Feral Philosophy

I don’t like permaculture. I can practically hear the gasps of shock. I can almost see the looks of both perplex and anger. How could I not like permaculture? Is that even allowed? Isn’t liking permaculture mandated by some great god of environmentalism?

I never quite liked permaculture. I wanted to like it. I did my best to like permaculture. I read the books. I listened to the groovy talk. I just couldn’t get excited about it. Something about permaculture just rubbed me the wrong way. I decided to puzzle out what it is that I don’t like about permaculture, and that is what this post is about.

Permaculture, for those who don’t know, is a field of study, a set of practices, a way of life, and very nearly a religion that promotes, among other things, perennial polyculture. Many descriptions of permaculture refer to it as sustainable agriculture, which is, to my way of seeing things, a contradiction in terms. In fact, the term permaculture itself means permanent agriculture, which, again, seems like an impossibility to me. There are many other aspects to permaculture beyond just the growing of food. However, growing food is at the foundation of permaculture, and it seems fair to talk about permaculture in those terms.

I ought to first state that I have no problem with perennial polyculture. What I do have a problem with is the attitude with which permaculture goes about growing perennial polyculture. What I have a problem with is the types of relationships that permaculture perpetuates. As far as I’m concerned permaculture does not challenge the fundamentally flawed and dangerous energetics of civilization. Even if permaculture is more harmonious than standard agricultural practices, it seems to me that it leads to the same eventual demise, at least in a spiritual sense.

The relationships of civilization, from what I can see, are relationships of domination. Within the framework of civilization our human relationships are relationships of domination. Even the healthiest of human relationships still has occasional grapples for power. Even our relationships with ourselves are ones in which we seek to control our minds and bodies through prayer, clothing, exercise, meditation, and millions of other practices. Our relationships with other animal species are ones in which we dominate. Just look at zoos, vivisection labs, factory farms, fur farms, dog breeders, work horses, race horses, and every other exhibit of our relationships with other species of animal to see evidence of that. Our relationships with plants are ones in which we dominate. We breed, genetically-modify, plant in rows, clearcut, plant in containers, and decide which are good and which are unwanted. We also seek to dominate rivers and mountains as is evidenced by dams and mountaintop removal mining. Civilization seems to know no limits on its desire to control. The U.S. space program recently announced that they would bomb the surface of the moon for scientific study.

We can see the results of this type of relationships. The results are devastating. The most egregious and horrific results are those that we can see all around us, the fact that our home and our loved ones are being killed. Many rivers no longer reach their deltas. Those that do reach their deltas manage to carry sediment and industrial and agricultural toxins to the oceans, creating dead zones where nothing can live. Fisheries are collapsing world-wide. Two thousand miles of waterways in the Appalachian region no longer even exist because they have been covered over by the rubble from mountaintop mining. African elephants may go extinct within fifteen years. Glaciers are melting at alarming rates. Oil spills are endemic. An area twice the size of Nebraska turns to desert every year. Landfills are leaching toxins into groundwater. I could go on for hours with examples.

The way I see it the way that civilization teaches and requires us to see relationships is completely wrong and not an accurate representation of the truth. Civilization teaches us that the world in which we live is a world in which the inherent qualities are scarcity and competitiveness. Civilization teaches us that we must dominate or be dominated, that our very survival depends on getting for ourselves at the expense of others. But that seems counter to what I observe in reality. When I look at what is actually going on I see a world that is abundant and nurturing. That is not to say that violence and danger don’t exist in the natural world. They do. But civilization seems to exaggerate the claims of violence and danger in order to manipulate people into an incorrect and distorted worldview.

We’re taught to fear the natural world. We’re taught that the only way humans can survive is through subduing the natural world. Unless we dominate, we’re told, we will live lives of terror, constantly battling against those who would kill us. But that seems incorrect to me. Consider the animals that we’re supposed to fear. Wolves, bears, lions, snakes, alligators, and panthers, to name a few. The solution to the fear according to civilization is to kill these animals. But isn’t the fear exaggerated? Will a wolf or a bear attack a human for no reason? I’m not an expert on wolves or bears. However, I’d have to say that it seems very unlikely to me that either would attack humans unprovoked. They might attack if they felt endangered by a human. Or they might attack if extraordinarily hungry. But under average circumstances I’m guessing that a wolf or bear would just as rather have nothing to do with a human. And the fact of the matter is that prior to the advent of civilization humans lived alongside these other animals for hundreds of thousands of years without having to dominate nor be dominated.

If civilized humans and their relationships have managed to bring the entire world to the edge of total collapse in just a few thousand years then it seems to me that we really need to re-examine the way in which civilization has taught us to relate at a very fundamental level. Comparatively, uncivilized humans lived for hundreds of thousands of years while contributing to the health of the world in which they lived. Perhaps we could look to the way in which the uncivilized relate in order to learn a better way to understand ourselves and the world in which we live.

Since I am not indigenous, nor do I have much first-hand knowledge of indigenous human cultural views, I may be mistaken in my understanding of how indigenous human cultures view themselves in relationship with others. However, it is my understanding that many indigenous humans see those they are in relationship with as allies, ancestors, and friends. I have read accounts in which indigenous people of North America talk about plants and animals as their ancestors. I have read accounts of indigenous people from all many different places around the world in which they describe their understanding of the world as being a place that gives and nourishes, and a place that they have a relationship with in which they desire to give and nourish in return.

What bothers me about permaculture is that in my experiences with permaculture and permaculturists there seems to be an unchallenged fundamental way of seeing relationships that is still entirely civilized. We’ve seen what the results are of that way of relationship.

A week or two ago I wrote about indigenousness. Since then I’ve noticed invasives much more than I had previously. Interestingly, my observations of invasives has caused me to reconsider what ought to be the response to invasives. When I wrote about indigenousness I sort of avoided addressing how to deal with invasives, though I hinted at the possibility of allowing them to integrate. Since then I’ve formed a different opinion. It seems to me that invasives need to be removed from the areas they have invaded.

In this modern globalized culture invasives are endemic. Drive across the United States and it is obvious. Some of the most obvious invasives to me are wheat, corn, cotton, cows, and horses. None of these are native to North America. Yet today they dominate the landscape, driving out indigenous species. It’s obvious that cows live today where buffalo once lived. It’s also odd that a place like Kentucky is known for horses when it ought to be known for the native forests and the indigenous species that lived in those forests. Iowa is synonymous with corn, though it ought to be synonymous with prairies.

What about cities? Cities are invasives as far as I’m concerned. There is nowhere in which cities are native. Yet today they scar the landscape everywhere, driving out indigenous species. Coyotes, wolves, buffalo, foxes, elk, moose, and many other North American species of animal are displaced and forced to near extinction (or extinction) because of invasive cities.

I’ve represented these invasives unfairly, though. It’s not the cows, the horses, the corn, the wheat, the cotton, or the cities that are the real invasives. In fact, without the support of humans it’s possible, maybe even probably, that these species would not be invasives because they would die in their non-native habitats. (Though there are wild horses that have managed in North America since they were introduced hundreds of years ago, which sort of undermines that argument as far as horses are concerned. However, with healthy predator populations it’s possible that might change. In either case, it seems very unlikely to me that corn, wheat, or cotton would exist throughout North America without human support.)

Are all humans in North America invasives? No. There are humans who lived indigenously in North America for thousands of years. It’s the civilized humans who are invasives. The solution is to remove the invasives. Through no fault of their own invasives will kill the indigenous. If you were to introduce a non-native insect to a new habitat where the temperature is ideal, where food is available, and where there are no adapted predators then that insect will kill the indigenous, either directly or indirectly by competing unfairly for the food. It’s not the non-native insect’s fault. They are just doing what they are adapted to do. Likewise, it’s not the civilized human’s fault that they kill the indigenous. Civilized humans do what civilized humans are designed to do, which is to exploit, kill, pillage, plunder, and otherwise convert the living into the dead. You cannot teach the civilized human to be other than what they are just as you cannot teach the non-native insect species to limit their population and share equitably with the indigenous populations. The solution is to remove the invasives. We must remove civilized humans from their non-native habitats. (As far as I know there are no native habitats for civilized humans.) The implications there are far-reaching.

Chemical Sensitivity refers to hypersensitivity to many chemicals/pollutants. It’s something that the mainstream world generally rejects, often saying that it is psychosomatic, and that it’s a psychological disorder, not a physiological condition. Regardless, it’s something that adversely affects many people. It’s something that I experience. I’d like to make a few observations about it.

Chemical Sensitivity is just a way to talk about related experiences. There is no set of criteria that defines Chemical Sensitivity. Everyone who experiences hypersensitivity to chemicals has their own experiences, and I can’t talk about anyone else’s experiences. I can talk about my own experiences, though, which is what I will do.

There was no one pivotal point at which I started to be hypersensitive to chemicals. It has happened gradually over time. I can recall a time during which I did not feel particularly hypersensitive. There was a time, maybe ten years ago when I could walk through a department store or past a laundromat without feeling as though I just got pummeled. Over time I started to notice that there were certain things that were irritating to me that weren’t irritating to others. I started to notice that I could go into a room such as a meeting hall, and I would immediately know if someone in the room was wearing perfume even if no one else around me could tell. That was just the start, though. Over time my ability to tolerate synthetic perfumes decreased. Laundry illustrates the progression. Years and years ago I used to do laundry with synthetic detergents with synthetic perfumes. Eventually that bothered me, and I started doing laundry with non-synthetic detergents with non-synthetic perfumes (such as perfumes from plants.) That worked for a while. However, eventually I couldn’t tolerate doing my laundry in machines in which synthetically-perfumed detergent had been used just prior. I would have to run the washing machines once before washing my clothes, and then I would hang my clothes to dry. That worked for a while. However, eventually even just running the washing machine once before washing my clothes didn’t make it tolerable. I moved to places where I had my own washing machine. Then it got to a point where I couldn’t tolerate even the plant-based perfumes. I had to change to non-perfumed detergent.

