In the Beginning
Let us retrace our steps back to the beginning and pause to consider who we are and why we are on Planet Earth.
According to the Book of Genesis 2 : 4-15 ...
God created humans and placed them in The Garden of Eden, a perennial food garden with many kinds of food-bearing plants and trees, with instructions for abundant living, fruitfulness and growth, multiplication and expansion, as well as structure and organisation. A perennial food forest is, therefore, our natural habitat and our first and most important role on Earth is good stewardship and care for the natural world and society.
We are part of nature, natural systems and processes and totally depended on nature for our survival. The more we exploit and destroy our natural habitat, the more dysfunctional and ill we become and the more unbalanced the ecosystem becomes. We are now living in a geological epoch called the Anthropocene, in which the Earth’s ecosystems and climate are being fundamentally altered by the activities of humans. A particular feature is the accelerating decline of biodiversity, the loss of plants, wild animals and whole communities of organisms. Each one of us alive today has a responsibility to take care of our part of the planet and reduce our collective destruction.
Below are three typical examples of the collective impact on the environment by what we may consider our innocuous individual actions.
Environmental Impact
Test Case : Upmarket Lifestyle Residential Estate, South Africa.
There are approximately 7000 gated Lifestyle Residential Estates in South Africa and the 355 000 family homes on these estates, provide accommodation to about 1.4 million inhabitants (4.15% of the population). Lifestyle Estates are high-end, well-designed properties, with all the necessary infrastructure, amenities, beautiful established gardens and structured, functional communities in place. Generally, there is little self-reliance, coupled with a high ecological footprint, which offers a unique opportunity to transition these communities to a more sustainable model and turn them into innovation hubs. In spite of the world-class infrastructure and amenities, this particular study area can be considered a food desert, as it is challenging to procure any natural, organically grown, unadulterated food in the area.
Let us examine the environmental impact of three typical examples :
- The Daily Victual Run.
- The Cultivated Green Lawn.
- The Industrial Egg.
The Daily Victual Run
Assume there are 500 properties on the above Estate and each household makes one daily trip to the local shopping centre, situated 2.5 km away, to purchase an average of 14 essential items like bread, milk, eggs, meat, fruit and vegetables:
(Cost of Living 2023 in SA Rand)
500 x 1 x 365 days = 182 500 daily trips / year.
@ 1.5 hour / return trip = 273 750 hours / year.
@ 5 km / return trip = 912 500 km / year.
@ 8 litres / 100 Km = 73 000 litres of fuel.
@ R4.18 / km fuel = R 3 814 250 fuel cost.
@ R375 food cost/trip = R 68 525 100 based on x14 essential daily food items / household of 4 persons.
- Plastic and paper waste from 14 items will generate 2 555,000 pieces of plastic waste packaging material over one year on the Estate.
- These figures exclude trips to six larger shopping centres within a ten-kilometre radius of the estate, or buying trolleys filled with goods.
- Then add major pollutants emitted by motor vehicles like Hydrocarbons, Nitrogen oxides, Carbon monoxide, Hazardous and Toxic Air pollutants, Greenhouse gases and Sulphur dioxide.
- Next add the huge financial, energy and environmental costs of extracting, refining and transporting fuel, oil and the manufacturing of motor vehicle components, manufacture, packaging and transportation of every item in the trolley and a grim picture starts to emerge.
- When the above figures are multiplied by 7000 estates across South Africa and then extended across the whole of South Africa and then calculated across rest of the globe, the ecological and economic implications of "I'm just quickly driving to the shop to get bread and milk" become incalculable.
The Cultivated Green Lawn
Our collective obsession with green lawns is another example. Man versus nature is a common theme and the message pumped into our brains from an early age is that we are supposed to subdue nature and bend it to our will.
We have to stop ourselves and ask the following questions:
- Why do we create so much work, spend so much money and create so much air and noise pollution to create what amounts to a biological wasteland around our homes?
- Why do we spend hours of time and waste litres of fuel, or electricity?
