The Fallacy of Sustainability

I originally wrote this article back in 2005 while a student at ECU. This was to be the article that I believe was to mark me as dangerous and to be shut up. As I discovered then there is a continuing battle for the meaning of Sustainability.

 

The Fallacy of Sustainability:

The fundamental questions have not been asked

A criticism of the Western Australian State Government's 'State Sustainability Strategy'

by

Gavin Edwards

Introduction

It is apparent to any thinking person that the Earth is under threat. Her oceans and wetlands are becoming polluted, agricultural land degraded and topsoils blown or washed away. The climate is changing and biodiversity is being lost at an alarming rate. Human beings are to blame (Beale & Fray, 1990).

In 1992, in response to this change over 150 national governments formally endorsed the concept of sustainable development at the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro (the “Earth Summit”). In September 2003, the WA government released “Hope for the Future: The Western Australian State Sustainability Strategy”.

This essay argues that the WA governments approach to sustainability is problematic because fundamental questions have not been asked.

What is Sustainable Development?

According to Jacobs (1999, p.23) there are two definitions commonly used. The first is the “Bruntland definition” which says that sustainable development (SD) is “development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. The second or “Caring for the Earth” definition states that SD is “improving the quality of life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems”. Jacobs (p.22) also note that some environmentalists reject sustainable development as a 'fuzzy' concept and “a smokescreen put up by business and development interests to obscure the conflicts between ecological integrity and economic growth,...”. The World Bank defines Sustainable Development as “Development that lasts” (Sachs, p.33)

What is Sustainability?

There are many definitions of sustainability. Robinson (2004, p.370) describes it simply as "the ability of humans to continue to live within environmental constraints". Around 1980 a global shift in perception took place in which "nature turned from a treasure to be preserved to a resource whose yield had to be sustained" (Hays 1959 in Sachs p.33). Sachs goes on to say that "the meaning of sustainability [then] slides from conservation of nature to conservation of development".

What is the WA Government's definition of sustainability?

The WA governments definition in the State Sustainability Strategy is interesting:

"Sustainability is defined as meeting the needs of current and future generations through an integration of environmental protection, social advancement, and economic prosperity" where "environmental protection is taken to be minimizing impacts and providing rehabilitation and renewal of damaged environments".

The governments definition seems more aligned with a definition of sustainable development than sustainability. There are also some flaws in this definition. What are our needs? Who determines them? Do we "need" economic prosperity? In Maslov's Heirachy of Needs (Russel p.186 - 189) there is no mention of economics but there is mention of food, water, shelter, love, esteem and enlightenment. What is meant by impacts? These are grey areas that have not been fully defined.

The Strategy starts from a false premise - if we don't have a clear definition for sustainability it's my view that we cannot produce an effective strategy to deal with the problem. To back up my view I quote Jacobs (p.24):

"there is a political concern among some environmentalists that the lack of clarity of the definition allows anything to be claimed as 'sustainable' or as 'promoting sustainable development'....At present the vagueness of the definitions, it is argued, allows business and 'development' interests (and their government supporters) to claim they are in favour of sustainable development when actually they are the perpetrators of unsustainability....there is a battle for the meaning of sustainable development"

Some fundamental questions must be asked

If the old structures of government do not seem to be working well with coping with the issue, should we change our structure of government so that we can deal with change itself? The government views sustainability as the interconnection of community, government and the market (Strategy p.222) however both government and the market are part of the community. They are not separate. Committees on sustainability policy can have their representatives from business, "community" and government - if it comes to a vote business and government usually side together and can control the result. This appears to be a ploy the government uses to maintain control. The government in it Strategy did do some public consultation. However it was a very short amount of time considering the importance of the document. Their method for consultation is typically "top-down" that is a proposal is released and a time period is set for submissions. Perhaps what is needed is a more bottom-up (grass roots) approach: ordinary people debating and deciding their own futures.

How do we want to live our lives? Masunoba Fukuoka in 'The One Straw Revolution' (1978, p158) says it sweetly:

"Why do we have to develop? If economic development rise from 5% to 10%, is happiness going to double? What's wrong with a growth rate of 0%? Isn't this a rather stable kind of economics? Could there be anything better than living simply and taking it easy?"

People work to obtain money to be able to eat, pay the rent or mortgage and do what they want to do. We seem to be working more and more. The gap between the rich and poor is growing. Miller and Shade in 'Foundations of Economics' (1986, p.4) say of memories, love and religious values that "These things cannot be valued in money terms and thus they lie outside the realm of economics". The western economic system doesn't appear to be sustainable. Perhaps we should investigate some other more socially just system?