That same sort of pattern has played out not only with laundry. I find that I can tolerate many places less and less. There are a few bookstores in the town where I recently lived. I couldn’t even go into one of the bookstores because there was a perfume of some sort that would make my face burn if I just walked into the store. There was one bookstore I would go into frequently, and I could tolerate it for the most part. However, it was a small store, and if anyone walked into the store wearing perfume I had to exit. You’d be surprised how often that happened.

I find that I cannot tolerate any synthetic perfumes, a lot of non-synthetic/plant-based perfumes if they are concentrated enough, propane, gasoline, kerosene, heating oil, chemical cleaning products, many “natural” cleaning products, new carpet, plywood, particle board, new laminate flooring, non-organic linens/bedding/clothing, paint, PVC, vinyl, a lot of plastic. If I have to get something new made of plastic I usually have to let it sit outside or in its own room for days or weeks before I can tolerate being around it.

What happens? It depends, though usually it consists of burning nose and eyes, difficulty breathing, and anxiety.

Could it be entirely psychosomatic? Perhaps. It’s possible. I don’t know. What I do know about it is that the experiences are real, and the results are real. I really don’t go to the perfumed bookstore. I really do avoid going near laundromats (I can smell a laundromat a quarter mile away.)

Hypersensitivity to chemicals results in a few things that you might not expect. One of the most significant results is that finding housing can be difficult. I’ve moved eight times since 2006. I lived in an apartment a few years ago that I couldn’t tolerate in part because of the shampoo belonging to the downstairs neighbor. That sounds ridiculous. Yet ridiculous or not, that was one of the things I couldn’t tolerate about that apartment. I recently lived in an apartment where despite my having done everything I could to seal everything I could find the upstairs neighbors’ cleaning product fumes would find their way into my apartment and the laundry perfumes from the basement would also find their way to my apartment.

For a lot of people with chemical sensitivities the housing issue gets increasingly difficult. There are plenty of stories of people moving from house to house, apartment to apartment, until they finally decide to move into an all-metal trailer that they pull with their car because it’s the only place they can be in for more than a few hours.

Is it psychosomatic? Maybe a better thing to ask is whether or not it is wrong to be intolerant of known toxins. Maybe rather than disregarding chemical sensitivities it would be better to see it as a warning. Maybe those who are chemically sensitive are like canaries in the mine (which is a terrible, yet very real image of exploitation.) Maybe rather than disregarding chemical sensitivity it would be better to ask how to remove the toxins. (A good start would be to stop making the toxins.)

This same criticism applies to those who are chemically sensitive too. Many people, when experiencing hypersensitivity to chemicals, do everything they can to try and get away from the chemicals in their own life. That is understandable. I entirely understand that. I already said that I have moved eight times in just a few years. When you feel as though you are being attacked it makes sense to try to get away from the attack. The issue I have with that (and I’m leveling this criticism at myself as well) is that just trying to get away from the attack doesn’t stop the attack. In fact, it just yields more ground to the attacker. Monsanto is killing us, and we’re running away. Eventually there will be nowhere to which we can run. What will happen then? Will there be enough of us, will there be enough time, will we have enough power to fight?

Yesterday I posted on this blog in the first time in months. I hadn’t read my blog in months either. After I published the post I re-read (rather, perused) a few of my earlier posts. I was rather embarrassed with a few of the things I had said in them. Since this is my blog I could go back and edit or delete previous posts if I wanted. However, that seems rather dishonest to me. It would feel as though I was re-writing history to make my historical self look the way I want rather than the way I was. Instead, I’ll keep the earlier posts as they were. However, I’d like to mention a few points about which I no longer agree with some of the things I had written months ago.

The thing that really stood out for me was that I actually referred to the United States government as “our” government, as though I actually acknowledged its legitimacy and right to rule, as if I accepted it as having legitimate power over me and the other inhabitants within the region known as the United States of America. That jumped out at me and felt painful to see that only months ago I would have said such a thing. I do not acknowledge any government’s legitimacy or right to rule, not over me and not over anyone else. I find that governments are inherently oppressive and destructive to life. Some are worse than others. Yet all are tyrannical, eventually seeking to impose their control over every aspect of the lives of those who live within their sphere of dominance. Even in a supposedly democratic republic such as the United States the government oppresses the vast majority of the humans, even those who vote. Plus there are many who cannot vote either because they are not old enough, because they have been deemed felons by the state, because they don’t want to be known/owned by the system, or because they are not acknowledged by the state as having sentience or the capacity to vote (meaning that as far as I know no governments accept the votes of white-tailed deer, black bears, cows, or turkey vultures, much less cedars, ferns, moss, or anyone else.) Governments have consistently shown that they will wield their power granted to them by the acquiescence of the majority, the votes and backing of the minority, and the relative powerlessness of the remainder, in order to destroy life. The United States government wields its power to consistently create and back policies of war of every sort. Wars against nations. Wars against humans through legal systems, economic systems, educational systems, and bureaucratic systems. Wars against wolves. Wars against forests. Wars against waterways. Wars. Wars. Wars. Wars.

That brings me to the next point, which is that I actually said that I felt that the U.S. government should wage peace, not war. While I don’t think I actually believed that was a possibility, I still feel it was naive to even have uttered such nonsense. Governments are for the purpose of waging war. That is what they do. They have no other purpose. They are running a racket. They just happen to usually have the best racket going, and everyone is too intimidated or bought off to do anything about it. Even if we don’t admit it to ourselves, or even if we cannot see it, that doesn’t mean the wars aren’t still be waged. Governments are about war.

In the same post I pointed out how in the calculations of average “carbon footprints” of people living even in the least developed countries are above sustainable levels. From that I then went on to say that we must each, and that I specifically must reduce my own “carbon footprint” to sustainable levels before I complain about anything else. I completely missed the point, though. The point is that we live in a world in which the dominant systems are forcing even those who don’t want to, to live in an unsustainable fashion. From that it should be obvious that the primary cause of unsustainability is not at an individual level. The primary cause is at a systems level. The primary cause is at the level of governments and corporations. I didn’t turn the Midwest into a poisoned, monocropped wasteland. Monsanto is much more responsible for that. That is, Monsanto, in cahoots with the federal and state governments, a few greedy agricultural corporations, and a bunch of universities (influenced by the funding they receive from Monsanto, agricultural corporations, and federal and state governments.) I can reduce my own carbon footprint to 0 and it won’t put a dent in the systems that are causing the unsustainability. While reducing my own carbon footprint might make me feel good about myself, it’s essentially a waste of time if I’m trying to improve things in the world.

There’s a myth of personal purity as salvation that too many of us have fallen into believing. I have. I still fall into believing it far too often. It’s not true, though. The idea is that if I personally reduce my carbon footprint or live my life in accordance with what I believe to be right and good then that is the only thing that is necessary. It’s not true. I can go live in the woods with nothing but my bare hands, creating no pollution personally, and the world will still be killed by the same systems that are killing it today. I might be able to feel better about myself. I might feel as though I’m personally pure. I might be able to feel that I’m better than everyone else. I can feel as though I have the answers. If everyone else just did as I did then everything would be okay. The point, though, is that everyone else won’t be doing as I did. Even if they did, it wouldn’t solve anything because individuals aren’t doing the killing. At least not individuals like you and me. The killing is being done by the individuals who perpetuate and run the governments and corporations that are killing. Personal purity isn’t going to solve anything. In fact, it’s probably just going to cause the personally pure to lose their friends because the personally pure are too smug and self-righteous. We don’t need smug and self-righteous. We need an end to the killing. To end the killing we must end the systems, not be more personally pure.

Another point is that there’s an irony in striving for personal purity while the systems still stand. Personal purity is actually impossible in such a scenario. The whole point of the systems is to turn everyone (every form of life) into a product, a commodity, a dead thing. Everyone wants to be personally pure by not driving or by shopping with canvas bags or whatever the case. What is it that is supporting everything necessary for us to live in a world where we have choices such as driving or taking public transportation, walking or biking, paper or plastic, plastic or canvas, urban or suburban? There are systems required for those choices. Things don’t just magically appear in stores. They are grown or manufactured and transported at a minimum. Even on the level of personal health it’s not possible to be personally pure while the systems still stand. I used to live in southern California. Consider what it means to be health conscious in southern California. It’s absurd. If you can’t see the absurdity in that then either you’ve never been to southern California or you’re a southern Californian. The point is that the entire situation in which we are living is unhealthy. We’re breathing toxic air and the water is toxic. We can’t reach personal purity while the systems still stand.

There’s a reason we believe in the myth of personal purity, though. There are at least two reasons, actually. One reason is the feeling of powerlessness. The second reason is propaganda. These two reasons are actually two side of the same reason. We feel powerless to stop the killing and the unhealthy situations. Instead, we turn to where we feel we do have power, which is the personal. Those feelings of powerlessness and the decision to focus on personal purity are encouraged by propaganda. The governments and corporations are motivated to encourage us to focus on personal purity because it takes focus away from that which is actually doing the killing. It shouldn’t be a surprise then that green is the new black. Governments and corporations want “environmental awareness” from the personal purity angle to be in vogue because it distracts us. They point in one direction and say “look.” We look in that direction while they go in the other direction to continue killing. Personal purity won’t solve anything.

