“Sustainability” is, ironically, a growth industry. Ever since the term “sustainable development” burst onto the scene in 1987 with the release of Our Common Future (also known as the Brundtland report), there has been a dizzying increase in rhetoric about humanity’s relationship with our planet’s resources. Glossy reports – often featuring blonde children in front of solar panels or wind turbines – abound, and are slapped down on desks as proof of responsibility and stewardship.
Every few years a new term is thrown into the mix – usually preceded by adjectives like “participatory” or “community-led”. The fashionability of “resilience” as a mot du jour seems to have peaked, while more recently the “circular economy” has become the trendy term to put on grant applications, conference notices and journal special editions. Over time journals are established, careers are built, and library shelves groan.
With all this ink being spilled (or, more sustainably, electrons being pressed into service), is there anything new to say about sustainability? My colleagues and I think so.
In it we explore the big questions of sustainability, drawing on some of the work of an unjustly obscure Austrian political philosopher called Gunther Anders.
Who was Günther Anders?
He was born Günther Siegmund Stern in 1902. While he was working as a journalist in Berlin, an editor wanted to reduce the number of Jewish-sounding bylines. Stern plumped for “Anders” (meaning “other” or “different”) and used that nom de plume for the rest of his life.
But despite his stellar list of friends and family, Anders himself was not well known. Harold Marcuse points out that the name “Stern” was pretty apt, writing:
His unsparingly critical pessimism may explain why his pathbreaking works have seldom sparked sustained public discussion.
While Hiroshima and the nuclear threat were the most obvious influences on Anders’ writing, he was also crucially influenced by the events at Auschwitz, the Vietnam War, and his periods in exile in France and the United States. But why should we care, and how can his ideas be applied to modern-day ideas about sustainability?
Space precludes a blow-by-blow account of what my colleagues and I wrote, but two ideas are worth exploring: the “Promethean gap” and “apocalyptic blindness”.
Anders suggested that the societal changes wrought by the industrial age – chief among them the division of labour – opened a gap between individuals’ capability to produce machines, and their capability to imagine and deal with the consequences.
So, riffing on the Greek myth of Prometheus (the chap who stole fire from Mount Olympus and gave it to humans), Anders proposed the existence of a “Promethean gap” which manifests in academic and scientific thinking and leads to the extensive trivialisation of societal issues.
The second idea is that of “apocalyptic blindness” – which is, according to Anders, the mindset of humans in the Age of the Third Industrial Revolution. This, as we write in our paper:
…determines a notion of time and future that renders human beings incapable of facing the possibility of a bad end to their history. The belief in progress, persistently ingrained since the Industrial Revolution, causes the incapability of humans to understand that their existence is threatened, and that this could lead to the end of their history.
Put simply, we don’t want to look an apocalypse in the eye, even if it’s heading straight towards us.
The climate connection
“So what?” you might ask. Why listen to yet another obscure philosopher railing about technology, in the vein of Lewis Mumford and Jacques Ellul? But I think a passing knowledge of Anders and his work reminds us of several important things.
This is nothing new. Recently, the very notion of ‘progress’ has come under renewed assault, with books questioning our assumptions about it. This is not new of course – in a 1967 short story collection about life at the United Nations, Shirley Hazzard had written:
About this development process there appeared to be no half-measures: once a country had admitted its backwardness, it could hope for no quarter in the matter of improvement. It could not accept a box of pills without accepting, in principle, an atomic reactor. Progress was a draught that must be drained to the last bitter drop.
The time – if ever there was one – for tinkering around the edges is over. We need to take stronger action than simply pursuing our feelgood preoccupation with sustainability.
This begs the question of who is supposed to shift us from the current course (or rather, multiple collision courses. That’s a difficult one to answer.
The hope that techno-fixes (including 100% renewable energy) will sort out our problems is a dangerous delusion (please note, I’m not against 100% renewables – I’m just saying that green energy is “necessary but not sufficient” for repairing the planet).
Similarly, the “circular economy” has a rather circular feeling to it – in the sense that we’ve seen all this before. It seems (to me anyway) to be the last gasp of the “ecological modernist” belief that with a bit more efficiency, everything can simply keep on progressing.
Our problems go far deeper. We are going to need a rapid and fundamental shift in our values, habits, behaviours, and outlooks. Put in Anders’ terms, we need to stop being blind to the possibility of apocalypse. But then again, people have been saying that for a century or more.
Only lowering our living standards will achieve sustainable growth. That’s the message from Satyajit Das, a former financier who anticipated the GFC. Debt, energy consumption, housing affordability or superannuation – it’s all based on a financial system that’s in fact a completely fictional model. This model was always doomed to fail – eventually.
Beyond growth as we know it – How can we stop consuming our future? was presented by The Rescope Project. 4 February 2017
Satyajit Das
From 1977 to 1987, Das worked in banking with the Commonwealth Bank, CitiGroup and Merrill Lynch. From 1988 to 1994, Das was Treasurer of the TNT Transport Group.
Das is the author of Traders, Guns & Money and Extreme Money and reference books on derivatives and risk-management. He lives in Sydney, Australia.
Extreme Money was long-listed for the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year Award. The Economist reviewed the book, stating that “Satyajit Das is well-placed to comment, having worked both for investment banks and as a consultant advising clients on their use of complex financial products”, however, “the book could have easily been 150 pages shorter without losing its thrust.”
A Banquet of Consequences was released in Australia in 2015. It was released in the United States in 2016 as The Age of Stagnation to avoid it being confused as a cookbook.
Das is a regular commentator on LNL (Late Night Live) on RN (ABC radio’s Radio National), hosted by Phillip Adams.
I’m too busy setting up my market garden right now to write anything, so a big thank you to Raul for this content you should all read.
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Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact
But maybe everything that dies someday comes back …
Springsteen, Atlantic City
“Erwin Schrodinger (1945) has described life as a system in steady-state thermodynamic disequilibrium that maintains its constant distance from equilibrium (death) by feeding on low entropy from its environment – that is, by exchanging high-entropy outputs for low-entropy inputs. The same statement would hold verbatium as a physical description of our economic process. A corollary of this statement is that an organism cannot live in a medium of its own waste products.”
Herman Daly and Kenneth Townsend
What drives our economies is waste. Not need, or even demand. Waste. 2nd law of thermodynamics. It drives our lives, period.
First of all, don’t tell me you’re trying to stop the ongoing extinction of nature and wildlife on this planet, or the destruction of life in general. Don’t even tell me you’re trying. Don’t tell me it’s climate change that we should focus on (that’s just a small part of the story), and you’re driving an electric car and you’re separating your trash or things like that. That would only mean you’re attempting to willfully ignore your share of destruction, because if you do it, so will others, and the planet can’t take anymore of your behavior.
This is the big one. And the only ones amongst us who don’t think so are those who don’t want to. Who think it’s easier to argue that some problems are too big for them to tackle, that they should be left to others to solve. But why should we, why should anyone, worry about elections or even wars, when it becomes obvious we’re fast approaching a time when such things don’t matter much anymore?
The latest WWF Living Planet Report shows us that the planet is a whole lot less alive than it used to be. And that we killed that life. That we replaced it with metal, bricks, plastic and concrete. Mass consumption leads to mass extinction. And that is fully predictable, it always was; there’s nothing new there.
We killed 58% of all vertebrate wildlife just between 1970 and 2012, and at a rate of 2% per year we will have massacred close to 70% of it by 2020, just 4 years from now. So what does it matter who’s president of just one of the many countries we invented on this planet? Why don’t we address what’s really crucial to our very survival instead?
The latest report from the WWF should have us all abandon whatever it is we’re doing, and make acting to prevent further annihilation of our living world the key driver in our everyday lives, every hour of every day, every single one of us. Anything else is just not good enough, and anything else will see us, that self-nominated intelligent species, annihilated in the process.