Is our present form of agriculture sustainable? The Strategy contains some definitions of sustainable agriculture, however they look more like reasons for sustaining our current import and export agriculture (agribusiness). Bill Mollison, the originator of Permaculture (Permanent Agriculture), once remarked that "Modern agriculture is basically a continuation of world war two". By this he meant that scientists that worked in chemical companies manufacturing chemicals for chemical warfare after the war moved to companies that manufactured chemicals for modern agribusiness. Agriculture is responsible for damage to 9.6 million square kilometres of Australia - this is over half of the country (Beale & Fray, intro p. ix). Given agribusiness also has a poor history in third world countries should we be practicing it at all? Sargent (1985, p. 11) gives this example:

It takes a lot of vegetables to fill a jumbo jet. Yet three times a week, from early December until May, a chartered cargo DC10 takes off from Senegal's dusty Dakar airport loaded with eggplants, green beans, tomatoes, melons and paprika. Its destination? Amsterdam, Paris or Stockholm. These airlifts of food FROM the African Sahel began in 1972, the fourth year of the region's publicized drought. They increased dramatically as famine spread...

Promoting the entire venture as "development" [the agribusiness corporation Bud Antle] got the Senegalese government, the German foreign aid agency and McNamara's World Bank to put up most of the capital. The Senegalese government helpfully supplied police to clear away villagers who had always presumed the land was theirs for growing millet for themselves and the local market. The Peace Corps contributed four volunteers.

Today, more than sixty armed security officers not only guard the fields, but each day search the poorly paid field hands, mostly women, to be sure they don't sneak vegetables home to their families"

What is the carrying capacity for human beings in Western Australia? The Strategy gives no figures for this. Stamp (1960) developed figures for England forty-five years ago so it is surprising that it has not been done in WA especially given world-wide overpopulation. Wouldn't these figures be necessary to work out what is a sustainable population for WA? Can we keep on growing indefinitely?

Lastly, the Strategy (p. 75) reveals the "Healthy Country"project run by CSIRO and states that "One of the four focus regions is the South West of Western Australia. The research undertaken on biodiversity, land degradation and water can provide answers to many of the deep questions that face us by focusing on key areas of knowledge and innovation" [emphasis added]. Shouldn't the answers to these fundamental questions have been found before the government made policy on sustainability?

Reference List:

Beale, B & Fray, P. (1990). The Vanishing Continent. Rydalmere: Hodder & Staughton.

Fukuoka, M. (1978). The One-Straw Revolution. Goa: Other India Press.

Government of Western Australia. (2003). Hope for the Future: The Western Australian State Sustainability Strategy. Perth: The Department of Premier and Cabinet.

Jacobs, M. (1999). Sustainable Development as a Contested Concept. In A. Dobson (Ed.), Fairness and Futurity. Oxford University Press.

Miller, R. & Shade, E. (1986). Foundations of Economics (2nd edition). Melbourne: Longman Cheshire.

Robinson, J. (2004). Squaring the circle? Some thoughts on the idea of sustainable development. Ecological Economics 48 (2004) 369 - 284.

Mollison, B. In Grave Danger of Falling Food [video].

Russel, P. (1972). The Awakening Earth. London: Routledge & Keegan Paul.

Sachs, W. (nd). Sustainable Development and the Crisis of Nature: On the Political Anatomy of an Oxymoron. In Living with Nature: Environmental Politics as Cultural Discourse. Eds Fischer, F. & Hajer, M. (1999).

Sargent, S. (1985). The Foodmakers. Ringwood: Penguin Books Aust.

Stamp, L. (1960). Our Developing World. London: Faber & Faber.

© Gavin Edwards 2005. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced without prior permission from the author.

Community for Sale

Community FOR SALE

The sale of our community buildings and the

loss of local community

by Lisa McAndrew

The Centre for Community Self-Sufficiency™

Lapoinya, Tasmania

Community is FOR SALE all around the country, especially rural community. Local community halls, local churches, local schools, local guide halls, all for sale and many already sold. FOR SALE for a variety of reasons: can't keep them up to current government standards, no-one uses them, their value has gone up and they can raise a lot of money by their sale, they cost too much to upkeep and so on.

