blog

“I talked to someone about climate change, and they told me: ‘Sooner or later we’ll invent a machine that can capture carbon from the atmosphere in an efficient way.’

“I told them it already exists, and it’s called a tree.”

This meme (with appropriately green leafy visual) has been circulating in eco groups for awhile now. I really like it.

That said: Trees, amazing as they are, cannot do the job alone. We also have to rehydrate landscapes; restore the soil-food web (which, when healthy, sequesters even more carbon than trees do); and maintain wild open spaces where animals can roam (as indigenous cultures have done for millennia).

We must feed people in a sustainable way, save wildlife from extinction, restore normal rainfall, replenish groundwater, bring back insect populations. Human technology may be able to help, but Mother Nature does it best, and even better when we humans work with her — or at least get out of her way.

The above “musts” were derived from this post on the Ecological Consciousness page on Facebook, accompanying the tree meme. The following list of resources, I copied directly from the post:

• Supporting the Soil Carbon Sponge – Walter Jehne (EcoFarming Daily)

• Wildfires are Getting Worse – Time to Rehydrate Our Landscapes (commondreams)

• The Rights of Indigenous People are Key to Saving Global Ecosystems

• Kiss the Ground – Regenerative Farming & Soil Carbon Capture Solutions (Netflix film)

• Regenerating the Earth and her people

• Regenerative agriculture: effective responses to climate change (medium.com)

• Put Carbon Back Where it Belongs – in the Soil

• Want to double world food production? Return the land to small farmers! (theecologist.org)

Someone in the Socially Conscious FIRE group posted that they stopped pursuing “Financial Independence” because it doesn’t make sense given that the world might not exist as we know it in 30 years.

“Does anyone else feel this way?” they asked.

Me: Yes!

Until my mid-30s (25ish years ago), I was being at least sort of middle-class, attempting to “save for retirement.”

Then a couple of things happened. I realized it was very likely I would not be able to save anywhere near “enough,” and, I started to feel strongly that the world would collapse long before I hit retirement age. Now 6 or 11 years from “typical retirement age,” I still feel that way.

Climate change has accelerated. So has socioeconomic catastrophe, for the vast majority of people on the planet.

Around 2005 I started to study and practice permaculture design. And to study/practice some other skills for resilience (mostly inner resilience).

In my heart, meanwhile, I felt there was something “off,” for me, about accumulating a stockpile of money and hoarding it for decades. It felt morally wrong to me.

I started to think instead about how to minimize what I needed to live on. Not just to save for retirement — but as a forever lifestyle.

If Social Security is still solvent by the time I hit the age when I feel ready to start collecting it (not something Im counting on), I will pretty easily be able to live on it.

If it’s not solvent, then millions of other people will be in the same boat as me. And I will use whatever resilience skills I have learned to help people; ease suffering; build community.

Also: For most of my life I have had a strong feeling that I would live to see times when money would stop being useful for much of anything. Now I keep some cash but most of my assets are “stored” in the form of my house, trees & plants, rainbarrels, education, and community.

It’s impossible to predict the future But, whether thinking 30 years or even 10 years from now, I trust durable assets, social ties, practical skills, and community to keep their value more than I trust money, stocks, etc. to keep their value.

I think one of the big dilemmas that a lot of people are facing (at least people who have the luxury of not living pure hand-to-mouth) is that on the one hand, some kind of collapse seems imminent. (Not only that; it is actually happening.) While on the other hand, we don’t know for sure that financial assets will ever lose their value. So inevitably people who have the luxury of doing so are hedging their bets.

The problem is that some of the “bet-hedging” is most probably fueling the climate disaster and social collapse that we are so wanting to avert.

No easy answers here. But I would say build community; build your inner resilience. Practice kindness; learn to grow things or make things or repair things or all of the above.

Also: Read about the 8 forms of capital (thanks Appleseedpermaculture). Much food for thought. It is liberating to realize there are so many forms of capital beyond just financial capital.

And read Laura Oldanie’s post on “Sustainable Stores of Value.”

Or listen: “You Are More Than Your Financial Capital” (ChooseFI Episode 248; August 30, 2020).

