Climate Crisis, Part I

Our planet, Mother Earth, due to humans and how they go about their daily lives, has been deeply violated by her human inhabitants. Here is an Earth based Pueblo woman's view that perhaps would be useful to each of us as we move forward in these perilous times. Roxanne Swentzell shares her Earth based view through one of her sculptures: "This piece is a statement about our relationship with our Mother Earth. Everything comes from the earth. When we forget this pride creeps in. Our Mother holds and nourishes us. She deserves our respect."

I am extremely interested in how you are responding to the climate crisis. . . changing your daily life, your habits, attitudes, behaviors and way of thinking and acting. And in addition, are you individually involved in supporting policy change of Big Money at the highest level?

In Part I individual alterations will be front and center; while Part II will focus on the bigger picture of policy change.

 

One rocky water catchment below the rear canale of our house
surrounded by native perennials, grasses and shrubs 
here at 6790' MuRefuge.

Here is one example of how one couple, owners of Nut 'n Other, in Dixon, California are living more sustainably: 

"Sustainability Message

We firmly believe that our practices as humans on this earth must be sustainable. As farmers, this means we strive to use our land in a manner that does not deplete its health or its resources. We use processes that are as natural as possible, and do things at rates that are not destructive or depletive.

Put simply, we try to live off of the land where ever possible. Here are some examples:

1) We compost everything that can be composted and use that in lieu of fertilizers or other purchased supplements. Because we have a pond, we get a lot of compost from the algae. Composting is the ultimate in recycling.

2) We use the sun in every way we can. Besides growing vegetables and nuts, which use the sun, we also grow algae, fruits and grains. We also have solar water heating and solar electricity (photovoltaic). We also use the sun for heating and drying.

3) Our chickens and turkeys free range on our farm and eat bugs, as well as grains and vegetables we grow. We minimize feeds that we buy from outside sources.

4) We practice Integrated Pest Management (IPM) with a focus on natural processes. It's interesting to watch nearby growers spraying their trees regularly. We don't spray them at all and produce plenty of nuts that everyone loves. True, we are more likely to have a worm in one of our nuts, but we have never heard a complaint about that.

5) We hand harvest our walnuts and also ensure that none of our nuts are heated, abused, or otherwise disturbed from their fresh-from-the-tree taste and character. WE DO NOT PASTEURIZE OUR NUTS. This limits our market, but it’s a value we believe in.

6) We recycle everything that we can. This means both re-using things on the farm, as well as sending things to those that can reuse them.

7) We eat from our farm as much as possible. There are many meals we have where we can say "everything on this table came from our farm."

8) We use energy wisely and carefully. This year we added another 6 kilowatts of solar electricity to our farm. We have also instituted energy audits and then have taken action to reduce our annual consumption of electricity.

9) John commutes on Amtrak for his "day job" and we combine vehicle trips to minimize our annual mileage.

10) We hang our clothes on the clothesline to reduce the use of our dryer."

Mondays are wash days with clothes 
drying on the line at 6790' MuRefuge. 
In the background is the smallest hoop house 
where greens,strawberries and herbs thrive.

What we eat seems to be up for a change/make over if we are concerned about the crisis here on Mother Earth. I found this information provided by Dr. Dobbs, a veterinarian in Southern California who has evaluated Shasta's saliva for food allergies and sensitivities, extremely helpful in looking at not only what we as humans eat but our pets as well.

To change how we eat, consume less resources and if necessary recycle, take a solar powered sail boat across "The Pond" as did Greta Thunberg for the U.N.'s Climate Crisis gathering, avoid using any plastic, take public transportation or bike as your means of transportation, grow one's own food, sequester carbon on your property, etc. is not enough. Especially it is not enough when those who can afford to own more than one home go about life as though it is "business as usual." Many are hopeful humans can alter their own self serving course of life on Mother Earth. Greta Thunberg, the 16 year old from Sweden who has led others her age to stage massive rallies to awaken all of us "old folks" to the climate crisis, is now in deep despair as evidenced by her speech before the United Nations. Watching her crying and raging at the attendees for not acting to dramatically alter the climate crisis brought to mind the immense grief I and others in my life have likewise felt when we came to grips with the fact that life as we know it will cease to exist . . . in my lifetime.

Way back in the early 1970's, I heard Bill Mollison, the founder/father of Permaculture, share his belief that humans will not change. He saw the climate crisis then and found few humans who were willing to change their attitudes, beliefs and behaviors. Humans feel entitled to fulfill all of their greedy wants and wishes; believing if they do not, then they are sacrificing unduly. 

As each of us face the reality of the climate crisis and deal with our intense emotions, and perhaps make huge adjustments in our way of BEing here on Mother Earth, may we