Seeing our own self-interest
My dad used to tell us stories of when he was a "guest of the Germans" in Stalag 17 prison camp during World War 2. He said the men were so hungry that if food fell to the ground they would joke "Right on the napkin!" as they snatched it up and ate it anyway. He told us the soup usually just had just a couple of old potatoes or turnips or whatever, and maybe some maggots - "Some guys couldn't eat it, and they died." When the men would plead for food from the guards, the guards would say "Nix arbeit nix essen, dumerasel!" ("No work no eat, jackass!") He said the American prisoners were treated better than the Russians there, and - though they were told they would be shot if they threw food over the fence to the Russians - they discreetly did so anyway. And he once saw Jews being marched who hardly looked alive as they had been so starved they were literally nothing but skin and bones.
Why am I talking about such an unpleasant subject? Because that is exactly where we are now. A comfortable well-fed future is not something we have coming to us. The right to food may be a human right, but it's not a given with most people in the world. And - difficult as it is to imagine - it's not assured those of us blessed to live in the most wealthy country in the world. With all the changes in the world we need to think about the basics of life, food being one of them. Think you're always going to have an income, and so will always be able to afford food? Think again. Barring a miracle, the weather's going to become more extreme. So either the bank won't always be open because of some weather event, or that automatic check won't forever be coming and on time, or (refrigeration systems being down) the food at the grocery store and/or in your fridge will be rotting, or (due to the increased difficulty growing and transporting food with all these extreme weather events) the price of food will be off the charts for you. This is the world we live in.
Without stable refrigeration, there will be the disease hazard of rotting food. Given the possibility that in an emergency we may not always be assured prompt garbage pickup, the best thing to do with that would be to bury or compost it - if you know how and are able to do it safely. Any time organic matter sits in water, that's no good. The oxygen dissolved in the water will be used up by whatever organisms are in it, then disease organisms that don't need oxygen will breed. Incorporating rotting food into the soil allows aerobic (oxygen-using) microbes to suppress disease microbes. The healthier the soil the more different kinds of healthy "bugs" (microbes) the soil has, and the healthier the people with the good sense to eat food grown locally and organically. And locally grown food may be the only food available at times.
We live in the best and the worst of times. Everything seems to be coming to a head on Earth. There are many huge problems, and they are bumping into each other. And we have an almost infinite number of solutions waiting to be applied to those problems. Take enough faith in the future to go forward with the positive ideas you have, regardless of how dire the situation looks. Part of the reason things are such a mess is that millions are discouraged and so aren't much trying to do anything positive any more.
There are a vast number of wonderful things that can be done with microbes - from food production to alternative fuels to pollution treatment to mining to others. Most of these wonderful biotech possibilities are not being implemented because a profitable way of doing them wasn't found. But we have to do some things just because they're good. The world economy is, to me, thundering one thing - DO THE RIGHT THING! Forget about the money aspect of things. It's become profitable to do so many destructive things that our pursuit of money is literally threatening human life with extinction. We have to stop making, selling, and buying unnecessary things.
Think how many things we wouldn't need if we could get along. Need something at the store? No you don't, borrow it from a neighbor. See? Estimate how many hammers are being used right now in your neighborhood. Now estimate how many hammers are in your neighborhood. I'll betcha %99.99 of them aren't being used right now, so why were they bought? Because you don't think of most of your neighbors as family. But we're all in the same boat now. The wild weather is coming, the economy is throwing people off, and we're stuck with one another. As he aged my dad mellowed, and when I noticed he said things just to make people feel good, he said "Might as well". Well, that's like what I say now - We might as well love each other because the payback's better.
Why am I talking about such an unpleasant subject? Because that is exactly where we are now. A comfortable well-fed future is not something we have coming to us. The right to food may be a human right, but it's not a given with most people in the world. And - difficult as it is to imagine - it's not assured those of us blessed to live in the most wealthy country in the world. With all the changes in the world we need to think about the basics of life, food being one of them. Think you're always going to have an income, and so will always be able to afford food? Think again. Barring a miracle, the weather's going to become more extreme. So either the bank won't always be open because of some weather event, or that automatic check won't forever be coming and on time, or (refrigeration systems being down) the food at the grocery store and/or in your fridge will be rotting, or (due to the increased difficulty growing and transporting food with all these extreme weather events) the price of food will be off the charts for you. This is the world we live in.
Without stable refrigeration, there will be the disease hazard of rotting food. Given the possibility that in an emergency we may not always be assured prompt garbage pickup, the best thing to do with that would be to bury or compost it - if you know how and are able to do it safely. Any time organic matter sits in water, that's no good. The oxygen dissolved in the water will be used up by whatever organisms are in it, then disease organisms that don't need oxygen will breed. Incorporating rotting food into the soil allows aerobic (oxygen-using) microbes to suppress disease microbes. The healthier the soil the more different kinds of healthy "bugs" (microbes) the soil has, and the healthier the people with the good sense to eat food grown locally and organically. And locally grown food may be the only food available at times.
We live in the best and the worst of times. Everything seems to be coming to a head on Earth. There are many huge problems, and they are bumping into each other. And we have an almost infinite number of solutions waiting to be applied to those problems. Take enough faith in the future to go forward with the positive ideas you have, regardless of how dire the situation looks. Part of the reason things are such a mess is that millions are discouraged and so aren't much trying to do anything positive any more.
There are a vast number of wonderful things that can be done with microbes - from food production to alternative fuels to pollution treatment to mining to others. Most of these wonderful biotech possibilities are not being implemented because a profitable way of doing them wasn't found. But we have to do some things just because they're good. The world economy is, to me, thundering one thing - DO THE RIGHT THING! Forget about the money aspect of things. It's become profitable to do so many destructive things that our pursuit of money is literally threatening human life with extinction. We have to stop making, selling, and buying unnecessary things.
Think how many things we wouldn't need if we could get along. Need something at the store? No you don't, borrow it from a neighbor. See? Estimate how many hammers are being used right now in your neighborhood. Now estimate how many hammers are in your neighborhood. I'll betcha %99.99 of them aren't being used right now, so why were they bought? Because you don't think of most of your neighbors as family. But we're all in the same boat now. The wild weather is coming, the economy is throwing people off, and we're stuck with one another. As he aged my dad mellowed, and when I noticed he said things just to make people feel good, he said "Might as well". Well, that's like what I say now - We might as well love each other because the payback's better.
posted by St. Jim the Composter at 12:44 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home