Ecological Disasters I See on my way to Work (for Blog Action Day)

A Photo Post for Blog Action Day

Guayaquil, Ecuador

On the days that I take the bus to work, I am confronted with a crude ecological reality. The following pictures that I took this week are a clear expression of a profound self - earth duality that permeates Ecuadorian culture. All of the following pictures were taken at the bus stops or from the bus itself.

Here are some pictures of the second bus stop.

The next two pictures show how agriculture is practiced with a cut and burn mentality. This hillside was once a tropical dry forest and now it has been burned to the ground to prepare it for sowing crops.

The following pictures show how dead trees are left standing for years and years in the divide between highway lanes.

This crooked picture shows where all of the landfill for the area comes from to the detriment of this beautiful mountain.

This landfill-covered area was a beautiful swamp up until about 6 months ago. Now all of those plants and animals that love the water are gone.

Why were these beautiful trees treated this way? I can't even imagine.

This is a particular favorite. It is a lone surviving ceibos tree just out of reach of the bulldozers that raze the forest to the ground. Its days are surely numbered.

This last picture demonstrates another kind of ecological disaster. Just beyond the road you can appreciate a hillside packed full of houses. The trees, other plants and animals been replaced by houses and concrete. People wonder why violence is more prevalent in areas such as these but looking at it from this perspective makes it clear that it is like a chicken farm where they put many chickens in small cages. They start pecking at one another because they are so stressed and cannot perform their normal biological functions. Forcing people to live so close to one another is an ecological disaster in a broader sense of the term some call human ecology.

To finish, I recommend reading these other posts in this blog about ecology and global warming:

Waste caused by "democratic" elections
Dangerous UV levels over Ecuador
Non-existence of the concept of waste in nature (a story)
Carbon credit offset project in Ecuador
Is the revolution green or spiritual?
Rethinking the Purpose of Cows
Call to Action: Compost for Life
THE Personal Lifestyle Choice (diet and meat consumption)
Pathogenic Organisms (global warming)
True Beauty (garbage and the Wartville Wizard)

The Personal Lifestyle Choice

We hear way too much about factories and industries and changing light bulbs and such regarding global warming. Not that these aren’t important, but on one extreme the average citizen can’t really have any important impact, and on the other we can do tiny but benevolent acts that make us feel good if nothing else. To avoid paralysis of action, we have to look at a third way in which individuals can make a big impact by making a personal lifestyle choice.

Perhaps THE personal lifestyle choice, the one that dictates all others, is diet. As our bodies change we are literally eaten by the earth and in exchange we get to choose how we would like to eat it. Of course, much of our diet choice is culturally influenced and most people don’t ever get beyond what they are sold by their local marketing strategists and fed by their mothers. However, diet is ultimately a personal choice that is possibly the most intimate way of establishing a relationship with our Earth. Living as part of our Earth is an important spiritual lifestyle choice and this spiritual development refines the balance we need between us as individuals and the rest of life. “The more spiritually evolved we become, the more we are aware that we are also a part of everything outside and beyond ourselves; we are just a tiny piece to a greater whole. We become more selfless.” (Balance Point: Searching for a Spiritual Missing Link)

Just as important is the practical side to all of this. According to the UN/FAO’s report called “Livestock’s Long Shadow”, “The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” It contributes over 18% of all greenhouse gasses, more than transport. These are emitted in the form of Co² and other more destructive gasses such as methane, nitrous oxide and ammonia. The report suggests a series of solutions including cover crops, manure management, forestation, reforestation, developing methodologies for soil carbon sequestration, and above all, improving livestock diets.

Regarding effects of the industry on water, the report states the following:

· The livestock sector is a significant source of overgrazing, compaction, erosion, acid rain, acidification of ecosystems

· The livestock sector is a key player in increasing water use, accounting for over 8 percent of global human water use…

· It is probably the largest sectoral source of water pollution, contributing to eutrophication, “dead” zones in coastal areas, degradation of coral reefs, human health problems, emergence of antibiotic resistance and many others.

· The major sources of pollution are from animal wastes, antibiotics and hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and pesticides used for feedcrops, and sediments from eroded pastures.