A lot of activists are still stuck in the dream that we will change things just by voting out whatever “current crop of bad people” we consider to be “the problem.” Nope, it doesn’t work that way. First, the different parties are too much alike in terms of not really wanting to rock the boat.

Second, and even more importantly, what we are needing is a cultural shift. Elected leaders can set a tone, and can help facilitate cultural shift to a degree, but it’s really the masses (with our wallets and our word-of-mouth) who hold the real power to change things.

You decide how and where you want to serve. Not everyone wants to run for office and not everyone is cut out for it. The petition-gathering table in front of the public library, or the eco education booth at the farmer’s market, can be as powerful a channel for change as the voting booth.

The good news is that regardless of who is in office, we everyday people have the potential to continue to have a stronger and stronger voice, as:

1) We become stronger in our convictions; deepen our degree of knowingness that we are pushing for good and necessary change;

2) The physical environment continues to supply horrific evidence backing up our claims in realtime. From dead manatees to toxic waterways here, to heat-domes and wildfires way over there …. Mother Nature is building her case against industrial-colonial culture’s default settings; and

3) We become more ORGANIZED. We are less and less Lone Rangers these days, and more and more networked and teamed up! From the hyperlocal to the regional, continental, and even global level, grassroots connections are strengthening and overlapping. We are networks; and networks of networks.

At one point a few years back it occurred to me that many of us eco activists went around protesting “big bad corporations,” and lamenting the damage they do to the planet — while at the same time many of us were ourselves relying on Wall Street-tied funds to provide us a secure retirement. This to me felt like standing on a rug and trying to pull the rug out from under ourselves. Or like a snake trying to eat its own tail. Or something.

I had a mutual fund for a few years back in the early 2000s but liquidated it to invest in continuing education and starting a business.

Today I ran across the most detailed article I’ve seen this far on this topic.

“First and foremost, the fees being skimmed off the top of workers’ savings are going into a financial industry that has become an elaborate tax haven helping billionaires evade the levies that the rest of us pay.”

And then there is the damaging impact, on people and the planet, of the investments themselves:

“Pension money has flooded into alternative investment funds profiting off looting hospitals and media companies.

“Pension money has also backed private equity funds that bought up the hospital staffing companies delivering massive, out-of-network medical bills to patients that insurers have refused to pay. Congress passed legislation last year to end surprise medical bills at hospitals, but the law doesn’t cover ground ambulance companies, which have also been snatched up by pension-backed private equity firms.

“Through alternative investments, pension money has continued to provide capital to the fossil fuel industry that is creating the climate crisis threatening all life on the planet.
Pension money was not only investment capital behind the mortgage-backed securities that blew up the global economy, it has been invested in the private equity firms that have bought up more and more of the nation’s housing stock, from suburban single-family homes to mobile home parks. Pension-backed private equity and real estate firms have jacked up rents, neglected tenants, and used investment funds to bankroll the campaign against rent control. And now the private equity industry is relying on pension money to boost its plans to buy up even more suburban homes.

“Pension money has even continued to flow to the private equity firm that controls major fast food chains paying low wages, and whose umbrella company recently claimed credit for killing a national $15 minimum wage.”

Go read the full article: “Workers Are Funding the War On Themselves — How workers’ retirement savings are enriching billionaires and, in every way imaginable, financing the apocalypse.” (David Sirota, dailyposter.com; July 7, 2021).

There are at least a couple of reasonable responses to this horrific situation:

– As a society, we can devise more ways to hold fund managers accountable; close tax loopholes for fund managers and corporations.

– As individuals, we can choose to keep most or all of our wealth in local businesses or other investments that aren’t Wall Street. I’ve written a fair amount on this topic here on this blog, with lots of links to articles by Laura Oldanie and some of my other favorite thinkers in the realm of regenerative investing.

In addition to holding builders to higher standards, and making sure the inspectors are doing their job …

We could also question the very idea that steel-and-concrete towers are a sustainable mode of building, and living.

