Adelphiasophism
Murdering the Earth: Stop Magna Matricide
Abstract
© 1998 The Adelphiasophists and AskWhy! Publications. Freely distribute as long as it is unaltered and properly attributed
Contents Updated: Sunday, December 05, 1999
Action Checklist
Slowing down climate change depends on all of us doing our part. Here are some broad ways you can:
- reduce energy usage and slow down the ravages of industrialism;
- protect and restore the environment so that its climate-stabilizing mechanisms are preserved;
- increase individual participation in governmental and economic decisions;
- develop a personal commitment to caring for the Earth.
And here are many specific things to be done. Use this list as a guide to action. You probably cannot do a fraction of it initially, but find one thing you can do, do it, and then find another. Check them off and make sure you do not revert. We can:
- learn to live on less;
- refuse to work for the plunderers;
- refuse to buy their shoddy goods;
- small is Beautiful! Support the local and the small-scale;
- refuse to shop in the plunderers’ supermarkets, but support local traders and producers;
- try to get what you need from as near your home as you can—transport is enormously polluting;
- take part in your local politics—defy wrong headed laws by exerting citizen-power;
- campaign for an economy in which land and property are fairly shared out among the people so that everybody has enough and nobody has too much;
- if you live in a city, abandon your car—you do not need it; when you do need one for a holiday or special purpose, hire it—it’ s cheaper, and if you live in the countryside and a car is essential, regulate its use;
- the only way of solving the traffic problem is to have less traffic so, oppose new road building—building new roads never relieves traffic congestion, it simply generates more traffic;
- support local cultural activities.
- encourage, support, and initiate, local credit and finance organizations;
- buy, if you cannot grow, organically produced food—you will help destroy the polluting chemical industry—and you will be healthier;
- boycott, absolutely consistently, all products that have involved cruelty to animals;
- study and practice the simple life.
If “we” don’ t do it, it will not be done. We must “want” to restore the health, the wholeness, the beauty and the integrity of our planet. We must start now! Tomorrow will be too late!
- Adapted from John Seymour, writing in “Resurgence” magazine. John Seymour, the author of many books and now in his eighties, has been a champion of “self-sufficiency”. He teaches rural skills at his smallholding, Killowen, New Ross, Co. Wexford, Ireland.
Personal Mobility
• Walk! Do not buy a car if you can live without one. You probably can. There are not far off a billion vehicles on our roads, a figure that will be doubled, even trebled, over the next 50 years. The oil, metals, plastics, waste and pollution involved is staggering.
• Ride a bicycle.
• Share a car.
• Or go the whole hog and stay at home! Telecommunications could substitute for much travel. Governments could give tax breaks to people working at home.
• If you must have a car, buy those economical on fuel. Prototype cars can achieve nearly 200 mpg and new cars pollute far less. Disdain those who want less taxed motor fuel, but insist that governments use the taxes on environmental preservation.
• If your car gets less than 35 mpg, sell it, buy a small fuel-efficient model, and spend whatever money you save on home energy efficiency. Write to manufacturers saying you want more fuel efficient car options.
• Maintain and tune up your vehicle regularly for maximum efficiency.
• Join a car pool or use public transport to commute.
• Travel light. Unnecessary articles in your car decrease fuel efficiency by 1 percent for every 50 kg.
• Don’t speed. Accelerate and slow down gradually.
• Campaign to restrict motor car use in congested areas.
• Enjoy sports and recreational activities that use your muscles rather than gasoline and electricity.
Energy Usage
• Eschew the reliance on fossil fuels, such as coal and oil, which risk catastrophic changes in climate and sea level. Scien tists believe we should aim eventually to cut global carbon emissions to one sixth the present level.
• Help build a solar economy for heating, lighting and cooking. Advanced solar collectors can produce water hot enough for industry. Solar cookers will take the pressure off our forests.
• Paint roofs and pavements white? Research at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory suggests that hot cities should paint the town white to reflect heat. It’s cheap, effective and could save individual householders huge sums on air conditioning bills.
• Invest in photovoltaic cell technology. An area 300 x 300km could, in theory, produce enough light for the whole world. One Californian company turns 22 per cent of incoming sunlight to electricity. A Japanese firm has incorporated photovoltaic cells into roof tiles. Within 30 years most of the developing world—and a good deal of the rich North—could be solar powered, saving on wood, pollution and desentification.
• Use compact fluorescent light bulbs which use only 20 per cent of the power of conventional bulbs and last longer. If 20 per cent of India were lit by fluorescent bulbs it could avoid building 8000 megawatts of power plants.
• Use new technologies to make homes and offices weather tight. Also, power plants using waste heat from industry can raise industrial energy effiqiency by up to 70 percent.
• Demand tax breaks for companies that work out of energy efficient offices built to collect as much sunlight as possible for “passive” solar heating.
