tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post4411782306879386988..comments2023-10-26T03:19:41.569-07:00Comments on Stephen Bodio's Querencia: A Discourse in Schooners and CandlesSteve Bodiohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14434597061701369867noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post-81918246335261756002009-08-11T22:30:35.035-07:002009-08-11T22:30:35.035-07:00We should not trust in romanticism or technology. ...We should not trust in romanticism or technology. Clinging to an idealized vision of the past or relying on tools unguided by conscience is foolish. These will not provide the needs of the future. However foreign to our culture, there are real limits that we cannot overcome by faith alone.Mike Spieshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10181679891489101232noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post-31832695535101704622009-07-29T11:19:01.935-07:002009-07-29T11:19:01.935-07:00One point that has not been made about all this &q...One point that has not been made about all this "get-back-to-Nature" stuff, has nothing to do with practical sustainability, or romantic soul searching. It is the keeping alive of old skills and practices which, perhaps today are outdated and seem pointless, but one day may have importance again. This modern society could be gone as we know it in the blink of an eye, and some of those old skills and knowledge could well be the difference between survival or not.....L.B.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post-78467825395841046242009-07-22T17:06:43.151-07:002009-07-22T17:06:43.151-07:00Comments here are edging out of the civility I exp...Comments here are edging out of the civility I expect on this blog. Let's have no more ad hominem remarks and sarcasm-- the arguments stand and fall on their own. I have left a couple of dog forums that dealt in insult-- I don't want to see us go that way, and won't. 'Nuff said.Steve Bodiohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14434597061701369867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post-11683860427049580182009-07-22T13:13:20.878-07:002009-07-22T13:13:20.878-07:00I wonder what the terrier man would conclude about...I wonder what the terrier man would conclude about Michael Pollan? He certainly packs his arguments with a lot more facts...Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post-5587356717346825542009-07-21T17:52:10.577-07:002009-07-21T17:52:10.577-07:00Well, after reading Patrick's less-than-flatte...Well, after reading Patrick's less-than-flattering Wendell Berry post at Dialy Dose, I don't think I'll win him over. <br /><br />But the sheer strength of his response is pretty fascinating, considering how others (no doubt teary-eyed weenies like myself!) have such a different reading of Berry's work. <br /><br />What makes the difference? Can intelligent, caring people see things so differently? I suppose.<br /><br />I can add only that Berry did address his tobacco farming in Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community (Chapter Five). You can buy into it or not, but he addresses the criticisms directly.Matt Mullenixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11198069782508775543noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post-41170010285729003912009-07-21T16:08:42.910-07:002009-07-21T16:08:42.910-07:00Robert F., I never said that Wendell Berry does no...Robert F., I never said that Wendell Berry does not say it is about people making choices. Not once. In my original piece, there was no mention of Wendell Berry at all. Wendell Berry is Matt's thing, not mine. Berry is not even a footnote in the modern debate about agriculture. Why would I mention him except as an answer to a question of Matt's? I wouldn't!<br /><br />Here's an idea: How about if you actually READ the original post (which was not about Wendell Berry) on my blog? It is here >> http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2009/07/problem-is-not-in-our-fields.html <br /><br />You see? Reading is fundamental ;)<br /><br />Now, if you think you can turn back the clock on the world's population size, I am all ears. <br /><br />What do you have in mind? Bombs? Plagues? Gas chambers? World War III? Viral immuno-contraception? <br /><br />Sadly, you seem to have missed the forest for the trees when it comes to agriculture. And I mean that literally. Your "big idea" about turning back the clock is eating squirrels caught in the parks? Robert F., are you serous? Are you (perhaps) drunk or brain damaged? If the later, I am sorry. Do you know how Mullenix and I hunt? We know more about hunting squirrels than you will ever imagine, and only an IGNORANT would argue that this country can return to hunting and foraging. Squirrels?? Wooeeee! You really ARE a very young city boy, aren't you?<br /><br />As for Mr. Berry's farm, I explain the little joker in the deck about that in today's post (which actually is about Wendell Berry). Read that here >> http://terriermandotcom.blogspot.com/2009/07/wendell-berrys-pipe-dreams.html ) I quote Mr. Berry directly, if you are interested, and I include a video too.