Considerable residential density can be achieved even with building heights of just 3-4 stories. (Jane Jacob talks about that in The Death and Life of Great American Cities.) And it’s a lot safer and probably overall nicer way to live.

Also, we could question the economic sustainability of “condos”. No one wants to pay those monthly condo fees as it is, and then on top of that you can get huge assessments anytime. There’s great incentives to postpone repairs, kick the can down the road.

Not trying to disparage the concept of cooperatively owned housing; I think that’s a great model actually. But maybe more sustainable for a 2- or 3- story multi-unit building, or a sprawling 9-bedroom mansion, than for a 20-storey concrete tower.

I usually have mixed feelings about sharing articles that are focused on glyph0s@te. Glyph0s@te is something we need to quit using … along with all other herbicides and pesticides.

Articles focused only on G might tempt people to think it’s the only bad ‘cide, and as long as we just ban that one we will be fine. No.

For a window in human history, ‘cides seemed like the ultimate “get out of jail free” card. But as we learn about the soil-food web, the importance of biodiversity, and the ripple effects of ‘cides on pollinators and birds and aquatic/marine life and all the way up the food chain back to us, it has become clear that the tradeoffs are not worth it.

This article focused on G but it also gives a good summary of the history of ‘cides in general.

“The EPA doesn’t always scrutinize studies or revisit the science that has been accepted for 10 or 20 years, and the federal agency is ‘often unable to stand up to the intense pressures from powerful agrochemical companies, which spend tens of millions of dollars on lobbying each year and employ many former EPA scientists once they leave the agency’ … “

This article “How Do I Tell My Neighbor To Stop Using R—d-p? is well worth reading and keeping as a reference for talking-points. Please share widely to anyone who might be receptive to the message. Send it to your local government if the government and its contractors in your area are still using ‘cides!

#StopTheSpray #NoMoreCides

Further Reading:

• “How You Treat Your Yard Affects the Indian River Lagoon” (and, I would add, every other body of water, wherever you are, as this is a nationwide and worldwide crisis) (Sally Scalera, FloridaToday.com, 7/13/2021). I particularly like the tips on building the soil’s capacity to hold water and nutrients. “If every yard, landscape and garden was growing in soil that had at least 5% organic matter, just think of how much rainfall and irrigation would be soaked up and held in the soil. So, not only does the IRL <and insert name of your lake, canal, lagoon, ocean, river, other local body of water> receive stormwater runoff from all the impervious surfaces within the watershed, but even the surrounding soil isn’t helping.”

• “7 Simple Secrets to a Great Lawn — Without Using Chemicals and Sprays” (OldWorldGardenFarms). Easiest tip: Mow high! No lower than 3.5 or 4 inches. A friend of mine even swapped out his mower wheels so he could keep his lawn mowed at 6″! It was a lush shag-carpet, gorgeous green and chemical-free. (Then he moved into a different house, where he turned his yard into a lush micro forest with little ponds and bridges and winding trails; it is paradise for wildlife and humans alike.)

Thoughts on Development … We have to find a better way!

People will always need places to live. And to buy groceries, fuel, prescriptions and so on.

Rather than oppose development outright, we need to integrate sustainability and ecosystem restoration into ALL new developments (and retrofit those attributes into existing developments).

“Making peace with nature will be the defining task of the twenty-first century.” Those were the words of U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, in the climate discussions held in December 2020.

And there’s no better place to start making peace with nature than in the realm of development. Human needs aren’t going away; we can’t NIMBY our own needs out of existence. Instead, we have to find ways to create our buildings and roads and utilities in a manner that doesn’t involve trashing every other species on the planet (right down to those all-important soil microbes).

In that spirit I offer my permaculture-inspired responses to a neighborhood’s concerns about a potential development. These concerns are in regard to a specific development, but they are very typical of the objections that just about every development tends to be met with from neighborhood groups, environmentalists, etc.

Below, I attempt to address each typical concern, in hopes of sparking a creative conversation about how we can do development that is both eco-friendly and people-friendly (because contrary to popular belief, we can’t have one without the other; the two must go hand in hand).