• Support sensible technology in the Tird World. Wood and kerosene stoves could be more efficient—good new ideas are always needed.
• Encourage governments to transfer new energy-efficiency technology to the developing countries. Comprehensive energy efficiency could save the Third World $30 billion a year and eliminate the projected need for 500,000 megawatts of power by 2025, so saving billions of dollars in new power plants.
• Demand we move away from nuclear energy which, if costed to include research, building and decommissioning and disposal of waste, is the most inefficient form of power supply as well as being the most hazardous.
• The technology for hydro power, wave power, wind power and geothermal power (tapping heat from the earth’s core) is improving. Governments could invest in these fledgling industries and create employment. An economy based on renewable energy would be stronger, more stable and less polluting.
• Insulate your home.
• Lag your boiler or water heater. Turn it down to 121°F.
• Get a solar water heater.
• Buy energy-efficient appliances.
• Double-glaze your windows.
• Close off unused areas in your home from heat and air conditioning.
• Wear warm clothing and turn down winter heat.
• Switch to low-wattage or fluorescent light bulbs.
• Turn off all lights that don’t need to be on.
• Use cold water instead of hot, whenever possible.
• Opt for small-oven or stove-top cooking when preparing small meals.
• Run dishwashers only when full.
• Set refrigerators to 38°F, freezers to 5°F, no colder.
• Run clothes washers full, but don’t overload them.
• Minimize detergent use. Use biodegradable detergent.
• Air-dry your laundry.
• Reduce your use of air conditioning.
• Take quick showers instead of baths.
• Install water-efficient showerheads and sink-faucet aerators.
• Make your amusements active rather than passive ones to keep warm. Learn to enjoy seasonal changes rather than trying to insulate yourself from them.
Conservation
• Plant the neem tree—and save on pesticides and toothpaste. The neem is a source of azadicathin, a natural insecticide that suppresses crop pest appetites, disrupts growth, inhibits metamorphosis and interrupts mating. It does not hurt mammals, though. Indian villagers use the twigs for healthy teeth and gums.
• Recycle. Most materials are discarded after one use. Less energy thus less pollution would be created if products were re-used. Steel from scrap needs only a third as much energy as that produced from iron ore. Recycling glass saves up to a third of the energy emboodied in the original product.
• Keep recycling. It is the key to reducing land, air and water pollution. Scrap steel reduces air pollution by 85 per cent and cuts water pollution by 76 per cent. Industry could give the lead.
• Package less. In the West the money spent on packaging exceeds the amount paid to farmers for the food.
• Ban office memos.
• Install an air-assisted or composting toilet.
• Collect rainwater and graywater for gardening use.
• Learn how to recycle all your household goods, from clothing to motor oil to appliances.
• Start separating out your newspaper, other paper, glass, aluminum, and food wastes.
• Encourage your local recycling center or program to start accepting plastic.
• Urge local officials to begin roadside pickup of recyclables and hazardous wastes.
• Encourage businesses and local organizations to recycle and sponsor recycling efforts.
• Use recycled products, especially paper. Re-use envelopes, jars, paper bags, scrap paper, etc.
• Bring your own canvas bags to the grocery store.
• Encourage local governments to buy recycled paper.
• Start a recycling program where you work.
• Limit or eliminate your use of “disposable” items.
• Urge fast-food chains to use recyclable packaging.
• Don’t buy aerosols, halon fire extinguishers, or other products with CFCs.
• Avoid using anything made of plastic foam. It is often made from CFCs, and it never biodegrades.
• Find out which firms use CFCs, dangerous greenhouse gases and ozone layer destroyers. Boycott them and their products and write to tell them why.
• Buy products that will last.
• Rent or borrow items that you don’t use often.
• Maintain and repair the items you own.
• Avoid bleaching fabrics.
• Use natural fiber clothing, bedding and towels.
• Avoid rainforest products, and inform the supplier or manufacturer of your concerns.
• Do not buy mahogany lavatory seats!
• Use postcards instead of letters for short messages.
• Get involved in local tree-planting programs.
• Pave as little as possible. Rip up excess concrete and plant something.
Food Production
• Use human sewerage to fertilise fish farming in city ponds. In Calcutta, one sewage system produces 20.000kg of fish a day for sale.
• Do away with the cow culture. Their farting is now considered a contributor to climatic change. They also eat far too much and along with sheep and goats have severely degraded 73 per cent of rangeland.
• If the wealthy ate less the need to grow vast areas of grain to feed cows would be reduced and could go straight to the burgeoning populations.
• Stabilise population. A third of all the people on earth are now under 15 years old. To meet the demand for family planning would cost the world about $9 billion a year. Education, use of contraceptives, investment in women and health programmes can all play a part.