Memories of a community lost

Around the corner from our farm is  the ex local school primary. After it was closed down it was used by the Girl Guides but sold when they couldn't afford to update the buildings to current government standards. Now it is privately owned and sits there empty as far as I can see, silent, a ghost of memories of what used to be. Across the road is the ex baptist church, now turned into a house. The church was the once the site for the the original primary school before they built  the new school building.  No-one sings to the glory of God now. Local community doesn't say hello to each other as they walk in. No-one shares a conversation and a cup of tea after the Sunday service, discussing weather, crops, family health and local issues.

The local post office, one of only two buildings in the “town” of our locality is now a house. I have met local people whose relatives used to run the post office. There is no local post office here now, our mail gets delivered into a box, but to post anything or to pick up a parcel we have to drive 20 minutes into town. In the last town I lived in the post office was a place that you picked up your mail, met local people and perused the local community notice board.  No chance of that happening here. The large local town now houses the only post office.

The Declining Rural Population

It's true that rural areas lost much of their earlier population. The population shifted  from the country to the city after World War Two.  This was for a variety of reasons. Women who lost husbands and had no family to continue the family farm had to sell. Machines and chemicals where used to manage farms, this meant that less people than ever where needed on farms. In the 70's to 80's the government bought up the  farms and tree plantations of pine and then blue gum were planted. This dropped population numbers even more. Country areas that once thrived with a strong local communities had been diminished.  Local services such as post offices closed. General stores were out-competed by Woolworths and Coles. Cars made for easier travel to larger local towns. Small farms that supplied the shops originally with fruit and vegetables could not compete with the bigger farms and machines. Australia's economy shifted and we stopped supplying the UK with fruit which had been one of our largest markets. All of these factors led to the drop in rural population.

As road traffic increased there was less need for local railway. Our local railway (the one that runs through the little town near us) ran until 2004 when it was eventually closed. The railway was often the life blood of many of the towns in the area and once this closed it was like death sentence for the town.

Loss of services and political clout

Compounding the problem is the  fact that with less numbers of people in the country there is less voting power. Rural problems are ignored, not enough votes in it for politicians, not enough people to justify investing in programs for rural areas. Even hospitals get closed. The hospital in our local town (20 minutes away by car) was not only closed down, with all patients to now travel 45 minutes to the regional hospital, but the local hospital itself was bulldozed. Not up to government standards apparently! Now a housing development sits on the land where the hospital used to be.

The argument, as far as the government goes, is that it can't afford to keep up the services - too costly. But the cost argument doesn't make sense. How could we (Australia) afford many small rural schools and hospitals in the earlier part of the 20th Century when Australia's population was so much smaller? We had much less people to get taxes from to pay for services and yet there where many local rural services such as schools, hospitals and post offices. 

The movement is  towards bigger and more centralised. The sale of our local community buildings and public buildings and the resulting loss of community  and community services has resulted in the slow decay of our rural communities. Local issues cannot get discussed if there is nowhere for local people to discuss them. We cannot be aware of how our neighbours or other local community members are faring if no-one talks to each other because people do not meet at school, at church, at the local community hall. Our rural communities are slowly dying, along with the independence of spirit and community values that kept them together.

Aging populations and short sighted decision making

The aging population has also had a large part to play in this loss of community. The baby boomer generation has a lot more numbers than the younger generation .They have often been the ones making the decisions to close and sell off buildings. Because in rural, farming areas there is a bit of an age crisis with many older farmers being the ones on the land, there is not the younger generation in the same numbers that there was earlier on.  The older members are looking at slowing down in life and don't want to take anything new on.

Unfortunately this lack of numbers of younger people has meant that before new blood and the younger generation move onto the land, community buildings have been sold off. So by the time the next generation gets there, the community has been decimated and all the long years of work that it took to build the local community has been lost. 

Of social history and community investment

As a rule community buildings, especially churches but often town halls, recreation centres etc, were built on land donated to the local community, by a local community member. The labour in either building and/ or maintaining the building has been at the cost and effort of the local community. Regardless of whether these buildings are owned by the church or by the council, the true effort in getting them there and maintaining them has been at the local communities time and expense (their investment in the community they lived in). To sell these buildings off without thought or regard for the local community means that all the time and effort that previous generations of community members put into them as been destroyed and is not valued.

Once the building is held in private ownership, the person who owns it then reaps the reward for the labour and effort that went into it's construction and maintenance. The social history of that building is lost and the community loses another place where they can meet.