Granted, there may be a few decrepit and probably halfway mutant specimens of our species left, living in conditions we couldn’t even begin, nor dare, to imagine, with what will be left of their intelligence wondering how our intelligence could have ever let this happen. You’d almost wish they’ll understand as little as we ever did; that some form of ignorance equal to ours will soften their pain.
It’s important to note that the report does not describe a stagnant situation, there’s no state of affairs, not something still, it describes an ongoing and deteriorating process. That is, we don’t get to choose to stop the ongoing wildlife annihilation at 70%; we are witnessing, and indeed we are actively involved in, raising that number by 2% every year that we ‘live’ (can we even call it that anymore, are you alive when you murder all life around you?) in this world.
This is our only home.
Without the natural world that we were born into, or rather that our species, our ancestors, were born into, we have zero chance of survival. Because it is the natural world that has allowed for, and created, the conditions that made it possible for mankind to emerge and develop in the first place. And we are nowhere near making an earth 2.0; the notion itself is preposterous. A few thousand years of man ‘understanding’ his world is no match for billions of years of evolution. That’s the worst insult to whatever intelligence it is that we do have.
Much has been made through the years of our ability to adapt to changing circumstances, and much of that is just as much hubris as so much of what we tell ourselves, but the big question should be WHY we would volunteer to find out to what extent we can adapt to a world that has sustained the losses we cause it to suffer. Even if we could to a degree adapt to that, why should we want to?
Two thirds of our world is gone, and it’s we who have murdered it, and what’s worse – judging from our lifestyles- we seem to have hardly noticed at all. If we don’t stop what we’ve been doing, this can lead to one outcome only: we will murder ourselves too. Our perhaps biggest problem (even if we have quite a few) in this regard is our ability and propensity to deny this, as we deny any and all -serious, consequential- wrongdoing.
There are allegedly serious and smart people working on, dreaming of, and getting billions in subsidies for, fantasies of human colonies on Mars. This is advertized as a sign of progress and intelligence. But that can only be true if we can acknowledge that our intelligence and our insanity are identical twins. Because it is insane to destroy the planet on which we depend one-on-one for everything that allows us to live, and at the same time dream of human life on another planet.
While I see no reason to address the likes of King of Subsidies Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking is different. Unfortunately, in Hawking’s case, with all his intelligence, it’s his philosophical capacity that goes missing.
Professor Stephen Hawking has warned humanity will not survive another 1,000 years on Earth unless the human race finds another planet to live on. [..] Professor Hawking, 74, reflected on the understanding of the universe garnered from breakthroughs over the past five decades, describing 2016 as a “glorious time to be alive and doing research into theoretical physics”. “Our picture of the universe has changed a great deal in the last 50 years and I am happy if I have made a small contribution,“ he went on.
”The fact that we humans, who are ourselves mere fundamental particles of nature, have been able to come this close to understanding the laws that govern us and the universe is certainly a triumph.” Highlighting “ambitious” experiments that will give an even more precise picture of the universe, he continued: “We will map the position of millions of galaxies with the help of [super] computers like Cosmos. We will better understand our place in the universe.”
“But we must also continue to go into space for the future of humanity. I don’t think we will survive another 1,000 years without escaping beyond our fragile planet.”
The tragedy is that we may have gained some knowledge of natural laws and the universe, but we are completely clueless when it comes to keeping ourselves from destroying our world. Mars is an easy cop-out. But Mars doesn’t solve a thing. Because it’s -obviously- not the ‘fragile planet’ earth that is a threat to mankind, it’s mankind itself. How then can escaping to another planet solve its problems?
What exactly is wrong with saying that we will have to make it here on planet earth? Is it that we’ve already broken and murdered so much? And if that’s the reason, what does that say about us, and what does it say about what we would do to a next planet, even provided we could settle on it (we can’t) ? Doesn’t it say that we are our own worst enemies? And doesn’t the very idea of settling the ‘next planet’ imply that we had better settle things right here first? Like sort of a first condition before we go to Mars, if we ever do?
In order to survive, we don’t need to escape our planet, we need to escape ourselves. Not nearly as easy. Much harder than escaping to Mars. Which already is nothing but a pipedream to begin with.
Moreover, if we can accept that settling things here first before going to Mars is a prerequisite for going there in the first place, we wouldn’t need to go anymore, right?
We treat this entire extinction episode as if it’s something we’re watching from the outside in, as if it’s something we’re not really a part of. I’ve seen various undoubtedly very well-intentioned ‘green people’, ‘sustainable people’, react to the WWF report by pointing to signs that there is still hope, pointing to projects that reverse some of the decline, chinook salmon on the North American Pacific coast, Malawi farmers that no longer use chemical fertilizers, a giant sanctuary in the Antarctic etc.
That, too, is a form of insanity. Because it serves to lull people into a state of complacency that is entirely unwarranted. And that can therefore only serve to make things worse. There is no reversal, there is no turnaround. It’s like saying if a body doesn’t fall straight down in a continuous line, it doesn’t fall down at all.
The role that green, sustainability, conservationist groups play in our societies has shifted dramatically, and we have failed completely to see this change (as have they). These groups have become integral parts of our societies, instead of a force on the outside warning about what happens within.
Conservationist groups today serve as apologists for the havoc mankind unleashes on its world: all people have to do is donate money at Christmas, and conservation will be taken care of. Recycle a few bottles and plastic wrappings and you’re doing your part to save the planet. It is utterly insane. It’s as insane as the destruction itself. It’s denial writ large, and in the flesh.
It’s not advertized that way, but that doesn’t mean it’s not how it works. Saying that ‘it’s not too late’ is not a call to action as many people continue to believe. It’s just dirt poor psychology. It provides people with the impression, which rapidly turns into an excuse, that there is still time left. As almost 70% of all vertebrates, those animals that are closest to us, have disappeared. When would they say time is up? At 80%, 90%?
We do not understand why, or even that, we are such a tragically destructive species. And perhaps we can’t. Perhaps that is where our intelligence stops, at providing insight into ourselves. Even the most ‘aware’ amongst us will still tend to disparage their own roles in what goes on. Even they will make whatever it is they still do, and that they know is hurtful to the ecosystem, seem smaller than it is.
Even they will search for apologies for their own behavior, tell themselves they must do certain things in order to live in the society they were born in, drive kids to school, yada yada. We all do that. We soothe our consciences by telling ourselves we mean well, and then getting into our cars to go pick up a carton of milk. Or engage in an equally blind act. There’s too many to mention.
Every species that finds a large amount of free energy reacts the same way: proliferation. The unconscious drive is to use up the energy as fast as possible. If only we could understand that. But understanding it would get in the way of the principle itself. The only thing we can do to stop the extinction is for all of us to use a lot less energy. But because energy consumption provides wealth and -more importantly- political power, we will not do that. We instead tell ourselves all we need to do is use different forms of energy.
Our inbuilt talent for denying and lying (to ourselves and others) makes it impossible for us to see that we have an inbuilt talent for denying and lying in the first place. Or, put another way, seeing that we haven’t been able to stop ourselves from putting the planet into the dismal shape it is in now, why should we keep on believing that we will be able to stop ourselves in the future?
Thing is, an apology for our own behavior is also an apology for everyone else’s. As long as you keep buying things wrapped in plastic, you have no right, you lose your right, to blame the industry that produces the plastic.
We see ourselves as highly intelligent, and -as a consequence- we see ourselves as a species driven by reason. But we are not. Which can be easily demonstrated by a ‘reverse question’: why, if we are so smart, do we find ourselves in the predicament of having destroyed two thirds of our planet?
Do we have a rational argument to execute that destruction? Of course not, we’ll say. But then why do we do it if rationality drives us? This is a question that should forever cure us of the idea that we are driven by reason. But we’re not listening to the answer to that question. We’re denying, we’re even denying the question itself.
