Hunter-gather societies are have a virtually infinite sustainability IF and only IF you have the following: 1) unrestricted area to move around in so you can take a bit here and a bit there and never destroy any one resource in an area 2) You keep the number of people in your group small and highly mobile as the larger the group, the harder it is to sustain it easily while on the go 3) You can live simply and don't require complex advanced technologies 4) You don't have an on-going catastrophic event like highly unseasonable weather which forces you to remain in a fixed area to survive.
The problem we have today is that we have way too many humans for the area we can live in. Unless we eliminate a substantial portion of the human population, we cannot live as true hunter-gatherers. If we focus on intensive manual agriculture to support local inhabitants, we might, just might support a good number of our exisiting populations.
However, the Easter Islanders and the Maya are examples of cultures who destroyed their environments to the point that their cultures were forever altered and weakened.
How I know things like this is I was an anthropology major in college and pondered the implications of the human past on our future.
I am not an environmentalist per se, but I am a hunter, a learning homesteader and a rural country denizen. I know that we cannot preserve the world, rather we can be wise stewards and conserve our resources and consume wisely. However, the majority of Americans, and other first world residents, probably will have a difficult time trying to do that. Most of the modern world is out of touch, step and harmony with the natural order of things. To most the planet is a cash cow to be endlessly milked. For me, it is our great Mother, our origin and our terminus. What we do to the planet we do to ourselves.
I consume as little as I can and try to make wise use of what I do consume. I grow a garden, raise goats, sheep, chickens, guinea fowl, turkeys and ducks. I use firewood to heat with and that is mostly taken from seasonal deadfalls.
I do my small part for the world and my area, but I don't finger-point at others. I may not agree with how others live, but in the end, I can only lead by example and I do what I can to be a good example to follow. If others follow my lead, so be it. If they don't, that is their choice.
PeakOil is You
environmentalists
My observations
by mohomesteading » Fri 04 Mar 2005, 23:24:40
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Re: My observations
by mgibbons19 » Fri 04 Mar 2005, 23:58:25
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mohomesteading', 'T')o most the planet is a cash cow to be endlessly milked. For me, it is our great Mother, our origin and our terminus. What we do to the planet we do to ourselves.
Dude, with all due respect, and in good fun I must point out that you are a flaming cheeseball.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '.')..but I don't finger-point at others.
Which is kinda different than the statement above.
I'm just picking on you. You do sound like you live a decent life, but you gotta watch out for "most people" statements.
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by smallpoxgirl » Sat 05 Mar 2005, 00:39:50
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnDenver', 'O')kay, but how do you get from point A to point B?
Well...I don't think we're going to get from point A to point B. I think we're going to keep running as fast as we can away from point B. I think we are going to run straight off the cliff without even slowing down.
If we were going to make it from point A to point B, the first step, IMHO, would be to take some hard serious steps to address our over population. Taxing people...say $1000 per year for each child instead of giving them tax credits for having kids would be a good start. We would make contraception and abortion services easily available and free of charge. We would give people a $10,000 check for getting a vasectomy or tubal ligation. To reverse a tubal ligation or vasectomy would require a court order and repayment of the credit. For every year that a woman had an IUD in place, she would get a $1000 credit on her taxes. Our goal would be to have zero children born for the next 15 years. Anyone concieving a child would be veiwed as selfish and reckless and shunned by the community.
The government would start to foster sustainable living. A new amendment to the constitution would be passed garanteeing the right to live sustainably without government infringement. Instead of gaint agrobuisiness corporations, the government would start giving money to community groups to create local self-sustaining agriculture. We would have a "war on wastefull housing" with the federal government giving 10 billion dollars to local community groups to develop and build sustainable housing options. The prices of petroleum products and electricity would be increased to reflect the true price of those items without government subsidies. The military would be disbanded and the arms distributed to individual citizens. Anything not deemed safe to trust in the hands of ordinary citizens (e.g. nuclear bombs) would be destroyed. Eventually the federal government would be disbanded all together. Control would return to the states, then to the towns.
We would work on disconecting ourselves from the global infrastructure. Sales tax would be calculated based on the number of miles a product traveled from producer to consumer. All products would be taxed 1% for every 20miles of travel. A product that traveled 5000miles would therefore carry a 250% tax. There would be an immediate and complete moratorium on spending for road construction or repair. We would work on disconecting sections of the electric grid, with the ultimate goal of each house producing it's own power. Same for the water and sewer grids.
Mind you, I don't think there is a snowball's chance that those things will happen. We will keep partying till the last McDonald's closes and we will wake up with one heck of a hangover. It's gonna be ugly, 'cause we're going to keep being stupid.
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by MonteQuest » Sat 05 Mar 2005, 22:01:30
Let's have a little clarity here. Environmentalism is the promotion of the conservation and recuperation of the natural world. Also it is known as conservationism, or Green Politics.
A conservationist is a person who is worried about the environmental deterioration.