- Why do we water lawns when it withers in the summer sun, only to spend more time and money to mow it again?
- Why do we waste precious resources on such a futile endeavour?
Lawn grasses don’t feed anyone or invite pollinators onto our properties and we’re not baling hay to feed cattle through winter. Children do not even go outside to play on lawns anymore.
The lawn craze has its roots in European royalty. A large swathe of useless green lawn was a statement that you could afford servants and livestock to keep it clipped and you could afford not to care if it made you any money or provided an ounce of nourishment. Soon the ruling class wanted to flaunt their own assets, so lawns became fashionable among the gentry, but the common man still could not afford to waste good soil.
The big boom in lawns happened after World War II when soldiers returning from war found more money near cities in an increasingly industrialised nation and left the farm for good. The well-manicured lawn was a lasting reminder that the hard country life was a depressing memory and it was the declaration of a new life filled with sophistication and leisure time. A lawn said that a family could afford to buy food as opposed to growing it and provided a living, high-maintenance outdoor carpet upon which to perform leisurely activities. It said the owner could afford to spend money and hours of work on his property with no tangible return, which has led us to where we are today.
Lawn Statistics USA
These are American statistics only and exclude the UK, Europe, Canada, South Africa and Australia, all countries that love their lawns.
- The Lawn Is the largest single ‘crop’ in the USA and takes up 30-40 million acres.
- There are 56 million fuel-powered lawnmowers in the USA alone, using 800 million litres of fuel per year, generating as much pollution as 1.7 million cars, creating 5% of the nation’s air pollution and is a serious cause of noise pollution.
- 17 million litres of fuel are spilt annually during the refilling of lawn and garden equipment.
- Homeowners spend billions of dollars and typically use ten times the amount of pesticides and fertilisers per acre on their lawns as farmers do on crops. The majority of these chemicals are wasted due to inappropriate timing and application.
- The chemicals then become runoff and a major source of water pollution and poison children and pets playing on these lawns, leading to serious health issues.
- 30-60% of urban water use is used on lawns - most of this water is wasted due to poor timing and application.
- The global demand for power lawn and garden equipment is forecast to reach $28.34 billion in 2023!
Sustainable Solution 1
- Expand the garden and use the lawn space to grow food.
- Plant native wildflowers, which will attract more pollinators and create very pleasant scenery.
- Let corner patches of the garden grow wild and allow native wildflowers to pop up on their own.
Sustainable Solution 2
- Let small animals assist by doing what nature intended them to do.
- Miniature Nigerian dwarf goats are no bigger than medium-sized dogs. These lovely little child-friendly browsers are ideal for tree-filled yards and excellent at keeping vines and shrubs at bay, while letting grasses grow to a healthy, controlled height, turning organic matter into compost.
- Chickens and bunnies are natural mowers – No air pollution, no noise, free fertiliser and daily fresh eggs from the chickens, which brings me to the next point...
Industrial Eggs vs Back yard Eggs
Chickens once roamed free, like any other large bird, ducks, geese, guinea fowl or peacocks.
The Industrial model of producing eggs has removed these beautiful, hardworking, beneficial and productive birds, essential to healthy ecosystems and soil building, from the environment, to imprison them in horrible places that produce volumes of contaminated waste and where they are abused as functions or units, focused on maximising cost-saving, rather than treating them as individual conscious entities.
Industrial chickens live in almost total darkness and the space available to each hen is often less than the size of a sheet of A4 paper. This unnatural environment prevents chickens from expressing any of their natural instincts and inhibits them from spreading and flapping their wings. They sit on wire mesh with no material in which to roost, scratch, perch, nest, hide, have a dust bath, or walk around, causing mental and physical distress for the birds.
Industrial Egg Production
What does it take to produce an industrial egg and what is the real cost?
Actual Energy Audit
- The factory egg farm is built of metal components, that have to be mined and manufactured.
- It requires a power station to run all these factories for the chickens, the mining, the metal smelter and the component production.
- The power station, requires an oil rig, supplying an oil refinery.
