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Tangentially Speaking

353 – Connor Jones (Permaculture Farmer)

By November 21, 2018June 13th, 20227 Comments

Connor lives on a piece of land that he and his family have shaped and caressed into a slice of Paradise. East End Eden is a living, working demonstration of what’s possible with knowledge, planning, patience, and hard work. Hell yeah!

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Music: “Brightside of the Sun,” by Basin and Range; “Run on for a Long Time” by Blind Boys of Alabama; “Smoke Alarm,” by Carsie Blanton.

7 Comments

  • Josh Jones says:

    Woo Wales, represent! Unfortunately most of our hedges aren’t nicely laid and left to spill over with fruit and nuts as Conor described. Most are hacked to death on a annual basis due to requirements of government farming subsidies.

  • Re. Connor’s argument that a rise in levels of atmospheric CO2 is (allegedly) good for the environment because it promotes growth of biomass, I’ve heard similar arguments before from climate change denialists and the people who refuse to change their modern life style because it is responsible for pumping all those tonnes of greenhouse gases on the atmosphere. "More CO2 is good for plants, which means more crops and more food," they say.

    Unfortunately it’s not as simple as that, since recent studies have shown that yes, plants will grow faster due to all that extra CO2, BUT they will be devoid of all the precious minerals he was talking about earlier in the discussion, which means the nutritional value of our crops and vegetables will go even lower still in the future.

    https://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/13/food-nutrients-carbon-dioxide-000511

    I sympathize with his opinion that labeling humanity as a ‘scourge’ has been ultimately detrimental with the modern environmental movement though, because I feel such views is what is fueling the opinion of many technocrats who just want to escape out to Mars or the deepest abandoned mine they can find once the shit hit the fan. Overall a fascinating discussion which made me learn more about permaculture –I’m trying to learn myself how to keep a very small garden, and I’ve discovered I get great pleasure from watching green things you take care of grow and thrive.

  • Miguel Aranha says:

    The idea that there’s overpopulation is misanthropic at best and racist at worst. The 10% richest people on Earth use up 90% of the resources, give or take. That’s the problem. Usually denouncing overpopulation and calling for controls on population growth comes packaged with the fact that 3rd world populations are rising quickly and that’s really the root of the problem.

    The anarchist of social ecology, Murray Bookchin, had a strong association with permaculture and he hated talk of overpopulation. We don’t have too many people, we have a grow-or-die market system which will destroy the species whatever efforts we make to reduce our numbers.

    • Christopher Ryan says:

      You might want to think about the many ways you can disagree with an idea without resorting to calling it racist or misanthropic. There are clearly many, many arguments supporting the claim that our species is overrepresented on this planet that are neither, and which also fit in with your critique of growth-oriented capitalism.

      • Miguel Aranha says:

        I should have written that it’s usually misanthropic at best and racist at worst, didn’t mean for it to sound accusing, sorry. As Bookchin said, we don’t know what the limits to human population are but blaming overpopulation for the ecological crisis puts equal blame upon poor people in the third world or even the first and the people who run the military and the governments, and those who own the gigantic corporations. His essay on it is worth reading.

  • flooberdooberdoooooo says:

    I enjoyed this immensely!

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