensitised exhaustion it will finish by destroying us in the same process. I’m with Urban Scout when he says: The only crisis that matters is the Ecological Crisis. This crisis only exists because we have an economy and energy. The economic crisis means the end of growth, which means the end of excessive consumption which means the [beginning] of the end of the ecological crisis. (link) [...]

By: Feral Arrow

Feral Arrow — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:29:05 +0000

We have to start developing a landscape based land ethic that uses fire to manage for biodiversity. We can, with enough traditional knowledge, supply for all of our needs with knowledge of local flora and fauna. I began the Society of Ethnobiology last year here at the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point to educate people about the need for us to develop our sense of biophillia; or love for the natural world.

I believe that this attachment can only come from people with a direct connection with the biota living around them. The reason that we are losing biodiversity on a massive scale is because we no longer rely on native plants and animals for our well-being, not because we are exploiting the land through agriculture (though that is the root of the destruction). Native cultures modified the landscape on a massive scale through fire, pruning, and broadcasting/sowing seed, but this management vies for diversity, unlike the totalitarian agriculture that is practiced today (monoculture).

Sam Thayer, a very astute ethnobotanist living in northern Wisconsin, visits our campus every year to speak about wild edible plants. Fifty percent of Sam’s diet consists of wild edibles and most of the rest is produced either in his garden or by a farmer that he knows personally. Even in NORTHERN WISCONSIN…a place that has a relatively short growing season, one can augment a large percentage of one’s diet with native plants. His book, “The Foragers Harvest” is the definitive guide for wild edibles in the Midwest/Great Lakes region.

I have been collecting everything from milkweed sprouts for food to indian hemp for cordage. As Kat Anderson points out in “Tending the Wild”, the california indian elders say that environmental destruction is ongoing because we no longer interact with local biota; that the plants “miss us”.

We need to create “Ethnobiological Parks” throughout the US and show people the meaning of sustainability and the true meaning of liberty. People would have to first have to be certified in some way to be able to partake in its management, i.e apprenticeship, and would be required to live on-site. This could also be done privately if enough individuals had the traditional knowledge required for this sort of undertaking. There could be an on-site school that eases one into this new way of living. These kinds of parks would be absolutely essential for this kind of “awakening”. Call it the “Second Renaissance” , call it the “Green Revolution”, call it what you like, but I call it going back home.

-Aaron

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 05:13:35 +0000

Haha! Speaking of “bullshit crisis”, I found a strange but hilarious video about “crisis”.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GagZMdqpP1M

By: incendiary_dan

incendiary_dan — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 00:28:04 +0000

Oh yea, and how that was supposed to tie into your entry is that OH so many of them kept arguing for “green” technologies and corporations’ supposed wildlife protection programs.

By: incendiary_dan

incendiary_dan — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 00:26:33 +0000

FIRST COMMENT! Whoo! (only because I pointed out WordPress’s mistake)

I’ve recently come up against people adamantly refusing to accept that civilization destroying the natural world isn’t worth it. The most saddening and angering part was that it was a group of so-called pagans who profess to, at the very least, revere natural forces. Nobody wants to consider that civilization doesn’t actually make our lives better, don’t want to get out of their progressivist mindset long enough to see their lives suck.

Suddenly, the lengths people will go to protect their psyches from feelings of guilt and shame are a lot more obvious to me than they ever were studying psychology in college, so much so they’re willing to betray manners, ethics, and as Derrick Jensen points out, are sometimes even willing to kill to protect their psyche from other worldviews.

Or in short: Fuck, we’re outnumbered.