From: "John Foster" <borealis-AT-mercuryspeed.com>
Subject: Re: trivia
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2003 09:26:07 -0700



Anthony:
> Well ok, but how does that support your argument that it was mainly
> population control that caused this? You said that not until the 20th
> century did families have few enough children for income (and therefore
life
> expectancy) to rise significantly. But my point was that life expectancy
> increased by a significant percentage long before then. Whether or not we
> take into account infant mortality, the fact remains - life expectancy
> increased long before the onset of the cause you proposed.

Modern methods of food preservation resulted in fewer famines, and plaques.
The problem with a famine is not so much starvation, but rather the diseases
which kill off much of the weakened population. Following food shortages you
find
epidemics. This is quite common in African countries where there are food
shortages....Food preservation and better distribution result in fewer
famines, as well as fewer epidemics.

The method of canning food for instance is a relatively recent technique.
Prior to canning, and freezing, the best methods of storing foods such as
meats was drying and salting.

However food preservation is not a factor which would increase the life
expectancy of a population where there are no famines. For example on many
South Sea Islands. In some neolithic cultures, the practice of infanticide
was used to control population.

The primary problem with 'modern technology' is that it has become incapable
in many cases in optimizing the 'inputs' so as to conserve the productive
capacity of the land and water. In addition there are serious environmental
'externalities' directly associated with modern farming technologies.
Concentration and governance of land and water use is  not primarily subject
to regional nor local control and best management practices, but more often
than not the technology is subject to 'maximization' of  a return/rents on
capital investment. It is for this reason that we find landscapes not
ideally suited for forestry and agriculture used in a 'single purpose'
fashion. I am sure the Rhine River is a good example of that. Here in BC we
have the Okanagan valley. It is a desert landscape with a large freshwater
lake of over 100 kilometers.

When I was a small boy, the largest town had a population of about 20,000,
Kelowna. Then it grew in leaps and bounds, so that now the population of the
largest city is 140,000. There is only one provincial park. It was consumed
by wildfire this year. The rest of the lake is primarily now taken up by
suburbs and lakeshore developments. Vineyards expanded so that now there are
over 40 different vintners including Mission Hill, and many world famous
brands. The thing that has happened is much similar to the Rhine River. The
landscape has been altered to facilitate primarily human high density
dwelling and industries.

The area is a good place to retire and to live since it has a mild winter,
and a warm or hot summer and there is plenty of fresh water for swimming.

The problem now is that water may become limiting to further growth. There
are 40 hydro dams or so on the Columbia River system, so there are no
fisheries left. The indigenous people lived on migrating salmon. Vast
orchards in the Okanagan rely on irrigation, and as a result both pesticides
and agriculture chemicals infiltrate into the ground water and via surface
water. Inevitably freshwater sources will carry greater and greater
concentrations of pollutants.

There is no 'abstract' answer to solving the ecological and landscape issues
which will ultimately impact on the quality of life in this region. There is
no simple solution to correct the harm, and like Heidegger indicates
implicitly, we go our way without thinking about this being before us, this
manifold.

Unless we as a species establish nature in it's own right, restore
wilderness, conservation areas, we can never know what is the 'benchmark'
which nature is supposed to be 'in-itself' without technology. I don't say
without humans because it is technology which is the single most important
factor involved in the 'manipulation' of productive capacity of nature. We
have depleted 90% of the worlds ocean fisheries, and it is likely that
commercial fish farms will erode what inshore fisheries are still left.

Our species appears to learn through a modified 'trial and error' approach
in the use of technology. We have a tradition of exploiting species until
they become extinct (passenger pigeons, et cetera).

We 'replicate' our own representations of what we consider as 'natural' and
hospitable unto the entire world. I am amazed at the difference in
sensibility of folks you grew up in cities for instance. The pattern for
human dwelling on the land includes sidewalks, mowed lawns, regular streets
with rectangular blocks of structures, and lights, et cetera. Because I
lived in the remote country my impression was that nature has no
'uniformity' as replicated in cities and towns. A city to me is just as much
an 'ant hill' as it is a 'hornets nest' ...the analogy is only different in
respect of size. I have seen ancient cities made from adobe in Peru. The
largest adobe city current known is about 3000 years old. It housed 50,000
persons. It looks up close much like a mud swallow's homes, but it is very
smooth and beautiful with walls 2 meters thick, courtyards, ramps, and
mosaic paintings and relief work on the walls. Cities appear to me to be
'conveniences' or 'utilitarian' in nature rather than simple ends, a complex
means. I guess that is why I dislike large cities - well I like to visit
them for a week or two. But that is it. I get a feeling of claustraphobia
and anxiety in them....as if there is 'no place to go'.....I would turn into
a book worm, and in the summer ride a bike back and forth from one side of
the city to the other side....I feel like I am inside a cage.

When you have 6 billion people living in the equivalent of billions of
mudswallow houses under the eaves of the world, pooping and pecking, and
drooling, then you have a situation which is unique....in terms of the mess.

We could have a moneyless society and there would be no difference....as
long as people desire to live and to eat and have a room to live in the same
problems will exist. We have moneyless societies and they have similar
environmental problems as we do with our money obsessed society.