• Traffic concerns – increased number of vehicles:
— Promote development that adds little or no traffic, such as car-free townhome complex or urban ecovillage, or residential complex with car-share station on premises.

• Water and sewer lines increased demands:
— Well yes, but cities have been dealing with that since time immemorial. If we need to boost our technical expertise in this area, we could look at the public-works departments in Boston or NYC, who have been dealing with dense water & sewer requirements for centuries.

• Roadways in need of improvements to handle traffic:
— Minimize additional traffic by adding only non-car-dependent housing. Many people are seeking to live car-lite or car-free. I have even heard of townhouse or apartment complexes with car-share stations (Zipcar etc) built in or alongside.

• School overcrowding:
— If schools get overcrowded, we build new schools! Or build an additional storey onto the existing school. Better than the alternative, schools having to close for lack of students because no young families feel able to live in the area (whether because not enough jobs or what have you) — a sad thing that happened in my neighborhood, we no longer have a middle school.

• Safety of streets and children, especially those walking to school:
— We don’t make streets and children safer by keeping out new residents; we make them safer by reducing speed limits on roads, by making sure all roads have sidewalks and bike lanes, and by stationing crossing-guards during before-school and after-school hours.

• Property tax increases:
— Maybe, but that will probably happen regardless anyway. Might as well get something good out of it.

• Property value decrease:
— Doubtful! New residential development, as well as useful commercial development such as grocery stores, tends to increase property values.

• Crime increase:
— Maybe (and only maybe). But, for sure: more residents equals more customers for nearby merchants; more citizens to add life and civic engagement to a place; more people to offer yardwork, housecleaning, accounting, child care, elder-care, and other services the local residents might need. Also: New people mean more “eyes on the street” (thereby possibly REDUCING crime).

• 50 feet of green space:
— Easier to achieve if we allow developers to build multi-storey.

• Save the oaks:
— Easier to achieve if we allow developers to build multi-storey.

• One-story units only:
— Makes it harder to save trees and greenspace; promotes car-dependent sprawl and traffic.

• No zone change:
— Oftentimes, incremental zoning changes can be the best thing to happen to a place. Not talking skyscrapers or a delivery warehouse in a residential neighborhood. But duplexes; 2-story or 3-story multifamily dwellings, small neighborhood stores, yes! For more about gentle incremental zoning changes and the benefits they bring, see StrongTowns . org

• High density traffic flow that this area will not accommodate:
— Design ALL new development to minimize car trips. Make sure major goods & services are accessible by bicycle, foot, bus, wheelchair. Look into adding a ZipCar station or other car-share node at residential complexes.

• Infrastructure costs in current residents for lines to the property and hookup:
— Developer and new residents should pay infrastructure costs of new development.

• More police services:
— Maybe, but outweighed by benefits of new residents — see above. Also, density can bring down the cost of service per capita. “Economies of density.”

• More fire services:
— Maybe, but outweighed by benefits of new residents — see above. Also, density can bring down the cost of service per capita. “Economies of density.”

• Rise in crime inevitable:
— No it’s not – see above.

• Homeless camps continue at <nearby intersection>
— We won’t solve homelessness by keeping out new residents. That is a separate issue. Also, an influx of new people and more foot traffic might induce campers to move on to a more secluded area. Or better yet, the boost in population from the new residential development might provide a critical mass of citizen sentiment to come up with a real solution so people have an alternative to camping.

• Transients and renters:
— Renters can be every bit as good, contributing citizens as anyone else. Some of the worst “transients” I’ve known are what I call “rich transients”: People who buy second or third homes and only occupy them a week or two out of the year; people who buy houses just to flip them; etc. In contrast, fulltime residents — be they owners or renters — contribute to the life of a community. ARE the life of a community.

• Traffic study:
— No. We don’t need to pay for yet another traffic study; we already know that traffic sucks. And that asphalt creates a hot miserable climate. Not to mention, roads and parking lots are expensive to build and maintain. We need, rather, to start insisting that all future developments (be they residential or commercial) have reducing car-dependency as a primary aim.

• Mandatory Sidewalks:
— Yes! Good! And while we’re at it let’s make bike lanes mandatory too!