ChangeUnderground: 49 #worldorganicnews 2017 01 30

This week’s show marks the one year anniversary of the podcast! Those of you who have been with us from the beginning, thanks, and to those you have joined us on the way, also thanks. It is an humbling and gratifying thing to see the stats improve over the year. It is also very motivating so, once again, thanks to all my listeners.

A post from Permie Flix this week seemed appropriate for the one year anniversary: Bacteria Surf the Fungal Web. Regular listeners will know my obsession with the fungal webs beneath forest communities and our need to preserve these structures from clear felling and ploughs. This video from the Scientific American Blog shows actual bacteria travelling along these fungal super highways. The video is only 1 minute 31 seconds long but seeing the bacteria moving along these fungal pathways will change the way you see the world forever. So much goes on underground, out of sight and until recently, out of mind. We are just scratching the surface on this world, pun intended. Have a look and change your life! Link in the show notes.

In contrast to this system of balance and flow comes a post from the blog: Joy of Reading entitled: Endless economic growth.

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The Western monopoly capitalist paradigm that allows big money to chase after more for the profit of the few, using Mother Earth as a disposable factor of production, is neither sustainable nor logical based on modern science and natural law.

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I’ll admit this sounds a little Malthusian but I can live with that. The point is well made. Converting Nature into, not so much pieces of paper with an agreed value of exchange but now into arrangements of electrons to do the same job does seem like a fool’s errand. Many people no longer live in poverty as a result of this system but it is possible to, and I would, argue their poverty was a result of the system in the first place.

There is change afoot.

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Endless economic growth based on finite natural resources is finished. It is a mind-centered egotistical fantasy to thrive at the expense of other Nations.

The death of the paradigm has already begun.

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To follow on from this blog The Food Geographer brings us a call to action: Let’s all build an environmental mindset.

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I have found myself in a situation that I think many people are in: Caring about the environment, but feeling paralysed by the enormity of the task at hand, and how ‘little’ they feel in comparison.

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This sums up our dilemma succinctly. Yet thefoodgeographer provides solutions:

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I think what we need is a mindset shift, which will then lead to an action shift. Here are my simple suggestions:

Remember that, unless you are the next Gandhi, you alone cannot change the entire world.

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So we each can do a little. In so doing we will discover the next Seymour, Mollison or Fukuoka. Thefoodgeographer suggests skills we could learn, improve on and/or pass onto others:

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Food growing – volunteer at an urban farm

Vegetarian cooking – ask someone to teach you

How to make your home more sustainable – turn your apartment into a garden!

Recycling schemes in your area – contact your Council, support Hubbub’s new coffee cup campaign

Air pollution – plant more trees, sign a campaign every week

Wildlife conservation – vertical farming, or identifying bird songs to help conservation

Improving public transport and biking – write a letter to your government rep.

Young people and education – learn how to teach or host workshops at school

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Now we could call this the Noble Green Eightfold Path to save ourselves and our communities.

Let’s examine each of these in turn.

Food growing, my eBook on no-dig gardening is a great starting point, even though self praise is faint praise, I am quite proud of it. Click here. We can all grow some food and surprisingly large amounts of it in small areas. Local urban and community gardens and farms are also ways into this wonderful activity.
Vegetarian cooking, a simple google search will help if you are driven in this direction.
A sustainable home is possible. Even a more sustainable home is a good start. Michael Mobbs in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia has done it and will show you how: Click Here. He lives off grid in an inner suburban terrace house. He generates his own energy and much of his own food. So it really is doable.
Recycling, this is so 1970s I shouldn’t even have to mention it. Maybe a look at the Zero Waste Movement might help.
Air Pollution. All pollution in fact is a problem. Think of Bill Mollison’s quote: Waste is a resource is the wrong place. Starting there can and will change the world dramatically.
Wildlife conservation is as much a given as recycling, I’d have thought but to that we add the specialisation of pollinator protection. No bees, little food variation. Pineapples, wheat, rice and potatoes. Not much of a diet. So this is an area we call make a difference.
Public transport, pushbikes and so on as well as the move to electric vehicles helps. Provided the electricity is green, this will also help with #5, air pollution.
Youth, it’s a cliche to say they are the future but educating children on these matters works. Way back in 1972, I had a teacher who, I see now, while a sufferer of anxiety, instilled in me the path towards this podcast. It all started with the wastefulness and pointlessness of coloured toilet paper. Yes such a thing did and I assume may still exist. Simple changes seem to make the biggest differences. After all, white toilet paper and even recycled white-ish toilet paper is much better for checking bowel health as well as planetary health. So, little things in the minds of children can have exponential change.

So there we have a Green manifesto and a set of steps to save the world. Let’s aim high!

To that end a friend and colleague of mine Rich Bowden and myself are starting a new podcast and blog in the near future. The Real Food Chain. There’s a link to the Facebook page in the show notes. The podcast will be interview based so keep your eye and ear out for that one. I’ll let you know when it launches.

And that brings us to the end of this week’s podcast.

If you’ve liked what you heard, could please follow the link in the show notes and vote for World Organic News in the Australian Podcast Awards Click here Thanks in advance.

Any suggestions, feedback or criticisms of the podcast or blog are most welcome. email me at podcast@worldorganicnews.com.

Thank you for listening and I'll be back in our second year next week.

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Links

WORLD ORGANIC NEWS in the Australian Podcast Awards Click here

Bacteria Surf the Fungal Web – Permie Flix

http://wp.me/p5Cqpo-e5R

Endless economic growth – Joy of Reading

http://wp.me/p5Cqpo-e6p

Let’s all build an environmental mindset. – The Food Geographer

http://wp.me/p5Cqpo-e6s

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