localism? is it humbug?

[Tom Abeles]

https://www.noemamag.com/against-localism-in-food/

thoughts?

tom A

[Rees, William E.]

Hmm..

This article assumes that localizing food production is basically a matter of choice, that we'd localize mainly to reduce carbon dioxide emissions in a world of continuous fossil fuel (FF) use/supplies.  In short, it seems largely "business-as-usual" and takes food production out of real-world context.  

Also, see this: 

"[Localized food systems] cannot happen, however, because most people on Earth live in dense cities whose immediate surroundings are too small, cold, dry, or hot to grow the food they need."

True enough.  But again, Maughan misses the main story, IMHO.   "Dense cities" of more than a few tens of thousands are only made possible by fossil fuels and extensive FF-powered transportation networks.  Each modern city is supplied by an area of productive eco-systems up to several hundred times its political or built-up area scattered all over the planet (thanks to globalization).  In effect, cities are entropic parasites on productive rural and forested landscapes.  All useful resources and food products transported into cities (negentropy) and waste transported out (entopy) are moved using FF technologies which may gradually falter.  So, again, Maughan seems to assume continuity of energy supply.  

But what happens if we are forced to abandon FF to avoid catastrophic climate change or if  economically accessible supplies run out?  (Green alternatives are simply inadequate to replace FF quantitatively on a climate friendly schedule.) What, then, is the fate of dense cities whose immediate surroundings are too small, cold, dry, or hot to grow the food they need".   In these (inevitable?) circumstances, global transportation networks and supply lines will be severely compromised and people will be forced to become more self-reliant on local production-for-local consumption whether they like it or not.  

In the worst case, large cities and mega-cities will not be possible to sustain.  There will be mass movements of people, widespread starvation and geopolitical chaos.  I elaborate on this scenario here: https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-030-51812-7_285-1

Why Large Cities Won’t Survive the Twenty-First Century | SpringerLink link.springer.com

Bill

 

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https://www.noemamag.com/against-localism-in-food/

thoughts?

tom A

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[Rees, William E.]

And, for an additional perspective that is even more reductionist and simplistic than the paper on food systems, see this 