It’s the same question, and the same answer, by the way, that will NOT have us ‘abandon whatever it is we do’ when we read today that 70% of all wildlife will be gone by 2020, that 58% was gone by 2012 and we destroy it at a rate of 2% per year. We’re much more likely to worry much more about some report that says returns on our retirement plans will be much lower than we thought. Or about the economic growth that is too low (as if that is possible with 70% of wildlife gone).
After all, if destroying 70% of wildlife is not enough for a call to action, what would be? 80%? 90? 99%? I bet you that would be too late. And no, relying on conservationist groups to take care of it for us is not a viable route. Because that same 70% number spells out loud and clear what miserable failures these groups have turned out to be.
We ‘assume’ we’re intelligent, because that makes us feel good. Well, it doesn’t make the planet feel good. What drives us is not reason. What drives us is the part of our brains that we share in common with amoeba and bacteria and all other more ‘primitive forms of life, that gobbles up excess energy as fast as possible, in order to restore a balance. Our ‘rational’, human, brain serves one function, and one only: to find ‘rational’ excuses for what our primitive brain has just made us do.
We’re all intelligent enough to understand that driving a hybrid car or an electric car does nothing to halt the havoc we do to our world, but there are still millions of these things being sold. So perhaps we could say that we’re at the same time intelligent enough, and we’re not.
We can see ourselves destroying our world, but we can not stop ourselves from continuing the destruction. Here’s something I wrote 5 years ago:
We have done exactly the same that any primitive life form would do when faced with a surplus, of food, energy, and in our case credit, cheap money. We spent it all as fast as we can. Lest less abundant times arrive. It’s an instinct, it comes from our more primitive brain segments, not our more “rational” frontal cortex. It’s not that we’re in principle, or talent, more devious or malicious than more primitive life forms. It’s that we use our more advanced brains to help us execute the same devastation our primitive brain drives us to, but much much worse.
That’s what makes us the most tragic species imaginable. We’ll fight each other, even our children, over the last few scraps falling off the table, and kill off everything in our path to get there. And when we’re done, we’ll find a way to rationalize to ourselves why we were right to do so. We can be aware of watching ourselves do what we do, but we can’t help ourselves from doing it. Most. Tragic. Species. Ever.
The greatest miracle you will ever see, that you could ever hope to see, is so miraculous you can’t even recognize it for what it is. We don’t know what the word beautiful means anymore. Or the word valuable. We’ve lost all of that, and are well on our way, well over 70% of it, to losing the rest too.
PS Please note I could not gather all sources for all pictures here, but I’d be more than happy to add them. It’s not that I don’t recognize the effort that goes into them; it’s an emotional thing.
It is with great sadness that I acknowledge the passing of Bill Mollison on Saturday, September 24 (1928-2016). He was one of the true pioneers of the modern environmental movement, not just in Australia but globally.
Best known as co-originator of the “permaculture” concept with David Holmgren, and recipient of the Right Livelihood Award in 1981, Mollison helped develop a holistic body of environmental theory and practice which is widely recognised as one of Australia’s finest and most original contributions to the global sustainability challenge.
A brief history of permaculture
Mollison grew up in Stanley, Tasmania. After leaving school at 15 he moved through a range of occupations before joining the CSIRO in the Wildlife Survey Section in 1954, where he developed his research experience and understanding of ecological systems.
He was later appointed to the University of Tasmania, which is where, in 1974, he met the brilliant and radical young research student, David Holmgren
The collaboration between Mollison and Holmgren resulted in the permaculture concept, culminating in the publication of their seminal work, Permaculture One in 1978, which sparked the global movement.
What is permaculture?
Permaculture defies simple definition and understanding. The term began as a fusion of “permanent” and “agriculture”. Even back in the 1970s, Mollison and Holmgren could see how destructive industrial agriculture was to natural habitats and topsoils, and how dependent it was on finite fossil fuels.
It was clear that these systems were unsustainable, a position ratified by scientific reports today which expose the alarming effects industrial agriculture has on biodiversity and climate stability. The two pioneering ecologists began to wonder what a “permanent agriculture” would look like. Thus permaculture was born.
In the broadest terms, permaculture is a design system that seeks to work with the laws of nature rather than against them. It aims to efficiently meet human needs without degrading the ecosystems we all rely on to flourish.
Put otherwise, permaculture is an attempt to design human systems and practices in ways that mimic the cycles of nature to eliminate waste, increase resilience and allow for the just and harmonious co-existence of human beings with other species.
A wide range of design principles were developed to help put these broad ideas and values into practice. This practical application and experimentation is what really defines permaculture. Before all else, participants in the movement get their hands in the soil and seek to walk the talk.
There is now a vast array of excellent books detailing the practice of permaculture, as well as outstanding websites such as the Permaculture Research Institute for those wanting to learn, share, explore and connect.
Although permaculture was initially focused on sustainable methods of organic food production, the concept soon evolved to embrace the broader design challenges of sustainable living – not just “permanent agriculture”, but “permanent culture”.
As well as transitioning away from fossil-fuel-dependent agriculture toward local organic production, permaculture implies the embrace of renewable energy systems, “simple living” lifestyles of modest consumption, as well as retrofitting the suburbs for sustainability and energy efficiency.
From a grassroots or community perspective, the transition towns and ecovillage movements acknowledge their profound debts to permaculture.
From a macroeconomic perspective, permaculture implies a degrowth transition to a steady-state economy that operates within the sustainable limits of the planet. Permaculture even has implications for what alternative forms of global development might look like.
So, in answer to the complex question “what is permaculture?”, perhaps the most concise response is to say with others that “permaculture is a revolution disguised as organic gardening”.
Bill Mollison’s legacy: a challenge to us all
Despite developing into a thriving global movement, permaculture still has not received the full attention it deserves. As the world continues to degrade ecosystems through the poor design of social and economic systems, it has never been clearer that permaculture is a way of life whose time has come.
Nevertheless, permaculture is not a panacea that can answer all challenges. Permaculture is not without its critics (see, for example, here and here). But I would argue that the lens of permaculture can certainly illuminate the path to a more sustainable and flourishing way of life, such that we ignore its insights at our own peril.
Thank you, Bill Mollison, for the inspiration and insight – and the challenge you have left us with to design a civilisation that regenerates rather than degrades our one and only planet. May humanity learn the lessons of permaculture sooner rather than later.
Only then, I suspect, will “Uncle Bill” rest in peace.
I met Daniel Zetah this past summer, while interning on a small-scale vegetable farm in northern Minnesota. He arrived one Thursday in a white, well-worn Toyota, together with his fiancée, Stephanie. They brought with them two coolers full of meat (which they raised and butchered themselves), a few baskets of vegetables, a live turkey and her poults, two dogs, some camping equipment, and an old friend from their eco-village days who they had fortuitously seen hitchhiking along the side of the road. Daniel had interned on the farm years ago, and he was now returning to be married.
I learned over the course of their visit that Daniel had spent years living in Tasmania, where he had been a “freegan” (someone that scavenges for free food to reduce their consumption of resources), and full-time environmental activist, then a permaculture student, and then a natural builder. I learned Daniel had spent nine months on The Sea Shepherd—an anti-whaling ship vessel that uses direct-action tactics to confront illegal whaling ships—and played a very active role in Occupy Wallstreet.
I learned, too, that after ten years of vegetarianism, Daniel had become a big-time carnivore. As I had recently given up meat in an effort to mitigate my environmental impact, this choice struck me as incongruous. We ended up having a conversation about ethical and environmental eating, which challenged, angered, intrigued, and enlightened me. Daniel and his wife returned to their once-farm in central Minnesota, to finish packing and preparing to move to Tasmania. I called him at home to get the whole story, and record it for this article.
Would you describe yourself as a long-time farmer and environmental activist?
