Paliekniki g. 6, adin k. Iauli r. Savo veikl pradjome 1985 metais. 2005 metais medelynas uregistruotas passenosanitariniame registre. Frau pagrindin mons veiklos sritis vaismedi bei vaiskrmi sodinuk auginimas. Pas mus rasite tuos sodinukus, Kurie yra prisitaik augti Lietuvos klimato slygomis. Medelyne dirbantys mons jums mielai pads isirinkti sodinukus, bei pakonsultuos jums rpimais klausimais. Lesen Sie mehr8230 eldinimo idjos tai didiul patirt turinti spezialist grup. Tai bene seniausiai tokio pobdio darb dirbanti mon Lietuvoje. 2006 trafen sich vasar paminjome 25-er mit veiklos jubiliej. Profesionalumo, stabilumo ir ilgaamikumo garantra ya tai, kad mon gyvuoja eimos tradicij pagrindu. Ia jau darbuojasi eimos III-oji karta. Lesen Sie mehr8230 370 698 00378 370 614 59744 iobriks g. 8, Butkai, Priekuls sen. Klaipdos r. I-VII (Prie atvykstant praneti) Jolantos Paliliniens dekoratyvini augal irisch gli kis sikrs Graiame Klaipdos rajono Butk kaime (20 km nuo Klaipdos, Priekuls seninijoje). Tai gantinai jaunas, savo veikl vykdantis nuo 2008 getroffen, taiau nuolat besipleiantis ir plat dekoratyvini augal bei daugiamei gli asortiment galintis pasilyti kis. Weiterlesen8230 Klaipdos r. Ua Gargd miesto Prekyba dekoratyviniais augalais. Galime Jums padti susikurti ir puoselti savo svajotos Sodybos GRO Jums praant, padsime pasodinti, patarsime kaip priirti ir auginti8230 Teikiamos paslaugos: dekoratyvini augal, vaismedi bei vaiskrmi parinkimas, sodinimas, genjimas, formavimas ir prieira Vej rengimas ir prieira Juodemio pardavimas, atveimas, lyginimas Alpinarium rengimas Nereikaling augal rovimas, aplinklos tvarkymas. Lesen Sie mehr8230 370 45 589760 370 686 91890 370 620 59810 Kaimikio k. Trakikio pt. 38105, Panevio r. I-IV: 8-17 V: 8-15,45 Pertrauka: 12-12,45 Medelyne auginama vir 80 ri ir Form dekoratyvini augal, galini papuoti sodyb, gyvenamj nam, visuomenini pastat APLINK, pagrinti miest ir miesteli Parkus bei skverus. Retesni ir sunkiai prigyjantys sodinukai auginami vazonuose, todl juos galima pasodinti ne Tik pavasar, bet ir kitu traf laiku. Weiterlesen8230 Rtos Stankniens medelynas skaiiuoja jau antr deimtmet. Prekiaujame obelimis, kriaumis, slyvomis, vyniomis, trenmis, vynuogmis, ermukniais. Taip pat galite sigyti vairi uogakrmi. Kur kas isamesn auginam augal sra ir iliustruotus veisli apraymus rasite ms tinklalapyje. Jei Norit apirti jau paaugusius Medelius ir paskanauti j Vaisi btinai apsilankykite ir js. Skaitykite daugiau raquo 370 646 60761 370 673 73142 Pavasario g. 2, Babtai, Kauno r. Medelyno veikl kontroliuoja valstybins tarnybos ir tai utikrina augal veisls atitikim ir sveikumo garant. Medelyne auginame didel asortiment augal (obelys, kriaus, vynios, trens, slyvos, persikai, abrikosai, nektarinai). Daugiausiai Dauginame Lietuvoje rajonuotas veisles, taiau neatsisakome kai kuri senovik veisli. Taip pat galime akiuoti Js seiteidaujam veisl. Augindami vaismedius medelyne nenaudojame auginimo stimuliatori, todl persodinus medel jis Skaitykite daugiau raquoI sagte Id für einen Monat zu bloggen abschwören, aber ich dachte, Id von nur fallen die Erscheinung auf dem dunklen Berg Blog meiner Rezension von 2016 zu beachten, so genannte Schafe Mahnwache. Und da ich hier bin, könnte ich auch noch ein bisschen zusätzlichen Kontext für dieses Stück skizzieren. Eine Ansicht Ive lang, der auf dieser Seite verzeichnet wird, ist, daß Völker Gesundheit und Wohlbefinden schließlich von einer Wirtschaft stark gedient werden, die stark in den produktiven Kapazitäten ihrer lokalen Landschaften gegründet wird. Mein Gefühl ist, dass die seismischen politischen Ereignisse von 2016 Brexit, Trump usw. noch weiter von jener schon entfernten Möglichkeit genommen haben und die Vorstellung, dass sie einen Schritt zum antilitären Lokalismus darstellen, illusorisch ist. Daher ist die allgemeine Stimmung meiner Analyse pessimistisch. Auf der anderen Seite, hätten die Götter ordiniert, dass 2016 das Jahr von Bremain und Clinton sein sollte, würden wir kaum näher an meinen Bestrebungen sein. So könnte es vielleicht argumentiert werden, dass, wenn die falsche Morgendämmerung von 2016 wird immer deutlicher, itll drehen sich zumindest, dass diese Ereignisse waren Stage Beiträge zu einem echten egalitären Localismus. Trouble ist, von wo ich stehe, kann ich nicht wirklich sehen, was mir in den Sinn kommt, anstatt ist ein Tom Waits Linie: Sie sagen, wenn Sie weit genug entfernt werden Sie auf Ihrem Weg zurück nach Hause. Nun Im am Bahnhof, und ich kann nicht in den Zug. So versucht mein Stück hauptsächlich, zu zeichnen, was ich als grössere Wahrscheinlichkeit und eine grössere Gefahr sehe, die, nachdem Theresa Mays Brexit konservative Regierung und Donald Trumpfpräsidentschaft nicht liefern ihre undeliverable Versprechen gut erhalten, etwas viel schlechteres. Ich habe einige Stick auf dieser Seite für im Zusammenhang mit der Politik von 2016 über den Faschismus zu sprechen, und Id einräumen, dass Linke die schlechte Gewohnheit haben Faschismus Geschrei als eine Art Reflex, wenn sie wieder erstarkte rechte Politik zu begegnen. Trotzdem ist der ganze Tenor des politischen Diskurses im Vereinigten Königreich im Moment (vielleicht sein bestes, wenn ich es versäume, auf die US-Situation zu achten, die Im mehr entfernt von) mehr proto-faschistisch ist als alles, was ich in der britischen Politik zu Lebzeiten gesehen habe, Mit all seinen Gesprächen über die Feinde des Volkes, die Revolte gegen die liberalen Eliten, den Sündenbock und das Ressentiment. Erschwerend sie alle, als Ive in diesem Blog kartiert, verschiedene Stimmen unter radikalen Grüns sind, im besten Fall, Inhalt nur ihre Hände zu reiben an der blutigen Schauspiel von allem und im schlimmsten Fall sind Cheerleader den Schlitten in Richtung nativism und Staatskorporatismus. Schande über sie. Aber, hey, es ist ein neues Jahr, und wenn ich kann nicht finden, ein paar Sonnenstrahlen in die Düsterkeit in den Salat-Tagen des Januars einzudringen dann Ill übertreffen sogar meine eigene Meisterschaft Ebenen der Lugubrousness. So heres einige positive Gedanken, basiert größtenteils auf den Büchern, die ich während des letzten Feiertags las: Ich verspätete herum, um in die Wildnis zu lesen. Jon Krakauers Buch über Christopher McCandless, der all sein Geld an Oxfam gab, und wanderte in den westlichen USA, bevor er leider in Alaska sterben musste, als er die Wahrheit in der unmittelbaren und der wilden suchte. Die meisten Kulturen haben historisch einen Platz für weltverzichtbare Transzendenz gefunden und Menschen, die sie suchen, geschätzt. Unsere bedauerlicherweise nicht, aber theres kein Mangel an Leuten heutzutage, die trotzdem seinen Zug fühlen. Die McCandless-Geschichte hat viele Menschen beeinflusst, von denen einige versuchen, seine genaue Reise zu wiederholen und am Ende brauchen Rettung aus dem Teklanika River. oder schlimmer. Also, was ist die Moral hier Dass die Menschen finden einige dumbass Wege, um sich in Schwierigkeiten Nun sicher, aber Im auf der Suche nach positiven, erinnern So Id sagen, dies: viel wie unsere Gesellschaft gerne den Mythos, dass jeder will reich und berühmt, Es ist nicht wirklich wahr. Aber die meisten Menschen sind ziemlich suggestible und neigen dazu, die Wege (wörtlich oder figürlich), wo andere vorher gegangen sind. Also vielleicht wäre es nicht so schwer, eine Menge von ihnen auf einen sinnvollen Weg der Transzendenz abzulenken. Und die Wahl, die wir gegenüberstellen, ist nicht zwischen entweder einem sechs - Zahlgehalt in Manhattan oder dem Jagen für Nahrung in Alaska und dem Sterben eines einsamen Todes. Sie könnten versuchen, Gartenarbeit, für den Anfang. Die Über fleißig Revolution ich endlich auch um Jan de Vries Artikel der industriellen Revolution zu lesen und die fleißigen Revolution einer der wegweisenden Beiträge zur fleißigen Revolution Debatte, die Ill in späteren Beiträge diskutieren werden, und voller Implikationen für eine nachhaltige Landwirtschaften und Gesellschaften der Zukunft. Einer von de Vries Punkte ist, dass die industrielle Revolution des viktorianischen England kam nicht nur nach unten aus der Höhe als Folge der fossilen Energieerfassung und wurde dann auf der ganzen Welt zu einem dankbaren Volk verkündet (die Art der ecomodernist Version der Geschichte ist). Vielmehr entstand es im Wesentlichen durch eine Reihe von Randentscheidungen, die von einfachen Menschen in vorindustriellen Haushalten gemacht wurden, wie sie am besten ihre Zeit verbringen konnten, mit Ergebnissen, die sie kaum vorstellen konnten. Und die Moral dieser Geschichte für mich ist die folgende Antwort für diejenigen, die sagen, dass der Aufstieg des Kapitalismus und seine enorme Verstärkung in der Menge der materiellen Dinge geschehen musste, und ist, was jeder will: nein, es war nicht und nicht sie nicht. Eine kurze Antwort, ich gebe zu, aber ich schlage vor, zu gegebener Zeit zu erweitern. Die positive Botschaft, die ich aus de Vries ziehe, ist, dass große historische Veränderungen von unten nach oben ohne koordinierten politischen Plan erfolgen können. So ist es denkbar, daß die Leute glauben, daß die Revolution, die wir in den vergangenen zwei Jahrhunderten verbracht haben, ein bisschen übertrieben gewesen ist, und wird beginnen, andere Wege zu finden, ihre Zeit als die Lohnarbeit zu organisieren, um die industrielle Produktion von Rohstoffen zu finanzieren. Collapse in slo-mo Weiter auf meiner Leseliste war End Game: Tipping Point für Planet Earth von palaeo-Ökologen Anthony Barnosky und Elizabeth Hadly. Id empfehlen es als Licht Urlaub zu lesen. Nein im Ernst. Vielleicht bin ich einfach nicht genug raus. Wie auch immer, trotz der Mangel an Tiefe dachte ich, es gibt eine Menge gute Sachen in dem Buch war, und der Paläo-ökologische Winkel war gegenwärtigen Umständen Vergangenheit Klimawandel und Aussterbeereignisse Vergleich besonders interessant, ein nützliches Korrektiv zu der oben genannten ecomodernists Lieblings Ökologie Buch, Emma Marriss Rambunctious Garten. Ich war nicht immer einverstanden mit Barnosky und Hadly, und ich war besonders irked durch ihr Versagen, Low-Tech-und kleine-als High-Tech und groß angelegte Ansätze für die Landwirtschaft zu betrachten. Noch im Kapitel nach Kapitel über Bevölkerung, Ressourcen, Nahrung, Wasser, Verschmutzung, Krankheit und Krieg legen sie eine Reihe von düsteren Markierungen für die enorme Herausforderung der Menschheit. Die positive Botschaft Oh verdammt, Id vergessen, dass. Gut nicht, denke ich, das fälschlich fröhliche letzte Kapitel, in dem die Autoren viel zu aufgeregt durch die Tatsache, dass Kalifornien Gouverneur Jerry Brown in ihrer Analyse interessiert ist, so viel wie ich Empathie mit dem Stockholm-Syndrom, dass viele von uns zeigen, wenn WICHTIG LEUTE gelegentlich Wählen Sie, um uns zuzuhören. Sein mehr über die Natur und die Geschwindigkeit des bevorstehenden Zusammenbruchs, den Barnosky und Hadly etwas kennzeichnen, das wir ein Stückchen in den Anmerkungsabschnitten einiger meiner neuen blog Pfosten schlagen. Ihre Analyse führt mich zu der Annahme, dass es in den kommenden Jahren fast unvermeidlich Blut, Krieg, Hunger und ungeheueres menschliches Leid geben wird, so wie es in den letzten Jahren schon viele gewesen sind, aber was es wahrscheinlich nicht gibt, auch in einigen ziemlich schlechten ökologischen Szenarien, ist ein unmittelbarer und totaler Zusammenbruch der globalen Zivilisation. So das ist ein Trost, huh Menschen sind Menschen. Ich verbrachte Silvester in einer Jugendherberge in Südportugal (eine lange Geschichte), unter einer gemischten Menge von Englisch, Spanisch, Portugiesisch, Australier und Deutschen, unter anderem. Ein litauischer Akkordeonist spielte Gitarre und sang fröhliche amerikanische Lieder in englischer Sprache, englische Lieder in litauischer und litauischer Lieder in spanischer Sprache, glaube ich. Die Europäer haben sich über die Engländer lustig gemacht, weil sie versuchten, so zu tun, als ob wir wirklich Europäer wären und eine schöne alte Zeit von allen gehabt hätte. Es machte mich der Meinung, dass für alle bitteren politischen Rhetorik und Social Media Trolling, wenn Menschen aus verschiedenen Ländern tatsächlich treffen und miteinander reden, sind sie oft in der Lage, Wege zu finden, sich zu bewegen. China schläft: am neuen Jahr Tag kam ich mit einer schlechten Kälte. Die Geschäfte waren geschlossen und ich konnte keine Nurofen. Im Bett liegend, erkannte ich zu meinem Entsetzen, dass das einzige ungelesene Buch in meinem Besitz eine in erster Linie mit der Steuerpolitik im frühneuzeitlichen China befasste war. Wenn ich meine intellektuelle Anmaßung verfluchte, warum ich nicht einen Verbrechenroman wie eine normale Person mit nur wenigen anderen Optionen gebracht hatte, fuhr ich fort, mehr zu erfahren, als es vernünftigerweise von einem Mann auf seinem Krankenbett über die langfristigen Machenschaften des Mittleren Reiches erwartet werden konnte. Ein oder zwei Tage später sah ich die Nachricht von Donald Trumps letzten Online-China-Köderung. Und bewaffnet mit meiner neuen Kenntnis nahm ich Trost von der Tatsache, daß, während die chinesischen Regimen durch die Geschichte sicherlich ihren gerechten Anteil an Mobbing und kräftigen Armen gemacht haben, sie in der Regel dazu tendierten, für quixotische Taten des militärischen Abenteurers in Übersee einzutreten Zu rauschen in Rache für Schwächen im Gegensatz zu, na ja, wie ein wildes Beispiel, sagen wir, hmm, die USA. So, denke ich, ist ein bisschen eine gute Nachricht, während wir uns die vier Jahre vorstellen. Rationalität: In anderen Nachrichten, hat der ehemalige Chef-Ökonom der Bank of England für die Banken übermäßig pessimistische Prognosen für Britains post-Brexit wirtschaftliche Leistung entschuldigt. Andrew Haldane sagte, dass die Banken Modelle auf der Annahme, dass die Menschen verhielten sich rational, aber dies war nicht der Fall. Und die gute Nachricht hier ist, dass die britische Wirtschaft trotz aller Verdammung über Brexit Nr. Stark und triumphierend entstanden ist. Wir havent sogar verlassen die EU noch sein viel zu frühes zu sagen. Die gute Nachricht ist, dass ältere Ökonomen schließlich zugeben, dass ihre Modelle arent auf, wie die Menschen tatsächlich etwas, dass Denker aus anderen Disziplinen (wie er und ihm und sogar ihm) haben sie seit Jahren erzählt verhalten. Trotzdem, theres etwas etwas pejorative über Haldanes Sprache der Rationalität und Irrationalität vielleicht die wirkliche Irrationalität bezieht sich hier auf eine Disziplin so gern Gebäude Verhaltensmodelle, die arent basiert auf, wie die Menschen tatsächlich