review of Superabundance that was published in The Economist. The authors, of this book, Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley, elaborate an hypothesis of Julian Simon that people create more resources than they consume and therefore more people means more of everything for everyone and that we live (from the sub-title) on an "infinitely abundant planet". WER  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The review:  In 1980 Chinese officials met to discuss birth control. One of them, Song Jian, had just returned from Europe, where he had read two influential books: “The Limits to Growth” (published by the Club of Rome, a think-tank), and “A Blueprint for Survival” (based on an article in the Ecologist magazine). Both argued that a growing population would deplete Earth’s resources, with results including “the breakdown of society and the irreversible disruption of life-support systems on this planet”. Mr Song helped persuade China’s Communist Party to enforce a merciless one-child policy for 35 years. Couples with excess babies were hit with ruinous fines; the homes of some were bulldozed. Illegal children were denied public services or put up for adoption abroad. Women pregnant with a second child were tied down and subjected to late-term abortions. Some officials drowned illicit babies in buckets.   China’s one-child policy is an extreme example of what Marian Tupy and Gale Pooley call “anti-humanism”: the belief that people are a burden on the planet, and so the fewer of them there are, the better. A few environmentalists espouse grotesque versions of this view. The authors quote Christopher Manes, who suggested that HIV/AIDS was “the necessary solution” to overpopulation. Others, such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a star of America’s Democratic Party, merely question whether it is ethical to have children. She is far from alone: according to an international poll, a hefty 39% of people hesitate to procreate for environmental reasons. Mr Tupy, who works for the Cato Institute, a libertarian think-tank, and Mr Pooley (of Brigham Young University), think people should be free to have the number of children they want. Because they have brains as well as mouths, they argue, more people mean more innovation—which in turn means many of the problems caused by a rising population can be solved by it. This is not a new idea. It was the inspiration behind a bet between the late Julian Simon, an economist, and Paul Ehrlich, a population alarmist, in 1980. Mr Ehrlich was sure that the world was running out of stuff, so a basket of commodities (chromium, copper, nickel, tin and tungsten) would get more expensive over the next decade. Simon reckoned human ingenuity would unlock new resources, so they would get cheaper. Simon won the bet. Mr Tupy and Mr Pooley have broadened the scope of Simon’s analysis. They look at a wider range of goods over a longer period of time (some of their data goes back to 1850). And they use a different measure of value. Instead of relying on prices in dollars and adjusting for inflation, which is hard to do accurately across borders and eras, they look at “time-prices”: how long it takes to earn enough to buy something. If someone earns $10 an hour and a banana costs $1, for example, the time-price of a banana is six minutes.   As well as being robust, the method yields some cheering results. The average time-price of a basket of 50 commodities, from uranium and rubber to tea and shrimp, fell by 72% worldwide between 1980 and 2018. Resources are becoming more abundant (ie, available to more people) as new ways to find and exploit them are invented. The time-price of many manufactured goods fell even faster. In 1997 it took a typical blue-collar worker in America 828 hours to buy a flat-screen television; by 2019 that had fallen to 4.6 hours. Time-prices suggest the world is getting richer at a cracking pace (with the odd hiccup when there is a pandemic or war). They also offer a fresh perspective on global inequality. By the authors’ calculations, in 1960 a typical Indian had to toil for seven hours to put rice on the family table, while a typical American had to work for one hour to buy enough wheat. For their grandchildren in 2018 those figures had fallen to 58 minutes and 7.5 minutes respectively.   Thus in 1960 the Indian worked 7 times longer to buy food; that ratio rose to 7.7 for his grandson, suggesting that inequality has increased. But another interpretation is that the Indian gained 362 minutes a day, while the American gained a seventh of that. “Time inequality between the two has declined dramatically,” the authors judge. “When basic things get more abundant, it’s the poor who benefit the most.” Past progress is widely underestimated, they argue, and the future is probably rosier than most people imagine. Plenty of things could go wrong, they concede. Restraints on free speech could stifle innovation; governments could muffle market forces, reducing the incentive to develop new ideas. They devote too little space to climate change, but their main suggestion—that more research will be required to make nuclear power cheaper and safer—is right as far as it goes. This book has other small flaws, among them the subtitle: no planet can be “infinitely bountiful”. But overall it is brain-stretching, optimistic and humane.

 

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From: sco...@googlegroups.com <sco...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Rees, William E. <wr...@mail.ubc.ca>
Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2022 8:26:13 AM
To: SCORAI Group; tab...@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [SCORAI] localism? is it humbug?

 

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/ff9c94a99a6b41e2bd85a4c39a88a7ac%40mail.ubc.ca.

[Tom Abeles]

Questions:

a) what happens when we can do more with less- 

b) what happens when the cost to obtain, eg tin, decreases 

c) what about substitution 

d) what about alternatives

e) the perennial of discovering the availability is greater than first thought

f)......

[Ashley Colby]

This article is making religious, not scientific, statements about local food and industrial agriculture. The only sustainable food system is agroecological systems that are eaten as close as possible to production. Anything other than that is basically calling for the destruction of nature, culture and resilience.

https://www.etcgroup.org/whowillfeedus

Ashley Colby Fitzgerald

ash...@rizomafieldschool.com

PhD, Environmental Sociology

Executive Director Rizoma Foundation, Loconomy Project

Co-founder Rizoma Field School

My book: Subsistence Agriculture in the US

Twitter @RizomaSchool @RizomaFound @LoconomyNow

-------------------------------

Confidentiality Notice: This document is confidential and contains proprietary information and intellectual property of Ashley Colby. Neither this document nor any of the information contained herein may be reproduced or disclosed under any circumstances without the express written permission of Ashley Colby. Please be aware that disclosure, copying, distribution or use of this document and the information contained therein is strictly prohibited.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/CAC0ykQHB4YQhz02_gHGk4H_8%2B%3Dx5mEMTmw_zevJTrWGTLBMZ2w%40mail.gmail.com.

[Rees, William E.]

I understand your argument, Tom, but all this assumes continuous techno-development in support of the status quo.  The status quo already has us far into overshoot -- by 75% according to the global footprint network  and overshoot is ultimately a terminal condition.

