Blog CemeterySustainability Principles
September 15th 2006 00:32
What practical definition can we give to the word “sustainability”? It is a relatively new, “gaia-like” concept, but it can easily conjure images of, at least in the American mind, Native American life before the onset of Manifest Destiny. It brings us into the more holistic, non-dualistic expression of territory, and territorial claims. While the political questions that may arise from some investigation of these views may complicate whatever agricultural angle this blog is meant to emblematize, a holistic interpretation of Man’s Role in Nature can of course, lead us there…
But for now, let’s consider a principle, before I get into “the practice”: sustainability means that we are connected to nature, part of it, inseparable from it, not “above” it, beyond it, “masters” of it, not even “stewards.”
We are more like farmers, in most nearly every concept of human life. If we bring to the greater ecosystem that which it requires, we will be rewarded in turn with the fruits. Soil has demands, requirements, it is yielding, and yet unyielding. In the era of Soviet Russia, a man named Trofim Lysenko became the figurehead for a policy that nearly destroyed Russian agriculture. His simple idea, backed by the infamous force of the government, was that Ideology could stand over Science. In other words, if the state required 10 million acres of potatoes, it was going to get it, even if they had to destroy pine forest in order to create room for the new crop. But it only took a generation of “experiment” to prove this false. One cannot plow the taiga to plant potatoes, (the ground is too acidic) no matter what the Politburo says.
It has occasionally also been difficult for the American government to perceive this principle, which is how I would define a primary principle of sustainability: Science before Ideology. It sometimes brings the mind uncomfortably close to a like proposition: Changeability before Fixedness. But we have had our moments when at least the spirit of preservation held sway, such as the creation of the Forest Service by the outdoorsman president Theodore Roosevelt in 1905.
If we looked at the world through scientific eyes, if each of us had a fundamental scientific education – which I can suggest here as at least two courses beyond the high school level in evolution, ecology, biology and critical thinking, than the concept of sustainability would become easier to grasp. Only through science can we achieve exactness and accuracy in understanding the world, all ideology is only an approximation.
The next principle is to share what you know. This itself can be a great difficulty.
-ITO
But for now, let’s consider a principle, before I get into “the practice”: sustainability means that we are connected to nature, part of it, inseparable from it, not “above” it, beyond it, “masters” of it, not even “stewards.”
We are more like farmers, in most nearly every concept of human life. If we bring to the greater ecosystem that which it requires, we will be rewarded in turn with the fruits. Soil has demands, requirements, it is yielding, and yet unyielding. In the era of Soviet Russia, a man named Trofim Lysenko became the figurehead for a policy that nearly destroyed Russian agriculture. His simple idea, backed by the infamous force of the government, was that Ideology could stand over Science. In other words, if the state required 10 million acres of potatoes, it was going to get it, even if they had to destroy pine forest in order to create room for the new crop. But it only took a generation of “experiment” to prove this false. One cannot plow the taiga to plant potatoes, (the ground is too acidic) no matter what the Politburo says.
It has occasionally also been difficult for the American government to perceive this principle, which is how I would define a primary principle of sustainability: Science before Ideology. It sometimes brings the mind uncomfortably close to a like proposition: Changeability before Fixedness. But we have had our moments when at least the spirit of preservation held sway, such as the creation of the Forest Service by the outdoorsman president Theodore Roosevelt in 1905.
If we looked at the world through scientific eyes, if each of us had a fundamental scientific education – which I can suggest here as at least two courses beyond the high school level in evolution, ecology, biology and critical thinking, than the concept of sustainability would become easier to grasp. Only through science can we achieve exactness and accuracy in understanding the world, all ideology is only an approximation.
The next principle is to share what you know. This itself can be a great difficulty.
-ITO
| 943 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog
Comment by Ahmed
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
Comment by itheorange
i would view desire to succeed as human nature, what I want to explore is - how does that desire manifest itself in the environment?
Comment by Ahmed
Video Gamer Kids
Little Green Foosballs
PolyKicks
Comment by itheorange