Not at all. I used to be a redneck. I used to race cars and motorcycles and snowmobiles… I was a motorhead. I don’t want people to think I was always like this, because then they’re like “oh, they were just brought up that way by parents that…” it’s like no, no: I was raised by wolves.
I ate nothing but garbage growing up. Until I was probably in my early 20s I ate nothing but shit. Like, garbage, American, supermarket food. When I would go shopping, I would buy the cheapest food I could possibly find, I was literally after the cheapest calories I could possibly find at the supermarket, right up until my mid-20s.
When did that start to change?
Well, I met a girl that I ended up getting married to and she was vegetarian, and so I started eating a vegetarian diet. Which is still completely disconnected and completely clueless as to what you’re eating and where it’s from, it’s just you’re not eating meat. And that’s where I was at for probably a good eight years, until my early 30s.
Eating shit tons of grain, lots of dairy and cheese, but just no meat.
But then I met a guy in Tasmania that basically just said “Dude, what are you doing?” and kind of told me in a very blunt manner that what I was doing was really not conducive to what I was telling myself I wanted to do, which was actually care. He just told me the blunt truth, and I couldn’t refute what he was saying. It was tough… but, like…
A lot of people, when you tell them the truth, they get pissed off, because their egos can’t handle it, and so they want to dismiss what the person said, but I couldn’t do that in this situation. I was just clueless and when this guy gave me a clue, I couldn’t return to being clueless.
So at that point, I started looking at labels of everything that I was eating, it’s like whoa okay, so now I’ve got to worry about this and this and this… and it was a rabbit hole.
The more I learned about what was actually destructive the more I had to look for on labels and after a time I couldn’t actually shop at the supermarket anymore because there was nothing I could eat there in good conscience and then I started shopping at the food co-ops, and then I ended up as a two-year freegan –freeganism.
Salamanca Market in Hobart, Tasmania
And I thought that’s my way out of guilt, my way of absolving my guilt from staying alive and eating food, is just eating food that’s getting thrown out, so I spent probably a good year and a half in Hobart, eating nothing but discarded food from restaurants and from market stall owners, and I got to know all of them by name, and they would just save me a set amount of food, whatever they had left over, and I actually had a rounds, so I never actually had to go to the dumpster, I just went straight to the source.
What were you doing?
I had quit my job, and I was a full-time environmental activist, because when I started going down this rabbit hole and learning more about peak oil and climate change I was like, ‘oh god’, here I was, just a couple years ago being completely clueless, and then this guy told me this stuff, and now I have the responsibility of the world on my shoulders, to tell everybody what I know, and I just thought at the time that it was literally a lack of awareness by people, and that if people like me would just get out and talk enough that it would all be okay, but I had no idea that it wasn’t a lack of information, it was just a lack of willingness to change. So that’s what I was doing, was just going around and speaking to school groups, speaking at different engagements… I was going to the state government of Tasmania and doing lobbying for energy policy reform, studying energy policy really really heavily, reading everything I could about climate change and human behavior, trying to figure out a way to engage with people that would allow them to absorb what I had to tell them. But yeah, that’s what I did for a year and a half.
And where does the Sea Shepherd fit into this?
The Sea Shepherd Anti-Whaling Ship
I was living on my boat, when the Sea Shepherd pulled up and docked next to me. So I ended up going over there and volunteering. They invited me to come along, so I sold my boat, and ended up on that ship for about 9 or 10 months. So then I was a vegan all of the sudden, because the ship is a vegan ship. So I didn’t really have much choice. And I remember seeing the disconnect there—seeing people eating these soy based meat replacers, and veganase, and all this horrible packaged shit, that had all these ingredients that were grown in industrial agriculture, but they were eating them quite happily, knowing that there wasn’t any animal product in it. Their idea, their reasoning behind being vegan, was apparently to minimize animal suffering, but in my mind, they were actually causing more harm than they [would] if they were eating meat.
Why?
Well even if you’re eating CAFO meat, which– that’s horrible, don’t get me wrong, I think everyone should stop immediately eating packaged meat if they don’t know where it came from– but if you’re eating all of your calories through a vegan diet, let’s face it, most vegans I know anyway, and I’ve known many many many, most of their food is heavily processed, and most of those ingredients are coming from– I would say the lion’s share of those ingredients in a vegan diet—are soy based, and soy, like, growing soy beans is not an easy thing to do for the land. Most, I would say 99.9% of soy beans grown, are grown in a monoculture, and they rely on outside inputs for fertilizer, they rely on lots of toxic chemicals to be sprayed on, for insecticides, fungicides, herbicides, more and more they’re GMO in the seed. So it’s all kinds of bad.
Soybean harvest
So at least with meat, it’s more concentrated, at least the misery is more concentrated. And if you’re eating stuff that contains palm oil and high fructose corn syrup, or anything with corn or soy beans, anything that’s grown monoculturely in industrial agriculture. To me, the misery is just more spread out.
I mean, I grew up with cows, and I love cows more than most people I know, but why is their right to live more than the right for a whippoorwill to live or a snake to live or a mouse to live? Why is it that their rights trump the thousands of species that die in monocropped, industrial agricultural fields every year. Why does it trump all the species that have damn near gone extinct, or have gone extinct, since industrial agriculture has plowed up millions and millions and millions of acres of prairie in this country and destroyed their habit? Like why do their rights not exist?
I mean, and this is the same thing: I love whales, that’s why I was on that anti-whaling ship, but why does the whales right to exist supersede that of those other beings? Just because they’re cute and they’re big and they’re high profile? So we only like big animals? It just didn’t really compute with me.
What happened when you got off the Sea Shepherd?
After I got off the Sea Shepherd I ended up moving to a small village up in the mountains of Tasmania called Lorena, to do a permaculture course—my first permaculture course—and ended up getting offered a job by an awesome guy that was building straw bale houses in that valley, and I ended up staying there for a year and a half/ two years. That’s when I read The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which helped me realize the complexity of our food choices.
There is no magic bullet. There is no one way to eat that is going to be just devoid of guilt or devoid of the creation of suffering. There is no way to exist without killing something. And that concept I guess was missing for me, and it’s still missing for a lot of people. They believe, and they’re allowed to believe, due to their disconnect of not understanding how anything is grown… they just go to this magical place called the supermarket, and these magical trucks come in the middle of the night, and magical ferries put all this stuff on eye level shelves, where you just go in there and give this magical money to somebody, and they give you all the things you need to survive. That’s all really convenient, but it’s really disconnecting. And as long as you’re doing that, you can believe this myth that you can eat and survive without doing any harm to anybody else, and that myth was shattered when I read that book.
As a result, I decided that I needed to take more personal responsibility for the calories that were keeping me alive, and I decided that if I ever hit an animal with my car again, I would feel like I had to eat that animal, and the same day that I decided that, I hit a humongous wallaby, and I decided that I was going to bring it home, and go through the process of gutting it, skinning it, butchering it, cooking it, and eating it.
That was the first time I’d eaten meat in over 10 years.
And that event set you down the path towards raising livestock?
Well I guess that path led to learning more and more and more, and realizing, that while there is no magic solution for what a human being should eat, or what the perfect diet is, in terms of minimizing suffering of other beings, there is an ideal diet for each region and each situation, and where I chose to farm, which is south-central Minnesota… that bioregion, was a tall-grass prairie or an oak savanna biome, and that oak savanna biome evolved over hundreds of thousands of years from grazing animals.
Oak savanna
Like, I can’t eat grass, I can’t break down cellulose, but I can eat meat. And the fact is that every time we plant some kind of a monocultural crop, we have to effectively destroy an intact ecosystem to do that, because it’s an annual. Annuals are only meant as a tool in nature to stabilize soil that has somehow become open to the elements, that’s their job, they come up right away, after a flood or a tree falls or whatever, and they stabilize that soil so it’s not going to erode, and then overtime the perennial plants will say “okay, we got this. Thanks for doing that, you did a good job, but we’re back now and we’re going to be an intact ecosystem of perennial plants and grazing animals.”