As usual, I may well make a complete fool of myself in this post. I may make opinionated statements that serve only to demonstrate my ignorance. I may be offensive, though I certainly do not intend any offense. If what I say is offensive and ignorant I would gladly accept comments about that.

I’m an American-born, suburban-raised, middle-class, caucasian of European descent, and I will gladly fight to return North America to the indigenous inhabitants. By indigenous inhabitants I’m referring to the indigenous humans as well as the elk, caribou, woodchucks, elm trees, cedars, mycelia, bacteria, and every other living being indigenous to this region.

What does it mean to be indigenous? Some would argue that indigenous is a meaningless term since it every form of life moves from place to place, however quickly or slowly. According to those who would argue such things there are no indigenous humans in North America, for example, since they say that humans are native to the Middle East. However, I have a definition of indigenous that means something or someone who belongs to the place where they live (instead of seeing the place where they live as belonging to them,) someone who knows every detail of the place where they live and where the place that they live knows every detail about them, someone who is literally composed of the place where they live because every breath is of the place where they live, because they walk on the ground every day, and because their parents ate of the place and died in that place. Most importantly, though, to be indigenous, as far as I’m concerned, one must leave the place where one lives better when one dies. I’ll also add that as far as I’m concerned, indigenous beings also live extremely locally and their lives promote diversity (i.e. indigenous is the opposite of globalization.)

That’s just my opinion. That’s just my definition. You don’t have to agree with it. It’s just the basis of what I have to say in the blog post.

Because of the situation into which I was born, because I am of European descent in the Americas, because I was born into a middle-class suburban family, I will never be indigenous. It’s impossible. I can try as much as I want. It just wasn’t in the cards. I am not and cannot be indigenous. It’s a sad fact of modern life that most of us will never be indigenous. We can steal the names of the indigenous. We can go to sweat lodges. We can hang dream catchers in our cars. We can walk barefoot. We can live in yurts. We can do whatever we want. We’ll never be indigenous. We ought to stop trying. Instead, we ought to work to return North America (and everywhere else too, I’m just talking about North America since it’s where I live) to the indigenous inhabitants.

I have worked to try to get rid of the romantic and idealistic notions I have had about the indigenous inhabitants of North America, human or not. I understand that no one and especially no group will fit my idealized notions of how we should live. The point, though, is that my idealized notions of how we should live are of no value. What is of value is the actual living in such a way that leaves the world better for having lived. I understand that the indigenous human inhabitants of North America are a diverse group, and that some have histories of war, oppression, domestic violence, and other things which may not fit into my idealized notion of how we should live. Or maybe they don’t have such histories. I don’t know. It depends who you listen to and which way the trends in history happen to be moving when you’re listening. I don’t know, and I cannot know what the Lakota people did or did not do a thousand years ago.

What I can know, and what actually matters to those of us living today, is that the indigenous inhabitants of North America lived for tens of thousands of years (in case of human inhabitants) or much longer in this place, and their lives left the place in a condition such that more inhabitants could live here in the future. Their lives promoted diversity and health. Their lives gave life to the soil and to the waters.

When the Europeans invaded North America the continent was covered with a diversity of life. Only a few hundred years later North America has been pillaged, and the diversity has been reduced to uniformity across an entire continent. Today you can go to nearly any town or city or suburb or anywhere else in North America and find similar houses, apartment buildings, office parks, retailers, and schools. Monocrops replaced functioning eco-systems. Hundreds or thousands of human languages and cultures have been effectively replaced by just a few languages and one culture. Animals (other than humans) are allowable only if they are considered of value as a commodity or for production (or for entertainment or companionship.) Buffalo are replaced by cows. Waterways are put into “production” and sometimes rerouted entirely when deemed more suitable. The entire way of living of the culture into which I was born requires the killing of the place where we live. We, the non-indigenous, have no right to the place where we live. We kill with our every breath.

That is the reason I say that I will fight to return North America to the indigenous inhabitants. I will gladly dedicate myself to that which will leave me without a home, without a place to live. I will do that because it is right. I will do that because I am not indigenous, and the non-indigenous cannot stake a rightful claim to anything. The best the non-indigenous can do is fight on the side of the indigenous. We, the non-indigenous, are an invasive. It doesn’t matter how many generations have gone by. The reason it doesn’t matter is that even if hundreds of generations had gone by the actual result that we see today is that those of us who are non-indigenous are killing the place where we live. If hundreds of generations had gone by and we were no killing the place where we live then it might be different.

Some might argue that I’m not to blame for my parents’ and their parents’ and their parents’ crimes. In fact, as far as I can tell, my family didn’t directly invade North America. My mother’s family arrived from Germany just a few generations ago. My father’s family, as best anyone can tell, were poor rural people for many generations back. Before that, it would seem, my father’s family lived among the Cherokee, as Cherokee, for many generations. They were sent west on the Trail of Tears. Make no mistake, though, that does not make me indigenous. My father’s family is of European descent. Even had they not been of European descent, they renounced their Cherokee identities when the persecution was too great.

My family may not have directly invaded North America and stolen it from the indigenous inhabitants (killing many of the indigenous inhabitants.) However, I have indirectly gained much through the invasion. Everything that I have ever gotten in this modern world has been because of the invasion. I owe my life to those who have been oppressed and killed. That is reason enough for me to fight to return North America to the indigenous inhabitants.

Regardless, though, the point remains that when I walk, breath, or even when I merely sit in a house, my life is killing the place where I live. In tens of thousands of years or even hundreds of thousands of years the indigenous inhabitants of North America didn’t pave over an entire continent. They didn’t reroute waterways. They didn’t kill off nearly every other living being on the continent. They didn’t turn everything into a commodity. They didn’t build nuclear weapons.

Their lives made North America better. Their lives made the place in which they lived healthier.

I will fight to return North America to the indigenous inhabitants.

One thing that has really struck me recently is something that is incredibly obvious. It’s so incredibly obvious that it’s embarrassing to admit that I never really saw it before. What is so obvious is that humans are animals too. Sure, I knew that on a certain level, but I never fully understood what that means. This dawning knowledge is like waking from a dream…or more like shaking off a terrible nightmare. Just as when waking from a dream you realize that the dream was never “real”, so too I realize that all knowledge that preceded this dawning knowledge too was unreal and fabricated in imagination. And the dawning knowledge isn’t really about acquiring new knowledge as much as it is about rediscovering that knowledge that has always been there. It is knowledge that cannot be lost any more than one can lose one’s heart. It is inherent in one’s own life, but it can be ignored…to a point.

Like many people I was born into a culture that teaches and then continually reinforces the notion that while “scientifically-speaking” humans may *technically* be animals, there is something, nonetheless, which sets us apart from the rest of the animals, effectively making us greater than any other animal. I believe this is called brainwashing in most cases. It’s necessary to brainwash people to keep them voluntarily participating in a cult. This reminds me of a part of a letter Benjamin Franklin is said to have written that I’ve seen quoted before. (Note that I’m not endorsing Benjamin Franklin, his ideas, or his behavior. As far as I can tell he was one of the oppressors. But this particular letter does provide an interesting perspective.)

“[A]lmost all [the American Indians'] Wants are supplied by the spontaneous Productions of Nature, with the addition of very little labour, if hunting and fishing may indeed be called labour when Game is so plenty, they visit us frequently, and see the advantages that Arts, Sciences, and compact Society procure us, they are not deficient in natural understanding and yet they have never shewn any Inclination to change their manner of life for ours, or to learn any of our Arts; When an Indian Child has been brought up among us, taught our language and habituated to our Customs, yet if he goes to see his relations and make one Indian Ramble with them, there is no perswading him ever to return, and that this is not natural to them merely as Indians, but as men, is plain from this, that when white persons of either sex have been taken prisoners young by the Indians, and lived a while among them, tho’ ransomed by their Friends, and treated with all imaginable tenderness to prevail with them to stay among the English, yet in a Short time they become disgusted with our manner of life, and the care and pains that are necessary to support it, and take the first good Opportunity of escaping again into the Woods, from whence there is no reclaiming them. One instance I remember to have heard, where the person was brought home to possess a good Estate; but finding some care necessary to keep it together, he relinquished it to a younger Brother, reserving to himself nothing but a gun and a match-Coat, with which he took his way again to the Wilderness.”