The usurpation of terms related to the science of Ecology has caused an absurd confusion with regard to what is scientific matter in environmentalism and what is outright non-scientific matter, or outright antiscientific stuff. Let us see the real meaning of the grabbed terms and how they should be correctly applied:
Labels, which are identical for two classes of environmentalists, should not confuse us: activists or radical environmentalists and science-based environmentalists are two opposite classes of conservationists.
There is an enormous divergence among the radical environmentalism and the scientific environmentalism, mainly by the foundations upon which both groups are based. Often, the activists are not established on science, but are diametrically opposed to science, so in form as in objectives.
Besides, we should not use the name "Ecology" to identify "Environmentalism", nor vice versa. Ecology is the branch of Biology that studies the relations among the living beings and their environment, while environmentalism is a campaign in favor of environment.
The same thing occurs with the terms "Ecologist" and "Environmentalist". Ecologist is a scientist dedicated to the study of Ecology, while Environmentalist is a person worried about the deterioration of the Environment.
Wholesale bashing of "environmentalists" is an expression of outright ignorance. It's like calling all cops bad cops.
A conservationist is a person who is worried about the environmental deterioration.
The usurpation of terms related to the science of Ecology has caused an absurd confusion with regard to what is scientific matter in environmentalism and what is outright non-scientific matter, or outright antiscientific stuff. Let us see the real meaning of the grabbed terms and how they should be correctly applied:
Labels, which are identical for two classes of environmentalists, should not confuse us: activists or radical environmentalists and science-based environmentalists are two opposite classes of conservationists.
There is an enormous divergence among the radical environmentalism and the scientific environmentalism, mainly by the foundations upon which both groups are based. Often, the activists are not established on science, but are diametrically opposed to science, so in form as in objectives.
Besides, we should not use the name "Ecology" to identify "Environmentalism", nor vice versa. Ecology is the branch of Biology that studies the relations among the living beings and their environment, while environmentalism is a campaign in favor of environment.
The same thing occurs with the terms "Ecologist" and "Environmentalist". Ecologist is a scientist dedicated to the study of Ecology, while Environmentalist is a person worried about the deterioration of the Environment.
Wholesale bashing of "environmentalists" is an expression of outright ignorance. It's like calling all cops bad cops.
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
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by Liamj » Sat 05 Mar 2005, 22:51:09
i'm glad theres some moderates voices on this thread, so i don't have to be.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnDenver', 'E')nvironmentalism is something you think about when you're not hungry. History shows that hungry, poor people will totally ravage the environment to survive. Furthermore, concern for the environment is high in rich countries, and low in poorer countries (China, Brazil). Environmentalism is directly proportional to wealth. If you want to protect the environment, you've got to pull people out of the poverty which leads them to destroy the environment.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnDenver', 'E')nvironmentalism is something you think about when you're not hungry. History shows that hungry, poor people will totally ravage the environment to survive. Furthermore, concern for the environment is high in rich countries, and low in poorer countries (China, Brazil). Environmentalism is directly proportional to wealth. If you want to protect the environment, you've got to pull people out of the poverty which leads them to destroy the environment.
What nonsense, as usual a whitey is just projecting his autistic world view. Ever heard of Friends of the Earth, globes largest & most integrated 'environmental' (+social justice) organisation with hundreds of thousands of active members on all continents, mostly in the majority world. Ever heard of the Chipco movement, >century ago Indian women using NVDA to prevent clearing of forests they relied upon for survival? Didja know Australian Abo's first objected to wasteful british habits 10 days after Cook arrived in Oz (1788)?
I'll bet you didn't, because you're not interested, because you'd rather fabricate or accept unthinkingly the prejudiced and oh so convenient lies pumped out by the propaganda machine of the victors.
Environmentalism as defined by mailouts and rallies is sure a 1st world luxury, but thats only cos we've been trained to object 'appropriately' (read ineffectually) to the theft & destruction of what once was held in common. In the majority world they object and struggle every step of the way, and suffer violence, indifference and death for it.
RIGHT NOW in Columbia autonomous communities descended from freed slaves are being moved off their selffounded (>100yrs ago) community lands (with functioning polycultures) to make way for a BHP-Billiton coal mine (6 dead so far in a community i know of). Will we burn their bodies along with the coal to generate more electricity so we can write more lies about how selfish THEY are? Maybe i'm having a bad day but this profound and so-convenient ignorance makes me want to puke.
Note JDs last line "If you want to protect the environment, you've got to pull people out of the poverty which leads them to destroy the environment ", peddling the obscene meme that if only those poor folks would just sell us MORE of their timber, food/soil/water, oil, gems etc etc then they'd be rich enough to repair the damage of doing same.
Shame that doing so to the point where NO timber/food/oil left doesn't seem to have worked for an increasing number of countries that are giving us good working models of overshoot (e.g. Haiti, Ethopia, Solomon Islands, ...).
Reminds me of the definition of a 'basket case' country not deserving further 'foreign aid' or 'development funding': NOTHING LEFT TO STEAL. (coutesy of official in Aus's Dept of Foriegn Affairs, 3 beers in.)
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