verhalten. Aber vielleicht muss ich hier vorsichtig vorgehen, da diese Kritik am Faschismus weitgehend auf der Tatsache beruht, dass sie irrational ist. Ich denke, was Id sagen ist, dass Politik immer unvermeidlich eine Frage von Überzeugungen und Werten ist und der Glaube, dass Politik auf Vernunft basieren muss, mindestens ebenso vertretbar ist wie jede andere. Das war wirklich ein wichtiger Punkt meines Dunklen Berg-Stücks, dass eine liberale Öffentlichkeit nun als Wert verteidigt werden muss. Die Ökonomie dagegen spricht in der Regel als wertneutrale Disziplin, die versteht, wie sich Menschen verhalten. Klar, aber es tut nicht. Und die Tatsache, dass die Nachrichten jetzt ist isgood. Richtig, das ist es wirklich. Frohes neues Jahr. Wir sehen uns im Februar. Und so komme ich zu meinem letzten Blogpost von 2016, und was für ein Jahr war es. Ive wurde von Dark Mountain gebeten, eine Retrospektive davon zu schreiben, die hoffentlich bald auf ihrer Website sein wird. Ich werde einige Gedanken über die größeren Ereignisse der Welt in diesem Posten anbieten, also hier Im hauptsächlich nur, einige Nuggets anzubieten, die auf mein spezifisches Thema der kleinen Landwirtschaft und seine Zukunft gerichtet sind. Aber zuerst dachte ich vielleicht, ich sollte ein Blatt aus John Michael Greers Buch nehmen und einige Vorhersagen für 2017 machen. Ich habe eine gewisse Menge an Stick auf dieser Website früher im Jahr für die dunkle Ansicht nahm ich von Donald Trumps Politik und von Greers (deniable) Begeisterung für sie. Mir wurde gesagt, dass Trümpfe, die sich für die Arbeiterklasse aussprechen, seinen Fokus auf die Innenpolitik und nicht auf die globale Machtpolitik und seine antikorporateneoliberale Agenda versprachen, neue Abwege zu versprechen. Ich war nicht überzeugt, und Im noch weniger davon überzeugt, jetzt, dass die Präsidentenwahl seine Mannschaft mit Goldman Sachs Bankiers und assorted Milliardäre und Außenpolitik Exzentriker, während baiting China und die arabische Welt gefüllt hat. Also meine Vorhersage für Dezember 2017: Trumpf Präsidentschaft hat eine minimale negative Wirkung auf die Verbesserung der Menge der US-Arbeiterklasse, eine negative Auswirkung auf die internationalen Beziehungen und Spannungen und eine positive Wirkung auf die Verankerung der Unternehmensmacht haben. Etwas zum Nachdenken in einer Jahre Die Geschichte der globalen Machtpolitik legt nahe, dass der Aufstieg einer Macht und der langsame Niedergang eines anderen, wenn auch kaum unbemerkt, oft einen Flammpunkt erreicht, wo plötzlich die Stumpfheit der umgekehrten Geschehnisse plötzlich aufgedeckt wird, als ob Unangekündigt den Dreißigjährigen Krieg und der Siebenjährige Krieg Frühling im Kopf der europäischen Geschichte. Ich prognostiziere einen zukünftigen Flammpunkt, in dem die Vorherrschaft Chinas über den USA offenbart wird, wenn auch wahrscheinlich nicht im Jahr 2017, wenn Trump wirklich übertrifft. Ich hoffe, dass er nicht Id es vorzieht, um unter einem stetigeren Paar Hände im Weißen Haus zu geschehen. Wie auch immer, sprechen wir über die Landwirtschaft. Zurück im Oktober ging ich zum kleinen Landwirtschaftsmeistertagstag, organisiert von meiner Landarbeiter-Allianz-Freundin Rebecca Laughton, in Verbindung mit ihrem interessanten Forschungsprojekt zur Produktivität der kleinen Bauernhöfe im Vereinigten Königreich. Mein Zug verspätete sich und ich kam spät zur Veranstaltung und spazierte in die Mitte einer Sitzung auf kleinen Getreide wächst gerade als ein Publikum Mitglied fragte der Session-Führer, welche Vielfalt von Weizen er wuchs. Maris Widgeon, antwortete er, zu hörbaren Luftansaugungen durch die gespitzten Lippen der versammelten Teilnehmer. Ich denke manchmal, dass in Großbritannien, mehr als in den meisten Ländern der Welt, die Ursache der Kleinbauernwirtschaft ist leider eine verlorene. So fand ich es irgendwie zu jubeln, dass es immer noch Menschen um in diesem Land fähig engen Lippen Mißbilligung bei dem Gedanken an jemanden wachsen eine Vielzahl von Weizen, dass die meisten anderen Menschen noch nie gehört haben. Diese Veranstaltung fand in Monkton Wyld statt, wo der unschätzbare Simon Fairlie und Gill Barron eine kleine Herde von Trikots beherbergen, Sensen verkaufen und das Landmagazin laufen lassen, das in diesem Jahr seine zwanzigste Ausgabe einen kleinen Strahl der Vernunft in einer verrückten Welt feierte. Es war großartig, einen Blick auf Simon und Gills Betrieb, einschließlich seiner traditionellen kleinen Melkplatz. Wie Simon darauf hinwies, gab es Tausende von ihnen im ganzen Land. Die meisten sind jetzt weg, aber da die Margen für die Milchproduktion schmal und die Eingänge der Roboter Mega Confinement Molkereien zu erweitern, gibt es einige Glitzer von einer Rückkehr zu niedrigen Eingang Mikro-Molkerei von der Art, Simon und Gill Praxis. Ein weiterer Grund, fröhlich zu sein. Simon ist der Autor von Meat: Eine gutartige Extravaganz wahrscheinlich noch die beste Single-Volume-Prüfung, die ich gelesen habe, was eine kleine Farm Zukunft mit sich bringen könnte. Und von Fleisch redend, hat Joel Salatin in jüngster Zeit alle Ankläger bei der Verteidigung der Ursache für nachhaltiges Fleisch, vor allem gegen die New York Times von James McWilliams, genannt Der Mythos des nachhaltigen Fleisches, und in einer Diskussion hier in der Großbritannien mit ua Tara Garnett, Chefredakteurin des Food Climate Research Network. Salatin macht viele gute Punkte, und in der Regel bekommt die bessere von McWilliams in seiner Reaktion auf die NYT Artikel, die recycelt die üblichen müde alten shibboleths über die überlegene ökologische Anmeldeinformationen der intensive beschränkte Fleisch Operationen. Aber auf einem Punkt finde ich Salatin ausweichend. Kritisiert McWilliams Zahlen für die Menge des Landes benötigt, um ein Tier auf Gras zu beenden, schreibt Salatin, dass diese Zahlen das aktuelle normale Missmanagement von Weiden annehmen. Viele Landwirte, in vielen verschiedenen Klimazonen, sind jetzt mit Raum-Alter-Technologie, Biomimik und schließen Um eine exponentielle Zunahme der Futterproduktion zu erreichen. Was er nicht sagt, ist, wie viele Hektar ein Tier mit diesen exponentiell vermehrenden Raum-Alter Methoden braucht, und wie viele Hektar Sie brauchen, um das gleiche Maß an Ernährung aus exponentiell vermehrenden Raum-Alter-Technologie auf Lebensmittelpflanzen angebaut direkt für den menschlichen Verzehr zu produzieren Anstatt Futterpflanzen zu ernten. Weil die Tatsache ist, theres ein Gusseisen ökologisches Gesetz der trophischen Niveaus, die zeigt, daß Sie nicht soviel Fleisch von einem gegebenen Bereich produzieren können, wie Sie von der pflanzlichen Angelegenheit können. Das bedeutet nicht, dass theres kein Platz für Vieh auf dem Bauernhof, oder dass es nicht ein Fall für Scaling up nachhaltige Fleisch Fragen, die Simon Fairlie sieht in einigen Details in seinem Buch, und dass Ive sah in meinem Blog-Zyklus auf nachhaltige Landwirtschaft im Vereinigten Königreich. Aber lassen Sie uns ehrlich sein, außer in sehr marginalen Umgebungen, werden Sie nie zu produzieren menschliche Nahrung über die Vermittlung von Vieh mit der gleichen Landnutzung Effizienz wie direkt genießbare Pflanzen. Tara Garnett ist zweifellos richtig, daß Niveaus von US - oder BRITISCHEM Fleischverbrauch arent global nachhaltig sind, gleichwohl die Tiere angehoben werden. Und in jedem Fall sind Wiederkäuer eine Nebenwirkung in der globalen Fleischproduktion die eigentliche Frage ist Schweinefleisch und Huhn, die konkurrieren mehr direkt mit Menschen für cropland. Der westliche Fleischverbrauch ist zwar nicht global nachhaltig, könnte aber noch lokal nachhaltig sein. Ive verbrachte viel Zeit in diesem Jahr knirschenden Zahlen auf einer geplanten zukünftigen Bauernrepublik Wessex hier im Südwesten Englands, wo ich lebe, mit dem Ziel, es mit dem Imperium von London im Südosten zu vergleichen. Auf den Graswiesen von Wessex fand Ive eine Rolle für die Tiere bei der Ernährung der Bevölkerung. Aber ich bin nicht sicher, dass diese Annahmen so gut spielen im Falle von Londinium, die Ill zu kommen. Mein Ziel war es auch, die Politik und Soziologie einer Verschiebung zu modernen neubürgerischen Gesellschaften in entwickelten westlichen Ländern zu diskutieren. Ive machte viel weniger Fortschritt auf diesem als Id erhoffte, von jetzt, aber hey Ive erhielt einen Bauernhof, um außerdem zu laufen. Und theres immer nächstes Jahr hoffe ich. Auf der Oberseite scheint meine neo-bäuerliche Übung etwas breiteres Interesse geweckt zu haben. Dies war das Jahr, in dem Small Farm Future ging, nicht wirklich viral, und vielleicht nicht einmal bakteriell, aber sicher amöbal, mit über 1.100 Kommentare zu meinen Beiträgen hier bei Small Farm Future allein im Laufe des Jahres. Einige von ihnen werent sogar von mir geschrieben. So vielen Dank an alle, die kommentiert haben, und entschuldigt sich, wenn der Druck der Zeit manchmal bedeutet, dass ich nicht in der Lage, so vollständig zu antworten, wie Sie vielleicht gemocht haben. Ich habe viel gelernt aus den Kommentaren Ive erhalten, und immer Feedback ist sicherlich eine Ermutigung, weiter zu bloggen. In der Tat, Kleine Farm Future wurde sogar in den Abgängen durch eine akademische Studie namens Gibt es eine Zukunft für die kleine Familie Bauernhof, gefördert von der Princes Trust und mit einem Vorwort von Lord irgendjemand von irgendwo-oder-andere, so hier bei SFF wir Jetzt haben echte blaue aristokratische Abstammung. Zugegeben, die Erwähnung, die wir erhielten, war etwas zurückhändig: Andere beklagen den Niedergang der kleinen Farm im globalen Kontext. Chris Smaje, der eine Website namens Small Farm Future betreibt, schreibt: Von der kurzen Hochwassermarke des pro-bäuerlichen Populismus im frühen 20. Jahrhundert hat sich die Möglichkeit, selbstständige nationale Prosperitäten auf unabhängige kleine Eigentümer zu gründen, langsam Wurden durch Landraubungen, globale Handelsabkommen und Agrarpolitik begünstigt, die die kapitalintensive Grundnahrungsmittelproduktion über die lokale Selbstversorgung, unabhängig von den Konsequenzen für Kleinbauern, begünstigen. (Smaje, 2015, Tudge, 2007). Die enge Verbindung zwischen der Interessenvertretung der Kleinbauern und der Befürwortung radikaler organischer Alternativen zu konventionellen landwirtschaftlichen Systemen (Smaje, 2014 Tudge, 2007) dient oft dazu, die Größenfrage am Rande des Mainstreams zu bewahren Debatte. Dies ist bedauerlich, denn es gibt realen Spielraum für eine positive Interaktion zwischen alternativen Visionen für die Landwirtschaft und die Besorgnis über die Herausforderungen, vor denen konventionelle Mainstream-Familienbetriebe stehen. Ah gut, theres keine so schlechte Werbung. Aber ich bin nicht sicher, seine einsamen Stimmen in der Wildnis wie meine, die das Problem der Größe des Hofes an den Rand der Mainstream-Debatte zu halten, und ich kann nicht wirklich sehen, wie ein ernsthafter Fall für die Kleinbetriebe als alles andere als eine kleine Ergänzung zu hoch Input, spezialisierte, groß angelegte Landwirtschaft kann in der Abwesenheit der Befürwortung für radikale (wenn nicht notwendigerweise organische) Alternativen zu herkömmlichen landwirtschaftlichen Systemen gemacht werden. Der Bericht ist zweifellos interessant in seiner Analyse der Rolle der Kleinbauernwirtschaft im Lebenszyklus der landwirtschaftlichen Mainstream-Wirtschaft und bringt ein wenig (wenn auch nur wenig) Daten auf diesen unterprüften Sektor. Aber letztendlich muss ich sagen, dass, nein, es gibt keine Zukunft für die kleine Familie Farm in Großbritannien, es sei denn, jemand schreit es für politisch lange und laut. Was für eine glückliche Pause für die Welt ist es, dass kleine Farm Zukunft ist hier, um einige schreit, aber nicht für einen Monat oder so zu tun. All dieses Bloggen der späten hat mich hinterlassen auf meinem Farm-Aufgaben und andere schriftliche Aufgaben. So während einige entscheiden sich für Alkohol-freie Januaries, Im gehen für eine Blog-freie, um aufzuholen in einigen anderen Bereichen meines Lebens. Und sothanks für das Lesen, alles gute für 2017 und ich hoffe, Sie wieder auf der Anmerkungsseite irgendwann um Februar zu sehen. Ciao Das letzte Mal, als wir in Wessex waren, zeigte sich, dass sich seine Bewohner um 2039 wahrscheinlich mit ökologischer Landwirtschaft recht komfortabel ernähren konnten, wobei 20 der Bevölkerung sich vorwiegend auf die neubauernde Subsistenzlandwirtschaft mit 40 vorhandenen Flachlandflächen und den restlichen 80 Jahren konzentrierten Der Bevölkerung von größeren, mehr Getreide-Heft-orientierte Landwirtschaft von den verbleibenden 60 der Ackerland gefüttert, plus ein wenig Hochland weiden. Allerdings, wie es steht, dass das Szenario von einem fossilen energieintensiven Geschäft abhängt wie üblich Ansatz auf den großen Bauernhöfen. Es scheint sinnvoll, ein alternatives, null fossiles Energie-Szenario nachzudenken. Hier fangen wir an, sogar meine eigene großzügige Komfortzone für müßige Spekulationen über die Zukunft zu überschreiten, wenn es keine fossile Brennstoffnutzung in der Wessex-Landwirtschaft 2039 (oder jenseits) gibt, was die sozialen und ökonomischen Korrelationen sein könnte Wahrscheinlich nicht eins mit 80 der Bevölkerung noch Glücklich wohnhaft in Städten und als Videospiel-Programmierer, Wintergartenverkäufer oder was auch immer. Dennoch, ich dont vorschlagen, sich zu kümmern, dass zu viel in diesem Beitrag. Für jetzt können wir nur betrachten die landwirtschaftliche Seite von ihm, und sehen Sie, wenn wir einen anderen Weg finden können, um die Nahrungsmittelproduktion für 80 von Wessexs Bevölkerung anzutreiben. Das stürzt uns sofort in eine spekulative Debatte über die Form des künftigen Energiemix, der noch bis 2039 weiter gehen könnte. Hier will ich es also brutal einschränken, indem ich die folgenden zweifellos höchst umstrittenen Annahmen mache. Ich gehe davon aus, dass es nicht genug erneuerbare erzeugte Elektrizität sein, um elektrische, Brennstoffzelle oder elektro-synthetisierte Kohlenwasserstofftraktoren anzutreiben. Ich gehe davon aus, dass keine der magischen, viel angepriesenen nächsten Generation oder Generation-nach Quellen der grenzenlosen sauberen Macht wie Thorium oder Kernfusion durch gekommen sind. Und Im gehen zu vermuten, dass Holz Methanol ist nicht eine tragfähige Quelle der landwirtschaftlichen Energie, wie ein paar Leute haben mir vorgeschlagen, dass es sein könnte. Die Art und Weise, wie ich die Runen lese, lautet wie folgt: Man bekommt etwa 27 Liter Methanol aus einer Tonne Holz, und man bekommt etwa 3 Tonnen Holz aus