· Livestock also affect the replenishment of freshwater by compacting soil, reducing infiltration, degrading the banks of watercourses, drying up floodplains and lowering water tables.

It is also a leading contributor to the destruction of biodiversity. “Indeed, the livestock sector may well be the leading player in the reduction of biodiversity, since it is the major driver of deforestation, as well as one of the leading drivers of land degradation, pollution, climate change, overfishing, sedimentation of coastal areas and facilitation of invasions by alien species.”

As the topic here is climate change, I thought about saving a discussion about health issues for later. However, can we really consider ourselves and our health separate from our environment? We can consider obesity, numerous types of cancer, hypertension and a variety of other meat-intake related diseases as part of our current environmental disaster if we consider ourselves as part of the environment, which is only logical.

Both environmental and health disasters are a logical consequence of deviating from our natural diet on such a large and now nearly uncontrollable scale. Medical science is gradually demonstrating that our natural diet consists of that which grows out of the ground. Realizing this, wouldn’t it make more sense to start making significant changes to OUR diet instead of pouring large amounts of unavailable energy and time into changing livestock diet? Gradually adopting a grain, vegetable, nut and fruit-based diet could possibly be the most accessible and powerful change possible for each individual who is concerned about the future of our planet.

Pathogenic Organisms

I had the fortune of recently running across a great little book that although published in 1999, offers an insightful view of global warming that I haven’t seen in recent literature (not that I have exactly read much of the recent literature, mind you). In chapter one “Crap Happens: something’s about to hit the fan”, Joseph Jenkins waxes thus: “When viewed at the next quantum level of perspective, from which the Earth is seen as an organism and humans are seen as microorganisms, the human species looks like a menace to the planet. In fact, the human race is looking a lot like a disease-causing pathogen, which is an organism excessively multiplying, consuming, and producing harmful waste, with no regard for the health and well-being of its host – in this case, the planet Earth.”

Pathogenic organisms behave like cancerous cells which act on their own behalf to the detriment of even their host, which may sound pretty ridiculous as it seemingly threatens their own survival. However, if we consider just a few of the ridiculous things we do, like steadily replacing real food with “edible food-like substances” that cause our own destruction, then the analogy is not too far fetched.

We all know what a host organism does once it detects pathogenic life forms in its midst: it fights back. Can the earth really defend itself? Well, think about what we do when we become infected. Our body raises its temperature which “not only inhibits the growth of the infecting pathogen, but also greatly enhances the disease fighting capability within the body.” With a raised temperature, many antibodies can be readily deployed to defend against the disease. This is, of course, an emergency response as it cannot be sustained for too long without causing further damage to the body.

Does this ring as eerily familiar to you as it does to me? “Global warming may be the Earth’s way of inducing a fever – as a reaction to human pollution of the atmosphere and human over-consumption of fossil fuels.” Antibodies aren’t too difficult to identify either: “insect population booms, new strains of deadly bacteria, viruses, and algae particularly toxic to humans.” The unbelievable proliferation of all sorts of cancers since our ridiculous behavior began, intimately linked to the production of synthetic organic chemicals, fits into this scheme as well.

However, we are liberating excessive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, so how does this fit in? Well, it seems that improper use of any organic material causes chemical imbalances in the soil, water and atmosphere, sending a clear message to the perpetrator that goes something like this: change your behavior or die. This quickly discourages the pathogenic behavior and corrects the balance.

The Earth will not allow us to continue to destroy forests, deplete water reservoirs, collapse fisheries, erode farmland, dry up rivers, fill wetlands and cause species extinction. Nor will it allow us to overpopulate our living spaces or worse carelessly produce and dump toxic chemicals into the environment.

Just reflect on how despicable cancerous cells are: maniacally selfish, pathogenic, multiplying machines bent on total domination. Can that really be us?

Our spiritual heritage opens us to understanding the one conceptual and practical tool we need to combat our own base behavior, and this is the organic unity we experience in moments of emotion, either sorrow or joy, not only with the entire human race, but with every living being. Cultivating this will allow us to see our planet and our neighbors for who they really are, for they are us, and we are they.

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All quotes taken from: Jenkins, J. The Humanure Handbook, second edition, Jenkins Publishing, Grove City, PA, 1999, pages 15 – 19.