Natural Selection

War, global warming, and SUV’s.  Why do we still see SUV’s in health food store parking lots? Many people still don’t see the connection.  Even the Model T, Henry Ford’s first horseless carriage a hundred years ago, got 25 miles per gallon.  Fossil fuel — oil, gas and coal, were laid down as excess plant and animal remains that built up over millions of years during the Age of Dinosaurs, Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous, the Carboniferous era.  Fossil fuels are the stored up energy of sunlight from eons ago.  We are now burning up the last hours of ancient sunlight.

We may already have passed “peak oil”, when worldwide supplies diminish and what remains is much more difficult and expensive to get at.  That may be a blessing in disguise.  If we did manage to find a lot more oil and burn it, global warming would just accelerate that much faster.

Biomass seemed like a good idea in the 1980s, when articles were even written on growing hemp as biomass to stop global warming and save the earth.  Growing corn for ethanol creates a competition between corn for fuel and corn for food.  And the fuel users win because they have more money.  The price of corn is being driven up beyond the means of the world’s poor, who need it for food.  Palm oil grown as a bio fuel is the greatest cause of deforestation in Indonesia.  A plantation of palm trees or any other monocrop tree in no way resembles a tropical rain forest with its rich ecology of plants and animals.  Tropical rain forests are the world’s greatest source of oxygen production, next to the algae in the sea. 

Some points to think about and debate: What’s better, for you and the earth you live on? Organic produce is flown in from South America at the cost of burning fossil fuel and increasing air pollution and global warming, or locally grown fruits and vegetables in season? CSA (community sponsored agriculture) encourages local farmers to go organic, also the only way to save the family farm.  What about in winter? I have been guilty of having organic Romaine salad for lunch every day year round, when I could have had a winter salad of root vegetables, grated beets and carrots, onions, and winter hardy greens like kale and cabbage. 

The old conundrum, paper or plastic, has been answered by reusable cloth bags most of us use at our health food coop, but use them at the supermarket too, so other people see them and get the idea.  Go beyond “either or” and look at other alternatives.

Current economic thinking is invalid, since it counts the value of nature as zero.  We may not realize her true value until we damage the environment and pollute the air, water, land and sea so much that they can’t perform their usual unthanked functions of cleaning, recycling and purifying everything.  These free gifts of nature would be unimaginably expensive if we had to do them mechanically.

We must learn to live in harmony with the Earth.  We need nature.  Nature doesn’t need us.  If we render the Earth unsuitable to our species, we will be replaced by some other life form, better adapted to high CO2 levels, higher global temperatures, and perhaps rainforest-like conditions similar to the carboniferous era.  Natural Selection will go on.

We must think of ourselves as citizens, not consumers.  We cannot solve the problem just by buying right.  We must educate ourselves and petition our government for meaningful and expedient changes.  When the people lead, the leaders must follow.

For more info call Bonnie at 732-422-1585.