In any event:

a) few people with voluntarily do more with less; 

b) mineral prices, including tin prices, are becoming increasingly volatile with sharp ups and downs, but the general trend is up with rising demand to build equipment and toys for the expected energy transition;

c) substitution is an old fall-back.  For the most part, manufactured assets are complements to, rather than substitutes for, natural capital.  As Herman Daly has emphasized, we have learned the hard way that more fishing boats do not substitute for collapsed fish stocks; more saws and nails do not substitute for a dearth of lumber; so-called renewable electricity cannot yet substitute for many key uses of fossil  fuels including bulk transportation.  BTW, even EVs are more ecologically "expensive" than are ICE vehicles -- what kind of substitution is that?  (Ironic that governments everywhere are subsidizing the private sector to 'substitute' the ICE auto fleet with more ecologically damaging EVs ostensibly in the name of sustainability when, in fact, its to maintain the consumption-based status quo). 

d) What about alternatives?  No fixed rule, I suspect.  Are high-tech chemically laden artificial/manufactured  foods a satisfactory alternative to real organic foods?  

e)  Technology can indeed increase the apparent availability of various resources (e.g., we can refine poorer and poorer qualities of mineral ores).  However,  increasing abundance: i) merely facilitates further consumption and growth, i.e., it exacerbates overshoot; ii) this, in turn, creates elevated levels of material expectation or higher populations dependent on an unsustainable level of production because;  i) there are thermodynamic limits to increasing the availability of anything (diminishing returns); and as we approach these limits, the ecological costs of exploitation, refining, manufacturing, distribution and consumption increase, often exponentially. 

f) is there an 'f'?

Bottom line? global society has been in pursuit of 'a' through 'e' for decades, particularly the past half-century. This period has seen greater material efficiencies and techno-advances than any previous comparable period.  The result is twice as many people, more people in poverty than ever before, accelerating climate change, over-fished oceans (that are acidifying at the same time); tropical deforestation; plunging  biodiversity (plus the loss of 70% of monitored vertebrate populations); falling sperm counts (chemical contamination of everything?); etc., etc. 

The book in question is a prescription is a recipe for more of the same. 

Bill

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From: sco...@googlegroups.com <sco...@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Tom Abeles <tab...@gmail.com>

Sent: Saturday, September 17, 2022 10:40:24 AM
To: Rees, William E.
Cc: SCORAI Group

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[Ruben Nelson]

A side comment sparked by the review below.

 

I find it interesting that by and large folks who are more optimistic about the future are seen to be more “humane” than those of us who have come to the conclusion that awe have passed the exits for all of the optimistic and happy ways to the future, that only “blood, toil, sweat and tears” mixed with moments of great joy and ecstasy are left. 

 

To me this speaks to the systemic superficiality of our MTI cultures which, in turn, feed our weakness of character, slackness of mind and self-indulgent spirits.

 

Ruben

 

Ruben F.W. Nelson

Executive Director

Foresight Canada

www.foresightcanada.com

+1-403-609-1016

Courageous Leadership for Transforming Change

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/a5821955f26f4e7991d2e9a50f6bda26%40mail.ubc.ca.

[Ashwani Vasishth]

In his original question, Tom asked: does it work or is it humbug.

I give you Edward de Bono's "po".  Neither yes, nor no.

This is not a binary choice.  We need to EXPAND our options, rather than find that ONE basket that will "solve all our problems."

Sometimes. localism is good.  Sometimes less so.

But hey.  Who cares what is the "best answer"?

Let's just concentrate on "making a positive difference."

What has always mystified me is this idea that there is--or ought to be--the one best, right "solution" to whatever issue is at hand.

Ashley's agroecology--which is know is a very good idea, or practice--cannot work everywhere in all cases.

Large cities may fail, but we don't just live in large cities.

We can all find cases--perhaps many cases--where localism does not make sense.

We can all find cases--perhaps many cases--where seasonal diets don't make sense.

We can all find cases--perhaps many cases--where non-meat diets do not make sense.

This tells us NOTHING about what ought to happen.

We all rail against golden bullet thinking.  We all fall back to just that--when we have our "favorite solutions" in mind.

There is not ONE answer.  EVER. 