<br /><br />Now, because I doubt that you are much of a reader, I will give you the short story: Mr. Berry's farm does not grow anything you can eat. It's a tobacco and corn farm. You remember tobacco? It's the stuff that kills 400,000 Americans a year and that costs Americans $95 billion a year in health care costs. Read those numbers again. And that's every year. <br /><br />Mr. Berry's farm and his farming community stopped being competitive when imported tobacco became cheaper. Cry me a river! <br /><br />I suppose where you stand on tobacco depends on where you sit, but I am not too choked up about the fact that we no longer subsidizing tobacco farmers. <br /><br />And, to put a point on it, I am also not too choked up about the fact that we freed the slaves in 1863 (the South) and 1865 (the North). <br /><br />Nor am I too anxious to import more slaves (illegal aliens) so that philospher-farmers can grow more expensive hand-harvested vegetables on marginal farmland. <br /><br />How about if we grow those vegetables where those hands NOW live -- Mexico, El Salvador, or wherever? <br /><br />American farmers are doing fine with mechanized harvesting of crops such as corn, soy, wine grapes, potatoes, peanuts, barley, hay, etc. <br /><br />Importing farm workers to hand-harvest crops is about as sustainable an idea as shooting squirrels in Central Park in order to feed New York City. <br /><br />Seriously, brother, if that is the quality of your thinking, you should go on tour as a stand-up act. They will LOVE you in rural Virginia ;)<br /><br />PatrickPBurnshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05781540805883519064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post-71293670756053583552009-07-21T15:29:53.676-07:002009-07-21T15:29:53.676-07:00Hi Robert,
As author of the gushing portrait, ple...Hi Robert,<br /><br />As author of the gushing portrait, please let me defend it. I've read a lot of Patrick's work over the years, both off-the-cuff blog replies as well as his print work. All I can say is that you must not be as familiar with him as I am.<br /><br />But I appreciate your comments. I agree that lampooning aspects of Berry's horse-powered existence misses his larger points (while helping make some of his others). In Patrick's defense, he knows well the joys of working with animals, and in other contexts would praise the "inefficiency" of hunting with dogs, for example, over using poisons.<br /><br />If Patrick cares to reply, I look forward to that. If you'd like to continue you're welcome also. But please tell us who you are?Matt Mullenixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11198069782508775543noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post-53514381133111865872009-07-21T14:11:44.644-07:002009-07-21T14:11:44.644-07:00Wow, where to start on all of this? The beginning,...Wow, where to start on all of this? The beginning, I suppose. I am not the least impressed with Patrick, despite the long, gushing portrait provided. "...[Y]ou'll find all your exits and him waiting with a snare. If you're lucky, he'll let you go unharmed." Hardly. Patrick thoroughly misunderstands Mr. Berry's work, and he provides "arguments" that don't even attempt to practice sound reasoning. What's worse, he plays the tired role of defending the establishment against its critics, and thus bravely defending the status quo. One could spend days pointing out the faults in Patrick's arguments, but challenging a few points should suffice. "Who is going to hitch [Wendell Berry's] horses when he is 80?" Short answer? Relatives and neighbors. Long answer? What has this got to do with anything? It is needlessly personal and logically pointless. Who is going to overhaul an engine for an 80 yr. old man? Who hitched horses for people in their 80s in 1753? Again, what does this have to do with anything? It is simply an attempt to make Mr. Berry, or anyone who speaks up, seem ridiculous. Similarly, Patrick asks, "Why is it such a bad thing that folks can get lemons, oranges, melons and mangos in winter? First, a rhetorical question is not an argument. Why is out of season imported fruit a bad thing? Because it is too expensive, on a number of levels. That argument has been made in detail by Wendell Berry and a host of other writers and Patrick completely ignores what has been said. The terrier is asleep and the herd is running wild. Finally, can't turn back the clock? Happens all the time, happens every day. Ask some of the long-term unemployed who are learning to hunt squirrels in city parks for food. The notion that Wendell Berry is excusing people from making sound decisions about the food they eat is patently dishonest. The whole point of his work is to get people to choose more responsibly. Again and again he points out that it all begins with individual responsibility. To portray his work as doing otherwise is actively dishonest. Finally, the notion that we must learn to live sustainably and simply is not romantic: the notion that technology and the corporate elite will save us is.