einem Hektar bewirtschaftetem Wald, so dass man etwa 80 Liter Methanol aus einer Hektar Waldfläche. Methanol hat etwa die Hälfte der Energiedichte von Diesel. Sie benötigen ungefähr 100l Diesel (so 200l Methanol), um einen Hektar Ackerland jedes Jahr zu bewirtschaften. Ich nehme an, Sie brauchen etwa ein Viertel davon, um einen Hektar dauerhaften Gras, minimal, etwa so viel wieder zu verwalten, den Rest der Produktion und Transport Wirtschaft um Nahrung zu bewirtschaften. Das kostet etwa 1,2 Millionen Hektar bewirtschaftetes Waldland, um 1,8 Millionen Hektar Ackerland zu betreiben, das die Landfläche von Wessex um fast ein Drittel übersteigen würde (wobei auch der Energiebedarf der Waldbewirtschaftung vernachlässigt wird). Methanol kann aus anderen kohlenstoffreichen Abfällen hergestellt werden, aber es scheint mir eine Strecke zu denken, dass es eine große landwirtschaftliche Energiequelle sein könnte, es sei denn jemand kann einige radikal vielversprechendere Zahlen zur Verfügung stellen. Ein anderer Vorschlag, den ich erhielt, war, meine Westland-Besessenheit mit Kühen beiseite zu legen und Methan anstelle von Milch vom Gras über anaerobe Verdauung zu machen. Ive betrachtete immer diese Gerade-zu-Methan-Entwürfe als eine düster vegane Handlung, um mir den Schaum zu verweigern, den ich so sehr auf meinem Morgencappuccino brauche, aber nach dem Knirschen einiger Zahlen muss ich gestehen, dass der Plan etwas zu loben hat. In der Tat scheinen die Zahlen scheinen sich so spektakulär gut, dass ich das Gefühl, ich muss einen schrecklichen Fehler irgendwo gemacht haben, so lassen Sie mich laufen durch meine Arithmetik in einiger Detail mit der Hoffnung, dass jemand kann entweder bestätigen oder weisen Sie auf den Fehler von Meine Wege. Beginnen wir mit der Berechnung, wie viel Energie wir brauchen, um unser Wessex-Nahrungsmittelsystem zu führen. Ich gehe davon aus, dass wir 100 Liter Diesel pro Hektar auf dem Hof für Ackerbaubetriebe und 25 Liter für die Bewirtschaftung der Wiesen benötigen. Um dann die gesamte Lebensmittel-Wirtschaft von Bauernhof zu Gabel zu tanken, werde ich davon ausgehen, dass wir weitere 200 Liter Diesel-Äquivalente pro Hektar (sowohl für Acker - als auch für Grünland) eine Annahme benötigen, die lose auf den Emissionsszenarien in Tara Garnetts Kochen eines Sturms basiert. Diesel hat einen Energiegehalt von 38,6 MJl -1. Wenn wir also unsere 166.000 ha Getreideanbaufläche bei 300 lha Diesel und unsere 795.000 ha Dauergrünland und ackerbauliche Ley bei 225 lha nehmen und diese Summe mit 38.6 MJ multiplizieren, erhalten wir einen Gesamtenergiebedarf von etwa 8.8 Milliarden MJ (oder 8.8 PJ wenn Sie bevorzugen). Auf der Angebotsseite Im 20 Tonnen Frischsilage pro Hektar 1 (oder 5,5 Tonnen Trockenmasse), organisch angebaut (durchschnittliche konventionelle Erträge sind mehr als doppelt so hoch) und 160m 3 Biogas pro Tonne Silage 2. mit einem Energiegehalt Von etwa 22 MJm 3, so dass Arbeiten bei etwa 68.000 MJha. Wenn wir ein Viertel unserer Dauerweide mit 223.000 ha beiseite legen und als Biogaseinspeisung für Silage beiseite legen, so geben wir 15.1 PJ Energie, die fast doppelt so hoch ist wie unser Energiebedarf. Wie ich es verstehe, sind Methan-angetriebene Traktoren bereits bei Wirkungsgraden von Triebwerken ähnlich oder über denen von konventionellem Diesel real, und obwohl das aus dem Kocher kommende Biogas ein wenig Raffinierung braucht, ist die Prozesseffizienz recht hoch. Die verkörperte Energie des Anlagenbaus scheint sich bei etwa 10 der Gesamtenergieproduktion 3 zu entwickeln, so dass die gesamten Energiekosten überschaubar erscheinen. Natürlich müssen wir unsere Nahrungsmittelproduktivitätszahlen erneut anwenden, wenn wir ein Viertel der dauerhaften Weide (hoffnungsvoll drehende Kühe über ihm und das Zurückbringen einiger oder aller Verdauung zu ihm halten, um die Silageproduktion nachhaltig zu halten). Da dieser Teil des landwirtschaftlichen Betriebes andererseits relativ niedrige Ausgangsgras-gefütterte Kühe erzeugt, kann der Gesamtverlust der Produktivität nicht zu stark sein. Und so beweist es die Beseitigung von 25 der permanenten Weide für Biogas Tropfen der Angebots-und Verhältnis für Lebensmittel Energie von 1,07 bis 0,99, mit allen anderen Ernährungs-Verhältnisse verbleibenden gt1. Ein Energie-Verhältnis von 0,99 ist zweifellos ein wenig zu eng für Komfort, aber es sollte nicht zu schwierig sein, ein Extra-Bit der Produktivität zu finden. Der faulen Weg wäre, mehr Weiden für Weizen zu pflügen etwa 22.000 ha oder 3 der gesamten Weide Weizen zu Weizen zurückgewonnen würde wiederherstellen Lebensmittel Energieproduktivität auf die 7 surferten wir mit fossilen Diesel (nennen es 6, um Vorkehrungen für eine Ley). Aber es würde andere mehr elegant, wenn mehr arbeitsintensiv, Möglichkeiten, es zu tun. Und denken Sie daran, dass Im machen eine Menge konservative Annahmen über Renditen. Ursprünglich dachte ich in Bezug auf Biodiesel aus Raps als die Art und Weise wed müssen in einem fossilen Brennstoff Wessex gehen. Diese Methode erzeugt nahezu, aber nicht ganz, so viel Treibstoff pro Hektar wie Biogas aus organischer Silage, sondern nur, indem man ein großes Stück kostbares Ackerland der Ölpflanze widmet. Und die Vergewaltigung müsste konventionell angebaut werden, indem synthetische Dünger und Pestizide, mit zusätzlichen energetischen und ökologischen Implikationen. Ein Vorteil von Raps ist, dass die Mahlzeit oder Presskuchen aus dem Öl-Extraktionsprozess ergibt eine hohe Energie Viehzucht, die teilweise kompensiert den Verlust von Anbauflächen. Aber Vergewaltigung scheint mir nicht zu stapeln sowie Biogas, vor allem, da es aussieht, kann ich genug Kühe halten, um meine Cappuccino in den Morgen zu bekommen und haben noch Kraftstoff, um den Traktor starten. Ein weiterer Vorteil der anaeroben Verdauung und des Biodiesels gegenüber der Photovoltaik, die wir in meinem letzten Beitrag diskutierten, ist, dass die grundlegenden Techniktechnologien in beiden Fällen einfacher erscheinen, was ihnen vielleicht eine bessere Chance gibt, sie durch die Klimakterien gemäß der vorigen Diskussion zu machen. Nun, da haben Sie es. Wie ich schon oft gesagt hatte, habe ich nicht versucht, in dieser Übung vorzuschlagen, dass es ein einfaches oder sogar wahrscheinliches Ding für eine zukünftige Wessex wäre, sich selbst zu ernähren, besonders wenn es so energieintensiv wäre wie das, was ich hier diskutiert habe. Ich möchte nicht über alle ecomodernist kommen (nicht, dass ecomodernists viel Zeit für solche nach Hause Energietechnologien wie anaerobe Verdauung haben). Aber mein Vorschlag für die Diskussion ist, dass es eine mögliche Sache sein kann. Ich verließ das Thema der landwirtschaftlichen Energieversorgung für die Bauernrepublik Wessex, die am Ende meiner letzten Posten hängt. Also, im Einklang mit dem ärgerlichen elliptischen Stil auf diesem Blog bevorzugt, schlage ich vor, nicht auf diese in diesem. Stattdessen möchte ich einige breitere energiebezogene Fragen mit Hilfe zweier Bekannter dieser Website auseinandersetzen, bevor wir in einer zukünftigen Position den Bereich auf die landwirtschaftliche Energie verengen. Die erste Bekanntschaft ist traurig, todt und doch so verblüffend, daß sein Denken auch heute noch in Zirkel um die Zunge wackelt. Ich beziehe mich auf den verstorbenen David Fleming, dessen Buch Lean Logic vor kurzem dank der ausgezeichneten Redaktion von Shaun Chamberlin veröffentlicht worden ist, und bekommt alle möglichen kritischen Plaudats 1. Es gibt viel fein gearbeitete Sachen im Buch, obwohl ich zugeben muss Dass Im nicht ganz wie von Flemings gehütet gedacht, wie viele andere sind. Ich habe eine Rezension des Buches kommenden im neuen Jahr, so werde ich nicht auf all das jetzt wohnen. Stattdessen möchte ich nur Flemings Ansatz für das Konzept der Klimakterium erwähnen. Fleming definiert ein Klimakterium als Bühne im Leben eines Systems, in dem es vor allem einer tiefgreifenden Veränderung der Gesundheit oder des Vermögens ausgesetzt ist, und fährt fort, einen bevorstehenden globalen Klimakterium in den Jahren zwischen 2010 (das Jahr, das er starb) und 2040 vorherzusagen, Mit tiefen Defiziten in Energie, Wasser und Nahrung, zusammen mit dem Klimawandel, einer schrumpfenden Landfläche als die Meere steigen, und Hitze, Dürre und Sturm auf das Land, das bleibt. There is also the prospect of acidic oceans which neither provide food nor remove carbon ecologies degraded by introduced plants and animals the failure of keystone species such as bees and plankton and the depletion of minerals 2 . Phew, well thats quite a list though nothing that most of us havent heard before, and endlessly debated across the whole spectrum of doom-mongering and boom-mongering. What interests me about it for present purposes is the rather quietist inferences Fleming draws from the concept of the climacteric towards contemporary socio-economic activism. There is no case for dismantling the market, he writes, that will be done for us, all too soon 3. And again, The task. is not about wrestling with the controls of economics to force it in the direction of degrowth, but about getting ready for the moment when the coming climacteric does the heavy work of degrowth for us 4 . Is this way of thinking the declinist mirror to those great 20 th century progressive narratives of capitalism and communism which believed in unstoppable, positive climacterics delivered by human agency whether through free markets or proletarian revolutions which would inevitably deliver human betterment If so, I suspect it may prove equally problematic. For one thing, it relies on a finely balanced quantum of crisis: too little, and the status quo ante is soon restored in elite interests until we lurch into the next crisis too much, and all bets are off as to how humanity fares, or if it even survives as a species. For another thing, how will this balance be achieved The work that Fleming says will be done for us seems to involve no human mechanisms, no politics, no history, by which humans might act upon the climacteric. This gives the concept a rather religious, millenarian feel of attending to the end days, when human betterment may come. Through the ages a lot of prophets have thus gathered a flock and instructed them to await a new dawn. They havent always been wrong. But they usually have been, and personally Im not much inclined to throw in my lot with them. So suppose just suppose that humanity found, right now, a source of clean energy of an appropriate magnitude, which enabled us to avert at this eleventh hour the worst consequences of climate change, and to continue on the merry way of our present high energy, growth-oriented global economy. In such circumstances, the sting would be drawn from many features of Flemings climacteric. Would it then be a case of job done for green politics, another end of history in which humanity could at last settle down and enjoy the fruits of a green capitalism for all I dont think so. I think the underlying problems of the capitalist growth model would remain the deep and intrinsic inequality, the environmental degradations that continued to leak from our actions, the spiritual vacuity. Which is not to say that finding an abundant source of clean energy right now would necessarily be a bad thing. There are those, of course, who are confident that the search is already over. And that brings us to our second familiar personage. I have to admit that since my jousting with him in the early days of this website, I havent been keeping up lately with the-world-according-to-Graham-Strouts. Greentard ( green retard, I think) was one of the kinder, and funnier, insults he tossed my way as I learned, too slowly, that slipstreaming in someone elses personal furies is bad for the soul. But I have to admit that I did take a peek at one of his recent blog posts. in which he invokes the authority of David MacKay, author of Sustainable Energy: Without The Hot Air another book by a recently deceased author treated to a wide adulation that I cant fully share. Strouts, like all good ecomodernists, considers the answer to the energy problem to be nuclear power, dismissing renewables as a delusion. To underscore the futility of renewable energy vis--vis nuclear, Strouts cites a table from MacKays book indicating the low power per unit landwater area of various renewable energy technologies by comparison with fossil or nuclear energy in the UK. And he includes a strapline quotation from MacKay Im not pro-nuclear, just pro-arithmetic. Let me digress briefly at this point to explain my misgivings about MacKays book. On pp.17-18, MacKay makes two important statements about the approach he takes in it: first, that its about physical limits to sustainable energy, not current economic feasibility and second, that theres a difference between factual assertions and ethical assertions and that his book is about facts, not ethics. On the first point, Id assert (factually ethically) that a book which looks only at physical and not economic limits, while no doubt informative, is at best of limited use in making policy decisions about a societys energy options. Thus, the table on power per unit area that Strouts reproduces conveys absolutely no useful information in itself about energy choices. And on the second point well, the factvalue distinction can be useful, but it tends to be rather overplayed by ecomodernists and other technophiles lacking a sense that the way people live is always and inevitably cultural and ideological. Before we ask factual questions about energy options we need to ask another factual question, to which there can be no merely factual answer: how much energy is enough A further problem arises with MacKays factvalue distinction. The number of facts that are potentially relevant to a given issue is almost unlimited, so as MacKay sat down to write his tome he inevitably had to choose which facts he was going to assert and which ones he wasnt. What was the basis on which he did that A factual one I dont think so. In his chapter on nuclear power, for example, he states that nuclear powers price is dominated by the cost of power-station construction and decommissioning 5. but he provides virtually no information on what these costs are which might help the reader decide on the viability of nuclear energy. He goes on to describe the amount of high-level nuclear waste in the UK in terms of the number of Olympic swimming pools it occupies (a fact). He continues, the volumes are so small, I feel nuclear waste is only a minor worry 