Because we--collectively--do not inhabit any one singularizable reality. 

There ARE facts.  But there are always more than one set of facts.

Deal with that.

-- 

     Ashwani
        Vasishth         vasi...@ramapo.edu          (201) 684-6616 (Jabber-enabled)
                   http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~vasishth
          --------------------------------------------------------
                      Professor of Sustainability
                  Convener, Sustainability Program (BA)
              Convenor, Environmental Studies Program (BA)
                    Director, Center for Sustainability
                      http://ramapo.edu/ramapo-green
                     http://ramapo.edu/sustainability

You can ALWAYS set up an Appointment with me, without negotiation, seven days a week,
              at: https://calendly.com/vasishth/webex-meeting

                       Ramapo College of New Jersey
              505 Ramapo Valley Road, SSHS, Mahwah, NJ 07430
         --------------------------------------------------------

I respectfully acknowledge that Ramapo College is located on the ancestral and traditional Indigenous territory of the Ramapough Lenape Nation.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/ff9c94a99a6b41e2bd85a4c39a88a7ac%40mail.ubc.ca.

[Ruben Anderson]

If you have any optimism left within you about the human capacity to solve big problems, articles like this might finally snuff that out. 

I find is astonishing how people can string together big words and concepts and yet appear so entirely incapable of thinking in systems. 

….

As Bill points out, they are Status Quo Warriors—but they even get that wrong. 

They wring their hands that cities cannot support themselves—but this author says in the 1850s the million mouths of New York City were provisioned from within seven miles. 

http://www.whale.to/a/blume.html

Over one hundred and fifty years later there are… ten cities of that size in the US. There are nearly 20,000 incorporated villages, towns and cities, and ten as large or larger than New York of the 1850s. 

So that is 99% baby and 1% bath water they are throwing out there.

Enormous proportions of the population could easily provide for themselves from their local food shed. In fact, the authors of the 100 Mile Diet said that easily the most spectacular vegetables they saw in their research and book tour were in Whitehorse, 400 miles from the Arctic Circle. 

….

Second, they are probably wrong about the size of the impact of food miles. Recent studies puts it closer to 20% of the impact of food. 

https://www.carbonbrief.org/food-miles-have-larger-climate-impact-than-thought-study-suggests/

….

12% of the global population—the overdeveloped world—consumes 50% of the food miles. 

So that means the other 6.5 BILLION people are using the other 50%. And yes, true enough, a lot of rice is shipped in container ships. 

Which means a vast bulk of the diet of most people on the planet is locally sourced. 

I mean… they are so focussed on defending what cannot be sustained they lose the capacity for basic math?

….

But here is the nub of it. 

Humanity will use much less energy in the future. There are many ways that may come to be, but whichever—they all end up with less energy. 

Maybe we all logically follow the latest climate accord and cut fossil fuel use by 90%. 

Or maybe the millstones of resource depletion grind ever finer, starving the economies built on cheap energy. 

Or maybe climate chaos keeps rupturing pipelines, forcing generator shutdowns because the cooling water is too warm, burning down transmission lines, and drying out hydropower reservoirs. 

So what was once 5% of the energy used is 50% once fossil fuel consumption has been cut by 90%. 

Or if the energy impact of food miles is in fact 20%, then it is double the budget left after cutting fossil fuels by 90%. 

These authors can shake their tiny fists at localists all they want, but the paradigm has already shifted, and nobody is going to remember their names or their silly, simplistic arguments. 

Ruben (not Nelson)

[Ashwani Vasishth]

That still leaves standing the one operational question--UNTIL all this happens (and I agree with you and Bill--it WILL happen) what do we old fogeys tell the kids THEY ought to do?

We're tired and weary.  We've all of us here railed against "the system" for a lifetime.  We can choose to sit on our hands and watch "the show."

What do we tell the kids?

What ought they do?

Sent from my BlackBerry - the most secure mobile device

From: anderso...@gmail.com Sent: September 18, 2022 12:14 AM To: sco...@googlegroups.com Reply-to: anderso...@gmail.com Subject: Re: [SCORAI] localism? is it humbug?