To me this affirms my own observation, which is that the civilized way of life is unnatural and only accepted when no other option appears to be available. But it requires great and consistent brainwashing to keep civilians from defecting and living among the rest of the wild. During Benjamin Franklin’s time there were still many wild places to which one could escape, and there were still many wild people who could aid one in escaping civilization. There were still many wild people well-acquainted with their natural, animal, tribal, wild human identities, as part of and not separate from nature. (Please note that I do not use the term “wild” in the pejorative sense that many civilized people would intend it. I use wild as synonymous with natural, as synonymous with sane and balanced.) However, where might one go today if one wanted to escape civilization? I’ve thought about this. I don’t have an answer. All I know is that civilization has no power of its own. It feeds off the life force of those it has domesticated. Without our consent civilization has no power. It is a phantom. But this phantom uses our life force to brainwash us (and to destroy life, to destroy the wild, to turn life into death.) It uses everything it can to brainwash us. It knows its own existence is always on the verge of collapse if only enough of us see through its guise. If enough of us see that we are its slaves giving it power over us with no benefit to us then civilization loses. Therefore the propaganda machine must be strong, the primary use of our life force. This is the purpose of schools, television, newspapers, religions, politics, wars, everything. It’s all to keep us locked into the belief that civilization is good and necessary, that we are dependent on it. But the truth is exactly the opposite of that. We are not dependent on civilization. Civilization is dependent on us. Civilization doesn’t even exist as an independent thing. It is, in fact, merely a pathology of individual and collective humans. There is no such thing as civilization. Instead, there are people acting under the delusion, the hypnotic trance that says that they are civilized, part of something called civilization. Don’t get me wrong. While civilization doesn’t exist, as such, the effects of the delusion/psychosis are real enough. Ask the Lakota (those who remain.) Ask the forests (those that remain.) Ask the polar bears. Ask the halibut. As the Mississippi river. The effects are real. It’s just that it’s not what we think it is.

Later in the same letter Franklin continues with the following.

“The little value Indians set on what we prize so highly under the name of Learning appears from a pleasant passage that happened some years since at a Treaty between one of our Colonies and the Six Nations; when every thing had been settled to the Satisfaction of both sides, and nothing remained but a mutual exchange of civilities, the English Commissioners told the Indians, they had in their Country a College for the instruction of Youth who were there taught various languages, Arts, and Sciences; that there was a particular foundation in favour of the Indians to defray the expense of the Education of any of their sons who should desire to take the Benefit of it. And now if the Indians would accept of the Offer, the English would take half a dozen of their brightest lads and bring them up in the Best manner; The Indians after consulting on the proposal replied that it was remembered some of their Youths had formerly been educated in that College, but it had been observed that for a long time after they returned to their Friends, they were absolutely good for nothing being neither acquainted with the true methods of killing deer, catching Beaver or surprizing an enemy.”

This also confirms something I’ve thought for a while now. We civilized are taught that abstract knowledge is the highest aim to which we might aspire. In modern America, for example, we are routinely told that everyone should aspire to obtain a college education. But what strikes me is that nothing I ever learned in school was actually and practically useful in any sense. I never learned how to survive without the machine that is civilization. In fact, all I ever learned was how to distract myself from the fact that civilization is a parasite living off the life force of its human and nonhuman slaves. I also never learned how to form real, meaningful bonds with my tribe or community. I never learned that the world is alive, that the wind itself is love. I never learned how to listen to the land. I only ever learned how to falsely see the whole as separate parts, as resources that can be (and should be) used (exploited) by humans. I never learned anything of any real use in school.

One of the arguments I used to make for myself in order to not allow myself to consider this issue too deeply (and actually have to make changes in my life) was that humans, unlike almost all other animals that I have seen, appear to be pathetically adapted to survival in the wild. Compared to other animals we are slow, weak, largely defenseless, etc. Really, we’re missing even basic things like fur to protect us from the cold. But I realize now that this argument is a false argument for a few reasons. One reason is that I’m considering only domesticated humans when I make this argument. Undomesticated humans are likely to be far better adapted to their habitat. It does seem true in my own direct experience that living in domestication causes me to live well below my potential. I bet that living in the wild I would adapt. More importantly, though, I have actual evidence that refutes my argument, rendering it moot. I don’t need to contemplate this in the abstract. There are actual, living examples of humans living in the wild, and humans have lived in the wild for the overwhelming majority of their existence as a species. Domestication, by comparison, is very, very recent. If anything I would say that the evidence supports the conclusion that humans are only adapted for the wild and not for domestication since in the wild humans have survived for hundreds of thousands of years and in just a few thousand years of domestication humans have managed to very nearly drive themselves (and everything else on the planet) extinct. The fact of the matter is that whether I think humans are well adapted to live in the wild or not is irrelevant because humans do, in fact, live (and thrive) in the wild.

Then there is the issue of whether or not I’d actually *want* to live in the wild. This is a tough one because as much as I dislike civilization, it is all I’ve known. And there is fear when I contemplate living in the wild. The issue that I consider the most frequently is the issue of cold. Wouldn’t I be miserable during the winter months? (That is, assuming I’m not in a tropical environment.) Well, my fear says that yes, I’d be miserable. My fear says that I’d feel depressed and chilled to the bone all winter without a well-heated, well-insulated home. I’m not sure a wikiup or a tipi will really qualify. (Yes, I know that it is possible to heat and insulate these structures, but I’m just not likely to believe that they will allow us to cut ourselves off entirely from the realities of winter as do modern buildings.) Again, though, I have to look to the actual evidence. I see wild animals outside in the winter, and while I have no doubt but what they are cold, they don’t appear to be suffering. But then what do I know? Maybe the birds and squirrels are really miserable? But then what of the wild humans who resisted colonization with their lives, even in frigid places? South Dakota is pretty damn cold in the winter. The Lakota knew the white man’s way of life. But the Lakota rejected that way of life, preferring their own way life. Where the Lakota living in tipis on the plains in the winter miserable? If they were, why wouldn’t they have gladly traded in their way of life for the way of life of the civilized? Maybe they knew something we don’t. Maybe they knew that we are animals, no different from any of our other cousins such as the bison, the eagle, the wolf, and the deer. Maybe they knew that we can’t alter that reality. Maybe they knew that all we could do would be to tell ourselves lies. And maybe they knew that those lies meant death, the death of the spirit. And maybe they knew that the spirit needs to live for life to be experienced. Maybe they realized that one’s spirit is the same spirit as winter itself, and to cut oneself off from winter is to cut oneself off from spirit. Maybe. But what do I know? I’m domesticated.

Here’s another consideration. Lots of people like to say that human achievements are proof of our superiority. We are, they say, the pinnacle of evolution. And to prove it we need only go to the Louvre or to see the Sears Tower or to watch NASCAR or something else that demonstrates what humans can do that no other animal can. We can create works of art or technology, they say. That sets us apart. But I say that not only is that bullshit, but it’s doubly bullshit. And I’ll tell you why. The insinuation in these claims is two-fold. For one, who says that no other animals create works of art or technology? Really. I may not be an expert on animal psychology (and notice how our language subtly (or not so subtly) reinforces that we are *not* animals when we use phrases like “animal psychology”, not inclusive of human psychology,) but I really don’t know how you can claim that animals (other than humans) are any less expressive in what they create than what humans create. Sure, a bird nest or a spider web may be utilitarian on one level, but who’s to say that there’s not artistry in that? And to take this a step further, who exactly is the artist even in human art? Is it the human? Or is the human merely channeling (for lack of a better term) an artistic expression? What would make a spider any less capable of channeling artistic expression then? It just seems ludicrous to me to think that humans have exclusive rights to the domain of artistry. Hell, give me a forest any day for artistry. I’d take a forest over a Picasso in a heartbeat. Now, as for the technology part, again, I will disagree with the assumption that animals do not create technology. What about an ant hill? What about a bees nest? What about a beaver dam? What I think differentiates human technology from the technology of other animals is that our technology, by and large, is stupid while the technology of other animals is usually practical and healthy for the ecosystem within which they live. How many species of animal have invented internal combustion engines? Just one that I know of. That’d be us. Humans. But what an arrogant assumption to think that makes humans superior. If anything, I’d argue it makes us inferior. Every other species seems to have sense enough not to destroy the planet that they need for survival. Humans alone, from what I can tell, think they can destroy the planet. Humans alone seem to miss the obvious fact that if we poison all the water we’ll die. The owls don’t see to make that mistake. Neither do the elk. Nor the whales. Nor the elephants. Nor any of the other animals from what I can tell. My point then is that humans aren’t superior to other animals. Nor do we exhibit qualities that set us apart from other animals as dramatically as we’d like to think. Instead, I believe we exaggerate the perceived differences to support our psychosis, to justify our behavior.

My belief, then, is that the only sane thing we can do is to rediscover the undomesticated heart within us and to live in accordance with what that teaches. I believe that teaches us to listen to the hearts of all beings around us, including our animal cousins, our tree cousins, our river cousins…*all* beings. It teaches us to take our place as part of nature, not apart from it. I feel that our addiction to civilization is strong. *My* addiction to civilization is strong. But really, what choices am I faced with? Continue with the addiction and remain as one of the undead, walking still, but without a spirit. And with that choice means destroying the rest of the planet too. The other choice is to break the addiction to civilization, to see it for what it is, to understand that there is no redemption through civilization, and to rediscover my wildness, my spirit, life itself.

Yesterday I went to the bookstore in town. You’ll probably not be surprised that I spent my time there browsing the section labeled “Environment”. Of course, we all know that “green is the new black”. Green is more than trendy. Everyone is on board with green these days…as long as it doesn’t cost too much or require too much sacrifice…and ESPECIALLY if appearing “green” increases profits. Well, given that I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised at the books on the shelves. Yes, there were a lot of the sorts of books I would have expected, books talking about the serious water crises around the world and books talking about loss of biodiversity due to cattle. However, it seems to me that nearly half the books in the section had something to do with what they called the “new green economy”. Granted, I didn’t read or even flip through them all. I’m sure that more than one of these books advocates for a radical rethinking of what we even mean when we talk about economics in the modern world. But all of the “new green economy” books I picked up and flipped through had similar messages. And the messages were thoroughly non-radical. They were very status quo. And I felt sad about this.