6 (not a fact). And then we have the Im not trying to be pro-nuclear. Im just pro-arithmetic line which is also very far from anything resembling a factual assertion. The problem I have here is that when a distinguished scientist sets out their stall by saying that theyll be dealing in factual, not ethical, assertions, its easy to get swept up in this rhetorical trick and be led to believe that the science tells us to adopt a particular course of action which the presentation of the data leads us to. But the fact is, its impossible to avoid ethical assertions. Much as the ecomodernists with their religious faith in scientism wish to believe otherwise, the science never tells us to do anything. Still, Im not necessarily against nuclear power on principle as a potential part of the energy mix. Im just against ecomodernists relentlessly favouring it on the basis of the tendentious use of spurious facts, as in Strouts post. Meanwhile, in another corner of the blogosphere there are others also arguing that the search for the magical source of clean energy is over but for them the source isnt nuclear, its photovoltaics. Chris Goodalls book The Switch is a good summary of the case from the PV corner 7. One advantage of Goodall over MacKay (other than an extra seven years of hindsight) is that hes an economist, so he tends to think in terms of kWh, which is ultimately the key driver of energy choices. Another advantage is that he thinks in terms of how much energy we should be using 3kW per person by 2035 (fact). Hes a bit sketchier than Id like on some of the technical details, though pretty well informed for all that. But another big advantage is that he takes a global perspective. Being a cloudy country a long way north, Britain is one of the worst places in the world for generating PV energy. However, the average person in the world lives less than half the distance from the equator than us benighted Brits. The scepticism about PV expressed by MacKay (and Strouts) may have some force in the UK, but its less plausible in most of the rest of the world. By Goodalls calculations, the UK would need about 16 of its land area to be covered with PV panels to provide for all our energy needs. Before we dismiss that as an impossibly profligate use of our scenic landscapes, its worth bearing in mind that we currently devote 75 of our entire land area to agriculture, a lot of it ryegrass and cereal monocultures, while still failing to feed ourselves by a distance, even though we could if we wanted. Still, its no doubt fanciful to suppose that we could or should cover that much of the country in PV panels. Whether that means its a good idea to build the Hinkley C nuclear power station to generate about 7 of the UKs electricity at a build cost in excess of 20 billion, and then pay 92.50 per MWh for the next 35 years is less clear. The Intergenerational Foundation has argued that a PV solution would cost about 40 billion less than Hinkley C overall. For my part, Id want to ask whether the UK might better spend some of the money earmarked for Hinkley C on trimming 7 from our energy demand. But I fear that the government has tied its hands through its agreements with French and Chinese energy companies (theres a whole ironic backstory here about Britains inability to undertake its own energy projects, and its post-Brexit inability to flex its negotiating muscles, but Ill pass over it here). Whatever the pro-arithmetic theoretical case for nuclear power, the economic case is looking increasingly thin vis--vis PV in most parts of the world, possibly even in Britain. But Im not sure the nuclearphiles in government or among the serried ranks of the ecomodernists are really that interested in the economics of it. I think for political and ideological reasons that have little to do with arithmetic theyre drawn to mega-projects, the white heat of high technology, big grids and generating installations that require centralised control, and potentially dangerous technologies like nuclear that require lots of regulation, security apparatus and the like. The advantages of PV are that its modular, dispersed, not grid reliant, and increasingly cheap. As Goodall shows in his book, there are numerous outstanding problems with it if its to become the global energy supplier of choice, but also numerous emerging solutions to them which could well hold greater promise than the solutions offered by the nuclear industry. In the end, I think its likely that globally PV will predominate over other energy technologies despite its unpalatability to politicians and opinion-formers through the fact-based arithmetic of KWh. But thats not the main point I want to make. The main point I want to make is the thought experiment I mentioned above. Suppose that humanity solves the clean energy conundrum one way or another: Will that solution automatically solve the other environmental crises we face And will it automatically generate equitable societies dedicated to human health and wellbeing No, I just cant see it. But what I can see is the glimmer of a possibility no more than that that serious investment in clean energy (PV, mostly) might give us something of a reprieve from the worst of Flemings climacteric. And if it does, given that such a small proportion of current global energy use relates to electric power generation where most of the promising renewable technologies are clustered, Id hope that wed have to make do with a lot less energy per capita in the wealthier countries than we presently do, otherwise I cant easily see how wed create the kind of localised, low energy societies that seem necessary for human flourishing. But in contrast to Fleming, I dont think any of this will be done for us. If we want to avoid the worst consequences of his climacteric and if we want to build decent, equitable, abundant societies, well need to do the heavy work ourselves. For me, theres no waiting for the climacteric we have to fight for what we want, starting now. Fleming, D. 2016. Lean Logic: A Dictionary For The Future amp How To Survive It . Chelsea Green. Ebd. p.43. Ebd. p.103. Ebd. p.189. MacKay, D. 2009. Sustainable Energy Without The Hot Air, UIT Cambridge, p.165. Ebd. p.170. Goodall, C. 2016. The Switch: How Solar, Storage amp New Tech Means Cheap Power For All . Profile. Let us beat a retreat from the troubling politics of the real world and pay another visit to the Peasants Republic of Wessex, where all is sweet accord. Though in the light of recent events in the UK and the US, its tempting to begin with a little story that just might conceivably link the ghost of Wessex present with the ghost of Wessex future. It goes something like this: With hindsight, Britains exit from the EU turned out to herald its final decline as a major global economic force. Though it had a freer hand to make its own trade deals as an independent country it discovered that (a) outside the privileged bubble of the EU single market and the wider access to global circuits of capital this made available, it didnt actually have all that much to trade, (b) its most obvious trading partners belonged to large trading blocs with membership benefits it could no longer access, and (c) years of public sector underinvestment and private sector asset stripping left it ill-prepared to compete in the global marketplace. In fact, a similar fate befell other western powers in Europe and North America, albeit for slightly different reasons. But after the brief, transformative Third World War came to an end with the Peace of Beijing brokered through the forceful diplomacy of Russias new Tsar, most of the western nations shored up their fragile economies by reinventing themselves essentially as client states to the rising industrial powers of Asia . Thus, few of them fell quite as far or fast as Britain. Or England to be more precise, in light of the secession of the other UK countries and their integration into the EU. Those secessions created a devolutionary impetus in England that saw the emergence of regional assemblies initially entirely subservient to Westminster, but with the dwindling willingness and ability of the Westminster government to fund or provide services outside the southeast, the regional assemblies increasingly assumed a de facto local sovereignty. Some of them courted multinational corporations. turning themselves into maquiladora economies that used the income thus generated to contain, barely, the resulting social tensions. For its part, London lost a large proportion of its migrant workers, who sought richer pickings elsewhere probably just as well, given the increasingly constrained base available for the city to feed itself. It retained something of its lustre as a once-great global city, with a still active, if declining, financial and service sector, giving it a kind of seedy grandiloquence reminiscent of, say, Istanbul, only colder and wetter. In the southwest, the conditions for either the industrial self-abasement of the maquiladora regions or the stately decline of the southeast were lacking it had little going for it except its rich farmland and the pleasant landscapes visited by an ever-declining number of tourists. But its regional government, building on the example of early-millennium independent Frome, pursued a course of regional agricultural and industrial self-reliance. Not by any means an easy course, and one requiring an enormous mobilisation of its people that necessarily rested on a substantial egalitarianism in access to wealth and resources. But though a few old men would still get drunk in its bars and sing patriotic songs about the greatness of the countrys illustrious history, much as a few old men now still do in, say, Mongolia, few people had time for such conceits and felt more engaged in the intricate business of forging a livelihood in the challenging times of the present. In the context of the post-United Nations fraying of the Westphalian nation-state what scholars had been calling the new medievalism of overlapping sovereignties and autarkic regionalism from as early as the late 20 th century the Wessexers found that if they kept their heads down, avoided meddling in larger national and international power politics, paid a largely symbolic obeisance to London, and complained bitterly to any foreigner they met (especially Londoners) about how desperately poor they were, they were pretty much left alone to get on with the challenging but not unrewarding business of making a living from the land. When, in the late 21 st century, the world was hit with the long-anticipated triple crisis of accelerating climate change, spiralling energy prices and capitalist economic stagnation, Wessex was better placed than most parts of the world (including the other UK regions) to try to ride out the storm. Well dwell more in another post on the North American side of this story. But in brief, as everyone knows, the USA ignored the warnings about the limits of its military power signalled by Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, and under pressure from a bellicose Congress President Kardashian launched a war in three separate theatres that soon backfired spectacularly. By way of reparations, at the Peace of Beijing China imposed on the US the migration of millions of Chinese peasant farmers, political troublemakers and other neer-do-wells, referred to collectively as non-capitalist roaders, each to be allocated up to 160 acres of US farmland as determined by the Homestead (Legal Immigrants) Act, 2062. The Chinese incomers were received with rank hostility by the local population at first, but their love of American political freedoms, their endearing taste for Hollywood movies and American fashions, and their superb farming skills soon helped to thaw relations once Americans had resigned themselves to their diminished place in world affairs. Thus, some 250 years after his death, Thomas Jeffersons vision of a wholesome US smallholder republic was finally realised, albeit with a greater emphasis on fermented soy products than hed imagined an industry with its epicentre in Ohio. That, clearly, is what is going to happen. But the question is will this future Wessex be able to feed itself When we were last there we learned that the enlightened rulers of the satellite republic had determined that 40 of its lowland agricultural holdings should be given over to peasant self-provision for a 20 portion of the population who were thus able to feed themselves comfortably using low impact organic methods. That leaves the remaining 60 of the farmland available to feed the other 80 of the population, numbering some 4.9 million souls in 2039. Lets see how this 80 might fare. Presently, 68 of lowland farmland in Wessex is permanent pasture, while 31 is arable land leaving the princely total of 1 for horticulture. At those proportions, Im worried that my wan Wessex urbanites might suffer from a touch of scurvy, so Im going to adjust the grassarablehorticulture proportions to 61326. In other words, a bit of the permanent pasture becomes cropland. Not all permanent pasture is suitable for cropping, but my guess is that enough of it would be for this adjustment to be feasible. On the arable lands of the PROW about 3 is devoted to hemp and flax for keeping the urbanites in the latest fashions. On the rest of it, I propose to establish a fairly standard mixed organic rotation comprising 50 grassclover ley, the remaining 50 being split evenly between winter wheat, winter oats, potatoes, field beans and spring wheat. The grassclover ley is used for grazing dairy cows. The horticulture land is split 7525 between vegetables and fruitnuts. The vegetables are grown organically, with 30 down to a ley (also used for livestock) and the rest growing a mixture of vegetables in rotation. In terms of livestock, Id propose to keep dairy cows on the arable leys and the permanent pasture. Some of them would be fed oats (1,100kgcowyear) and beans (550kg), yielding an assumed 6,200 litres of milk per cow at a stocking density of 1 cowha (Ive lifted these figures from the Organic Farm Management Handbook). With about 116,000 tonnes of oats produced on about 33,000ha at 3.5 tha, and about 83,000 tonnes of beans produced on the same area at 2.5 tha, thatll give us enough feed for about 106,000 cows, with about 25,000 tonnes of beans left over to feed some pigs and laying hens. But, after subtracting the 106,000ha of intensive-organic dairying, theres still just under 700,000ha of permanent pasture, so lets