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[Tom Bowerman]

This recurrent SCORAI commentary along the lines of "what are we old fogeys to do" question is really quite amazing.  Really?

Notwithstanding a misplaced objection that individuals cannot take on a mess like the climate crisis, I simply offer that everyone who is aware of the crisis should modify their life choices as rapidly as possible to exemplify solutions.  I know from personal experience that it is possible to live a low carbon equivalency life.  Doing so begins with conviction and self-awareness of personal action.  I think there are sequential steps, approximately stated as:   1. Know your own emissions, can be obtained through "Cool Climate Calculator"; 2. If I am at or above the average USA citizen of 17 tons of CO2e per year emissions, immediately plan on cutting my personal emissions by half (through ongoing daily life forks in the road as consciously as I would driving a car, taking the fork which lowers my emissions); 3.  To get to a net zero emission position, as a last resort, for those emissions which I deem cannot avoid, I buy ISO certified compliant carbon offsets which are verified, registered, and permanent, such as those marketed by 501c3 organization The Carbon Fund.  While this has taken me twenty years to lower my household of two persons to four tons of CO2 (2 tons per person), I buy four tons of offsets for the two of us per year.  Moreover, for the act of having two children, now 43 and 45 years old, born before I was aware of carbon footprint per capita, I also purchase validated permanent carbon offsets computed at the national average (thus avoiding the necessity of probing into their lives to obtain precise details of emissions).

The above paragraph is a simplified version of a number of steps which can be taken, and prior to adoption can seem abstract and complicated, but from experience I can attest that not any more complex than learning to buy, drive and maintain the climate culprit "car".  Moreover, carbon offsets should not be the last course of action, we should always lower our behaviors as much as possible before implementing offsets. 

Really, each of us who is aware of the crisis we face should work toward constructive policy to challenge affluent consumption, defined as those activities which so characterize our lazy habits of wasteful travel, diet, entertainment, and cultural hypochondria.  The debate of individual action and broad policy action is a false dichotomous choice, I can do both.  You can do both.   Localism vs. Universalism is another false dichotomy, we can structure our behaviors to be responsive at multiple scales and levels. 

There is plenty for us old fogeys to do, if we just get off our butts and do it.  Anything less is defeatism.

Tom Bowerman

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[Ashwani Vasishth]

To be clear, that was not my point.  Old fogeys are valuable.  II was not dissing them.

But can we, with all our years, and transcending our much-valued "big picture" views," tell our youth what they ought to do--here and now--while we wait for the system to change?

Its not just big words that are an issue.  Its big ideas as well.

I'm right there, trying to figure out how to shift worldviews.  My point is simply, what should we do while the system changes?  Whether because of or in spite of us?

What should I tell my undergraduate students to do, as they come out oof college and enter the so called reeal world?

-- 

     Ashwani
        Vasishth         vasi...@ramapo.edu          (201) 684-6616 (Jabber-enabled)
                   http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~vasishth
          --------------------------------------------------------
                      Professor of Sustainability
                  Convener, Sustainability Program (BA)
              Convenor, Environmental Studies Program (BA)
                    Director, Center for Sustainability
                      http://ramapo.edu/ramapo-green
                     http://ramapo.edu/sustainability

You can ALWAYS set up an Appointment with me, without negotiation, seven days a week,
              at: https://calendly.com/vasishth/webex-meeting

                       Ramapo College of New Jersey
              505 Ramapo Valley Road, SSHS, Mahwah, NJ 07430
         --------------------------------------------------------

I respectfully acknowledge that Ramapo College is located on the ancestral and traditional Indigenous territory of the Ramapough Lenape Nation.

[Ashwani Vasishth]

To be clear, that was not my point.  Old fogeys are valuable.  II was not dissing them.

But can we, with all our years, and transcending our much-valued "big picture" views," tell our youth what they ought to do--here and now--while we wait for the system to change?

Its not just big words that are an issue.  Its big ideas as well.

I'm right there, trying to figure out how to shift worldviews.  My point is simply, what should we do while the system changes?  Whether because of or in spite of us?

What should I tell my undergraduate students to do, as they come out oof college and enter the so called real world?

