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We have failed as a society to provide all citizens with food, housing, health care and education. In former times, those needs were provided by the community or tribe, but now they are almost always paid for by money or credit. Impersonal institutions offer versions of what we are told we need, and we are forced to participate in jobs and training (college, usually) to qualify for the right to slave away our years achieving questionable material security. One can go off into the wilderness to live as a hermit or family (provided skill levels are excellent), but the opportunity is becoming more rare due to government protections. And in Alaska, global warming is melting permafrost, and raging rivers' volume grows due to glacial melting. In India, tribal peoples have for many years been removed from wilderness-residing, but they may enter preserves to forage on a limited basis. In many parts of the world, climate change is rendering less productive the land being farmed for crops; this is on top of soil erosion from overtilling, insufficient fallow time, damage from energy- and water-hogging cattle, and salinization from over-irrigation. Major global-warming interests recently pointed at organic farmers (yes) as contributing to greenhouse-gas emissions from tillage which releases bacteria-generated nitrous oxide. Additionally, corporate as well as small-farm produce-providers rely on oil for transporting manure and food; the transportation's pollution ironically adds to food insecurity due to global warming caused by oil-fuel combustion. This points out the need for local food production that may use bike-carts for hauling produce (see our Pedal Power Produce webpage). Sustainable eating seems to be the basic challenge, and down the line it will be more so. For some, maximum gardening is the main strategy. In Arcata, northern California, I'm typical for emphasizing my gardening, although the takeover by my front-lawn parsnip, potato and comfrey plants approaches—oh my gosh—depaving. In most of the U.S., the attitude is still "Why worry about my food supply when there's always the supermarket?" Due to oil-supply insecurity, this generation of citizens will soon be wishing they had created far more gardens and had saved farmland from urban sprawl. Not only does food actually come from someplace else than shelves and coolers, so does traditional medicine. But modern peoples no longer collect their healing herbs, although you still see Romans on hillsides collecting dandelions and more. A whole lot of healing must occur; it doesn't happen automatically or by simply leaving it to experts. Going beyond the healing of our environment, and promoting peace, we need a "regime change" very close to home: our front yards are dominated by grass and lawn chemicals.
Some people can't afford to shop for the food or medicinal herbs they need, and some even refuse to buy food (as a wage-slave, anyway). Can they easily start hunting and foraging? Most likely their regional environment has been fenced or paved. So, it's the dumpster, the soup kitchen, the food bank, the rare community food-garden, and spare-changing on the street. Whether or not you agree with the basic right to have enough to eat, it's undeniable that in this "democracy" the two main choices we have are to work hard for money for food or go hungry. Wide variations on this can include mugging someone on the street, which may reflect basic insecurity or cries for help—"Put me in jail where I'll be fed!" Here's how one world traveler manages to creatively "pay" for food and live well on very little money:
There is an alternative to working like a dog or like a criminal, or going on the dole and being malnourished: it is simply mass cooperation and mutual support. It is also known as traditional community living. Before having to work to buy food, humanity relied on village-based household industry and bartering. Bartering is far older than paying for food, and the old system comprises maybe 99% of our time as a species on the planet. Paying for food that is locked up is a recent system that maintains our modern enslavement and gross inequities. People in modern society are indoctrinated at an early age to believe we are living in a time of steady progress since brutish cave-man living. Today, the idea of growing one's own food is commonly considered low-class or quaint. How much better for the economy to drive up in a fancy car, shell out cash for instant eats, and then go isolate oneself in front of the television (for four hours a day, the U.S. average). When that American Dream seems unworkable to enough people, we will see a peaceful transformation to a reasonable, sustainable system—if we act soon. Shouldn't the U.S. look at its food future now, instead of blindly going shopping and counting on factory farming and its attendant massive petroleum inputs? Plants are nourishing, healing and help spread love among us. One last story: I introduced my lemon balm to a lily grower at the farmers market, and because of the herb's beautiful smell, it got me a lily which I planted for Mothers Day—even though the lily grower had never seen the herb before. May lemon balm tea replace soda pop and bring you lilies and more! ***** Copyright in U.S. by Jan Lundberg 2002 For a ten-step program for sustainable living and
growing food, visit the Culture
Change website's page on climate protection, at: To e-mail Culture Change: |
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