[Rod_Cloutier]

With all the talk about sustainability, resource over exploitation, impending ecological or social collapse; one has to wonder how did we get here?

The 'Eden' of a prisine Earth has not existed in the lifetime of anyone alive today. The Earth was overpopulated, overexploited, and human population was already in overshoot when anybody alive today was born. In short we were all born into lifestyles of unsustainablity.

As we grew up we were all taught the economic mantra of a strong work ethic, learned theories about growth and progress, and were socially conditioned by our parents, grandparents, teachers and so forth to accept the world as it is.

Now as if a global consciousness is slowly awakening to the fact that it was all a lie. Growth could not be sustained forever on a finite planet. Extinct species such as North American Cod cannot be brought back. We are all, already, living with the heritage of 150 years of burning fossil fuels that has slowly altered the climate we are embedded in. The responcibility has been placed on the shoulders of those alive today to deal with the unintended consequences of overshoot, overexploitation, and potential collapse.

The world's problems are largely caused by resource over use, but the solutions suggested time and again is to produce more growth to increase the resources to deal with various crisises, when growth itself will only worsen the situation.

So how do we the living, deal with being born into a culture of unsustainability? Deal with impending collapse? Deal with a inhertance of both vast social and personal wealth, all of which has been produced at the expense of the long term sustainability?

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Repent', '
')
So how do we the living, deal with being born into a culture of unsustainability, deal with impending collapse, deal with a inhertance of both vast social and personal wealth, all of which has been produced at the expense of the long term sustainability?

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '
')By learning and implementing different ways to live.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '
')Yes, hopefully a way to live that doesn't require a 90+% population cull.

[Narz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', '
')Yes, hopefully a way to live that doesn't require a 90+% population cull.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Narz', '
')This will require a major cull.

[mos6507]

I'd say if we're going to have a controlled descent with population, we better the hell start seeing a pardigm shift pretty soon. Gaia's already putting on the brass knuckles and I'm not sure it's even possible to avoid a "major cull" even if we do all the right things.

[hillsidedigger]

Inadverdant endocrine disruption caused by the world's mounting volumes of human generated toxins seems to be the only mechanism that will bring human fertility rates way down.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', 'G')aia's already putting on the brass knuckles and I'm not sure it's even possible to avoid a "major cull" even if we do all the right things.

[Comp_Lex]

Maybe the controlled descent can be implemented like how it is implemented in the fictional future of Demolition Man. Has anyone seen this movie? It stars Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes.

[shortonsense]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Comp_Lex', 'M')aybe the controlled descent can be implemented like how it is implemented in the fictional future of Demolition Man. Has anyone seen this movie? It stars Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes.

[davep]

There's plenty of room on the huge tracts of land currently used for industrial agriculture.

A bit of tender loving care by people looking after their 10 acres (or far less for market gardeners) will produce at least as much as we do now. It's the transition including the need for soil building, proper biodiversity, water management and attitude shifting that worry me. It can be done, but we all need to help show the way forward.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', 'T')here's plenty of room on the huge tracts of land currently used for industrial agriculture.

A bit of tender loving care by people looking after their 10 acres (or far less for market gardeners) will produce at least as much as we do now. It's the transition including the need for soil building, proper biodiversity, water management and attitude shifting that worry me. It can be done, but we all need to help show the way forward.

[Comp_Lex]

Ah you guys haven't seen the movie, otherwise you would have known the explanation of Bullock's character of how she could become pregnant. (Hint: It's even "better" than China's one child policy)

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', '[')
I guess I have a problem with the use of the word "cull" in this context.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Comp_Lex', 'M')aybe the controlled descent can be implemented like how it is implemented in the fictional future of Demolition Man. Has anyone seen this movie? It stars Sylvester Stallone and Wesley Snipes.

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mos6507', ' ')Please don't be so literal.

[mos6507]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('davep', 'T')here's plenty of room on the huge tracts of land currently used for industrial agriculture.

A bit of tender loving care by people looking after their 10 acres (or far less for market gardeners) will produce at least as much as we do now. It's the transition including the need for soil building, proper biodiversity, water management and attitude shifting that worry me. It can be done, but we all need to help show the way forward.

[Rod_Cloutier]

Mos6507 has it exactly right. How do you get people back to the land? I plant a garden each year. Other than pumpkins, the only other things I seem to be able to grow are weeds. I would starve as a farmer. (although dandylion leaves are edible- I could potentially farm weeds??)

I was born in 1970 in an urban city. My grandfather had raised a family of 6 girls, (including my mother) as a clerk at the post office. My grandmother was a stay at home mom. My mother started working at the post office, then later became a teacher. My father was a warehouse worker when he was young, but now in old age is hotel clerk. I've worked most of my life in the trucking industry. I was born into industrial life. Becoming a farmer was never in the works. I don't know anyone who farms for a living.

Out of the spirit of making changes to prepare for a different future, I recently bought a book called 'Gardening when it counts'. I will read it, but that is no guarantee that I will ever have any success in farming. I looked at the cost of buying local land. The smallest farms, (all sold with a house on the property), start at $500,000 dollars, and that is in remote regions away from all services. The price of land goes up and up,in areas bordering towns and cities.


Assuming I could win the lottery, purchasing land would be at the top of my 'to do' list, otherwise I don't have a hope in hell of ever becoming a farmer. As the post is titled- I was born into unsustainablity.