Compassion is Starting to Taste Quite Different

My husband said something shocking to me recently — something that made me hang my head. "What's wrong?" he asked. "It's just sad that we even have to contemplate that," I replied. "Well, it's even sadder for the rest of Nature if we don't" was his response.

So what shocking thing did my husband say?

What is left of the land and oceans must be left to restore itself. As I see it now, the only solution is that as much food as possible must be manufactured from chemicals and cell culture to set the land and oceans free.

A couple of days earlier, he'd passed on the link to a February 2021 research paper entitled Food System Impacts on Biodiversity Loss: Three Levers for Food System Transformation in Support of Nature. While those three levers are all solutions I've thought of often, it was good to see them in (someone else's) print from a prestigious outfit, Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, which is a world-leading policy institute based in London, UK. Here are the three levers they are suggesting for "creating a more biodiversity-supporting food system" (pp. 22-29):

Lever 1. Dietary change to reduce overall demand for food - We produce more food than we need per capita; one third of the food we produce is lost or wasted; the environmental footprint [foodprint?] of animal-sourced foods is generally larger than for plant-sourced foods; trends towards consumption of high-impact foods are increasing. In other words, we need to make a shift from beef to beans (and anyone who's had a yummy black bean burger knows that this isn't an imposition or a sacrifice). 

Lever 2. Setting aside land specifically for the conservation and proliferation of habitats and wildlife that support biodiversity - We have to return vast tracts of pastureland and farmland to native forest cover (or tall prairie grasslands, where appropriate), as this will provide the greatest potential for carbon sequestration, especially in developed nations that "account for 70 per cent of the carbon that would be sequestered by restoring land currently occupied by animal agriculture" (p. 25). 

Protecting or restoring undisturbed habitats and whole ecosystems of significant size is vital for species recovery, especially of large animals at risk of extinction. [I mean, c'mon, do we truly believe that our species — despite the impacts on every other species — has the right to every square inch / centimeter of this planet? Are we truly that arrogant? What a fatal hubris!]

Lever 3. Adapting the way that land is farmed - We must "adopt more biodiversity-supporting modes of food production." There are two avenues for this: i) Retain wildlife habitat "pockets" within agricultural lands; ii) change farming methods. 

The report suggests three "key avenues" for changing how we grow our food:

• Reducing the volume of inputs (seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, mulch, water, etc.) and using inputs more efficiently (something called precision agriculture) through the "4 Rs" principle: the right source, in the right amount, in the right place, at the right time.
  
•  
• Substituting more sustainable alternative inputs, such as crop rotation to ensure soil fertility instead of using chemical / synthetic fertilizers. Another example is using no-till methods to limit disturbance of natural processes in the soil. Still another example is supporting natural pollination and pest control rather than using pesticides.
•  
  
• Switching to modes of production that use land quite differently, through agroforestry, agro-ecological and organic approaches, and permaculture principles. These practices eschew monocultures (huge tracts of land on which only one crop is sown), recognizing that biodiversity is the farmer's friend. This is sometimes called Nature-friendly farming.

Now here's the catch:

Someone commented over dinner last night that we're still not doing much "forward thinking." (The Natural Step calls it backcasting — picturing what we want or where we need to get to, and then working backwards to figure out what we must do to achieve these goals.)

Indeed, the increasingly intersecting climate emergency and biodiversity crisis (can you say Sixth Mass Extinction?) represent what I call a crisis of imagination. Despite the millions of people who read science fiction and no doubt equal numbers who enjoy fantasy and sci-fi movies, apparently we can't imagine our way out of an economy that is destroying all the life-sustaining properties of our biosphere.

So here's my contribution for this week. We need a "significant reduction in overall demand for food"? Then let's stop manufacturing Cheetos®. They're a non-vegetarian (there's animal-derived rennet in the so-called cheese) "crunchy corn puff snack" that people just. don't. need. Imagine how much farmland could be saved and shared with the rest of Nature if we got off our addictive junk food habits! This boycott idea fits the three levers described above: 

Dietary change to reduce overall demand for food (this idea would help mitigate the obesity crisis, too)

Using less land for farming so it can be re-naturalized (no more junk food crops = less land needed for farming)

Changing how we farm the land (no more corn monocultures)

Here's to a diet that includes fresh corn on the cob rather than "crunchy corn puff snacks"!

 

VIDEO: Coastal GasLink & Wet'suwet'en

My beloved (Dr. Peter Carter) has done a lot of research and discovered some frightening things about why our provincial and federal governments (here in Canada) are intransigent in their defense of fracking and support for new fossil fuel infrastructure (to the tune of billions of our tax dollars). 