- Trains transport grains, tended with heavy tractors on large monoculture grain fields, treated with biocides and fertilisers and routine anti-biotics, which come in plastic packaging.
- Fishing trawlers catch fish in waters of countries where the local populations are protein deficient. The fish has to be processed in another factory, to be turned into pellets for chicken feed.
- The feed has to be trucked to the battery chicken factory.
- The eggs have to be trucked to a supermarket chain warehouse, from the warehouse to the supermarket and finally bought by the consumer.
- The consumer transport the eggs home, store them in a refrigerator and after consumption, the shells are discared and has to be trucked to a landfill dump.
Permaculture Egg Production
- A permaculture egg comes from a healthy, low-energy environment and can be raised in any backyard.
- It requires minimal metal that can easily be produced with renewable energy.
- Backyard chickens live and forage in any food garden that provides everything they require: hard seeds (legumes), protein-rich fruit (mulberry), greens (comfrey), insects and grit, kitchen food scraps from the table used to make compost and a sand patch for dust bathing to keep them healthy and pest free.
- Clean fresh water can be harvested from the roof of their shelter and dispensed through a catchment tank.
- This arrangement allows chickens to lead healthier lives for longer and with less stress.
- The consumer now only needs to step into the garden to collect eggs and the shells are fed back to the chickens.
- The chickens produce manure, help to scratch down compost piles, prepare beds for planting and keep the garden pest free, so they are actively working in your garden.
- This natural existence produces more nutritious, chemical-free, permaculture eggs, happy chickens and almost no pollution.
The Problem is The Solution
The above three problems can easily be transformed into sustainable, regenerative, closed-loop, zero-waste systems by turning part of our lawns into food gardens and keeping a few backyard chickens - feeding our kitchens scraps to the chickens, the chickens will eat weeds and pests, turning our kitchen waste and grass into compost, that will feed our soil, to grow healthy food and provide healthy eggs for our kitchens, minimising our trips to the grocery store and reducing our ecological footprint.
True Wealth
In order to make the necessary paradigm shifts we have to ask an important question ... what constitutes true wealth?
Is it money, assets, savings, hedge funds and insurance policies... or is it something completely different?
Is true wealth ...
- Abundant clean air, food and water.
- Radiant health, healthy relationships, healthy families, thriving communities and a healthy eco-system.
- Meaningful work.
Action
Activities of decentralisation have begun to take root on a community-based level. Farmers’ markets, urban gardening, food forests, reusable spaces, reusable materials, renewable energy, ecological design, ecological engineering, sustainable architecture, sustainable development and water harvesting are a few developments.
There are many books and online blogs with suggestions on where to start to make lifestyle changes, two important guidelines are :
Be Authentic
Lasting change can only come by being yourself and finding ways to express your unique personality, natural gifts, talents and abilities, education, experience and expertise when considering making sustainable changes to your lifestyle.
Be Mindful
Examine the reasons why you behave in a certain way and find creative avenues towards mindful consumption.
Conclusion
Comprehensive energy audits expose the devastating impact of mindless consumerism and blatant disrespect for Nature. It is incumbent upon the 8 billion+ souls inhabiting planet Earth at this moment in history, to re-examine our relationship with Nature and find ways to live peacefully, harmoniously, lovingly and respectfully.
While much is broken with the current consumptive, extractive destructive economic model, much more is mendable by the concerted and collective actions of ordinary individuals. It will require rapid and intensified efforts to reduce and repair the damage humanity is causing to the Earth, to conserve threatened species and alleviate pressure on their populations, notably habitat loss and exploitation for economic gain.
We must reorganise our thinking and abandon our wasteful and indulgent ways. Everyone can make small or large changes in how we choose to live and by embracing sustainable lifestyles, meaningful change can take place, which is essential for Nature, family and community to thrive.
Resources
Dave Goulson : Silent Earth / The Garden Jungle: Gardening to Save the Planet
Bill Mollison : Permaculture : A Designer Manual
https://www.permaculturenews.org/