Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Doug Fine But planting hemp and making a living at it can be two different endeavors. My new book American Hemp Farmer blueprints possibilities for independent farmers like myself who’d like to do both, particularly on their own land.
The love and interconnectedness that is awakening and being expressed – selfless acts of kindness, neighbors helping each other, local self-reliance, community mutual aid groups — are the seeds of another possible future. Yet, heartening as they are, it is critical that they be up-leveled to encompass the systemic dimension as well as personal and local expressions.
In The Green New Deal and Beyond: Ending the Climate Emergency While We Still Can, Stan Cox has a message for all who were counting on the Green New Deal to help save us from ecological and economic collapse: this legislation will not go far enough. C
I have been thinking about that time in this current crisis: What does the future post-COVID-19 hold for small farms? Where will the small farm fit into the economy, or, more to the point, which economy will the small farm fit into? Because, like history, an economy ain’t static.
It may be highly unlikely that we will be able to pull the brake. Nonetheless, we have the moral obligation to try. Success might not be probable, but it is surely possible.
This tiny virus has struck at the core of humanity, exposing our collective flawed behaviours and habits. It has highlighted just how interconnected we all are; how we are not simply individuals but all part of an intricate and delicate ecosystem.
The long-awaited crash in the oil markets came last week when traders finally realized that oil consumption was so low and production was so high that the world was within weeks of having no place to store crude and oil products.
Things will not go back to normal, nor should we want it so…but which way do we want it to go? Friends have expressed concerns that once the pandemic is over and things return to normal, people will continue with business as usual and the lessons will not have been learned. But this is not an option.
However, these are such strange, and uncertain times, that it is difficult to make accurate predictions, on any level. Nonetheless, the security of the current global economic system and its underlying fossil fuels base, is further called into doubt.
We need to maximize our species survival fitness within a dual strategy: bring our world together to out-cooperate the world-ending dynamics we’ve set in motion to ensure the maximal just survival of humanity, wildlife and the ecosystems we depend on, and shift the global economy to a secure state of temporary rest until we are truly ready for transition.
Recognizing that caring for the environment and dismantling racism are not silver linings but interconnected, interdependent goals in their own right is the first, beautiful step.
In times of real or imagined scarcity, when the market’s invisible hand pushes us to put our own interests above those of others, fair-shares rationing can foster cooperative problem-solving, mutual aid and a sense of common purpose — exactly what we’re going to need in the frightening months that lie ahead.