And so I realized that I wanted to gain as many of my calories from that perennial ecosystem as possible, and in this biome, I can do that quite easily with nuts, and with some vegetables that we grow non-monoculturally, wild edibles, wild greens, berries, nuts, fruit, and with meat!
I mean having one animal, that’s eaten nothing but grass all its life, and that grass is actually benefiting from it because that whole system evolved to have that animal in it, as part of it, so it’s putting its nutrients back into the system in the form of urine and feces, it’s eating and trampling the plants, and putting litter back in the soil, feeding the soil microorganisms, and it’s all just this beautiful cycle that annuals can’t match…
So by killing one animal that’s going to feed me literally hundreds of meals, versus eating soy beans that I know are just destructive, it just seemed to make so much more sense.
And I felt like as long as I was growing that food and preparing that food, and preserving that food, and getting at least 90-95% of our calories from our land, I’d felt more peace in just being than I have in years. Because I felt that burden lift.
Even when we’re clueless I think we have this burden, like this unconscious burden, of just being, because we know deep down somewhere in our core, that what we’re doing and what agriculture is doing, is just bad. And so when I broke that tie, and that reliance from annual agriculture like that, I just felt much more peaceful. Even though I had to shoot animals directly in the head and watch them die, that I knew and loved, I felt still that I was actually more peaceful because I was causing less death and suffering in this world than I had before.
Even more at peace than when you were a freegan?
When you’re a freegan, you’re removing yourself from all responsibility. Which is good, because… it’s one step to say “no” to bad. And that’s what vegans do. And that’s having some kind of an impact, on how many resources flow towards that bad system, of keeping animals in confined barns, standing in their own shit, but it’s not actually benefiting, or creating, what you want to see.
And what I want to see is systems that are going to mimic natural systems and be good for everything, not just the humans or the domesticated animals, but the wild species as well. I want to see food that is grown in those systems in harmony with an intact ecosystem. And if I stop eating CAFO meat, like I said, that’s better than bad, but good, on the other side, is actually supporting those small farmers that are doing agriculture in a completely different way.
And it’s the same thing with vegetarianism. It’s admirable that people care enough to want to do something different from most people, which is not to give a shit about what they consume, but it just doesn’t go far enough, or look at the bigger picture enough, to realize that they are also consuming things that are producing suffering in this world.
Like I used to eat so many grains, I can’t even tell you, I probably ate most of my calories through grains. And anyone that’s actually been to an annual grain farm, and watched what needs to happen for that to be grown, will have no other illusions that it’s harmless. Because it’s far from harmless. Especially, like, most grains are not organic, but even organic stuff.
I’ve traveled enough and seen enough things grown around the world to know that even organic food, most of it, 99% of it, is grown in monocultures. Go out to California and see the organic almond orchards that go for miles and miles and miles with not one other species in the mix, it’s just those trees, there’s no biodiversity at all, all of the native animals are gone, because all of their habitat is gone.
Like that is not sustainable, that is not ethical, it’s just bad. But because technically they’re not spraying toxins…
I look at organics kinda like I look at vegetarianism. Organic food is better than bad, but it’s still not good. And so if your goal to be better than bad, by all means, just buy organic food from people you’ve never met from the supermarket or co-op. Better than bad! But if you want to go a step further and actually try to create a system that’s going to feed people into perpetuity, and not destroy the ecosystem, you gotta do better than bad. You gotta do good.
So now you’re heading back to Tasmania, and you’ll be trying get your calories from an intact, local ecosystem?
I’ll be eating a lot of wallaby.
This interview was conducted August 1, 2015. Daniel and Stephanie are now kicking off their new life in Lorinna, Tasmania. You can learn more and connect with them online at newstoryfarm.com. And you can check out their new project at facebook.com/ResiliencySchool/.
Chris Harries, a follower of this blog, has found an amazing pdf file on XRayMike’s blog that is so amazing, and explains civilisation’s predicaments so well, I just had to write it up for you all to share around. I think that the concept of the Earth as a chemical battery is simply stunning…….. the importance of this paper, I think, is epic.
The paper, written by John R. Schramskia, David K. Gattiea , and James H. Brown begins with clarity…
Earth is a chemical battery where, over evolutionary time with a trickle-charge of photosynthesis using solar energy, billions of tons of living biomass were stored in forests and other ecosystems and in vast reserves of fossil fuels. In just the last few hundred years, humans extracted exploitable energy from these living and fossilized biomass fuels to build the modern industrial-technological-informational economy, to grow our population to more than 7 billion, and to transform the biogeochemical cycles and biodiversity of the earth. This rapid discharge of the earth’s store of organic energy fuels the human domination of the biosphere, including conversion of natural habitats to agricultural fields and the resulting loss of native species, emission of carbon dioxide and the resulting climate and sea level change, and use of supplemental nuclear, hydro, wind, and solar energy sources. The laws of thermodynamics governing the trickle-charge and rapid discharge of the earth’s battery are universal and absolute; the earth is only temporarily poised a quantifiable distance from the thermodynamic equilibrium of outer space. Although this distance from equilibrium is comprised of all energy types, most critical for humans is the store of living biomass. With the rapid depletion of this chemical energy, the earth is shifting back toward the inhospitable equilibrium of outer space with fundamental ramifications for the biosphere and humanity. Because there is no substitute or replacement energy for living biomass, the remaining distance from equilibrium that will be required to support human life is unknown.
To illustrate this stunning concept of the Earth as a battery, this clever illustration is used:
That just makes so much sense, and makes such mockery of those who believe ‘innovation’ can replace this extraordinary system.
It took hundreds of millions of years for photosynthetic plants to trickle-charge the battery, gradually converting diffuse low-quality solar energy to high-quality chemical energy stored temporarily in the form of living biomass and more lastingly in the form of fossil fuels: oil, gas, and coal. In just the last few centuries—an evolutionary blink of an eye—human energy use to fuel the rise of civilization and the modern industrial-technological-informational society has discharged the earth-space battery
So then, how long have we got before the battery’s flat?
The laws of thermodynamics dictate that the difference in rate and timescale between the slow trickle-charge and rapid depletion is unsustainable. The current massive discharge is rapidly driving the earth from a biosphere teeming with life and supporting a highly developed human civilization toward a barren moonscape.
The truly surprising thing is how much I’ve been feeling this was the case, and for how long….. the ever lowering ERoEI of the energy sources we insist on using are merely signal of entropy, and it doesn’t matter how clever we are, or how innovative, entropy rules. People with green dreams of renewables powered EVs and houses and businesses simply do not understand entropy.