<br /><br />Robert FAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post-40123088031327111132009-07-21T07:36:03.017-07:002009-07-21T07:36:03.017-07:00In response to Patrick and also to the anonymous w...In response to Patrick and also to the anonymous writer above, I'd say the agrarian model Berry espouses promotes subsistence and self-sufficiency for families (i.e., <b>NOT poverty!</b>), but not "wealth" in the way we tend to estimate it today.<br /><br />The question of how to measure wealth is in fact <i>central</i> to Berry's thinking. He never glosses over it. <br /><br />In his own terms, Berry's exemplary farm families are wealthy in land (40-150 acres), food (all you can eat, plus some grain, timber and meat for market), community (family and friends near and active in support), and human culture (rich with wisdom of husbandry, religion, nature and craft) that can be passed to their own children.<br /><br />They are not wealthy in dollars, typically clearing less than $25k per household at the time of his writing. However, at least until the mid-20th century, this was debt-free profit. And considering the land equity and subsistence economy, all of it free and clear for capital investment or savings.<br /><br />Of course, Berry's people (real and imagined) <i>save.</i> <br /><br />Patrick writes that wealth is key to smaller families and where there's wealth, fertility is in decline.<br /><br />I don't doubt this. But I would say that this wealth as he measures it must be of a different kind or of a different source than what can be had from a working agrarian model. My guess is that this is the wealth of a cash economy, education and wage labor. Is that fair to say, Patrick?<br /><br />You would measure this kind in wealth in ways familiar to everyone today: cars, college degrees, suburban homes, and debt.<br /><br />It's the <b>debt</b> that makes the key difference to Berry. His model allows for less free cash per capita but a much reduced debt-load, with the goal for everyone of Zero.<br /><br />I agree with our anonymous friend in that Berry espouses a plan most advantageous to individuals and the small groups (families, neighborhoods) they depend on. We are not called to save the planet. A widespread model of family subsistence and local effort will leave the rest of the world in better shape without anyone taking the reins from the top.<br /><br />Berry's vision opposes remote control and widespread centralized policy. However, he does allow that where government power exists, it can be helpful by at least not being harmful to local subsistence economies...<br /><br />Moreover, Berry does not suggest we all move to 100 acres of farmland, which he conceded even 20 years ago was too expensive for everyone these days. He knows and writes that cities have a valued place in human action, ditto small towns and even suburbs. The difference would be that these non-agricultural areas must relate directly to their regions and add value to regional products. They must not dictate terms and cannot afford to import goods from far away indefinitely and without harm to distant places everywhere.Matt Mullenixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11198069782508775543noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post-11484608970659444282009-07-20T14:17:40.206-07:002009-07-20T14:17:40.206-07:00As someone with an interest in the short-lived, un...As someone with an interest in the short-lived, unstoppable, highly reproductive, and sometimes pernicious species of the world, I just CANNOT believe that nature will ever be conquered by big agriculture, the seemingly ever expanding fields of concrete, or anything for that matter. Everything adapts and changes in ecosystems all of the time--that much can be counted on. Monocultures are just a short-lived vacuum that will be filled by some organism or another, whether we like it or not.<br /><br />The reason to get behind Wendell Berry's "unsupportable romantic philosophy" is not because it makes more sense in terms of efficiency or because it is more ecologically friendly. All of these arguments are based on the view of the efficiency humanity as a whole, how humanity can survive efficiently so as to still leave room for wild spaces. <br />But we are not an ant colony, a superorganism. Or at least we don't have to view ourselves as such, where efficiency of the species is of #1 importance, and the lives of the individuals of that species come last. I support Berry's romantic philosophy on an individual level, because who gives a damn about survival of the human race? I want to live a full life, with a richness of work and experiences. Wendell Berry offers a good life, where I am not just an automaton in the highly productive human machine and THIS is of #1 importance because I will die anyway, and once I am dead it won't matter if humanity survives. <br /><br />The ever expanding monocultures are just as unsustainable to the human psyche as they are in ecological terms. Let the people who support it suffer in their dull, grey, insignificant, highly efficient livesAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post-48068593045682661572009-07-20T11:23:11.450-07:002009-07-20T11:23:11.450-07:00Matt, as always, you are asking GOOD questions:
H...Matt, as always, you are asking GOOD questions:<br /><br />High birth rates are CAUSED by high death rates. This is the opposite of what it would seem, but it is true. BECAUSE so many babies die, people have large families. When mortality declines, there is a gap in time (during which time population coasts a long time like a runaway truck with no foot on the pedal but also no brakes to slow it down), but fertility rates always fall in the end. This has occured all over the world, in every culture, and in every religion, and it is still happpening today. Catholic countries have the lowest populations on earth. Iran has replacement fertility. Even fertility rates in Africa are falling fast, and this is because people are getting wealthier (relatively), children are living longer, and information is being shared. This is, by the way, as predicted by Condorcet. See "The Roots of the Most Important Debate" at >> http://exponentialpotential.blogspot.com/2005/10/roots-of-most-important-debate.html <br /> <br />Now, I supposed one could celebrate the death of people as a way to control population, but who wants to do that? It's like celebrating kill shelters for dogs. The simple truth is that we KNOW how to slow population growth, and women and men the world over want smaller families PROVIDED they know the children will live. If we have condoms (so to speak) we can have corn AND conservation. <br /><br />In fact -- and this is an important point -- without wealth there is NO environmental protection, as environmentalism is a luxury no one can afford. National parks (like organic foods) are a reflection of affluence. No one in Indonesia gives a damn about orangutans if their children are dying. Conservation has come to Indonesia at the speed of falling fertility and falling fertility has come at the speed of a better life (clean water, antibiotics, decent food, a dry bed).<br /><br />You ask about the Amish and the Mennonite (OK, I toss in the Mennonite ;). <br /><br />The Amish and Mennoite can no longer afford to buy arable land in this country. They too are no longer living in the age of schooners and candles. Instead, of farming, most youg Amish are going into manufacturing (i.e. industrialization) or moving to Central America (i.e. Belize). They Amish also "lose" a huge portion of their popualtion to the modern world ("the English"). You can only divide farm land among the boys so many times. See the WSJ article on the recent Amish Bank Run at >> http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124640811360577075.html<br /><br />PatrickPBurnshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05781540805883519064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post-53892494822801583252009-07-20T08:48:40.835-07:002009-07-20T08:48:40.835-07:00Patrick I stand by my high estimate of your brainp...Patrick I stand by my high estimate of your brainpower and experience on this issue, not to mention others... I'm just trying to catch up (Thirty five years ago I was studying Romper Room!).<br /><br />You wrote:<br /><br /><i>But Borlaug can claim credit for more than saving human life: He has saved a lot of the natural world as well. Because of dramatic boosts in agricultural output made possible by the Green Revolution, a lot less land has fallen under the plow. Borlaug himself calculates that if 1961 agricultural yields still prevailed today, three times more land in China and the United States, and two times more land in India, would be needed to equal current cereal production.</i> <br /><br />One long-standing question I've had about the benefits and necessity of the Green Revolution is how much it has contributed to the problem it claims to solve?<br /><br />This may be a chicken/egg debate, but if you increase yields with external inputs (ie., borrowed power and fertility from elsewhere), don't you simply increase local population accordingly? <br /><br />Put another way, Can we legitimately use population trends that are arguably the result of the Green Revolution to justify more of the same "externalized" (industrial) agriculture?<br /><br />And where does the production of commoditized surplus fit into the equation? Are we to understand that the grain surpluses available (to governments and multinationals) for global trade and influence is merely a happy coincidence of Green Revolution philanthropy? <br /><br />Is it not possibly the other way around? <br /><br />Additional questions: I note in recent news the US Amish population has doubled in the last century. Clearly they are not part of the Green Revolution, yet are expanding. <br /><br />How does the rate of their expansion (with farming that doesn't rely on external inputs) compare to the rate of population growth fueled by industrial ag.? <br /><br />Given both are evidently growth models, which one is more sustainable? <br /><br />I can imagine which agricultural landscape I'd rather inhabit, of these two approaches, but is <i>that</i> a legitimate consideration for comparison as well?Matt Mullenixhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11198069782508775543noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post-86370591785393432982009-07-20T07:47:31.115-07:002009-07-20T07:47:31.115-07:00Matt, you make me out to be smarter than I am. I ...Matt, you make me out to be smarter than I am. I am a slow learner -- my only claim to fame is that I have spent 35 years working on this topic.