• Use water more efficiently. Great areas of the world—including Europe—are prone to droughts. The richer you are the more of this increasingly scarce resource you use (Californians use about 600 times as much per day per person as the average Sudanese). The market pricing of water would encourage farmers to grow more wheat and less rice, because a ton of wheat can be produced with half the water.
• 83 per cent of the world’s crops are fed by rain. Water harvesting methods can trap water. Small earth dams can collect water. New technologies can distribute and save water efficiently. Invest in companies addressing the problems.
• Encourage organic farming. Farmers must feed another three billion people in the next 30 years. So far many have had little option but to use chemical fertilisers to boost production as land became scarce. More organic, nutrient recycling is needed to improve soil structures and boost land productivity.
• Measures need to be taken to address land degradation. Tell your council to plant hedges, trees and grasses and help groups working on the problem elsewhere.
• Cut back on pesticides. Techniques that rely on crop rotation and the use of natural enemies of pests and pest-resistant crop varieties would lessen dangers to human health and the danger to other species.
• Future gains in food production are likely to come from technological breakthroughs. Pest resistant, salt tolerant, earlier maturing crops and food will play a part here.
• Leave some things alone. Mangrove swamps have an economic value in the potential wood pulp they produce. But their value to local fisherman is seven or eight times that. Do not use peat.
• Leave the tropical forests alone. According to an American economic botany study fruits and latex from a hectare of forest provides twice the income from a plantation, three times the income from cattle ranching and six times the income from clear felling of the same hectare.
• Eat vegetarian foods as much as possible. Meat makes less efficient use of land, soil, water, and energy, and cows emit 300 liters of methane per day.
• Buy locally produced foods. Don’t buy foods that have to be trucked in from great distances.
• Read labels. Eat organic or less-processed foods.
• Start a garden. Grow vegetables instead of a lawn.
• Support organic farming and gardening methods; shun chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides.
• Compost kitchen and garden waste.
• Inform schools, hospitals, airlines, restaurants, and the media of your food concerns.
Money Matters
• Invest in companies working on simple, small-scale technological products.
• Question politicians’ blind faith in unlimited economic growth. They say it is desirable, but in some areas the world economy cannot outgrow its physical limits without collapsing. Economic efficiency is not based on size. The biological reality is that we now use about 40 per cent of the photo-chemical energy that supports all forms of life. If population growth continues, rising consumption could double this share to 80 per cent within 40 years.
• the World Bank could restructure lending programmes, support more small, labour intensive projects instead of large capital intensive project loans, which almost invariably founder.
• Your bank could lend more for myriad grassroots development projects here and in the developing world. Tell the manager.
• Ask your bank to come clean on its involvement in developing countries.
• Invest your money in environmentally and socially conscious businesses.
• Donate money to environmental organizations.
• Pledge a small part of your income to groups working on the proper lines. Demand that governments honour the OECD pledge to lift aid towards one (only one!) per cent GNP.
• Support programs aiming to save rainforest areas.
• Support solar and renewable energy development.
• Above all: these measures will save you money so remember—Do not go out and spend it on something that will undo all the good you have done by not spending it!
Be Angry
• Serve the Earth as your first priority. See, hear, and rejoice in its beauty. Love living in the natural world.
• Aim to make the kind of Earth you would like to see for your grandchildren’s grandchildren.
• Write letters to the editor of a local newspaper or radio station highlighting environmental issues.
• Demand that electoral candidates run on environmental platforms.
• Join a Green Campaign or party.
• Lobby. Lobby your local, state, and national elected officials for action on climate change and preserving the environment.
• Learn how to be an activist for others, for unselfish reasons instead of selfish ones.
• Stay informed about the state of the Earth.
• Talk about global climate change. Keep it current.
• Start a global climate change study convene.
• Educate children about sustainable living.
• Support zero population growth.
• Help to alleviate world poverty, which causes deforestation and other environmental problems that, though far away, will affect us or our children.
• Encourage sewage plants to compost their sludge.
• Support disarmament and the realloction of military funds to environmental restoration.
• Write to the your representatives and newspapers and chairmen of transnational companies (TNCs, also known as multinationals) or, better still, invest a bean in them and turn up and be angry at shareholders’ meetings. Transnationals control 70 per cent of the world’s trade and 80 per cent of foreign investment and could take their environmental development potential seriously. With budgets often greater than the poorer countries, they could start educating and training their personnel to some of the wider issues of poverty and development. The potential for good here is enormous—research, training, education, loans, pollution, investment, loans, energy efficiency, environmental restoration. You name it, TNCs can do it.
• Resolve conflicts peacefully. Passive resistance has always proved more effective, as governments have long known. If someone unknown to you is causing violence at your peaceful demonstration, it will be a government “agent provocateur” trying to discredit your movement.
• Copy this list and send it to ten friends. Follow it up.