Energy in Physics and Biology
The laws of thermodynamics are incontrovertible; they have inescapable ramifications for the future of the biosphere and humankind. We begin by explaining the thermodynamic concepts necessary to understand the energetics of the biosphere and humans within the earth-space system. The laws of thermodynamics and the many forms of energy can be difficult for non-experts. However, the earth’s flows and stores of energy can be explained in straightforward terms to understand why the biosphere and human civilization are in energy imbalance. These physical laws are universal and absolute, they apply to all human activities, and they are the universal key to sustainability
The Paradigm of the Earth-Space Battery
By definition, the quantity of chemical energy concentrated in the carbon stores of planet Earth (positive cathode) represents the distance from the harsh thermodynamic equilibrium of nearby outer space (negative anode). This energy gradient sustains the biosphere and human life. It can be modeled as a once-charged battery. This earth-space chemical battery (Fig. 1) trickle charged very slowly over 4.5 billion years of solar influx and accumulation of living biomass and fossil fuels. It is now discharging rapidly due to human activities. As we burn organic chemical energy, we generate work to grow our population and economy. In the process, the high-quality chemical energy is transformed into heat and lost from the planet by radiation into outer space. The flow of energy from cathode to anode is moving the planet rapidly and irrevocably closer to the sterile chemical equilibrium of space
Fig. 2 depicts the earth’s primary higher-quality chemical and nuclear energy storages as their respective distances from the equilibrium of outer space. We follow the energy industry in focusing on the higher-quality pools and using “recoverable energy” as our point of reference, because many deposits of fossil fuels and nuclear ores are dispersed or inaccessible and cannot be currently harvested to yield net energy gain and economic profit (4). The very large lower-quality pools of organic energy including carbon compounds in soils and oceanic sediments (5, 6) are not shown, but these are not currently economically extractable and usable, so they are typically not included in either recoverable or nonrecoverable categories. Although the energy gradients attributed to geothermal cooling, ocean thermal gradients, greenhouse air temperatures, etc., contribute to Earth’s thermodynamic distance from the equilibrium of space, they are also not included as they are not chemical energies and presumably would still exist in some form on a planet devoid of living things, including humans. Fig. 2 shows that humans are currently discharging all of the recoverable stores of organic chemical energy to the anode of the earth-space battery as heat.
Most people who argue about the viability of their [insert favorite technology] only see that viability in terms of money. Energy, to most people is such a nebulous concept that they do not see the failures of their techno Utopian solutions…….
Living Biomass Is Depleting Rapidly
At the time of the Roman Empire and the birth of Christ, the earth contained ∼1,000 billion tons of carbon in living biomass (10), equivalent to 35 ZJ of chemical energy, mostly in the form of trees in forests. In just the last 2,000 y, humans have reduced this by about 45% to ∼550 billion tons of carbon in biomass, equivalent to 19.2 ZJ. The loss has accelerated over time, with 11% depleted just since 1900 (Fig. 3) (11, 12). Over recent years, on average, we are harvesting—and releasing as heat and carbon dioxide—the remaining 550 billion tons of carbon in living biomass at a net rate of ∼1.5 billion tons carbon per year (13, 14). The cause and measurement of biomass depletion are complicated issues, and the numbers are almost constantly being reevaluated (14). The depletion is due primarily to changes in land use, including deforestation, desertification, and conversion of vegetated landscapes into barren surfaces, but also secondarily to other causes such as pollution and unsustainable forestry and fisheries. Although the above quantitative estimates have considerable uncertainty, the overall trend and magnitude are inescapable facts with dire thermodynamic consequences.
The Dominant Role of Humans Homo sapiens Is a Unique Species.
The history of humankind—starting with huntergatherers, who learned to obtain useful heat energy by burning wood and dung, and continuing to contemporary humans, who apply the latest technologies, such as fracking, solar panels, and wind turbines—is one of innovating to use all economically exploitable energy sources at an ever increasing rate (12, 15). Together, the biological imperative of the Malthusian-Darwinian dynamic to use all available resources and the social imperative to innovate and improve human welfare have resulted in at least 10,000 years of virtually uninterrupted population and economic growth: from a few million hunter-gatherers to more than 7 billion modern humans and from a subsistence economy based on sustainable use of plants and animals (i.e., in equilibrium with photosynthetic energy production) to the modern industrial-technological-informational economy (i.e., out of equilibrium due to the unsustainable unidirectional discharge of the biomass battery).
Fig. 4 depicts the multiplier effect of two large numbers that determine the rapid discharge rate of the earth‐space battery. Energy use per person multiplied by population gives total global energy consumption by humans. According to British Petroleum’s numbers (16), which most experts accept, in 2013, average per capita energy use was 74.6 × 109 J/person per year (equivalent to ∼2,370 W if plotted in green in Fig. 4). Multiplying this by the world population of 7.1 billion in 2013 gives a total consumption of ∼0.53 ZJ/y (equivalent to 16.8 TW if plotted in red in Fig. 4), which is greater than 1% of the total recoverable fossil fuel energy stored in the planet (i.e., 0.53 ZJ/40 ZJ = 1.3%). As time progresses, the population increases, and the economy grows, the outcome of multiplying these two very large numbers is that the total rate of global energy consumption is growing at a near-exponential rate.
ANY follower of this blog should recognise the peak in the green line as a sure sign of Limits to Growth…. while everything else – population and energy consumption – is skyrocketing exponentially, fooling the techno Utopians into a feeling of security that’s equivalent to what one might feel in their nice new modern car on its way to a fatal accident with no survivors……. everything is going just fine, until it isn’t.
Ironically, powerful political and market forces, rather than acting to conserve the remaining charge in the battery, actually push in the opposite direction, because the pervasive efforts to increase economic growth will require increased energy consumption (4, 8). Much of the above information has been presented elsewhere, but in different forms (e.g., in the references cited). Our synthesis differs from most of these treatments in two respects: (i) it introduces the paradigm of the earth‐space battery to provide a new perspective, and (ii) it emphasizes the critical importance of living biomass for global sustainability of both the biosphere and human civilization.
Humans and Phytomass
We can be more quantitative and put this into context by introducing a new sustainability metric Ω Ω = P BN [1] which purposefully combines perhaps the two critical variables affecting the energy status of the planet: total phytomass and human population. Eq. 1 accomplishes this combination by dividing the stored phytomass chemical energy P (in joules) by the energy needed to feed the global population for 1 y (joules per year; Fig. 5). The denominator represents the basic (metabolic) energy need of the human population; it is obtained by multiplying the global population N by their per capita metabolic needs for 1 y (B = 3.06 × 109 joules/person·per year as calculated from an 8.4 ×106 joules/person·day diet). The simple expression for Ω gives the number of years at current rates of consumption that the global phytomass storage could feed the human race. By making the conservative but totally unrealistic assumption that all phytomass could be harvested to feed humans (i.e., all of it is edible), we get an absolute maximum estimate of the number of years of food remaining for humankind. Fig. 5 shows that over the years 0–2000, Ω has decreased predictably and dramatically from 67,000 to 1,029 y (for example, in the year 2000, P = 19.3 × 1021 joules, B = 3.06 × 109 joules/person·per year, and N = 6.13 × 109 persons; thus, Ω =1,029 y). In just 2,000 y, our single species has reduced Ω by 98.5%. The above is a drastic underestimate for four reasons. First, we obviously cannot consume all phytomass stores for food; the preponderance of phytomass runs the biosphere. Second, basing our estimate on human biological metabolism does not include that high rate of extrametabolic energy expenditure currently being used to feed the population and fuel the economy. Third, the above estimate does not account that both the global human population and the per-capita rate of energy use are not constant, but increasing at near-exponential rates. We do not attempt to extrapolate to predict the future trajectories, which must ultimately turn downward as essential energy stocks are depleted. Finally, we emphasize that not only has the global store of phytomass energy decreased rapidly, but more importantly human dominance over the remaining portion has also increased rapidly. Long before the hypothetical deadline when the global phytomass store is completely exhausted, the energetics of the biosphere and all its inhabitant species will have been drastically altered, with profound changes in biogeochemical function and remaining biodiversity. The very conservative Ω index shows how rapidly land use changes, NPP appropriation, pollution, and other activities are depleting phytomass stores to fuel the current near-exponential trajectories of population and economic growth. Because the Ω index is conservative, it also emphasizes how very little time is left to make changes and achieve a sustainable future for the biosphere and humanity. We are already firmly within the zone of scientific uncertainty where some perturbation could trigger a catastrophic state shift in the biosphere and in the human population and economy (31). As we rapidly approach the chemical equilibrium of outer space, the laws of thermodynamics offer little room for negotiation.
THIS, is the really scary bit……….. collapse, anyone?