-- 

     Ashwani
        Vasishth         vasi...@ramapo.edu          (201) 684-6616 (Jabber-enabled)
                   http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~vasishth
          --------------------------------------------------------
                      Professor of Sustainability
                  Convener, Sustainability Program (BA)
              Convenor, Environmental Studies Program (BA)
                    Director, Center for Sustainability
                      http://ramapo.edu/ramapo-green
                     http://ramapo.edu/sustainability

You can ALWAYS set up an Appointment with me, without negotiation, seven days a week,
              at: https://calendly.com/vasishth/webex-meeting

                       Ramapo College of New Jersey
              505 Ramapo Valley Road, SSHS, Mahwah, NJ 07430
         --------------------------------------------------------

I respectfully acknowledge that Ramapo College is located on the ancestral and traditional Indigenous territory of the Ramapough Lenape Nation.

On 9/18/22 12:28 PM, Tom Bowerman wrote:

[Ashley Colby]

If a young person were asking me I would suggest to them that they should pick a community and commit their lives to making their community ecologically resilient. There is so much work to be done in food systems, transport, education, raising children, craft culture and manufacturing. You could pick any career or vocational path that leads to community resilience. You will not only have a very fulfilling life helping yourself and others immediately around you, you'll be doing good and making a new path for others after you. A legacy. 

Ashley Colby Fitzgerald

ash...@rizomafieldschool.com

PhD, Environmental Sociology

Executive Director Rizoma Foundation, Loconomy Project

Co-founder Rizoma Field School

My book: Subsistence Agriculture in the US

Twitter @RizomaSchool @RizomaFound @LoconomyNow

-------------------------------

Confidentiality Notice: This document is confidential and contains proprietary information and intellectual property of Ashley Colby. Neither this document nor any of the information contained herein may be reproduced or disclosed under any circumstances without the express written permission of Ashley Colby. Please be aware that disclosure, copying, distribution or use of this document and the information contained therein is strictly prohibited.

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/0670eec2-1c79-f36e-65a6-e10af7330f94%40gmail.com.

[Ashwani Vasishth]

Dear Ashley,

Yes, and I do.

Maybe one in 75 are ready to even understand why I'd even THINK to suggest this.  Maybe four or ten of ALL my students have actually done something like that. 

I have 6,000 students in my college.

Almost ALL of them will go out with ONE objective--to pay off their College debts, and HOPE to earn enough money to pay for what they might need to get through the next month.

Give me a truly DIVERSE portfolio of things they can do--as each one can.

THEN.

Tell me what the 1.3 billion people who've never had any experience of electricity.

And what about that vast majority of humans who would not even comprehend why you'd even want them to "practise regenerative agriculture."

 What do you suggest for them.

Garrett Hardin asserted "lifeboat ethics" as the only way forward.

Sent from my BlackBerry - the most secure mobile device

From: ash...@rizomafieldschool.com Sent: September 18, 2022 2:11 PM To: ashwani....@gmail.com Cc: sco...@googlegroups.com

[Ashley Colby]

I don't understand this response Ashwani. I have offered a clear and straightforward answer that is not impractical nor doomerist. Your students don't know what to do, but this is what they could do and earn a living. They can be teachers or engineers or small business owners all with a focus on resilience in place, and pay off their debts. It seems like you want to ask questions that have no answers. I am uninterested in this impulse among environmentalists. 

There are answers and just because students aren't used to hearing them doesn't mean we shouldn't say them. Many of us are educators, aren't we? Is that not the goal of education? Are you suggesting we should only offer your students answers they already know or want to hear?

I am also very confused why any of us are thinking about " the 1.3 billion people who've never had any experience of electricity." You asked about your students and have now asked about an entirely different population over which none of us should really have much control or input. 

Ashley Colby Fitzgerald

ash...@rizomafieldschool.com

PhD, Environmental Sociology

Executive Director Rizoma Foundation, Loconomy Project

Co-founder Rizoma Field School

My book: Subsistence Agriculture in the US

Twitter @RizomaSchool @RizomaFound @LoconomyNow

-------------------------------

Confidentiality Notice: This document is confidential and contains proprietary information and intellectual property of Ashley Colby. Neither this document nor any of the information contained herein may be reproduced or disclosed under any circumstances without the express written permission of Ashley Colby. Please be aware that disclosure, copying, distribution or use of this document and the information contained therein is strictly prohibited.

