LETTER: ‘Our culture has the power to utterly destroy the entire support system upon which it depends’
Our culture as it stands has the power to utterly destroy the entire support system upon which it depends.
Our culture as it stands has the power to utterly destroy the entire support system upon which it depends.
By relying on annual plants for our staple foods ‘we’ are causing hundreds of millions of acres of land to be ploughed or sprayed with herbicides, pesticides etc.
Worldwide hundreds of millions of acres of forests, savannah and prairies have been eradicated already and more is cleared each year to make way for annual plants.
At this scale ecosystem destruction occurs and has immense consequences.
With less moisture being transpired into the atmosphere by perennial vegetation, rainfall patterns have changed.
Forests no longer inhale carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to give us back life-giving oxygen.
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Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide precedes an increase in the number and intensity of floods, hurricanes, record breaking heat, drought, polluted air, poisonous ground water and toxic soil serving no-one but those who profit from unsustainable and destructive practice.
Although the requirement for food is necessary for people to live it is not a given that we all have sufficient food for health and well-being – it is not a given that we have access to the kind of food that promotes health and well-being.
One of the realities of industrialized nations is that the major cause of disease is too much food and too much of the wrong kind of food not a lack of it.
It is absolutely possible for humans to produce their staple foods using perennial agricultural ecosystems that actually improve the quality of the environment.
This can be done within our own garden environment, on an allotment or a farm.
While producing an abundance of food these systems remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, purify water, increase the depth and fertility of topsoil and provide wildlife habitat.
Unfortunately Mr Walton is engaging in a little bit of ‘astroturfing’ diverting attention from the real issues with suggestions that are not relevant, rather sarcastic and not at what I am suggesting.
KATE TRAVERS
