Blog Action Day 2009

This year the focus of Blog Action Day is on Climate Change, a theme which I am still in two minds about. I am clear enough that the weather isn't being its normal self, but I'm not entirely convinced of the many 'reasons' behind it. In almost every case there's a counter reason which says either the opposite or undermines the original argument.

So rather than go on about the endless debate - which I suspect will continue until we suddenly discover that we're on the other side of 'climate change' and are wondering what the fuss was all about. I'm sure the same sorts of things happened when the Thames in London froze over, or Greenland was literally green. People no doubt raised all sorts of arguments for and against climate change (in whatever terms they used at that point), and then lo and behold, some decades later, things appear to have reverted to 'normality.'

Anyway, a colleague handed me a recent New Scientist magazine today and told me (she's my boss) to check out the article called Top tech for a cooler planet. There are two good things about it. Firstly it doesn't mention New Scientist's favourite word, evolution, once, and secondly it shows that in spite of the hysteria that surrounds the climate change concept, there are plenty of people out there working on new ideas to save energy, and plenty of others investing in the ideas.

Rather than mention the various ideas here, I recommend going to the site and reading the information. One thing I found slightly amusing was that the first entry is Pee-n-grow, which discusses the use of human urine as a superior fertilizer - this is already happening in China where urine is collected in basement storage tanks in apartment buildings. Why it was amusing was that I have a newspaper clipping in front of me on the desk which talks about peeing on your tomatoes to make them grow bigger and better. Apparently it works. In fact it works on cabbages and cauliflowers as well. You just have to avoid telling people in your family who might find this a little disgusting that it's all for the good of the planet.

Wendell Berry

Abstraction is the enemy wherever it is found. The abstractions of sustainability can ruin the world just as surely as the abstractions of industrial economics.
Local life may be as much endangered by those who would 'save the planet' as by those would 'conquer the world.' For 'saving the planet' calls for abstract purposes and central powers that cannot know - and thus will destroy - the integrity of local nature and local community.

Proposition number XVII in Out of Your Car, Off Your Horse, an essay in the book, Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community.

I suppose it could be said that Berry's own proposition deals with an abstraction: 'the enemy wherever it is found.' But I wouldn't dare to criticise the great essayist!