Education though is the 'key' to unlock the lock we have placed our
imagination, and that is where we need to start if we are to correct the
imbalances that exist in our world. The term education may mean 'to bring
out' rather than to 'inform' and that is because if the 'internal sense' is
sensing something, then it must sense a change in the unity of the manifold,
apprehension becomes comprehension. All phenonmenon have a sensuous
component, all intuitions are senuous, even if the object in the sensuous
intuition is a representation produced by the imagination; thus concepts are
rules. Some concepts are laws, and laws are rules which must be.

If the productive capacity of nature (we call this natural capital) is
impacted by overexploitatin and depleted, then it is our problem because we
could not foresee conceptually that  our concept-in-progress (act concept)
was imperfect as to it's applicability, and instrumentality. So the large
seiners were a good technology as long as there are sufficient cod stocks in
the North Atlantic. The concept of fishing for cod, then was adequate, the
rule obvious to everyone who fished. As a rule, the fish were adequate to
pay for the technology and all the inputs. However  overexploitation of the
fish was not foreseen, and soon the fish stocks were depleted (over a 40
year period). No rule, no concept. No rule, no law of nature.

We cannot fault the fisheries companies for overexploiting the stocks, we
can only fault the productive imagination of the fish company management.
For the tiers of managers we can fault, because as we step up within the
hierarchical structure of fisherman labourer, boat captain, and up to the
CEO's of the processing and distribution company we find that there are a la
ck of 'experts' who can properly assess the stocks and predict accurately
how to fish; each company does what it wants, and there is no consensus.
Government is incapable of doing anything because it's experts lack
jurisdiction, and often the Central government has given grants and loans to
companies to build huge fish processing structures. Local governance only
assesses inshore fisheries.

This is how the Rhine gets ruined.

chao

john




> >There are other factors which factor into
> >increased life expectancy such as the abolition of slavery, greater
> >supplies
> >of food, food preservation, transportation, et cetera, all of which are
not
> >modern accomplishments.
>
> Food **production** has increased tremendously due to modern techniques.
> Here is an article which pretty effectively refutes those who attack the
> "Green Revolution":
>
> http://mitosyfraudes.8k.com/INGLES/Foodmyths.html


I did not claim that modern farming has not increased food production. I
wrote that modern technological food production has not benefited the
worlds' poor, that it has damaged much of the best agricultural land, and
that it has caused erosion and damaged productive natural ecosystems,
especially aquatic ecosystems.

Traditional methods of farming are more efficient and in some cases more
productive, especially where there are other values such as biological
diversity. Organic, shade grown coffee for instance allows the farmers to
grow other crops above the coffee plants, water is conserved, and there is
lower risk of incurring a lose due to market conditions (like now). On the
other hand if the farmer was only growing cotton in Honduras, then the
farmer would have to spray the cotton each week with insecticides (many
organophosphates), use chemical fertilizers, etc. It is no longer possible
to grow cotton in Texas due to the immunity of the boll weevil their to
insecticides.

If we look at organic farming techniques we find that the soil will have a
higher organic content, thus a higher moisture retention capacity.

<snip>


> No, primarily due to certain TYPES of governments which have been
prevalent
> in Africa over the past 3 decades. If you look at the countries which have
> become famous for mass famines over the past 2 decades (including
Ethopia),
> you will find a conspicuous pattern in the type of government in those
> countries.
>
> Anthony Crifasi

Ireland had a mass famine, and it was a conservative government which was in
power then. The government did not believe in 'welfare' and it only imported
a little 'indian corn' from North America to feed starving people. The Irish
government was at fault for the starvation of millions. Of course the Lords
were as bad...

john




>
> Everything in Eygpt is already exploited. Can
> >sand dunes be exploited by technology? the Sahil? Why should the Congo
> >import feller bunchers and chainsaws now? Would it not be best off to
> >conserve what is left and use that as natural capital in a
non-consumptive
> >forest industry associated with tourism, agroforestry and sustainable
> >development? Are you advocating the same pace and kind of development as
> >has
> >occurred in Indonesia which has virtually no primary forests left, and
> >nothing left but erosion and sward grasses? I see there is some
> >'presumption' here that development, in your opinion, has to involve the
> >import of foreign capital, and technology. But we know from experience
that
> >many large scale forms of development ruin the natural capital and result
> >in
> >the depletion of the ecological resources which were there already. For
> >instance in the Amazon there are 75 million hectares of deforested and
> >degraded land which was primary rainforest and now produces nothing more
> >than a cow per 40 hectares. The soil is practically ruined for centuries
> >due
> >to it's highly oxidized and mineral poor status. It forms a red greasy
> >surface with not much more than coarse grass tuffs, leaving little for
> >anything to eat. When it dries and hardens it is like cement. The rain
> >washes off in minutes carrying soil and organic matter, filling up
streams.
> >The US has lost over half of its' original topsoil in the last century.
The
> >same is happening in Canada, where the organic content of the native soil
> >is
> >now less than half, and without the OM the soil losese it's moisture
> >retention capacity and experiences very low mineralization.
>
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