raise more dairy cows extensively in the same manner as the neo-peasants, getting 3,300 litres of milk per cow at a stocking density of 1 cow plus calf per 1.2ha. Well get some beef from the dairy calves at the same rates as the neo-peasants too. Well also keep pigs and laying hens, mostly on the peri-urban market gardentruck farm sites. Well split the remaining beans between the pigs and hens 5050, and also feed them food waste (well assume that 3 of Wessexs food production is discarded as waste, which is available for the pigs and hens). That should give us about 12,000 tonnes of pig meat and 227 million eggs. Weve also got about 83,000ha of rough grazing where well keep sheep, producing around 80kg of sheep meat per hectare per year, if that doesnt sound too much And well have the same amount of sea fish as for the neo-peasants about 20kg per person per year. And there you have it the full nutritional spread for our Wessex non-peasants. Lets take a look at whether it meets the nutritional needs of the population. This is shown in Table 1, which parallels the corresponding table in my analysis for the neo-peasants . Table 1: Nutrient Productivity for Wessexs Non-Neo-Peasant Population Holy cow, weve pulled it off again Maybe its a bit tight on the energy, so thered be a case for trimming back the permanent pasture for cropland a little more or else suggesting those city slickers get their hands dirty on an allotment and grow a few of their own potatoes. But lets just take another moment to admire our handiwork. With only a minor bit of jiggery-pokery around permanent pasture and cropland, weve met the entire nutritional needs of a future Wessex population comprising an extra million people over the present using entirely organic farming methods at modest yield assumptions and without expanding beyond the existing agricultural land take. Cue another round of applause. Ive got to admit that the non-peasants have a starchier diet than the peasants, as is shown in the pie chart below a pie which, for my taste, goes a bit overboard on the pastry and skimps a little on the filling. This diet fails proposition Paul. with 17 of its calories coming from protein but only 33 from fat and the rest from carbohydrates, mostly of the simple rather than the complex variety. I still think its not such a bad diet compared with many, but the greater reliance on starchy staples surely sounds a warning note in terms of the capacities of the land. Parson Malthus isnt quite yet out of his box, but its as well to be aware that his coffin lid is rattling. The last Malthusian crisis in the southwest was in the late 18 th and early 19 th centuries pretty much around the time when the much-derided Reverend (who died here in Somerset) was writing, curiously enough. The problem was solved on that occasion by mass migration to Australia and the USA two great migrant nations that command the respect of the world for welcoming the tired, the poor, the huddled masses yearning to breathe free to this very dayor so Ive heard. Figure 1: Calorific contribution to the Wessex non-peasant diet by food group But theres an elephant in the room. And this time its not capitalism. Well, maybe it is in view of the difficulties Wessex will have in earning foreign exchange. But the real elephant is energy. If 80 of Wessexs population are going to be fed from 60 of its farmland without working as producers themselves, then farming on this 60 is going to have to be heavily mechanised. At the moment, this is achieved through copious use of fossil fuels. But that may not be possible in the Peasants Republic of Wessex circa 2039 or thereafter. Fortunately, this problem is easily solved byGosh, the low battery alarm on my PV system has started to sound Well, thats quite enough for one blog post anyway. Ill tell you the answer to the energy conundrum when the sun comes out again and my electricity supply isnt likely to cut out at any mome Ive been trying to articulate a form of populist politics on this site for several years, in the course of which mainstream media commentators have treated populism as a matter of supreme indifference. But after Brexit and Trump, plus the less seismic rise of left-wing populisms, suddenly populism has become the topic du jour on the opinion pages of the quality press. Seriously guys, where were you A lot of the analysis has been patchy, involving a mixture of condescension and incomprehension. Meanwhile, we seem to be awash with thunderous epitaphs for liberalism, not least from liberals themselves, which is quite endearing liberals are almost alone among political ideologists in agreeing with their critics about how awful they are. Well, I can understand the hand-wringing prompted by the waking nightmare of Trumps impending presidency. Where even to begin For one thing, it probably means the slim remaining chance of preventing runaway climate change has now gone, leaving only the unedifying hope that the US economy tanks with such terminal speed as to yield lasting emission cuts by default. Then of course theres the racism, the misogyny, the crypto-fascism. The puzzle for the left lies in understanding how the failure of a right-wing economic project (neoliberalism) seems to have entrenched the power of right-wing governments in the west. Its own ineptitude is part of the problem, but isnt the whole story. Still, the rise of right-wing populism begets contradictions that I doubt conservative politics will easily overcome in the long-term. And the fact that voters in the worlds largest economy have opted for the kind of protectionism that small economies usually try to invoke to shelter themselves from bigger fish surely indicates were entering the endgame of a self-ingesting neoliberalism. What comes next Populism of course. But, like fairies, populism comes in good and bad variants. When Trump and the Brexiteers fail to deliver on their promises, as they surely will, a political moment might arise when (perhaps helped with a wave of the wand) theres a chance to install a left-wing, agrarian-oriented, internationalist form of populism. Or else we may get something far worse than the present. For that reason, I agree with Owen Jones that the left needs a new populism fast. So instead of further adding to the torrent of leftist self-recrimination after Trumps victory, what I think I can most usefully do is outline what populism is and how it could assume forms that might save us from the bad fairies like Trump. In that sense, I want to take a leaf out of the liberals book and engage in a bit of populist self-criticism. Populism Defined: Five Features of Populism 1. Populism means rule by the people. So there are two key concepts here. First, rule implying some kind of organised state. Second, people those who fall under the states jurisdiction. Neither concept is at all straightforward. What kind of rule or state, and on behalf of which people Historically, populist movements have often paid insufficient attention to the nature of the state, and why its so difficult to create state structures which truly serve the people. And theyve paid far, far too much attention to defining the people by exclusion: not Jews, not Muslims, not blacks, not immigrants, not the rich, not the poor and so on. These twin failures have led to disappointment, a baleful political culture and a lot of human misery. 2. Populism seeks social and economic stability. The capitalist version of modernity that we now inhabit provides neither, uprooting people from homes and jobs and casting them capriciously across the world as a result of the minute calculus of profitability, and destroying the biospheres capacity to sustain us. But stability is always ultimately elusive, and its easy for populism to avoid hard decisions about how to retain its chosen lifeways by peddling mythic concepts of past golden ages, restored national pride and the like. 3. Populism is not utopian, or teleological. The politics of modernity, and particularly the mass politics of the 20 th century, is characteristically utopian in its tendency to identify with world-transforming keys that it believes will create benefits for all: free markets, the dictatorship of the proletariat and so on. This politics is also characteristically teleological in the sense that it thinks theres an inevitable historical tendency for these world-transforming keys to become manifest, provided that various obstacles and backsliders can be neutralised. Populism, by contrast, does not espouse world-transforming keys, and does not believe in progress through history to some kind of human perfectibility. It contents itself with the inherited legacy of political and economic institutions and tries to improve them incrementally towards its present, local ends. The upside of this is that it doesnt cause the devastation associated with utopian politics: revolutionary terror, structural adjustment programmes etc. The downside is that it can be blind to the subtle mechanics of everyday power by which such things as class, gender or ethnic advantage are reproduced. Indeed, it can actively foster them. 4. Populism is a politics of the ordinary, which is unimpressed by extraordinary achievement. Therefore it doesnt vaunt people who have accrued great wealth, or fame, or expertise and learning. A danger is that this can easily turn into negative forms of anti-elitist politics: anti-intellectual, anti-expert etc. A related danger is that, in view of the human tendency precisely to be impressed by the extraordinary, anti-elite populism ironically tends to fixate around charismatic Caesarist figures who promise to deliver the masses from the elite Peisistratus or, er, Trump (what was it Marx said about history repeating itself the first time as tragedy and the second time as farcea comment in fact directed towards another populist figurehead, Napoleon III) 5. Populism has a complex relationship with fascism. Fascism can be seen as a kind of populism for the modernist age of mass politics which addresses Point 1 above by defining the people exclusively (typically in anti-elitist, nationalist, racist, andor anti-Semitic terms) and by defining the state in essentialist terms as uniquely expressive of the will of the people, hence opposing attempts to hold the state independently to account by elected politicians, journalists or the judiciary. There are many fascist elements in the current BrexitTrump ascendancy for example, the recent Daily Mail headline condemning the judges who ruled that Britains Article 50 EU exit-trigger required parliamentary approval as enemies of the people. However, there is a utopian, world-transforming element to fascism which differentiates it from populism as described in Point 3 above and places it in the stable of utopian modernist politics alongside the likes of socialism, liberalism and neoliberalism. Social scientists have generally described fascism as a response to a modernisation crisis. This seems pertinent to present political circumstances. The problem is, many have assumed that modernity is a stable, achieved state. Were beginning to learn that it isnt. Towards a left agrarian populism Ill now try to sketch in briefest outline the way that a left agrarian populism of the kind I espouse might orient itself to the preceding points. 1. The people that populism serves are all the citizens of the polity, regardless of political allegiance, class, gender, skin colour, religion, ethnicity, sexuality, disability or any other characteristic . Therefore its crucial to defend the liberal public sphere as the space of free political self-expression. There are plenty of people dancing on the grave of liberalism at the moment, while implicitly relying on the freedoms that it gives them. Often, these critics affect a lofty historian-of-ideas posture, correctly pointing out that theres nothing inevitable or universal, no necessary telos . to a liberal public sphere. But theyre usually silent on what alternatives they favour at the present political juncture largely, I think, because nothing else is as defensible, however much they try to cover up this truth with flimflam about the class privilege of liberals or a revolt against the elites. The problem with exclusionary populist definitions of the people is that its a gateway drug to authoritarianism, or fascism, in which anybody becomes fair game as an enemy of the people or the state. Im looking at you, John Michael Greer. and you, John Gray get busy defending the liberal public sphere, or someday someone will come for you, and no one will care. 2. The populist economy is grounded in local needs and capacities . The capitalist world-economy undermines local ways of life and is environmentally destructive to the point of human self-annihilation. The only long-term way I see of reining it in is through a move to localised economies which are grounded substantially in the capacities of the local environment to provide for local needs. Therefore my thinking aligns with populist moves to protect local industries and limit the free flow of people and capital around the world, so long as its done humanely. Limiting the free flow of capital is much more important than limiting the free flow of people, whereas right-wing populism tends to have it the other way around. Another delusion of right-wing populism, amply exercised by Donald Trump and by the Brexiteers here in the UK, is that ordinary people in the US and the UK have been disadvantaged by the global capitalist economy relative to others, the main scapegoats being undocumented migrant workers. The truth is that almost the only people ordinary US or UK citizens stand disadvantaged to are the wealthy in their own countries, whose increasing relative wealth should be the proper object of political scrutiny. Against virtually everyone else, they stand in an incredibly privileged position globally. I thought Id try to demonstrate this empirically, albeit rather imperfectly, with a graph Ive derived from the World Banks World Development Indicators dataset. Ive looked at data from the USA, the UK, Tunisia (which according to the World Bank is the median income country in the world in terms of GDP per capita on a purchasing power parity basis) and Malawi (which is the poorest country in terms of GDP per capita for which I could find income distribution data). Ive looked at the share of national income each successive 20 of the population, richest to poorest, receives in each country, calculating it as a GDP PPP per capita figure