Discussion
The trajectory of Ω shown in Fig. 5 has at least three implications for the future of humankind. First, there is no reason to expect a different trajectory in the near future. Something like the present level of biomass energy destruction will be required to sustain the present global population with its fossil fuel‐subsidized food production and economy. Second, as the earth‐space battery is being discharged ever faster (Fig. 3) to support an ever larger population, the capacity to buffer changes will diminish and the remaining energy gradients will experience increasing perturbations. As more people depend on fewer available energy options, their standard of living and very survival will become increasingly vulnerable to fluctuations, such as droughts, disease epidemics, social unrest, and warfare. Third, there is considerable uncertainty in how the biosphere will function as Ω decreases from the present Ω = ∼1,029 y into an uncharted thermodynamic operating region. The global biosphere, human population, and economy will obviously crash long before Ω = 1 y. If H. sapiens does not go extinct, the human population will decline drastically as we will be forced to return to making a living as hunter‐ gatherers or simple horticulturalists.
The laws of thermodynamics take no prisoners. Equilibrium is inhospitable, sterile, and final. I just wish we could get through to the people running the planet. To say this paper blew me away is the understatement of the year, and parsing the ‘good bits’ for this post doesn’t really do it justice. It needs to be read at least twice in fact, and if you can handle the weight, I’d urge you to read the entire thing at its source https://collapseofindustrialcivilization.files.wordpress.com/2015/07/pnas-2015-schramski-1508353112.pdf
How many of us will “return to making a living as hunter‐ gatherers or simple horticulturalists” I wonder……. We are fast running out of time.
Another gem…. this one’s from William Horvath’s blog, and really resonates with me because I am constantly asked how our younger generations can ever duplicate our efforts on their own piece of heaven. We baby boomers have really cleaned up, and it’s entirely at the expense of our kids….. so what are they to do? I have reached the conclusion that only we with the wealth (such as it might be…) will have to assist in ensuring our kids do have a future, natural catastrophes aside of course, some things are out of our control, maybe even out of control altogether…. Anyhow, read on and see what William thinks.
Did you know that the price of land has quadrupled in last 10 years, while the household income has the same?
Current low interest rates are only making the problem worse. With escalating land prices is it even possible to buy a piece of land to call your own?
Land access is the modern world’s single biggest challenge for the new generation of farmers. This obstacle is, I believe, a fundamental barrier to the success of the next farming generation.
I can understand that you would like to become an independent, self-employed and profitable farmer but the land is so expensive, making your venture so much harder.
Unless you inherited or somehow been given a piece of land, the biggest question of them all is how to get that desired land and use it as leverage to live the life you deserve.
I won’t claim I have all the answers; it all depends on your personal circumstances. I’ll just outline the possible solutions and how to go about them.
Here are your options:
Buying with mortgage
Going down the mortgage free route
Leasing the land
Cooperative finance option
Sounds boring I know, but it’s crucial to have an understanding of these things if you want to farm. Let’s take a closer look.
Buying a farm with a loan
Mark Shepard’s New Forest Farm
This is what Mark Shepard recommends. When he was asked about how a young person could gain land access, he answered: “This can be done anywhere in the country in less than one year. The systems are in place. Anyone who doesn’t believe so is either unaware of the systems in place or is unwilling to ‘play the game’ as it is currently rigged. If people really want land and really want to get into agriculture especially Permaculture designed agriculture, financing is available. It is how the current economic system works.”
Doing it the Mark Shepard way involves getting into debt. Although people will say that farming and debt simply don’t mix, Mark has proved that it can be done even with a burden of debt. I am sure there are a number of people now reading who will want to try a venture like this, but to do this you will need to build your credit rating, learn how to ‘exercise’ your credit, then borrow the money and buy a farm. It’s going to be impossible if you have a bad credit rating and no savings. Then the loans are almost impossible to obtain.
So, first you have to prove to the bank that you are worthy of being loaned money by paying your existing debt, building your credit rating slowly over time and piling up savings for a bigger down payment to secure a better deal on a loan. It seems that the problem is not whether you can borrow money, the real problem kicks in once you start your farming business and, on top of that, you have the burden of repayment. This makes everything much harder and there is not much room for mistakes. The startup phase is critical.
If you do decide to go down the loan route there are certain measures you can take to help your farm survive and thrive.
Reduce start up and operational costs
Look no further than the example of Jean-Martin Fortier the market gardener. He got a loan with a 10% interest rate but still managed to pull it off because of low startup costs. Keeping capital and operational costs down reduces financial pressure. Excessive costs can kill any business quickly – the smaller the costs, the greater the ability to withstand the additional financial burden of the mortgage.
Get additional funding
For certain of projects there will be government grants available. These grants can bring you additional capital for your business operation. The best example of getting the government funding is Grant Schutz from Versaland, he managed to get about $200000 for his setting up his agroforestry operation. However to get any of the grants in the first place you’ll need a good business plan, one that clearly shows how you plan to spend the money. Here is an example of a business plan that Jean-Martin Fortier used to secure government funding.
Focus on investing in income generating assets
If you are investing into a farm, the trick is to choose assets with the highest return on investment. Meaning, you always want to invest into something that can get you 10 times more value than the money invested. A real life example would be building a small cabin or granny flat and then renting it. Eventually that investment pays for itself and starts providing income that you reinvest into the farm.
Pay off your mortgage aggressively
If you want to buy your freedom then you need to pay off your mortgage aggressively. Here is why: with a $50,000 loan and 10% interest rate, the total amount paid back in 30 years is $157,964.40, in 25 years, it’s $136,308, and, in 20 years, it’s $115,804.80. Remember that the loan was only for $50,000 in the first place. This is why making the largest payments you can afford and prepaying principal are the best strategies you can employ if, indeed, a loan is absolutely necessary.
I wrote an extensive blog post on starting out on a profitable permaculture farm venture, check it outfor more tips.
Going down the mortgage free route
Rob Roy’s Low-Cost Mortgage Free Home
Housing costs, whether by way of rent or mortgage, are the single largest after-tax expenditure for most people. When utilities and maintenance are added in, shelter cost is often around 50% of income for “home owners”. If you are repaying a mortgage the reality is that over 30 years you’ll pay almost three times the original loan.
So the question is how to get mortgage free and avoid paying so much interest?
Mortgage freedom can come in three different ways. First, you can slog through the 20 or 30 years of the death pledge (from the Old French mort gage, literally “death pledge”), tied to your salary and your monthly payments, until the long-awaited day of the mortgage-burning party.
Second, you can live frugally until you can afford to buy a home without a mortgage. While difficult, this is not impossible, and it will require the adoption of a conserver lifestyle (as opposed to consumer).
Or, third, you can become owner builder and build your own house. The advantages of doing this are huge; owner-built homes are often constructed on a pay-as-you-go basis. There is also a substantial saving due to the elimination of labor costs and proportional amount of bank interest.
In his book Mortgage Free Rob Roy lays out the steps he feels will get anyone mortgage free:
1. Accumulate significant savings
You can boost your ability to build savings by keeping your day job, putting money aside, reducing expenditure and letting go of a consumer lifestyle. Saving money is a big task and this phase will be different for everyone because what some people find a necessity, others can do without. For a better understanding of how you could save a large portion of your income read “Early Retirement Extreme”.
2. Find land
The cost of the land may be the single greatest expense you’ll incur in your mortgage-free home. It’s important to have a list of priorities, a well-planned budget, and know how much work you are willing to do to “reclaim” marginal land. Rob recommends obtaining the land at the earliest possible date. It’s the best hedge against escalating real estate prices and land values rise at least as fast as inflation.
3. Build a temporary shelter
This involves building a small, low-cost structure on the land and living there while you build your permanent house. Later on this structure can be converted for an alternative use like a shed, smoke house etc. When this has been constructed, you can move to the land and get to know it, even if you’re not yet actually living there. Temporary shelters are not limited to built structures. You can live for several months in tents, tepees, vans, yurts, and small house trailers while building your permanent dwelling.