My frustration with the thinking advanced in most of these books is similar to the frustration I have with something like An Inconvenient Truth. If you saw An Inconvenient Truth then you know that the message is that we are facing serious problems. We’ve got too many people on this planet, and we’re destroying it rapidly. When faced with problems as serious as what An Inconvenient Truth points out I find it very, very sad that the message is followed by a truly pathetic list of things that you can/should do to “save the environment”. If you visit the official An Inconvenient Truth site at www.climatecrisis.net you can see the list for yourself. But here’s a quick selection of some of the recommendations.

* fly less
* telecommute from home
* keep your car tuned up
* only run your dishwasher when there’s a full load and use the energy-saving setting
* buy recycled paper products
* turn off electric devices you’re not using

I’m not saying these might not be good steps to take. Flying less is not only good for the environment, but it’s good for your own sanity, for example. But here’s why I take issue with this list of things you can do to save the planet. These things won’t save the planet. That’s what I find frustrating. The initial message is good. The initial message is that there’s a really major problem facing us. You get people’s attention. Then, instead of telling people the truth, you essentially say, “Don’t worry, though, you won’t have to really change your lifestyle. Just recycle more and we’ll be okay.” That’s a disservice in my way of thinking. If the climatecrisis.net site was seriously interested in saving the planet then it would say something more like the following.

“Dear reader, you’ve probably just seen An Inconvenient Truth. You just learned about the major problems facing humanity and all of life on this planet. You may now be wondering what you can do to avert the consequences. The truth is that it’s probably far too late to avert the consequences. Our way of life has already set into motion causes and effects that are beyond our ability to control. However, that doesn’t mean that it’s not important for you to make changes. In fact, it’s more important now than ever. You see, if we don’t act now then humanity may not see the 22nd Century, and we may bring millions of other species to extinction with us. Your help and participation is critical. We wish we could tell you that it’s going to be easy, that you won’t have to make real changes. We wish we could tell you that all you have to do is recycle and that would be enough. That’s what we wish because it would be a whole lot less scary and a whole lot more realistic that we’ll actually make the changes we need to make. But the truth is that what’s required are radical changes.”

That would then be followed with a list of the sorts of changes people need to make. And those changes might include things such as the following.

* Stop buying things unless they are artisan goods made locally and sustainably, and even then only buy them if you really need them. Consider bartering instead of buying with currency. Bartering eliminates the need for centralized financial authorities, and limits the ability of such organizations to coerce populations and damage ecosystems.
* Grow your own food using organic practices. Save seeds from your garden to reduce dependency on seed companies and transportation. What food you cannot grow, obtain from your community. Refuse to buy anything that required large scale energy use to produce.
* Reduce your use of electricity to an absolute minimum. If possible stop using electricity entirely.
* Work with your community to build strong community support systems. Ideas may include gardening groups and natural building education groups. The stronger your local community is, the more self-sustaining your community can be, reducing or eliminating the requirement for import.
* Plan families carefully. Consider the negative impact that population growth has on the planet. Discover if it is possible to live a fulfilled life without having children of your own.

Hell, even this list is probably a compromise of what is really necessary. But at least it’s more honest in a lot of ways.

My point is that half-assed “solutions” that require little to no real change just allow everyone to remain complacent. They allow those systems and organizations that are actively destroying the planet to continue as they have been. Worse yet, many of these half-assed solutions actually exacerbate the situation because they provide great PR opportunities for some organizations that are actively destroying the earth. For example, only in an Orwellian environment such as we have today could petroleum companies such as BP or ExxonMobil claim to be “green” in order to boost their profile. And sadly we, the public, fall for these PR insanities.

You might be wondering at this point what any of this has to do with the books I saw on the shelves. A “new green economy” sounds pretty good, right? We might envision a future in which carbon trading has been so effective that every industry on the planet has reduced its greenhouse gases to zero because it was profitable, millions upon millions of people have “green collar” jobs building new, “sustainable” and “environmentally-friendly” houses and offices, etc. But I feel like this whole fantasy is just that, a fantasy. I’m actually cynical enough at this point to believe that the entire fantasy of a future “green economy” is shaped by the dollars and PR work on the behalf of the corporations that already run the system. It’s just another distraction. Meanwhile, the machine keeps on going, destroying thousands more acres of habitats for endangered species every day.

There’s a word used to describe a lot of the PR these companies use. That word is “greenwashing”. Well, I think that it’s not just these companies that have been greenwashed. Our minds have been greenwashed too. We’re so thoroughly greenwashed that we’ve apparently lost all ability to think critically. No. It’s more than that. We can’t even see what’s right in front of our face, plain for all to see should they just open their eyes. It’s like we are characters in 1984 all believing that 2 + 2 = 5. But all the belief in the world won’t make 2 + 2 = 5. It’s still 4 regardless of belief. And that’s true of greenwashing too.

Take the notion of “green collar” jobs. This is a notion that most recently has been popularized by Van Jones. For those who don’t know about Van Jones, he’s an Oakland-based “environmental advocate, civil rights activist, and attorney” (according to Wikipedia) who wrote a book a few years ago called The Green Collar Economy. (Side note, I recently saw that Van Jones was the recipient of the Reebok International Human Rights Award in 1988. Excuse me? Again, just another conformation of the Orwellian nature of our times. The Reebok in Reebok International Human Rights Award is the same Reebok that manufactures “athletic footware”. Isn’t a Reebok International Human Rights Award a bit like a Nazi International Human Rights Award? You may think I’m being dramatic and that the comparison isn’t warranted. But I’m not in a happy mood today, and I’m just going to call it like I see it.) The Green Collar Economy puts forward a plan for how to apparently “solve” the “economic problems” and the environmental problems at the same time by way of a new New Deal approach that creates lots and lots of new “green collar” jobs. What’s my problem with this? Well, for someone who refuses to think outside the box it might look very progressive. Hell, it might seem radical. But radical it is not. It is thoroughly within the box. Whether your thinking is to the left of the box or to the right of the box it’s still in the box either way, and boxed-in thinking ain’t going to solve nothing because the box is designed to always generate destructive thinking. It’s just that some of the thinking is more destructive than other thinking. But less destructive is still destructive. The idea of a “green collar economy” is built fundamentally on all of the same flawed ideas as our current economy.

The thing is, I wouldn’t be satisfied with any idea that greens the economy, no matter how green. Why? Because I believe that the very notion of “an economy” is itself flawed and inherently destructive. The idea that there is such a thing as an economy instantaneously objectifies everything and turns it all into commodities. Don’t believe me? Think about it for a minute. What isn’t a commodity in our current mainstream thinking? Everything and everyone is considered a commodity. Traders will place bets on anything. And this is all in the name of “an economy”. But what is an economy? Does such a thing exist in reality? Or is it just an idea, an idea that is merely a collection of other ideas called commodities? Without commodities there is no economy. There is just life. And I’m advocating for life, not economy.

We’ve seen plenty of evidence that our economic thinking leads to anti-life behavior. Our notion of economics is fundamentally in opposition to life. Look and see for yourself. When environmental issues are mentioned in political debates the counter is always that taking any sort of meaningful steps to stop the environmental damage we are doing would harm the economy. Well, shouldn’t that be a clue? If doing what is necessary to live in harmony with our environment would damage the economy then doesn’t that make the economy anti-life by definition? The environment is life. We like to pretend that we can live without it. We like to pretend that there’s some techno-solution in the future that will clean our air and water and land and restore all the millions of extinct species of plants and animals. But when will we wake up from this greenwashed nightmare? There is no such techno-solution, and even if there was, it would be with its own set of anti-life problems. We can’t get out ahead of the wave of destruction that is the economy. We can only stop. And stop is what we should do.

Do you love your job? If you do, you are in the very small minority. Surely you know this. The majority of people would feel no remorse if they no longer had to live in wage slavery. But we’ve been brainwashed well enough that most of us never even clue in to the fact that there is life outside the box. We’re scared by the horror stories about poverty and homelessness and violence that await us should we decide not to work in the system any more. And that fear has blinded us to the fact that for hundreds of thousands of years humans have lived without this system, and they did well enough to usher in the next generations of humans and to deliver them to a healthy planet. We can’t say the same today. We’re not doing well. We’re far worse off than our ancestors. They may have lived in caves or tipis or other dwellings seemingly less impressive than modern skyscrapers. But they had clean water, and in my way of thinking that’s a hell of a lot more important. We’re mucking things up really badly, and the notion of a “new green economy” is just more fuel to the fire to muck things up more, but this time in the name of environmental progress. It’s insane, though, and we ought to see that immediately. It’s not environmental progress…unless we mean progress in destroying the environment.

What is the alternative to a “green economy”? I’m not advocating for a “non-green economy” either. I’m just saying that perhaps it’s time we consider dropping the economy entirely. Then it’s not a “green economy”. Then it’s just “green”. And to me that is vastly different. Tacking “green” on to “economy” is just a way of dressing up “economy” so it’s not a bad word. But the emphasis is still on economy, not the green part. Hell, the green part is largely not in the equation. But if you take away “economy” then we have to focus on the “green” part. And suddenly there is life again. Suddenly we are thinking in the right direction, which means restoring forests and grasslands and undamming rivers and building communities.

The following is a continuation of the previous post.

