Today’s post is by regular contributor, Richard Jurin. Before his retirement, Richard led the Environmental Studies programme at the University of Northern Colorado, where he launched a degree in Sustainability Studies. His academic interests are environmental worldviews and understanding barriers to sustainability. As ever, with our blogs, the views expressed are not necessarily shared by NAEE.
Out of all the things that should occupy our focus, food and energy are the two most crucial – we eat everyday (if we are lucky enough to live in a developed country with a regular income, and constantly use energy since nearly everything we use requires regular, consistent energy supply. For well over a century, most of us have handed that focus over to financial large-scale organizations that work for profit and charge us whatever they think we will accept. As such, with a market economy, we have lost most of the control, and worse, especially with food, have accepted substandard food that not only no longer gives us all the nutrient we truly need. Our store bought food increasingly has additives that work for the benefit of the profit driven food system but not for the health of the consumer or the ecosystems in which we live.
In past posts I have conveyed the idea that we are rebuilding the plane while still flying it. As such a metaphor suggests, we cannot completely change how we live without also changing ourselves and how we manage resources. Therefore, the metrics we use to create a sustainable future require us consider all the essential five items I have talked about in this series of blog posts (item 1: Mindfulness; Item 2: New Economics; Item 3: New Metrics; Item 4: Food resiliency, and; item 5: Energy resiliency (to be discussed yet). Our lives revolve around technology that uses energy, and we need to control it at the local level). At this time, we, the masses, do not have much individual ability to influence globally controlled systems, but we do have the power to change what happens within our individual spheres of influence – local systems. It’s not about trying to convert the hierarchical systems, but to ignore them and do what is ecologically right for a sustainable future at the local level in which we live our daily lives. We have to become personally sovereign and accountable for how we live and the actions we foster for a sustainable future.
The world envisioned by John Huckle and Adrian Martin (Environments in a Changing World, London, Prentice Hall, 2001) outlines the social theory that informs interactions between ecology and society. It may not initially seem appealing to a mindset constrained within a material-consumer system, but it does highlight a life focused on a high quality of life in a more equitable and healthier world. If we focus on health, well-being and equity, everything changes. This can happen most readily at the local level, since the corrupting influence of profit-driven market-economics will not happen soon above the grassroots level.
In a human world, so characterized by monocultures, terms like reciprocity, mutualism, and interconnectivity seem superfluous. Our farming, our economy and even how we live have been reduced to separateness through the misguided acceptance of commodification. Our focus is crucial. For over two centuries we have been rapidly developing technology without conscience or wisdom. We have believed that technology is neutral and unintended consequences and collateral damage were acceptable from the economic profit- making model. The most transformative thing we can do is change our focus. We have long all been complicit in the degradation of the planet’s ecosystem through our focus on standard of living (an economic aspect) to the exclusion of overall quality.
Trying to transform a transnational corporately controlled global food system is an uphill battle. The only way to change the focus is individually. It begins individually and within the family, with us all focusing on each action with the simple yet profoundly transformative question: “Does this create health and well-being for life?” From an individual perspective with food, we can ask, “Is this the healthiest food I can purchase, produce, or share?” “Does growing this food help regenerate the soil and create a healthier local ecosystem?” While global ‘Big Agriculture’ has adopted organic food production, it has done so through its profit-making model, and as such encourages short cuts that allow unintended consequences in food quality to occur. This is especially true when organic food is used in the processed food systems with its myriad numbers of artificial chemicals – many that can be immediately toxic to sensitive individuals, but most being chronically toxic over years for large numbers of people. Big Agriculture grown food is already toxic because of the numerous factors involved that increase productivity, yet reduce quality on many levels – simply put, Big Agriculture is not conducive to health and well-being.
It is not that economics need be negated, but it cannot be the primary metric with food for health and well-being, or for that matter with any sustainable decision; that can only come from health and well-being being the primary metric, which also embraces compassionate thinking as a daily habit. This becomes true for all aspects of sustainable living. And at this time that is most likely with localized food production, whether that be personal gardens and ‘farmettes (small scale farming),’ community gardens, community supported organic agriculture of farms still owned individually, or collective organic farms managed and supported through labor and finances by local communities. Exotic and internationally grown foods can still be a part of this new focus, but it will have to be managed by trusted consortiums with the same focus and founded in equity and fairness – by its complexity, this would most likely be a longer-term transformation. High quality food can only come about from high quality thinking. Something the market economy is incapable of doing.
……………………………………..
Richard can be contacted at: richardjurin@gmail.com