4. Build your low cost home
The key is to build what you can afford without debt and expand as your needs and budget allow.You need some DIY knowledge to conserve costs.The Add-on House Strategy is one of the most popular and successful strategies open to you – to build a small, affordable core and then to build affordable additions as required. If you took PDC you know how house design is important, so you are better off building it yourself and making it fit your lifestyle and your needs.
In summary, his strategy is to save the money for the land (or at least a substantial down payment), to move onto the land and build a temporary shelter, and then to build the permanent house on a pay-as-you-go basis. Rob claims that the total cycle from starting with zero savings to owning your own land and home can range from three to six years, depending on your personal situation and goals.
Leasing
Aerial of Polyface Pastured Broiler System
Buying land is not always the best option. A lease, either short or long-term can give you access to land without the cost and potential liability involved in actually owning it. Having access to land and being able to draw profit from that land does not necessarily imply land ownership.
Land is tremendously over-priced. As long as people keep paying for over-priced land it will continue to stay that way. Meanwhile, renting land is under-priced because all these land owners need to pay interest and taxes and can’t afford to leave the land unused.
In the early stages it’s probably better if you are not the landowner. You will have enough to learn without also having to think about making the mortgage payments. If you start with this insight, you won’t waste valuable time and get headaches fretting over the fact that you don’t own land.
Let’s look at the models that don’t require land ownership:
Joel Salatin portable farm model
Joel’s model of farming is portable and can be replicated anywhere on rented land. Even Joel rents and makes good money doing it. These portable systems (portable electric fencing, chicken tractors, hoop structures…) are low cost, low capital infrastructure.
Here the real value lies in the knowledge you have and that is something that you can take onto any land you may go to.
The “portable farming model” is a good way to get started without taking on debt when a young farming enterprise is at its most fragile.
Greg Judy ‘no risk ranching’ model
After being forced to liquidate his herd to pay off debts, grazier Greg Judy tried a different approach — custom grazing on leased land.
In the US at least, many land owners get a tax concession for agricultural production, so they lease land cheaply to someone to create a product thus reducing their taxes significantly. This is exactly what Greg is doing, and, by leasing land and cattle, he went from 40 stockers to over 1100 head and was able to pay off his farm and home loans within three years. Today he has 12 farms totaling more than 1560 acres.
In his book No Risk Ranching: Custom Grazing on Leased Land, he describes how he used leased land to graze other people’s cattle. The book also has examples of the numbers and lease contracts. Based on his personal experience, Greg Judy shows how to make a living from the land without owning it. He describes his successes as well as his mistakes to in order to help others on the road to profit.
High intensity market garden model
Market gardening involves growing high yielding vegetable crops for restaurants, farmer markets and CSA. The best examples are Jean Martin-Fourtier (that I already wrote about) and Curtis Stone’s SPIN gardening model.
In both models you can grow on rented land. Startup costs for such a venture can be very low, and there is no debt or land capitalization needed.
It can be a great way to get business cash flow and you don’t have to leave your day to start farming.
Co-operative financing option
Community at Atamai Eco Village, New Zealand
Most people want to go it alone because a loan allows them to do so. However, thisleads toa ‘lone ranger in rural area’ type of situation with isolated pockets of permaculture farms nestling amongst conventional farms with huge fields of monoculture crops.
David Holmgren and Bill Mollison realized that an integrated farm needs a lot of people specializing in different areas, because one person or family can’t do all that alone. The integrated farm can be achieved by forming intentional communities. This is where the biggest potential for permaculture lies. Because of their cooperative structure, they are the key to implementing permaculture on larger scale and the most strategic way of gaining access to land.
For example let’s look at the Atamai ecovillage development, which could be a model for forming intentional communities with alternative land access methods.
Atamai Village is designed to provide an enduring community for at least 200 people. They have been going 8 years now; have about 20 families in residence, with 9 houses built and lived in, and quite a number of budding enterprises. Villagers live in privately owned homes, and enjoy the benefits of a large common area jointly managed to enhance physical and social resilience.
The Atamai model involves both freehold titles (at market rates) and shared commons. The common lands are paid for by what would otherwise be the “developer’s profit” – instead of going into a developer’s pocket, any profit from the development goes to the community.
This is the usual option involving either taking on a mortgage or going the mortgage-free route if you have the cash. The blocks are around $200,000 and buying one can be out of reach for too many people, but that is the reality of market driven prices in NZ. This option is also available as a cooperative buy-in into a freehold title. This allows two families to purchase a title together, and then share the space however they decide.
Full-time lease
A genuine village needs social and financial diversity, and for that there needs to be people with enough money to buy titles and help make things happen. One of the things they anticipate is that many families that purchase a title will also build a minor unit or granny flat, which can then be made available to other villagers on a long-term lease. I saw this situation happening while visiting Fryers Forest eco-village founded by David Holmgren.
Cohousing
Cohousing around the world takes many forms, but most consist of small individual dwellings clustered around a common house. Each dwelling is complete except for those amenities that can be shared, such as laundry and storage facilities, office space and workshops, which are usually accommodated in the common house along with a large kitchen and dining room.
In a shared arrangement such as this, costs are greatly reduced, but home ownership is still not necessarily affordable for everyone. To make cohousing truly affordable, they are establishing a cooperative home ownership programme (CoHOP) to build the homes, and residents will be able to buy shares in their home to the extent that they can afford.
Livelihood opportunities
These opportunities could bring you better terms when seeking land access in an intentional communities like Atamai. Within the Atamai village several jobs have been created, and they need people willing to take over several roles. The person taking over the role would have some support – this could range from financial support, to free lease of land for a period, to commitments to purchase, etc. Currently, they have a farm operation and need someone to take over the veggie production and distribution.If there is someone out there eager to take on such a project to provide a livelihood for themselves, and get some support to make it happen, contact Jack on jack@atamaivillage.org
In Conclusion
No single option will work for everyone, in every situation. Individual situations and local prices will be different depending on whether you live in Europe , the USA or Australia.It also depends on whether you are 20 or 40, your level of risk tolerance and if you’re willing to endure some short term ‘pain’ for long term gain.
If you have no experience and want to try farming, then leasing land enables you to start low financial risk farming operations, where you can learn without the dread of mortgage and gives the opportunity to gain knowledge for your future farm.
If you really want ownership of the land it seems that the best thing to do is to avoid getting into the debt. That means saving enough so you can buy the land debt free. If you really want to own land and make it work, go down mortgage-free route. In some cases, it may very well be that it takes over a decade to buy land debt-free and not everybody can be so self-disciplined and committed.
Intentional communities are the icing on the cake when it comes to gaining access to a land and a community of like-minded people. The only problem I can see is the sheer complexity of the relationships between so many people. This is why people usually opt out for ‘lone ranger in a rural area’ mentality.
If you’ve truly exhausted all those other options then maybe it’s time to bite the bullet and get a loan. But be realistic about the level of debt you can handle. Debt is not necessarily a bad thing, but it does tie your hands while you have it. And it’s even worse if you are overly optimistic about the level you can manage.
So what is your current situation? Do you have a mortgage or community?
Our problems go far deeper. We are going to need a rapid and fundamental shift in our values, habits, behaviours, and outlooks. Put in Anders’ terms, we need to stop being blind to the possibility of apocalypse. But then again, people have been saying that for a century or more.
“Erwin Schrodinger (1945) has described life as a system in steady-state thermodynamic disequilibrium that maintains its constant distance from equilibrium (death) by feeding on low entropy from its environment – that is, by exchanging high-entropy outputs for low-entropy inputs. The same statement would hold verbatium as a physical description of our economic process. A corollary of this statement is that an organism cannot live in a medium of its own waste products.”