Burning coal presents a whole other set of potential problems. As is to be expected burning coal releases a lot of carbon into the air, increasing the carbon ratio in the atmosphere, and contributing to global warming (unless, of course, you’re a global warming skeptic, in which case none of that is true.) Additionally, however, burning coal produces lots of other by-products, including various forms of sulfur and nitrogen, some of which are toxic. The result is toxic substances are also added to the air we breathe. Even some of the safe sulfur and nitrogen compounds that result from coal combustion can have terrible effects. Consider sulfur dioxide, for example. Sulfur dioxide can react with oxygen to create sulfur trioxide, which then reacts with water in the atmosphere to produce sulfuric acid, which then falls to the ground as acid rain. Acid rain can destroy ecosystems.

Coal is made primarily of carbon and hydrogen. However, coal also contains other elements such as sulfur and nitrogen as already mentioned. Yet coal may contain many other elements, including things like arsenic, lead, mercury, uranium, and thorium. You may recognize that some of these elements are heavy metals, which are generally considered to have a negative effect on human and animal health. When the coal remains in the earth these elements also remain in the earth. Once coal is mined and especially once it is burned then these elements make their way into the atmosphere, waterways, etc. You may also recognize that a few of the elements listed are radioactive. An interesting (and scary?) note is that due to the volume of coal burned throughout the world there is more nuclear waste as the result of coal than nuclear power plants.

Petroleum is another fossil fuel used as a major energy source throughout the world. But petroleum too has plenty of problems associated with it at every stage, from extraction to combustion. Consider that offshore drilling often requires dredging the ocean floor, which totally destroys the ancient ecosystems there. Probably the worst environmental damage due to extraction is for “non-conventional” oil such as “tar sands”. Mining tar sands often involves wholesale ecological destruction such as clearing whatever plant life might exist, be that brush or forests or anything between. Then what is referred to as the “overburden” is removed. “Overburden” is a technical term that means all the soil, rock, etc. that is above the tar sands. The rest of the extraction for tar sands is just as horrific, involving water contamination and waste.

Once oil has been extracted that oil is then transported to other regions of the world to convert it into other forms or products. This always runs the risk of an oil spill, whether from a pipeline, a truck, or a ship. We all remember the stories of the various oil spill disasters in the ocean. While all oil spills are destructive, the oil spills in water are particularly catastrophic since they are impossible to contain. The result is an amazing death toll of lifeforms throughout the affected region.

When petroleum is used as fuel its combustion emits all sorts of things into the atmosphere, including many of the same compounds as coal such as nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide, and sulfur compounds. As we all know gasoline-powered engines emit carbon monoxide, which is dangerous to human health.

Natural gas is often touted as the “clean fossil fuel” because it emits less carbon into the atmosphere when burned when compared to coal or petroleum. However, natural gas still emits carbon into the atmosphere that wouldn’t be emitted if it wasn’t extracted and burned.

Thus far I’ve listed just the obvious problems with fossil fuels. But there are plenty of other problems that we don’t often consider. For example, what is the toll we pay for fossil fuel extraction in terms of the loss of human rights? Consider that historically and still today indigenous people are displaced through coercion or outright violence to gain access to the fossil fuels on their land. Also, there are plenty of examples where powerful governments such as the United States has supported or does support authoritarian regimes where they have an interest in maintaining access to fossil fuels in those regions.

We should also consider some of the other costs associated with fossil fuels that are much subtler and much more open to interpretation.

The use of fossil fuels correlates to the rise in world population. Fossil fuels have allowed for many scientific discoveries and technologies that allow the earth to support a population much larger than it would otherwise. One of the most striking examples is the “green revolution” which started in the 1950s. Fossil fuels are a significant and critical part of the changes of the green revolution. Natural gas is used for fertilizers. Petroleum is used for pesticides. And fossil fuels are used to power irrigation systems. The green revolution saw an increase in grain production of 250% from 1950 to 1984.

Setting aside for a minute the concern over whether or not peak oil is real and what the implications might be for agriculture if oil production is in decline. And setting aside also the concern over whether or not it is possible to meet the agricultural demands of a still-growing population. I think those are both issues worth considering. But there is also another issue that is more immediately important. What have been the resulting consequences of the population increases supported by fossil fuels? Just because fossil fuels have been able to provide the energy necessary to power an agricultural system (sustainable or not) to meet the needs of 6.5+ billion people doesn’t necessarily mean that there aren’t other negative consequences to consider. More people means more demand for other things too…like water. And the amount of water on the planet is basically fixed. We aren’t going to be able to use fossil fuels to make significantly more water. More people also means greater land requirements. That means we are pushing plants and animals off their land. That means losses to biodiversity. That weakens the entire system’s ability to adapt to changes.

Even if we don’t want to consider the environmental impacts or the impacts on personal health of fossil fuel use, there is still the social impact to consider. As I wrote previously, the use of fossil fuels has dramatically changed our way of life. Without fossil fuels we wouldn’t have electricity, telephony, automobiles, trains, airplanes, polyester, plastic, or any of the countless marvels (or mundanities) of modern life. It is difficult to know what all of the social impacts have been, though I suppose one of the ways we can guess is to simply compare our modern experience with that of modern traditional primitive (I use this word in a neutral or even a positive intent, meaning primary or natural) groups or perhaps our understanding of historical primitive groups. What is different socially?

I’m not expert on these matters. I’m not an anthropologist. But I’ll venture a few speculations. It seems to me that one really major change is about extreme mobility. Today it is possible for the average American to take an airplane to China, for example. I would guess that primitive groups, though perhaps nomadic in nature, simply don’t experience that sort of mobility. They may move a few hundred miles in a lifetime, but not tens of thousands of miles in a weekend. What are the implications of this sort of extreme mobility? Well, I can only speak from my own personal experience and my observation of the experiences of those I know. I live thousands of miles away from my parents. My sister lives hundreds of miles away from my parents. Is this good or bad? I don’t know. But it’s a fact. Perhaps all the Christian fundamentalists who cry over the “loss of family values” ought to be out protesting oil companies along with the indigenous people of places like Ecuador instead of supporting foreign wars in the middle east. But I’m not a Christian fundamentalist, and I guess I just don’t understand the thinking there well enough.

Fossil fuels have almost certainly changed the ways in which we spend most of our days. Far fewer people today live self-reliant lives. Almost all of us are now dependent on various systems even for basic things like water. As a result we are expected to pay back these systems by working. Our professions are often the sort of things that only exist in a society powered by fossil fuels. For example, even in other historical empires there were never computer programmers, and certainly in subsistence cultures this sort of division of labor was much less pronounced. (Note that I’m not claiming that division of labor is not present in societies without fossil fuels. I’m just observing that the division of labor seems to be much more pronounced as a result of our use of fossil fuels.)

Not only do I live thousands of miles from my parents, but I also live far away from lots of other places where I used to live. I’ve moved to probably five different cities in fewer than five years. What is the effect of this? How does it affect our social behavior, our attitudes, our relationships, etc.? Does this hyper-mobility destroy community? Does it reduce our attention span? Does it reduce our patience? Are we more likely to bail out when the going gets tough because we believe somewhere else will be better? What toll does that exact on our souls? Is it any wonder many of us in modern society feel isolated and alone? Perhaps we’ve lost out on the sort of intimacy and maturity that can develop through sticking it out.

Does fossil fuel entertainment similarly move us in an increasingly isolated and restless direction? Recorded music is available at any time, and you can listen by yourself or with the people you select. But without recorded music what changes? In a primitive context music is social out of necessity. It may not be convenient. It may not be on my terms. I may have to be around people I don’t want to be around. It may be at a time when I’d rather be doing something else. But are these inherently negatives?

The endless forms of entertainment made possible by fossil fuels such as cinema, television, and video on the Internet changes us too, I think. It seems to me that we’re all cynics. And we view entertainment as competitive, pitting one movie against another as though it was tournament. Has the art been lost then? Has the community been lost? Has the spirit of it been lost?

Another thing that occurs to me is the way in which all the comforts and conveniences afforded by fossil fuels may well make us less vitally alive, less appreciative, less joyous. I enjoy warmth in the winter. But it’s worth questioning whether such conveniences are without a cost. What do we lose by having heated homes and cars and offices and such? Do we lose touch with our fellow humans, our plant and animal brethren, and even our home, the planet? Do we forget that we can’t control everything? Do we forget that convenience and comfort are just possible experiences, not necessarily better or worse than, say, inconvenience and discomfort. Perhaps there are lessons and wisdom we miss out on by avoiding inconvenience and discomfort.

I live on the first floor apartment of a multi-family house. The house, like many, if not most houses in New England is heated by oil-burning furnaces. Growing up in the Midwest and later living on the west coast I’d never known anything about heating oil until moving to New England a few years ago. In New England, however, it’s the way people stay warm during the cold winters for the most part. For those not familiar with heating oil, I’ll give you a short description.

Heating oil refers to a petroleum-derived distillate with a fairly low viscosity. It is used as fuel (i.e. it is burned) in furnaces and boilers to produce heat. Heating oil is typically delivered by tank trunk a few times during the winter. Houses have oil tanks that are most often in the basement. In the case of a furnace the heating oil is burned and the resulting heat is circulated through venting systems to heat the house.

Last week my landlord told me that on Monday the oil company was due to service the furnaces, something they do each year. I thought nothing of this. It seemed like it would have little to no effect on me. I was mistaken. Early on Monday I awoke to hammering from the basement. I had forgotten about what my landlord had said and therefore I thought it must be my upstairs neighbor working on a project in the basement. Strange, I thought, but not a big deal. A little while later I noticed a faint smell of fuel. It wasn’t too cold outside and so I went to open the windows to air out the place. That was when I noticed the oil company van in the driveway. I put two and two together and realized that the fuel smell and the hammering were the result of the oil company servicing the furnaces.

