Greenwash #25 in Trouble - Locavore Intimacy
Monday, August 1, 2011
Click for bigger, then click again for better resolution.
Please note, my critique of agriculture in this piece is not an attack on farmers per se. We are agricultural consumers, farmers are agriculture providers. Urban-centric attacks on farmers for being ecological destroyers are misguided and simplistic. We grow the demand, desire and populations that necessitate ecological crisis. We're all participants, or as Gary Snyder puts it: "No one today can afford to be innocent, or indulge himself in ignorance of the nature of contemporary governments, politics and social orders." (Earth House Hold, 1957)
If only the following table read: "The Main Types of Damage Anthropocenes Inadvertently Cause to Wildlife," and unpacked all the different ways in which we dwell on Earth and the consequences for each. When white people began farming in Australia, Aborigines were rounded up and killed as 'cattle stealers'. I find the same continued hypocrisy in this table:
Click for bigger.
1 comments:
Hi i caught your article in the august edition of Touble, was very nice i liked it and read it twice.
I have been thinking much about the ethics of food and it was good that you brought up the point about the large scale decimation of bird populations, speaking of life in general not to mention the many insects and small invertebrates that are quashed for their cheek.
I have been working at some of these farms where the destruction of birds was nescersary in maintaining a crop. Methods have been introduced that reduce death of the animal such as gas guns but the shootings still go on for the most part. Because like farmers discovered; if you leave a scarecrow out in the paddock for long enough the crows will perch upon it.
I am of the mind that these industries must destroy themselves as the fuel and the money runs out. I believe in the power of words to change and will continue suggesting some of the alternatives you also touched upon in your article. I think the majority of people are now aware of the shakey times ahead though and for the most part need a bit of a shake to wake them out of the natural state of anarchy and nihlistic outlook. Something many of us know well and must nescersary encounter when we percieve of a fundamental flaw in a system we are part of and thus responsible for.
Australia has a lot of resources in relation to population and i think any worldwide crisis will be hard hitting but i think as australians we still have many cushions on the stones at the bottom of the precipice of oil and demand where we waver now.
The hope i suppose is in the right words to the right people so we can limit the thought that: because of this security in resources we are blessed with we can just keep going as we please, with some "grudgingly but we are green too" sacrifices.
This has been one of my reasons for leaving the bush and returning to melbourne, to perhaps make some writing of these issues and suggest perhaps some alternatives, it is a fine line between nihlism and life and preaching and logic. One must walk with care.
Anyway thanks for your article, i will be reading some more of your blogs and expect to find them just as interesting.
Best of luck.
lloyd.
Post a Comment