[Tom Abeles]

education- e duco

instruct insturere  

In the case of agro-ecology or sustainability the need is to get the students to determine 

that's one of the main objectives of problem-focused education whether it leads to agro-ecology in theory/practice or one element for a base going forward

In today's world the academic's function is changing particularly with the advent of Large Language AI models, LLM's, on the horizon (it's amazing to see my granddaughter in the 4th grade using her Ipad) It makes little difference if it's a medallion institution or a basic 4 or 2 year institution. Collecting credit stamps on a resume is a "no win" for faculty and students as the digital natives evolve and the digital immigrants collect retirement.

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[Ashwani Vasishth]

You are absolutely correct, Ashley.  That was VERY sloppy of me.  Forgive that, if you can.

For the rest, one of the arguments I have made in my own work is that a) there IS reality, but b) this reality is largely contingent--on purpose and perspective and a few other things.

WHY we look changes what we CAN see of any complex entity, as does where we stand and which way we look.

My world, and the reasons I am in it now, are quite substantially different from yours, Ashley--or Bill's, or anybody else's in this conversation.

I'm not trying to show those who are ready to listen how to LIVE sustainably.

Throughout my teaching life I've been trying to do just a few things.  Common to most of these is my "ambition" to infuse sustainability (as a way of thinking, as a way of being--think "the Tao of motorcycle maintenance)--across as many majors and disciplines at my small State Liberal Arts College as I can.  That's it.  That is the entirety of my ambition.

I want to diffuse broadly, both the need for thinking outside the status quo (ideally from inside of a systems perspective), and to show, also broadly, how to do this, while living one's "everyday" life.  I don't want to teach the "correct" way to live.  I want to show how anyone, anywhere, can learn to think differently.  I get Business majors, and Nursing majors, and science majors, and Philosophy majors, and Phys Ed majors, and K-12 teachers, and History majors and on and on, come through my classes.  My sustainability classes.  I want each of them to see how, by changing perspective, they can change how they make choices and decisions.

If that means, in the eye of this community, that I am simply reinforcing the status quo, I will respectfully agree AND disagree.

I want people to live their lives with contentment, but in ways that make them aware of the consequences of their actions.

I am not looking to topple the system. 

I understand the need for "transformative" change.  I doubt we will ever see that.

Can we, in the meanwhile, do less harm?

In my view, the world is NOT going to collapse.  Millions, if not billions of people will pay--and pay dearly--for OUR choices.  Recent past, present and near future.

This is written in stone.

You can't have 10% of the world's population use 30-40 pwercent of the planet's resources wihout the 90% carrying the entire burden of that choice-making.

But system change?  Yes, it's both a great and even necessary idea.  And in one way or the other, it WILL happen.  We will not be ready for it, but it will happen.

But we--none of us in this conversation--will be alive to see it.

So, if I can show people how to vie their everyday lives more gently, with eyes wider open, then I do feel I've done my bit.

-- 

     Ashwani
        Vasishth         vasi...@ramapo.edu          (201) 684-6616 (Jabber-enabled)
                   http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~vasishth
          --------------------------------------------------------
                      Professor of Sustainability
                  Convener, Sustainability Program (BA)
              Convenor, Environmental Studies Program (BA)
                    Director, Center for Sustainability
                      http://ramapo.edu/ramapo-green
                     http://ramapo.edu/sustainability

You can ALWAYS set up an Appointment with me, without negotiation, seven days a week,
              at: https://calendly.com/vasishth/webex-meeting

                       Ramapo College of New Jersey
              505 Ramapo Valley Road, SSHS, Mahwah, NJ 07430
         --------------------------------------------------------

I respectfully acknowledge that Ramapo College is located on the ancestral and traditional Indigenous territory of the Ramapough Lenape Nation.

[Tom Bowerman]

Ashwani,   Are your questions rhetorical or really questions?  OK, I'll bite.  