Centralisation and rural disadvantage

Our government of the day is conservative and is interested in the centralisation of many services and the selling off of public assets. Once our local councils and church bodies start colluding with this political agenda  and sell off our community buildings the rural communities are hardest hit. They usually have access to much less in the way of services and infrastructure to begin with. But country people being country people, they will rarely complain and generally they will try to make do as best they can. And if this is not good enough, then they will have to sell and move into a town!!

What makes a rural person less deserving of services? Is their life worth less than a city dweller? I don't remember signing an agreement with the government when I moved to the country saying, you will have access to virtually no appropriate services, your health expectancy will be much less and your fuel costs will be more because you will have to drive further for everything!!?? But still I would rather live with clean air and trees rather than in town.

In our local area the council tried to sell of the football club building and grounds but the local community rallied and saved it. Now I do a weekly practice of Tai Chi in that same building. I have met many local people there. Where would I meet them if there was no building? Often the sports clubs have moved into towns. All this means is that local people have to drive further to sports activities. It also means that young people often miss out because parents don't necessarily have the time or money to drive them into town for sporting activities. And of course no sports ground, no sport, which is one of the ways in which rural Australia built it's strong local relationships.

What will we leave the children of this earth?

When the vote comes whether to save a building or not, it's social value and history are not considered. Furthermore the people of the future who will be the ones to benefit from having the these buildings,  have no vote. What are we leaving the children of the earth? What have we bequeathed to them? What places have we left to them so that they may build and create community anew?

The land is our future. It is what feeds us, what provides us with trees to clear the air and clean water to drink . It is rural people who live on this land and care for it.  It is rural people who often have the solutions to our problems because they are at the coal face of living in our rapidly changing world. Our rural communities are the hope for the future. They are the ones living close to nature to experience the effects of climate change  induced droughts, floods and bush fires. It has been their resilience in the past that has ensured Australia's survival. But loss of rural community for all the reasons mentioned here threaten Australia as never before. 

We are already facing global issues such as climate change and in the future we will face the end of oil. We need local community solutions to these problems. How do we do this?  We meet in our local community  buildings!  All places that can facilitate local community should be held in high value. Local responses to local issues are the best ones. These can only happen if we have places where community can meet and talk with each other. This is what we can bequeath the future generations, the hope of our local community.

May our future communities be blessed with people of good heart and courage.

*If you would like to support her work, Lisa is establishing a Community Building Preservation Fund. Please contact Lisa if you would like to donate to this.*

Lisa McAndrew is the Good Heart Herbalist™. She is Australia's first community herbalist. She has worked professionally in community development, community arts and community cultural development for over 20 years. She is passionate about  social justice and community health and well-being. Lisa McAndrew with her husband Gavin Edwards, run The Good Heart School of Self-Sufficiency™ , in Lapoinya, Tasmania, where they teach aspiring small farmers how to run a Self-Sufficient Smallholding™ and do Self-Sufficient Farming™.They were the founders of Australia's first Sustainable Small Farm™.

© Lisa McAndrew 2016. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced without prior permission from the author.

The Good Heart Herbalist™, The Self-Sufficient Farmer™, Self-Sufficient Farming™, Balingup Sustainable Small Farm™ , Sustainable Small Farm™, Good Heart School of Self-Sufficiency™, Self-Sufficient Smallholding™, Centre for Community Self-Sufficiency™  are common law trademarks of Mama Earth Pty. Ltd. ACN 146 054 828.

Regenazis

Regenazis

Part 1

Regenerative Agriculture

Funded by The Rockefellers

Gavin Edwards

The Centre for Community Self-Sufficiency™

Lapoinya, Tasmania.

I am writing this in the interests of the truth. If anyone has any information that contradicts these facts then I am interested in knowing them. My intention is not to put people in a bad light but only to make people aware of what is going on.

As I said before

In Permafraud part1, I said

“Some might think there is an agenda to control the world's food supply and my own research is showing me that this is the case (only the situation is worse than you could possibly imagine).” That is a very true statement.

Here’s something that should make any grower into organics shiver. I downloaded a report by Rodale Institute. As most growers know, Rodale were early pioneers in Organics. I had some questions when I saw that they were promoting Regenerative Agriculture. I had seen a lot of the permaculturists promoting it and considering our numerous bad experiences with permaculturists in the past I decided to look into it. Here’s what I found:

A Massive Awakening!