<br /><br />For the record, my concerns about population growth is not with what happens to HUMANS. Humans can take care of themselves and geenrally always do better, over time. The problem is that we are locusts on the land -- the more of us there are, the less wild lands there are. What does not do better with more humans is wild life and wild places, including wildneress.<br /><br />The person who "got it" as far as population and agriculture was concered was (is) none other than Norman Borlaug, the greatest agronomist the world has ever known. I write a bit about him -- and recount our meeting at World Food Day -- in this piece: http://unbiasedopinion.blogspot.com/2004/07/norman-borlaugh-i-presume.html<br /><br />As to the notion that "it's consumption, not population," that is a popular brand of nonsense. See the second table here >> http://www.audubonpopulation.org/consumption.html to see the real impact of population growth vs. consumption. As I have noted in the past, we cannot deny food, electricty, air conditioning and transportation to folks in the developing world -- we can only cringe at what will happen to the planet when their consumption patterns rise to our own. Again, the issue is NUMBERS. So long as humans breed like rats, the natural world will continue to die lie flies. Big agriculture is not the problem -- it is the solution to the extent that it increases efficiencies so that less land falls under the plow. The problem is that so long as populations grow, the demand for more land for food and sprawl is unending. Continuous growth, it has been said, is the ideology of the cancer cell.<br /><br />PatrickPBurnshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05781540805883519064noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post-8113255838237004832009-07-20T05:43:52.905-07:002009-07-20T05:43:52.905-07:00I've never understood the drama about human ov...I've never understood the drama about human overpopulation. The people who are consuming FAR AND AWAY the most are societies whose populations are in decline: the so-called "developed" world. Us. The problem isn't overpopulation, it's overconsumption.<br /><br />And Wendell Berry surely condemns the speculative profit-pumping prices of rural acreage. He thinks systemically. It's part of the problem. If land were valued rightly, it would be affordable -- because too valuable to be idly bought and sold, too loved for idle speculation.Regina Terraehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18387253477469996636noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post-29833510093147024162009-07-19T19:52:36.428-07:002009-07-19T19:52:36.428-07:00it takes a lot of energy and heavy machinery to co...it takes a lot of energy and heavy machinery to cook fertilizer out of atmospheric nitrogen.<br /><br />When Americans did not have cars, most Americans did also not own horses.Ryanaldohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10251540669102919936noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post-49840209609673265422009-07-19T18:54:19.165-07:002009-07-19T18:54:19.165-07:00The answer doesn't lie in schooners or in nucl...The answer doesn't lie in schooners or in nuclear plants. As is most things, I think we'll find it drifting about in the middle somewhere.<br /><br />I'm a romantic too. I garden as much for aesthetics as food and I chose a pretty mix of chickens for my backyard flock. I paid extra for the recycled glass tile and bamboo floors in my house. -And I'm a huge fan of Wendell Barry too.<br /><br />But I have to agree with Pat that there are far too many of us on the planet now to support individually sustainable lifestyles. Still, I don't think that that negates the importance of finding ways, even small ways, to discover and maintain our ties with the natural world.<br /><br />It seems to me that those who spend their lives in climate-controlled comfort eating nothing but imported or heavily processed foods and being electronically entertained lose touch with a vital part of what makes us human. <br /><br />Even if they don't make a significant difference in our carbon footprint; having a backyard garden, being a hunter - or enjoying the companionship of a fine working dog - reconnects us to the world we evolved to live in. And I do not see how that can fail to make us better citizens of the earth.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8732486.post-22414919440695361192009-07-19T13:57:12.644-07:002009-07-19T13:57:12.644-07:00http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=p...http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=phosphorus-a-looming-crisis<br /><br />Fertilizer is more than nitrogen.<br /><br />WHAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com