within each 20 group. This is what you see graphed below. To me, there are two striking features of the graph. First, theres huge inequality within each country the richest 20 in Malawi and the USA takes nearly ten times the share of the poorest. And second, theres huge inequality between countries. The top 20 in Tunisia earn more than the bottom 20 in the USA and the UK, but less than the remaining 80 of the population in both countries. The rest of Tunisias population, and the entire population by quintiles of Malawi earn less than the poorest quintiles in the US and the UK. Of course, this doesnt mean that there isnt poverty or suffering in the USA or the UK. But it does suggest to me that most people in these countries are affluent in global terms. This affluence has been generated historically by capitalist globalisation they will likely be a lot poorer under localised economic regimes, whereas citizens of poorer countries stand to be relatively richer. This is a good thing, both for equity and for environmental sustainability. But its not an easy sell the right-wing populist line that youd be richer if it wasnt for all those immigrants, although basically wrong, is an easier one to peddle, and it conveniently distracts attention from the more salient fact that youd be richer if it wasnt for all those other white Americans or Britons who are further up the hugely skewed income distribution. And that you8217re probably richer than the global norm. The only way around this I perceive and I admit its a long shot is to keep banging home these twin points about the skewed international and national income distributions (I mean, Donald Trump as a spokesman for the poor seriously), and to emphasise the possible benefits, many of them non-monetary, of working in a localised economy 3. The populist economy is a producerist economy what unites the people is work . As mentioned above, there should be no exclusionary definition of the people in a locality. What matters is that people work to secure their wellbeing, individually and collectively. This requires that there is work for them to do, and opportunities for them to produce wellbeing: most fundamentally, it requires that there is local land for them to farm. 4. The populist state is judged largely by its capacity to support local producerism. It will not be judged on grandiloquent claims to embody or restore the culture of the nation or the spirit of the people, nor on claims to be able to create great new wealth for the people, especially through forms of local or non-local rent-seeking. It will support pluralist democratic institutions, including an independent judiciary and media. 5. The populist mentality is internationalist. The modern system of nation-states emerged from the Peace of Westphalia, which concluded a series of devastating wars in Europe based on beggar-my-neighbour mercantilist economics, and violent political expansionism among authoritarian royal houses. So while there are good reasons to argue that the nation-state system is past its sell-by date, the distinct possibility of returning to pre-Westphalian politics is best avoided. Therefore, while the new populism might properly emphasise localism and economic protectionism, it wont do so in a closed-minded or chauvinist manner. It will be open to the exchange of ideas and people, and it will seek international concord to safeguard both economic self-determination and human rights. That, in outline, is my vision for a left agrarian populism. I hope to flesh it out and work through some of its more obvious problem areas and contradictions in the future. A couple of issues to flag right now: in many ways, perhaps theres not much to distinguish what Ive outlined from social democracy or market socialism. The main difference is that its not based on notions of improvement or social progress through time, but on securing basic wellbeing in the present. It espouses a liberal public sphere as the best tool to hand for that job. The second issue is that it probably sounds quite utopian, despite my strictures above about populisms anti-utopianism. Maybe so. I guess the way I look at it, the old adage hope for the best, prepare for the worst doesnt really work in politics. If you want the best, you have to prepare for it otherwise youre certainly likely to get the worst. Theres a kind of apocalyptic mentality among many on the left at the moment, which tends to conflate disparate phenomena as signs of an irremediable crisis climate change, energy crisis, xenophobia, nationalist sabre-rattling, Donald Trump. Well, Im resigned to the notion that were screwed, but Im blowed if Ill accept Trumps presidency teleologically as another unavoidable signpost on the road to hell. A tweet from Dougald Hine The spectre that many try not to see is a simple realisation the world will not be saved. Im easily persuaded by that, but I dont see much point in doing anything other than trying to save it anyway. The path ahead is not pre-determined, and its better to die fighting. Besides, although the skies may be darkening, the eclipse of neoliberalism and the existing global order furnishes certain opportunities Postscript: Here8217s another graph to think about, in view of some of the discussion below: There can only be one topic for a blog post today, as a great country stands poised to make a momentous decision with potentially global repercussions for decades to come. I refer, of course, to the Peasants Republic of Wessex, and the issue of how it will feed the 80 of its population who are not active farmers. For indeed it is high time that we returned to that happy nation and, even if the rest of the world should lose its head, tarry amongst its denizens to ruminate upon the intertwined fates of the human tribe in all its miraculous diversity. The last time we visited Wessex we saw that a ten hectare holding housing twenty people, ten of whom were full-time workers, could feed its people pretty comfortably on the basis of a diet rich in fruit, vegetables, meat and dairy and with only a little in the way of starchy staples. A pretty good way to live, and a pretty good way to farm, I think, especially if on-farm energy is in short supply. But I was generous with my land allocation, donating fully 40 of lowland Wessexs farmland to the nominal 20 neo-peasant portion of its population. When it comes to thinking about how then to feed the rest of Wessexs population, three main possibilities present themselves: Decide that everyone, or almost everyone, in Wessex should farm like this, and adjust the republics population downwards accordingly. Trim back the allocation to the neo-peasants so that its exactly proportionate to their numbers: 20 of farmland for 20 of the population. Stick with the 40 land allocation to the neo-peasants, and intensify production on the remaining 60 of the farmland in order to feed the remaining 80 of the population. If we go for Option 1, then simple arithmetic suggests that 100 of the farmland will provide for 50 of the population. But we have some rough grazing not previously accounted for (about 83,000 ha, to be precise) which I reckon could feed about 18,500 people. And we also produced a food surplus of at least 10 on our neo-peasant holdings. Prudence might suggest that we hold onto that for a rainy day, but since I built in so many conservative assumptions into my food production figures Im happy to make that 10 available to the non-productive population. If we do that, we end up with a total Wessex population that could be sustained by the projections I previously outlined of just over 3.9 million people which amounts to 74 of its current population, or 62 of the projected 2039 population. So in this scenario, up to 2.4 million people would have to go and find somewhere else to live. Drawn though I am by the neo-peasant lifestyle Ive been outlining, Im not sure how much mileage there is in arguing for an agrarian system that requires more than 2 million people not to exist. Similar ideas have often been mooted in recent times by people sincerely convinced that all would be well with the world if only the odd few million people could be dispensed with. When such thinkers have got hold of political power things havent generally worked out too well. So lets not go there. Though I suppose we could bear the figure in mind as a long-term population goal to aim at for an agreeable neo-peasant lifestyle in Wessex. On the face of it, Option 2 would seem to be the fairest, although for reasons Ill soon come to I dont really think it is that fair. But lets crunch some numbers on it anyway. Can we double the productivity on our neo-peasant holding in order to feed 40, not 20, people from our 10ha Well, maybe we could start by trying to increase milk production in order to retain our traditional Wessex love of grass and avoid too much extra spiking of our soils and blood sugars. The only real margin we have on the holding to do that, though, is the woodland. If we pinch about 1.4ha of it for grass to get some extra dairy cows (well worry about the knock on implications of losing the woodland another time) we can get an extra 4,600l of milkwhich isnt nearly enough to feed another 20 people. Theres nothing for it, were going to have to grow more potatoes. It turns out that if we turn all of the woodland over to cropland, take another 0.75ha of cropland from the pasture (although we do get some of it back as a grazable ley), lose our dairy-fed pig (so we eat the whey and buttermilk directly), keep everything else the same but grow about 2.2ha of potatoes on our 4ha of cropland then we can just about feed the 40 folks on the holding (again bearing in mind my very moderate yield assumptions). In this scenario, we exceed our calorific requirement by just 3, while exceeding all our other nutritional targets much more comfortably. But we fail Proposition Paul, getting 63 of our calories from carbohydrates, the majority from the simple carbohydrates of the starchy staples. And, looking at it in terms of labour drudgery, the amount of cropland devoted to staple crops thats going to have to be worked increases from about 500m 2 per full-time worker to about 1,300m 2 . Well, maybe that all sounds like a bit of a stretch. But see what weve just done Weve fed the entire population of 2039 Wessex numbering a million more souls than at present with a reasonably diverse and nutritious diet, using exclusively organic methods at low yield assumptions, and without expanding the existing agricultural area. For that, I think we deserve a round of applause. OK, quieten down. Because heres the thing: Im not so keen on Option 2, really. In the UK we currently import most of the fruit and a lot of the vegetables that we eat, and we devote most of our farmed area to growing cereals the most energy and protein dense of crops and the least labour intensive, albeit only if you replace human labour with copious fossil fuel inputs. So it wouldnt really be fair to insist that the 20 neo-peasant fraction of the population produces its livelihood in its entirety from an exactly proportionate land area (possibly with constrained energy access), while continuing to farm the rest of it as we presently do. And really the whole point of constructing a society with such a high level of small-scale landholding is to encourage and celebrate the fact that this local and somewhat laborious way of life is a good way to live, and perhaps indeed a necessary one in view of the manifold problems in the world. So Im not inclined to make it compete on even terms with a mechanised commercial agriculture. Instead, Id like to put the shoe on the other foot to the way we tend to think about farming today. So for that 80 of the population who dont farm, my question iswhy not Oh look, Im just kidding. Dont go you dont have to justify yourself to me. Im sure youre making a good contribution to society in other ways. But youre not out there day in, day out earning your livelihood from the land, are you So lets allocate 60 of the land area to you and see what we can grow. On that somewhat limited area, agriculture will have to be quite starch-intensive but thats no different from the present, so nothing to complain about there. Still, well try to vary the diet for you with a bit of meat and eggs, along with some fruit and veg. And if youre not happy with the fare that you get from your 60 land share, then get yourself an allotment or start up a community garden. In neo-peasant Wessex, a faint air of disrepute hangs over those who make no effort to involve themselves in growing food. How productivity turns out on this 60 land share depends a bit on the assumptions we make about energy use. I suppose I should have covered the issue before I started this cycle of neo-peasant essays. Instead Im going to come back to it in more detail towards the end. One problem is uncertainties over likely future energy scenarios. But I suppose the two extremes would be to assume either (i) business-as-usual, with readily available fossil fuel (or, better, clean, renewable equivalents) in agriculture, or (ii) peak oil apocalypse, with no fossil fuel available at all. The general implications of the latter scenario are endless and profound, and I cant follow them through here. But in an agricultural context, the obvious thing to try in that situation would be biodiesel. And in the UK the obvious biodiesel crop is rape (canola) more obvious than eating the damn stuff at any rate. So, minimally, we could build a scenario in which we grow an oil crop to power our agriculture, and to transport its products to the towns. Whether we could retain 80 of the population in urban andor non-agrarian settings in a full-on biodiesel economy is, at best, debatable. But the Lord God gave us Excel spreadsheets in order to mess about with improbable scenarios, so lets give it a whirl. But not now. I think thats quite enough for one blog post. Plus I have to go and write a talk about the evils of urbanism. And theres an election to watch Well, enough of all that politics. Lets talk phosphates instead. And cities. And who better to talk about them than Small Farm Futures favourite agronomist, Andy McGuire Andy first featured on here back in 2014 when I cast him in the role of the devil. He shrugged off the slight with impressive sang froid (though perhaps thats only to be expected) and since then has regularly pitched in on this site with various telling comments. Andy has beaten Leigh Phillips to the podium as our