Despite the fact that I had opened the windows and was getting a cross-breeze through the apartment the fuel smell continued to increase. Within 10 minutes it was overwhelming. I decided I would go to the basement to ask the technician if this was normal or the sign of a problem. However, upon opening the basement door the fuel fumes were even more overwhelming, and I decided against that approach.

I had an appointment shortly thereafter, and I decided to go early in order to get out of the apartment. I left the windows open in hopes that the place would air out by the time I got back in a few hours. When I went outside the technician was standing next to his van apparently taking a smoking break. I asked him if it was normal to have such strong fuel smells in the living quarters as the result of the furnace servicing. He replied something along the lines of, “well, it does require changing a bunch of filters.” This was hardly a satisfactory reply. However, to be honest, having been in the apartment with the fumes had taken its toll and I was not thinking clearly. I was in a bit of a daze. I just nodded as though what he said made perfect sense, and I walked off to my appointment.

When I returned from my appointment a few hours later the technician was gone. The fumes had decreased. However, it was still quite noticeable. I decided to keep the windows open. It still wasn’t very cold. I just kept my coat on inside and I was quite comfortable temperature-wise.

The problem is that all of yesterday I was in a heating oil fume-induced fog. It affected me physically (I felt lethargic,) mentally (I wasn’t thinking very clearly,) and emotionally (I felt rather depressed, which is quite unusual for me.) And though I was able to sleep yesterday, I was not able to get very restful sleep. All of this has caused me to consider a few things.

If for a moment we set aside whether or not it is normal and/or acceptable for servicing a furnace to cause the living area to be flooded with fuel fumes (something I honestly don’t know,) this situation still might cause a person to consider whether heating oil is worth the potential health risks. Furthermore, it might make a person consider what other implications heating oil poses, and what negative effects might be the result of heating oil use. And then one might generalize this entire thought stream and ponder whether fossil fuels in general are worth the costs to our health, to the environment, to society, to family, to individuals, etc. And even if no normal person would have pondered these things as a result of the events of yesterday, nonetheless I have pondered these things, and I’m now going to write a few of my thoughts on this matter.

Although it is probably clear to anyone who has read any of my writings, I should note that I am biased. Well before yesterday’s heating oil fumes and the fume-induced ponderings I already felt that fossil fuel use wasn’t worth the costs. But yesterday’s events really made this matter less abstract and more direct. I didn’t have to conjure up the imaginings of possible human rights abuses in Nigeria to feel that fossil fuel use might not be a good idea. I was literally breathing in the experience of the negative effects of fossil fuel use. This made my ponderings, even the abstract ponderings, much more impactful to me.

To be fair I think we need to consider the upside of fossil fuels. After all, if there wasn’t a significant upside then we wouldn’t be using fossil fuels, right? And to deny the upside is pure silliness. There are many reasons we like fossil fuels. They allow us to have unbelievable amounts of electricity, which powers lights even after the sun has set, washing machines, telephones, and all sorts of technologies which make life more convenient. Electricity allows me to type this and distribute my thoughts to the world. Electricity allows for countless conveniences and comforts in modern life. As sad as this might be to admit, I have never gone more than a few days without electricity. I have no frame of reference to even know what life would be like without electricity because the electrified lifestyle has always been the context of my experience. But I can see how electricity makes available nearly all of the conveniences of modern life, and life without electricity would be very different. Fossil fuels, whether eventually converted to electricity or used directly (as in the case of heating oil) provide many of us with heat in the winter months. We use typically fossil fuels to travel, whether by car or public transportation or airplane or boat. Fossil fuels are used extensively for the manufacture and distribution of most products. And some of modern life’s most popular materials such as plastics, nylon, vinyl, and polyester are derived from fossil fuels. Consider for a moment the number of products that don’t use at least some material derived from fossil fuels and you’ll realize that the scope of the use of fossil fuel-derived materials is staggering. And these products arguably make life much more convenient. We are able to have durable (yet disposable) products that are cheap and have qualities such as being water proof all because of fossil fuel-derived materials. Plus, these products can allow us vegans to feel guilt-free because we can buy, for example, synthetic shoes instead of leather shoes. Try that without fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are used in everything, even “food” and “health” products. For example, by law petroleum can be used to produce “food grade” distilled vinegar in the United States. And fossil fuels are used to produce many vitamins sold in heath food stores.

Fossil fuels have an upside as we’ve already established. They provide conveniences and have completely transformed our lifestyles such that it is difficult for most of us to imagine a life without fossil fuels. But are fossil fuels without the negatives? My contention is that our use of fossil fuels is rife with negatives. And, furthermore, I actually think that the negatives may well outweigh the positives.

As I said earlier all of these ponderings were initiated by the event yesterday in which my house was flooded with heating oil fumes. Therefore, the most obvious negative of fossil fuels is the potential for adverse health effects resulting from their use. Have you ever read the signs at gas stations that read “long-term exposure to vapors has caused cancer in laboratory animals”? Well, I’m saddened that someone felt it was necessary to mistreat animals in this way when just basic “common sense” probably ought to have yielded the same information. I don’t know anyone who likes the smell of gasoline. Usually when we find the smell of something repulsive it is for good reason. And we’re exposed to these vapors all the time. At the gas station we inhale the fumes. Apparently when we get the furnace services we inhale these fumes. Have you ever been to a marina? All those boat engines spew out fumes. Do you have any small-engine devices like a lawn mower or a chain saw? More fumes.

I remember hearing a report years ago about how frequency of asthma and other respiratory problems is much higher among children who attend schools near major roadways, especially highways/freeways. I hadn’t thought too much more about it until a short while ago when I was driving a long distance and I wondered to myself similar results might not be found for people who spend a lot of time on the road versus those who do not. It seemed logical to me that driving hours on a high-traffic highway in lane behind other cars would necessarily result in higher amounts of dangerous chemicals in the air the driver breaths. I looked this up online and found a few reports that backs up this theory. It looks like that hour commute might be worse for your health than you thought.

I grew up across from a farm that used conventional farming practices, including the use of chemical fertilizer, pesticides, and herbicides, all of which are derived from fossil fuels. I remember summer days when the air was filled with horrible smells that smelled like rotting eggs and cabbage. At the time I didn’t know what it was. But now I know it was when the farmer sprayed the fields. Pesticides and herbicides are designed to kill. That is their purpose. Although the chemical companies (Dow, Monsanto, Syngenta, etc.) and the FDA would like to you to believe that these chemicals are not dangerous to your health as long as they are “used properly” that simply doesn’t jibe with good sense. If a product is designed for the purpose of killing (albeit killing insects or plants) and you live in a neighborhood where you can smell the chemical then I would say that any reasonable person would know that isn’t good for their health. But the effects don’t stop there. We drew our water from a well, as did all of my neighbors. Do you think those chemicals didn’t make their way into the ground water and then to our taps? One of the most common herbicides on the planet is called Atrazine, and it’s marketed under a variety of names. It’s manufactured by a Swiss company called Syngenta. Atrazine is now banned in the EU. But it’s still used in the United States. Tests have demonstrated that Atrazine has demasculizing and even feminizing properties. These tests were on frogs. The male frogs exposed to Atrazine were effectively chemically castrated and they began to produce chemicals normally only produced by female frogs. But you don’t live near a farm, you say. Well, I’ve got news for you. Atrazine has been shown to travel at least 600 kilometers in rain water. Most people live within 600 kilometers of a farm.

Maybe it’s also useful to consider specific fossil fuels and a few of the specific negatives associated with there use.

Coal is one of the fossil fuels with the longest record of human use. The earliest records of coal used for fuel go back more than 2000 years. Coal is typically mined and then burned. Both the mining and the burning of coal have negative health effects associated with them. Coal mining is a classically dangerous profession. Miners are at risk of collapses even with modern technological advances. For example, most of us can remember the Sago disaster several years ago. Historically diseases such as “black lung” were common causes of death among coal miners. Though the frequency of these diseases has lessened in the United States in recent times, coal miners in many other countries world-wide are still frequently victims of these diseases.

But mining coal doesn’t just negatively impact the miners themselves, it can also have a negative impact on the health of other people and the environment as well. One of the important ways in which coal mining can adversely affect people is through changes and contamination of water. Coal mining can cause aquifers to drain, reducing water available to local residents. And coal mining can and frequently does contaminate much, if not all of the local water sources, potentially making the water toxic to humans (and other forms of life.) The changes to the environment caused by coal are often rather drastic. These can include draining bodies of water, removing land, and contaminating water and food supplies. The effects can be devastating to plant and animal life near the mines.

I’ll continue this tomorrow.

For many years I’ve been quite interested in various facets of language. I enjoy etymology as well as the study of foreign languages. One aspect of language that I find particularly interesting is how it can reveal the ways in which we think. It’s curious to ponder whether language shapes our thinking or whether or thinking shapes language. I would tend to think it’s a little of both.