You see it? The Rockefeller Family Fund. THE ROCKEFELLER FAMILY FUND (for those permaculturists that don’t want to see). What’s wrong with that? Well, for those that don’t know the Rockefellers (who owned Standard Oil among other things) were behind the green revolution - the scientific agriculture “revolution” also known as the big spraying of pesticides, herbicides and insecticides (gotta love those ‘cides’ - means killing by the way). They were funders of Harvard University (the birthplace of Agribusiness) and also funded Cornell University who brought Agribusiness to the UK. In fact, they brought it to Dartington Hall at Totnes in Devon. Some might recognize this as the home of Schumacher College and a major centre for Transition Towns and Permaculture, at least now. Before that it was the first farm to adopt scientific agriculture in the UK. John Seymour wrote a plan for Dartington Hall to swap from Big Ag to Self-Sufficiency. We have to ask “and then what?”. Well, I have a theory.

Self-sufficiency is a dangerous idea. If people are self-sufficient they don’t need to buy too much. They could live in the country not in the city. They don’t need to support the big businesses and would consume less. Less things. Less things made from oil. It’s just a theory.

The Rockefellers were also Eugenicists. That science supposedly devoted to the improvement of human beings. That science called Eugenics practiced by the Nazi’s (it was big in the US before the Nazi’s though - as I remember about half of the US population around WW2 were of German descent). There was lot of support for eugenics. The Rockefellers funded Hitler and his Eugenics. The Eugenics practiced by Dr Josef Mengele who cut the eyes from identical twins while they were still alive. The Rockefellers funded Eugenics and Hitler, so did Henry Ford - Hitler had a picture of Ford on his wall. Cars run on oil don’t they? Just coincidence I’m sure. The ‘cides’ are made from oil too aren’t they? People (consumers and producers) pay money for  them. That would make a lot of people very, very rich. Follow the money.

So what would you do if you wanted to control the world’s food supply? Control the food production by scientific agriculture and agribusiness. Control the food, control the people. Then, when the people start to ‘cotton on’ to their plan, takeover organic agriculture. Take over anything starting up that could feed people. Takeover self-sufficiency. Yes, that’s what I’d do - if I were of leftover Nazi mind. Thankfully, I’m not a nazi or a scientist or an agriculturalist. I’m just a farmer. That’s why I’ve rejected agriculture, horticulture, and permaculture. They don’t sit well with my heart.

Now is the time for people to make a choice. Regenerative agriculture and permaculture (which work with, and are controlled by, governments and big business like the Rockefellers) or Self-Sufficiency (which doesn’t).

Wake up, Before it’s too late! Really.

There’s more to come. Much, much more.

References:

http://rodaleinstitute.org/regenerative-organic-agriculture-and-climate-change/

rodaleinstitute.org/assets/WhitePaper.pdf

http://rodaleinstitute.org/cop21-paris-updates-from-rodale-institute-chief-scientist-on-climate-summit/

http://permaculturenews.org/2014/07/25/regenerative-organic-agriculture-and-climate-change-a-down-to-earth-solution-to-global-warming/

John Seymour (1977) Bring Me My Bow.

http://theselfsufficiencyguild.blogspot.com.au/2015/03/the-situation.html

http://theselfsufficiencyguild.blogspot.com.au/p/blog-page_95.html

I've spent most of my life saving rare seed varieties, studying edible plants and sustainable food production methods (over 45 years). This with self-sufficiency is my profession and it's taken more time than a medical degree to learn it . I've done it all independently of universities and governments for a reason - so they can't control it. Please support me in my research and my mission to stop GMO's.

Gavin Edwards is The Self-Sufficient Farmer™.

He is an independent researcher of Edible Plants and Small-scale Sustainable Food Production.

Gavin and his wife, Lisa McAndrew, run The Good Heart School of Self-Sufficiency™ , in Lapoinya, Tasmania, where they teach aspiring small farmers how to run a Self-Sufficient Smallholding™ and do Self-Sufficient Farming™.

They were the founders of Australia's first Sustainable Small Farm™.

© Gavin Edwards 2016. All rights reserved. No part of this document may be reproduced without prior permission from the author.

The Self-Sufficient Farmer™, Self-Sufficient Farming™, Balingup Sustainable Small Farm™ , Sustainable Small Farm™, Good Heart School of Self-Sufficiency™, Self-Sufficient Smallholding™, Centre for Community Self-Sufficiency™  are common law trademarks of Mama Earth Pty. Ltd. ACN 146 054 828.