first ever guest blogger here at Small Farm Future after Leigh accepted my offer of a right of reply to my critiques of his overheated onslaught against the green movement. Leighs reply never did come my way, but funnily enough he enthusiastically references Andy in his Austerity Ecology book in relation to Andys criticisms of the balance of nature concept. Id be interested to hear what Leigh makes of Andys thoughts below. Though, on reflection, not that interested just as well, really, as I doubt I shall ever find out. Anyway, I gather the post below was orphaned from another website, and I thought it deserved to see the light of day. Over to Andy Communication intercept reveals 21 st century cities were alien food project. Intercepted communication of Earth Concentration Project leader, 2016, between Outpost Dq12 and exoplanet HD 40307g. Translated to English, NSA technical bulletin 358G. 8220Our concentration program is progressing well sir. In fact, their own collective has observed that in 35 years, two-thirds of them will be in CAFOs closest term we have for this word . In one of their political entities, the USA, we have over 70 of the human population in our CAFOs8221 8220Are there any signs of rebellion8221 8220Not really. In fact, instead of resisting, they continue to work on how to mitigate the problems of concentration rather than fighting the process.8221 8220Well, they spend a lot of money on waste management. As you can imagine, they produce large amounts of waste in a small area.8221 8220How can they live like that8221 8220They have engineered elaborate systems of pipes, pumps, and treatment facilities to keep the waste generally hidden from sight. Odors are controlled as well as parasites and diseases.8221 8220How do they supply the concentrates probably refers to citiesCAFOs with food and water8221 8220Again, they have developed increasingly complex systems that produce food in rural areas and transport it, often for long distances, to the CAFOs where consumption takes place. Water also, is often piped from distant sources to the concentrates.8221 8220So they keep their production separate from their waste8221 8220Yes. They often get their water from undeveloped areas. The majority of their food comes from areas of low population which have been converted to food production.8221 8220What about the life forms that inhabited those areas previously8221 8220They are mostly gone, with the people in the concentrates replacing the former herbivore and carnivore populations and taking most of the production. And since the populations are so separated from their lands, they have brought in animals into what they call zoos, or aquariums for aquatic species.8221 8220How do they maintain nutrient levels in food production8221 8220They have figured out how to fix nitrogen from their atmosphere. The other nutrients are mined, processed, transported and applied to food fields. As you can imagine, this is all very energy intensive, so they have developed complex energy extraction systems that support this food system.8221 8220And this is all working8221 8220Yes, in general. Some people recognize the problems in our CAFO development, and are pursuing local food production, but this will never be able to feed the population concentrates we have obtained. Some of their scientists have realized that they cannot keep mining phosphorus forever, but the solutions are so drastic that no significant action has been taken.8221 8220Solutions, what do you mean8221 8220Oh, they could disperse, returning to former land densities. That would make recycling of nutrients easier, but also seriously jeopardize our efforts.8221 8220What8217s the risk8221 8220Very low according to our analysts. Those in concentrates have become accustomed to their environments and would not now choose, at least voluntarily, the rigors of former generations. In addition, their now well-developed network allows them to stay preoccupied with the latest trivialities from distant locations. They have portable devices that greatly enhance this effect.8221 8220Hmm, what else have you done to pacify them, until we reach harvest stage8221 8220For added safety, we have infected their main network with trivial entertainment, to divert them from our efforts. This has been very successful, and in an ironic twist, they now call our most successful efforts 8220viral.82218221 82208221Viral8221, hah What else are they up to8221 8220Well, although ecologically the CAFOs are problematic in their import of food and production of wastes, we have observed density-dependent emergence of curious performances.8221 8220What do you mean8221 8220They call it opera. It consists of elaborate vocal representations of stories. The physical equivalent is called ballet. These strange developments are seen only in our CAFOs.8221 8220Hmmm, let8217s get our modelers on that, see where it could lead. Anything else8221 8220Nothing else at this time.8221 8220Right. Keep up the good work.8221 From July 20th, 2016. Declassified Jan. 15th, 2175, Earth Dispersion Alliance, Committee on Earth-Alien Relations. Liberalism gets a pretty bad press these days. That shouldnt bother me too much as an ex-Marxist, left-wing agrarian populist now swelling the ranks of the petit bourgeoisie in my capacity as a propertied small-scale farmer, its not a political tradition that ought to move my soul. Yet I feel the need to put finger to keyboard and offer a few mild words in its favour in the light of John Michael Greers latest gleeful epitaph for liberalism. And talking of epitaphs I guess this post stands as an epitaph of my own for taking Greers political analysis seriously as anything much more than another iteration in the long and inglorious history of right-wing populism. Let me outline a few aspects of Greers article. He starts by suggesting that liberalism is now in the throes of a terminal decline, after dominating US politics for two centuries. Then he reviews some historical aspects of US liberalism, focusing in particular on the abolition of slavery, the prohibition of alcohol and the improvement of womens legal status. These, he says, shared a common theme in configuring politics as an expression of values a new departure in politics, which hitherto had been a more instrumental business of to the victor, the spoils, in which those who were elected distributed political favours to their supporters. Greer then warns us not to be judgmental about this older and more instrumental approach to politics, because that would involve chronocentrism (others call it presentism) judging the past by the values of the present. Greer proceeds to analyse the way that liberalism went about installing its more-or-less egalitarian values with respect to race, gender and class historically within the US state, despite other values-based political challenges from left and right. Then he says that the tacit US policy of allowing unlimited illegal immigration impoverishes wage-earning Americans something that he claims you cant say in the hearing of a modern American liberal without being shouted down and accused of being a racist. He postulates that this is because liberalism is dominated by the affluent classes, who benefit directly from the collapse in wages that has partly been caused by mass illegal immigration. Ironically, then, a movement that began by advancing values over interests has ended up using values (anti-racism) to mask interests (economic preferment of the affluent over the working class). And this, he says, is its death-knell, because such easily-detected subterfuge destroys the doctrines credibility. Let me work through this. I have to begin by noting that terms like liberal, conservative, progressive and the like are so accreted with complex and contradictory meanings that its very difficult to identify any coherence to them for analytical purposes, a point that Greer himself has expounded as well as anyone. But I think theres a necessary distinction between liberal referring to those who believe in the need for a substantial equality of all people undergirded by the state, and liberal (or neoliberal) referring to those who believe that private markets should be free to allocate goods and services as they will. I wont cavil at Greers history of US liberalism as a basic account of liberalism in the first sense except in his claim that liberalism involved a novel injection of values into instrumental politics. Because the fact is, going right back to the first complex agrarian civilisations of antiquity, politics has always been about values. The idea that might makes right rarely works for long as a political project. Rulers have always invested their power with a larger sense of legitimacy extracted from the sphere of values, and although that process admits to a certain amount of manipulation (the real interests behind the ideological smokescreen of values) in truth the interests, the real, are moulded by the values, the ideological, emptying the real-ideological distinction of meaning. Machiavellis The Prince was among the first modern works of political philosophy. Its cynical view of power rulers should do whatever works best to prolong their rule invited almost immediate censure after its publication in 1532, precisely because it advanced interests over values. Actually, Machiavelli was a subtler thinker than his villainous reputation suggests a large part of his analysis was devoted to political corruption, which he defined as a politics of pure self-interest. J. G.A. Pococks influential book The Machiavellian Moment argues that the founders of the independent USA, attuned for obvious historical reasons to the dangers of particular interests overcoming the general interest, framed the politics of the new country in terms of classical ideas of republican virtue lifted from Machiavellis ruminations on statecraft 1. If its true that actual US politics quickly degenerated into the instrumentalism of to the victor, the spoils, its not committing the sin of chronocentrism to say that this was a corruption of the republican ideals of the time. So prior to 1812, Greers take-off point for the rise of US liberalism, politics was every bit as soaked in values as it later was under a liberal guise. Much of Greers article is taken up with a discussion of what those liberal values were, but I think a more important point concerns what liberalism has had to say about the form of politics rather than its content. And in a nutshell, that form is argue your point peacefully, using reason if you lose, accept that youve lost peacefully, with grace and dont intrude on things politically that have nothing to do with public wellbeing, such as the private pursuits of the individual that affect no one else. In order to realise that political form a lot of work was needed to create a public sphere where people met as citizens and equals, and could expect even-handed treatment by the state. What united the struggles over slavery, gender, class and race wasnt the fact that they brought values into politics but that they sought to create a universalist public sphere. And, clearly, some semblance of that public sphere must have been there in the period of supposedly instrumentalist politics Greer identifies prior to the emergence of liberalism otherwise nobody would tolerate losing an election and not getting their share of the spoils. Lets now turn to Greers indictment of contemporary liberalism for invoking racism as a cloak for class privilege in the context of immigration. No doubt this occurs, though I suspect more among members of the neoliberal business class whose politics are liberal only in a rather restricted sense. But the liberals I think Greer probably has in mind are more of the left-leaning, public sector salariat kind. Id guess that these folks may be a bit insulated (though for how much longer) from the kind of market discipline that has ravaged the wage-earning working class, and Id guess too that some of them may be a little unaware of their class privilege. Still, Im not persuaded by Greers argument that such people invoke racism to silence debate about their class privilege. I think they invoke racism because racism is usually worth invoking whenever somebody claims that the immiseration of wage-earning Americans has been caused (wholly or partly) by immigration. I think they invoke it because the real cause of immiseration among wage-earning American and illegal immigrant alike is a racialized global labour process that pits different segments of the working class against each other and works against their common interest to unite against economic exploitation an economic exploitation that has doubtless affected wage-earning Americans more than the average liberal, but has also affected illegal immigrants more than the average wage-earning American. That is the context in which blaming immigrants for the erosion of economic wellbeing tends towards the racist. It also tends towards the analytically vacuous. For one thing, the racialized globalization of the economy is a neoliberal project, not a project of the liberals in the first sense of the term I outlined above who appear to be Greers main target. But more importantly, what is Greer actually saying that liberal politics has failed in practice to deliver liberalisms highest ideals Well, no doubt but the same is true of socialism and conservatism in relation to their ideals, and of right-wing populism too, if it has any. No modern political programme has succeeded long-term in delivering widespread prosperity and economic growth without prompting social conflict and environmental degradation. Highlighting supposed hypocrisy among contemporary liberals does not amount to a persuasive analysis of liberalisms failings as a political doctrine, or even as a contemporary political movement. Still, theres no doubt that liberal politics is in crisis and, for all its partiality and superficiality, maybe Greers account does help explain the rise of populist figures such as Donald Trump as an alternative claim on the working class vote. So, given Greers empathy for the travails of the US working class, I continued reading his article, waiting for the killer paragraph that would go on to nail the fanciful idea that Trump truly represents the interests of the low waged. It never comes. Instead, you get this: Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump, in stark contrast to Clinton, have evoked extraordinarily passionate reactions from the voters, precisely