Years ago I was interested in understanding the word “thanks”. I found this small investigation to be fascinating. The word “thank” stemmed from the word “think”, and eventually the meaning became more specific where “to thank” meant “to think good thoughts”. We use the word “thanks” often interchangeably with the word “gratitude”. The word “gratitude” has the same root as the word “grace”, which is particularly evident when you consider the Spanish word “gracias”, which is generally translated as “thanks”. The word “gratitude” also shares the same root as “gratis”, which can mean “free”. Although today we often don’t think of “grace”, “thanks”, “free”, and “good thought” as being synonymous, we can see through etymology that they are, if not synonymous, at least very closely related concepts. To be thankful is to be free. To have good thoughts is to live in grace. I’m not claiming these are truisms. I’m just saying that our language reveals that this is how we think. I found this exploration to be very interesting, and it fueled my continuing interest in language and how it relates to our thinking and our worldview.

As I mentioned, I have an interest not only in etymology, but also in foreign languages. I have studied Spanish on and off since junior high school. I studied Japanese in high school and college. I even took a semester of Hebrew and a semester of French. I’ve learned a bit of Sanskrit through my interest in yoga and Ayurveda. And among the many things I find interesting about foreign languages is that in order to really be fluent in a different language you must think differently. Translations are never true to the original. If they were then they wouldn’t make sense in the translated language. A translation is just an approximation. The translation doesn’t just translate words. It translates thinking and culture. In English we say “I am 30.” In Spanish it would be correct to say “Tengo 30 años.” Literally the Spanish version translates as “I have 30 years.” It’s a different way of thinking about age. Spanish has two different verbs that are both translated into English as “to be”. That means that Spanish speakers subtly differentiate between states of being in ways that English speakers may never be able to do simply because of the language. In Japanese there are two entirely different forms of the language, one is honorific and should be used when speaking to someone seen as a superior (a parent, a boss, a teacher, etc.) or in formal situations. The other, informal form of the Japanese language is used only when talking with friends and family. Of course I’m over-simplifying and probably misrepresenting the case with the Japanese language. Why? Because I don’t understand it. I studied Japanese for years. But I never learned to think like a Japanese person. Speaking Japanese requires more than just an understanding of grammar and vocabulary. It requires a different way of thinking. It requires seeing the world differently.

Why am I talking about language? Usually I write about topics related to how we’re collectively destroying the environment or how our culture is inherently oppressive. Writing about language and thinking seems far too…well, far too happy compared to what I normally write about. Sadly, you just haven’t given me the opportunity yet to get to my point. There is plenty of doom and gloom ahead. Don’t worry. Everything I’ve just written was merely a preface to the doom and gloom. I had to provide context for the doom and gloom.

I think that by looking at how we use language can tell us a lot about how we think about ourselves, our environment, etc. And recently I’ve been thinking about this and observing our use of language in this regard. Ready yourself. The doom and gloom is about to start. I think our use of language reveals the ways in which we distance ourselves from the real and live largely in abstraction. I think this way of thinking and talking allows us to continue to do terrible things simply because it’s all abstract, it’s all just happening “out there”. But the problem is that even though we think in isolationist terms, even though we think we can wall ourselves off and be safe, there is no isolation and there is no “out there” in reality. It’s all right here. It’s all us. We are only harming ourselves when we harm the other.

Several years ago I was working at an “interactive agency” in a software engineer role. However, I was also tasked with starting and managing a branch office. I was in Boston at the time. The company was headquartered in Los Angeles and had a handful of other offices, the most significant of which was in New York. We were a small office. At our maximum size we only had 12 people. But we didn’t work in isolation. We would collaborate on projects with teams from other offices. Therefore, I had lots of phone meetings with the managers from the other offices. A lot of these meetings were called “resourcing” meetings. During these meetings the managers would talk about which people should work on which projects. Only we substituted the work “resource” for “person”. You see, people at an interactive agency aren’t people. They are resources. And while we might be uncomfortable exploiting other people, we’re apparently less squeamish about exploiting resources.

This issue was really the crux of my problems with the company. I was originally hired with a mandate to build a new office where we did good work. My philosophy is that in order to do good work you get great people who love what they do and you treat them well and provide them with the conditions they need in order to do their best work. I typically find that balance is really important. I don’t believe in 50 and 60 hour work weeks, which is the new standard in lots of industries these days. Hell, I don’t even believe in the 40 hour work week or even a 20 hour work week. I don’t believe in employers. But setting that aside for a minute, my point is that I definitely don’t believe in pushing people to work an unsustainable number of hours. I would always tell people to go home at 5. I would push people out the door. I don’t care what anyone else says. The project would still be there tomorrow. And you’ll be better rested and happier if you go home now. And I definitely don’t believe in working weekends. (I want to be clear that I’m talking specifically about the context of working for an employer. I have no qualms about anyone working however many hours they want for their own projects.)

In my opinion my philosophy has proven to work. The office I managed far and away did the best work of any of the company’s offices. And everyone knew it. We were handed the most difficult and challenging projects because everyone knew we could do the work. And despite the fact that no one worked more than 40 hours a week our team was timely.

But here’s the problem. The people in my office weren’t people. Not to New York. Not to L.A. They were resources. And resources are to be used. I had so many fights and arguments with managers from other offices who insisted that people on my team needed to “take one for the team” and work the weekend or pull a 12 hour day. I was baffled. The people on my team did great work. They got their work done on time. There was no reason for them to work more hours, to be out of balance, to jeopardize their health or marriages or whatever the case may be. The problem was that the managers in other offices spoke a different language than I did. And I never learned to think in their language. Resources don’t have health or marriages or hobbies. Resources don’t need balance. Resources are just objects. But to me they were people, not resources. This was the fundamental conflict…a conflict of language and perspective. We never did learn to speak the same language. I put my foot down over and over. To me I was protecting people. To the other managers I was preventing them from having control over their resources. This is what war is all about.

I’ve also noticed a trend over the years in how mainstream culture apparently thinks of people. I rarely listen to NPR anymore for a variety of reasons. However, when I did listen often and when I occasionally listen now I notice how more often than not the word “consumer” is substituted for the word “person”. I notice this word substitution from politicians, commentators, analysts, and pretty much every sort of person I hear on the radio. I suppose that in a sense it is not entirely inaccurate to describe a person as a consumer. In a very real sense all people are consuming all the time. Air. Water. But that’s not how the term is used. When someone on the radio refers to a person as a consumer they are subtly reinforcing the idea that the purpose of a person in our society is to buy and then create waste. And here’s the thing. In a world of consumers the rules are different. If you have a world of people then you probably want to have a world of happy people. You probably want to consider the needs of those people, and you want to respect balance. For example, you probably wouldn’t want to manipulate your neighbor into buying something he or she doesn’t need entirely under false pretenses with false guarantees and false descriptions and false promises. You probably wouldn’t want to sell your neighbor a piece of junk that is designed to stop working within months. But in a world of consumers these are merely descriptions of standard operating procedure. We’ve all had these experiences. We’ve all been manipulated into buying crap. It’s all crap. The plans and warranties and all that is never what you were told it would be. Nothing is actually covered under warranty. It was all a ploy in the name of profits. And it’s all allowable because you’re a consumer, not a person.

It seems to me, though, that this sort of curious and isolating use of language isn’t found just in how we talk about people. Consider the fact that a cow or pig isn’t a cow or pig when we’re talking about a cow or pig that was raised just to be killed. They aren’t even animals. They are livestock. Calling an animal livestock at least has the decency to indicate that what the word refers to is, in fact, alive (livestock.) But all the same, this sort of use of language allows us an emotional buffer from the perhaps difficult and uncomfortable reality, which is that we’re talking about a cow or a pig or a sheep or some other sentient animal who is treated as a possession.

As terrible as the cases I’ve already mentioned might be, I think perhaps one of the most terrible is the substitution of the word “resource” in place of “tree” or “river” or “mineral deposit” or any of the many other things we commonly refer to as resources. What I think is most terrible about this case is that it is so embedded into our culture that hardly anyone questions referring to a forest as a resource. It is this sort of thinking that causes conservation agencies to make statements like this. “Wildlife is one of America’s most treasured natural resources.” But wildlife isn’t a resource. Forests aren’t resources. Rivers aren’t resources. Oceans aren’t resources. According to Webster’s dictionary a resource is “a source of supply or support, an available means, a natural source of wealth or revenue, a natural feature or phenomenon that enhances the quality of human life, computable wealth, a source of information or expertise.” These definitions of resource all imply that a resource is something with value based on it’s usefulness to humans. But a tree is valuable simply for being a tree. It isn’t valuable because I can cut it down and turn it into lumber or paper. It’s not even valuable because I can lean against it or because I can climb it or because it’s nice to look at. A tree’s value is not measured against my wants or ideas. A tree has intrinsic value. It is not a resource. No plant, animal, mineral, waterway, or anything else is a resource. That’s the truth. But sadly that’s not how we think.

And what is the result of our use of language in the case of substituting the word “resource” for “tree” or “river”? You tell me. It seems pretty obvious. We’ve cut down most of the trees. We’ve polluted and dammed (or should I say damned?) most of the rivers. And when these topics are debated frequently the debate is ended when someone points out that our society demands certain things (gasoline, electricity, paper, plastic, etc.) and while we can work toward greater conservation and efficiency we as a society simply have to accept that we’ll need to use “our resources”. But why is that true? As long as we view things as resources then I suppose it seems true. But when a bear is a bear and not “wildlife, which is one of our most treasured natural resources” are we as willing to destroy that bear’s habitat just to eek out a few more years of energy to power our way of life? For that matter, if oil is seen as oil, as part of the earth, as something that belongs where it is, then are we going to extract it from the earth in the first place? Oil isn’t a resource. Bears aren’t resources. And I’m saddened that we all can’t just see that.