This stands in stark contrast to their irrational criminalization of anyone standing in the way of pipelines — especially the Wet'suwet'en Hereditary Chiefs and the Unist'ot'en land and water protectors. 

These people — politicians, corporate kleptocrats and, increasingly, the police and judiciary — are rigorously (and vigorously) collaborating to hasten the end of our species and the end of most living beings in the biosphere of Earth. (If you think I'm exaggerating, you're not keeping up with the research on the climate emergency and biodiversity loss.) 

HERE IS THE PLAN of the .01% FOR THE WORLD: These destroyers (the seekers of more, more, more — and their sycophants) have 19 more fossil fuel pipelines up their sleeve just for Canada, with 13 of them in British Columbia!

And are these pipelines being built to ship food and create "a community of love where all have enough to eat because you share what you have" (an idea planted in my head by a friend, Judith Rees-Thomas, and her book, Soul Talk)? NO! They are simply to make the uber-rich richer while they foreclose on the future — which doesn't both them because they subscribe to the puerile belief that the guy with the most money at the end wins.

Here is Peter's video, Coastal GasLink & Wet'suwet'en. I found it astonishing. It shows why, as Exinction Rebellion's Roger Hallam has put it, we need to keep up the mass disruption, get even braver about mass sacrifice for the common good (thousands of us getting arrested), and maintain respectfulness throughout it all.

https://youtu.be/QQvwOB8Lf6M

Dr. Peter Carter on COP25 in Madrid

This interview with Dr. Peter Carter of the Climate Emergency Institute is going viral! People appreciate his honest views of what's happened at the UN Conference of the Parties (COP) 25 in Madrid, Spain, which wrapped up on Friday, December 13, 2019. 

You can also see and share it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oa13KrOvE2s

A Message to All the Women Attending COP25 in Madrid

It was 10 years ago that I sent out this heartfelt request to all the women who were going to attend the Copenhagen climate talks. Today, I send it again, to all the women, mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, nieces and godmothers who are attending the climate talks in Madrid, Spain (COP25). And to all the mothers, daughters, sisters, aunts, nieces and godmothers of all the men who will be attending the climate talks in Madrid: Please ... speak up for all the children, of all species!

A request to all women attending the climate talks

PLEASE WEAR BRIGHT COLOURS! Please inject some life into the talks — wear the colours of flowers and forests and sunsets and fresh fruit and children's smiles.

BE A MOTHER OR A GRANDMOTHER FIRST. Believe in your power! The "powers that be" need to hear that all the mothers of the world want what's best for the children of all species. Please represent all the mothers and grandmothers around the globe. Even if you don't have your own biological or adopted children, you are still a mother of all the children, everywhere. Speak up for them.

REMEMBER THAT CLIMATE CHANGE KNOWS NO BORDERS. Try to forget that you're in Madrid, Spain representing your own country. Think of the planet as one nation, under one atmosphere that knows no boundaries. Speak for all human beings, as well as the rest of nature, which has no seat and no voice at the talks.

LET COMPASSION BE YOUR COMPASS. Remember that prosperity and a thriving economy are impossible if the natural environment is ailing. We must get our priorities right! If a decision doesn't have the Earth and the children's future at heart, then that decision is not a compassionate one.

CALL FOR ZERO CARBON ALONG WITH SOME URGENCY IN ACHIEVING IT. Try to rev up the imaginations of world leaders and negotiators of all ilks (even the heartless, uncreative ones). Help them envision the Golden Age of Renewable Energy that we should be quickly heading into.

LET COURAGE GUIDE YOU. Women are courageous in so many — often unsung — ways. Courage in Madrid, though it won't be easy, will be simple. What a privileged position you are in! Please take advantage of it and be brave enough to speak up for all those who have so little — now and in the future. Be the peaceful warriors who safeguard the children.

REMEMBER THE GREAT WOMEN WHO HAVE ALREADY DEMONSTRATED THEIR COURAGE, women like Rachel Carson, Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, Biruté Galdikas, Patricia Wright, Donella Meadows, Hazel Henderson, Sylvia Earle, Erin Brokovich, Sister Dorothy Stang, Greta Thunberg, Severn Cullis-Suzuki, Lois Gibbs, the women of the Chipko Movement, Beatrix Potter, Wangari Maathai, Julia Butterfly Hill, Betty Krawczyk, Vandana Shiva, Starhawk, Sheila Watt-Cloutier, Hildegard of Bingen, Harriet Nahanee, Eunice Foote. Stand on their shoulders — and be climate heroes in Madrid!