because theyve offered an alternative to a status quo pervaded by the rhetoric of a moribund liberalism. Maybe other people can help me interpret this sentence. Donald Trump certainly offers an alternative to the rhetoric of a moribund liberalism inasmuch as he offers a rhetoric all his own. I dont suppose you could call it a moribund rhetoric either, if only because such proposals as to improve the lot of the working class by building a wall to keep out Mexicans were never alive in the first place. But lets be clear a President Trump wont build that wall. And even if he does, it wont keep out illegal Mexican migrants. And even if it does, it wont significantly alter the larger forces in the global economy conditioning the situation of the US working class, which is where any serious analysis aimed at improving that situation has to start. As David Roberts has argued. Trumps rhetoric is wholly geared to dominating whatever argument hes embroiled in. It has no referents to real-world policy. However, I dont think Greer is just saying that Trump talks a better game than the liberals. In that sentence he seems to be saying that Trump (as well as Sanders) has some kind of actual political programme that will benefit the working class. Donald Trump, champion of the precariat. Seriously When I wrote a previous critique of Greers fondness for right-wing populism, I was admonished for supposing that he was any more taken by it than by liberalism rather, I was told, he sees the whole sorry mess as exemplary of the kind of wholesale cultural decline foreseen by Oswald Spengler. OK, but then where are the articles excoriating the decline of US politics across the board From FDR to Hilary Clinton would be one story to tell. From Abraham Lincoln to Donald Trump would be another one just as good. Or bad. For me, Greers relentless, one-eyed skewering of liberalism alone from the perspective of a kind of working-class ressentiment places him firmly among the right-wing populists 2 . But Greers personal politics arent the main point I want to stress. Though I dont think right-wing populism has much going for it, and Im not persuaded that Spenglers thought has a whole lot going for it either, I agree that a decline of the west of some sort is probably underway. The kind of words that resonate in Greers political writings are ones like moribund, decadent, shopworn, and I think these accurately capture something of our contemporary politics. But I suspect that in the future a lot of people will look back nostalgically to our present moribund and decadent politics. Because what matters more than whether right-wing populism, left-wing populism, liberalism, or any other political doctrine represents the best diagnosis of our times is the relatively safe space of the public sphere in the west within which these politics are debated a public sphere formed to a large degree in the crucible of liberalism, and one thats threatened when would-be politicians start suggesting that they may not respect the outcome of elections, or that its the real people of the country who really matter. Populist critiques of liberalism come ten a penny. More to the point are post-liberal critiques of populism. Greer writes that the post-liberal politics of the future is going to be a wild ride. The metaphor betrays a buried liberal presupposition. A wild ride is the kind of thing you have at a theme park scary and unpredictable, perhaps, but not truly fearful because you know that ultimately someone with your wellbeing at heart is controlling the parameters, allowing you essentially to be a spectator of your fears. In western politics, that someone has for a long time been the liberal public sphere. But it probably wont outlive liberalism in which case post-liberal politics wont be a wild ride. It will just be wild, and therefore truly scary. Spectating will not be an option. Ah well, as Joni Mitchell so perceptively sang, Dont it always seem to go, you dont know what youve got til its gone. And as Bert van den Brink wrote, albeit not quite so lyrically, liberalism involves tensions and conflicts which are tragic insofar as they confront it with the dilemma that in trying to reach for its highest aim letting the interests of all citizens in leading a good life matter equally it sometimes cannot but undermine this very aim 3. That is, despite trying to uphold the equivalence of all values, liberalism has to define itself normatively against illiberal political positions. Van den Brinks point isnt that liberalism therefore involves contradiction and should be jettisoned. By that logic, wed have no politics at all doubtless a tempting prospect for those weighing up the choice between Clinton and Trump, but not ultimately a feasible position to take. His point instead is that we should learn from liberalisms contradictions and try to create a better politics thats aware of these predicaments. All political positions, I think, involve tragedy in the sense of plural and irreconcilable moral imperatives. As Machiavelli recognised, the better ones acknowledge their contradictions and make the best they can of them, rather than papering over them in service of particular interests. In contrast, superficial forms of populism represent a kind of political Greshams law bad politics chase out the good. Which is why in the present Machiavellian moment of western politics, this particular left agrarian populist will stand with the liberals for the public sphere and against the Trumps, the Greers and all the other cheerleaders for a simplistic right-wing populism. Pocock, J. 1975. The Machiavellian Moment . Princeton Univ Press. I cant claim to have read his oeuvre in its entirety, however. If anyone can point me to a more even-handed political analysis by Greer, Id be grateful. Van den Brink, B. 2000. The Tragedy of Liberalism . SUNY Press, p.6. Id been hoping to pay another visit to the Peasants Republic of Wessex, but red tape has been holding me up at the border so itll have to wait probably for another couple of weeks. Instead, I thought Id offer a few top-of-the-head thoughts on Felicity Lawrences recent article about agricultural pesticide use in The Guardian or, more specifically, on some of the under-the-line responses it prompted. Whenever someone writes an online article about virtually any aspect of the environmental challenges facing humanity, you can pretty much guarantee that underneath it somebody is going to write a comment that closely approximates to this: The real issue here is human over-population. Its the elephant in the room that trendy green thinkers dont want to talk about. In distant second place youll usually find a similar comment about meat eating. And, even less commonly, one about the flying or other carbon-intensive sins of said trendy green thinkers. These comments doubtless emanate respectively from the childless, the vegan, and the foot-powered, and represent the pharisaical human tendency to elevate whatever behaviours we engage in that we feel are especially praiseworthy to a kind of touchstone status by which we can judge others less virtuous than ourselves. Hovering in the background of such thought is the ever present charge of hypocrisy, as in this recent tweet aimed at George Monbiots opposition to fossil fuel extraction: Hey GeorgeMonbiot 8211 You PERSONALLY give up all items made or sustained by fossil fuels first, then we8217ll talk. David Fleming nails this way of thinking especially well when he writes, Though my lifestyle may be regrettable, that does not mean that my arguments are wrong on the contrary, it could mean that I am acutely aware of values that are better than the ones I achieve myself. If I lived an impeccable life, I could be lost in admiration for myself as an ethical ideal failings may keep me modest and raise my sights 1 But, more importantly, all the obsessive finger-pointing about individual behaviours neglects the systemic logic which provides their ground. This was Marxs insight in his critique of the utopian socialists capitalism isnt an especially nasty system because capitalists are especially nasty people. Therefore, building some nice factories with pleasant managers wont solve the problem. The problem is that individual people ultimately have little choice but to respond to the behavioural drivers dictated by the logic of the (capitalist) system and these drivers, investing a million innocent little decisions, have nasty consequences. That brings me to my main point: when it comes to pesticide use in farming actually, when it comes to a lot of things if we want to talk about the elephant in the room, it isnt human population. Its capitalism. Consider this thought experiment. Suppose that, magically, human population halved overnight. I guess the consequences would depend a bit on exactly who it was that disappeared, but maybe not so much in the end. Imagine, for example, that it was the poorest 50 of the worlds population. The effect on greenhouse gas emissions would be slight, but the effect on the food system in the rich countries would probably be pretty significant. In the short term, thered be no more cheap labour furnishing all the labour-intensive items that we currently outsource the fruit and vegetables, the flowers, the prawns, the coffee and so on. But the basic agricultural economics of high labour costs and low fuel costs in the rich countries would remain. Pesticide regimens are basically labour-saving technologies in a situation of low energy costs. I cant see them changing much in the event of a population cataclysm among the worlds poor. Indeed, with the onus now falling on the rich countries to provide their own labour-intensive food commodities in a high labour cost situation, the impetus would be for further mechanisation and probably an intensification of pesticide-dependent farming in order to keep the fruit and veg flowing. Now imagine that the disappearances mainly affected the worlds richest. The short-term effect on greenhouse gas emissions would be dramatically positive. Longer-term, though, the cataclysm would further impel the economic trajectory thats already underway, a shifting centre of economic gravity from the north and west to the south and east. The labour-energy balance in these populous southerneastern countries would shift further towards present rich country norms, prompting labour flight from agriculture and greater pressures towards mechanisation (and pesticisation). The acute labour shortage in the depopulated rich countries would push in the same direction. So my feeling is that if pesticide-dependent farming is the problem then, no, the elephant in the room is not the size of the human population its the relative value of human and mechanical labour. Since theres a more-or-less fixed limit to the productivity of the former, but not so much in case of the latter, then the developmental pressure is always to substitute the latter for the former. But only in situations where capital increase is the fundamental bottom line. Marx again: in a non-capitalist market society, money acts mostly just as a medium of exchange. If you make pots and I grow vegetables, its convenient for me to buy your pots and for you to buy my vegetables through the intermediary of money. Vegetables become money become pots, commodities become money become commodities, or C M C, in Marxs terms. With capitalism, though, money is invested in order to produce a commodity, which is sold for money: M C M. But if the value of the first M is the same as the second, theres not much point going to the trouble of turning the first M into C, only to get the same M back again. The logic of the process is really M C M, where M gt M. And there in a nutshell is the massive transformative power of capitalism: once you unleash the pure logic of M gt M, anything that stands in its way will ultimately be crushed. Thats why in the average arable field, youre only likely to see the occasional farmworker driving a massive spraying rig, and not dozens of thoughtful polycultural agroecologists. For the purposes of this post, Im remaining agnostic about the pros and cons of modern pesticide regimens. There are those who like to argue that theres nothing to worry about mostly by stressing that pesticide levels fall within the range deemed safe by government bodies and by impugning the credentials or agenda of anyone who says otherwise. Presumably, unless theyre shareholders in agrochemical companies, even these folks would agree that its not an active virtue to spray our crops with pesticides. But whatever the rights or wrongs of doing it, the crops are going to stay sprayed so long as we make M gt M the primary logic impelling our economic system. Coming back to my thought experiment, barring an unprecedentedly massive genocide or natural disaster, that kind of population decrease clearly isnt going to happen. For sure, theres a good case for nudging humanity towards lower numbers by using the various small policy levers available. But human population dynamics are a path-dependent and highly complex system which cant easily be manipulated by wishing things were different. Its not an elephant in the room that, once identified, is easily resolved. By that logic, you could say the same of capitalism. I think Marx was definitely onto something with his C M Cs and his M C Ms, but it now seems pretty clear that some magic solution to the worlds problems is not going to fall from the sky simply through the overthrow of capitalism. Complex problems require complex solutions. There is no elephant in the room. Or else maybe there are many. Still, I dont think the shortage of elephants takes us right back to square one. Weve learned a couple of useful things along the way here. The first is that humans experience the brute facts of nature through the conditioning grid of our culture. That doesnt mean theres some kind of law that human culture always overcomes the challenges of the natural world often enough it manifestly hasnt. But human culture always mediates those challenges. Which is why Im pretty sure that whatever shape the problem of human population might have, it doesnt resemble an elephant. The second useful thing is that, however complex our problems are, there may be particular pressure points within our cultural mediation of the world where its really worth focusing political attention if we want to change things. I think the hard logic of M gt M is probably one of them.
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