As a 76 year old fogey who has two 40+ sons and two teenage grandchildren, I have some thoughts on this but I'll keep it simple for now.  The most effective means of communication is by example.  Younger people can see my generation has really contributed to screwing it up, and they are obviously suspicious boomers who've (collectively) have skimmed the cream off the milk.  So they don't want to hear me tell them what they should be doing, they want to see what I can do. This leads me back to my earlier advice, we must do what we can at each scale from personal, local, national, global. As to my grandchildren, as well my observations or conversations with several younger generations, there seems to be a growing sense of futility:  "what's the point?, a kind of thinking which begets futility over hope.  Double standards never sell well it seems.  For example, Al Gore's trait to fly between his three opulent estates while running for public office and releasing An Inconvenient Truth gave the other political party fodder for exposing a repulsive double standard, in itself perhaps enough to lose a razor thin election margin. 

So, "what do we tell the kids?"   I suggest demonstrate sustainable behavior and listen to them more than "tell them" anything unless they ask.  Ask them how they are doing, probe their interests, and otherwise exemplify responsible sustainability. 

There may be some truth to generational traits although outliers or long tails of trait distribution also exist.  I'm the first year of so-called Boomers.  I think  Gen X should speak for themselves, they are credited with being far more involved with their children's education than my generation was.  

Tom B

On 9/18/2022 5:47 AM, Ashwani Vasishth wrote:

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[Ruben Anderson]

Ashwani, as I have said before, I always suggest people work on Local Food, Insulated Homes, and Walkable Communities. 

Ashley gave a longer and better response and I agree with it completely. 

I am not sure why you think these issues will not be relevant in our lifetimes. An entire town burned down a couple of hundred miles from me. Our food systems are being severely disrupted right now today. Again, near me, tens of thousands of livestock animals drowned this spring. The pandemic—which is still ongoing and still killing record numbers of people—is directly a consequence of our unsustainable systems. 

This is what collapse looks like. 

You definitely have a challenging task—and one of the best things you might do is suggest to your students that they drop out of school if it is going to put them in crippling debt. 

And I must agree to disagree with your mission—"I want each of them to see how, by changing perspective, they can change how they make choices and decisions.”

This is not really possible, or it is possible on such a small scale that it is essentially zero. We make something like 30,000 decisions each day, and we can change just s small handful of those choices. 

If you have succeeded with four or ten of your students, that seems about right. 

That is about all you can hope for with that approach.

And if that rate does not satisfy you, then a different approach is needed. 

Thinking is greatly overrated in our culture. 

Ruben (not Nelson)

[dvskasper]

Ashwani, I second Ashley and Ruben A’s points. And I’d like to add a perhaps difficult but very basic point in answer to your question: “what do we tell the kids?”

The fact of the matter is that it is not our jobs (as teachers, parents, etc.) to work things out for them—to settle their uncertainties, tell them what the future will look like, and hand them an instruction manual. And even if it were advisable and in our job description, we could not deliver on that promise. That’s just not how life works. 

We in MTI cultures have largely been conditioned to expect authorities to deliver “hope” (i.e., that things will turn out the way I want them to) and neatly packaged definitive answers. But our/their expectations do not compel reality to comply. 

Granted, we would be serving our students better if we had a more holistic education that attended to whole people (bodies and spirits, as individuals and collectives) and not just intellects. 

Even still, if we can help them see reality and present circumstances more clearly and convey some of the most useful, promising, and empowering professional and personal directions that align with those, we’re doing them a tremendous service—one that is in very short supply. (All the better if we’re also inclined and in a position to throw in some guidance for how to handle grief, anger, and the other emotions they’ll experience as they continue to learn and act—assuming, of course, that we’ve done that work ourselves.)

I hope that does not sound too shocking to our contemporarily attuned ears. I don’t mean to be harsh, just realistic. This deserves more, but perhaps it’s enough for now?

Debbie

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[Tom Abeles]

Hi Ruben A

Halina has suggested we move these threads to the scorai community site: https://community.scorai.net/d/3-regenerative-agriculture

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[Ruben Anderson]

Got it Tom, thank you. I will see you over there. 

r.

[Or Schiro]

Hi all, 

Just a reminder. 

The right link to partcipate in the on-going discussion is https://community.scorai.net/d/4-re-localism-is-it-humbug

See you there!