"our civilisation is at odds with nature"

[ilan]

hi yes i agree but even if you covered your whole house in solar pannels it would not cover your energy needs . From bushcraft the most important things we need to survive are water next we need shelter then warmth and food we are not self suficiant in energy and even into the forseable future will not be unles there is a change in priorities , nor are we in food and the problem there is we are used to cheap imports often at the expense of the producing countries environment . (did you see RM on india in the bay of bengal and the problems the global demand for prawns has had on the local population ) Equally Argentina has caused vast damage in its quest to produce cheap beef . Of course i agree with you we do not know what new advances will be made but at the moment its a profit driven world

 

[locum76]

Enjoy icecream?make some(every year me and my wife make dairy free blackberry icecream and its tasty )

any chance of sharing the recipe for that one?

(the missus is kind of off dairy and im sure yer ice cream would go down a treat...)

 

[nobby]

It dosen't have to be just an hobby,to me its a way of life.

The next time you need a new chair,or coffee table why not make one?

Enjoy eating tomatoes,grow them.

Enjoy icecream?make some(every year me and my wife make dairy free blackberry icecream and its tasty )

To me bushcraft isn't just making feather sticks and bannok bread,it can and should be much more.

All it takes is imagination.

Hi StotRE
I am a bit busy building a 4 metre coastal cruiser at the moment but I have made furniture: shelves, desk, beds, tables and chairs. I am a reasonably competent woodworker and limited metal worker, but a lousy spoon carver. On my first I managed to cut my thumb by making the bowl so thin that I went through. The second is too embarassing to detail. No doubt my third try will be better if I decide to bother with a third. Thing is wooden spoons cost just pence in charity shops. Bought a 2 seater settee just days ago for £15 in a charity shop. I couldn't get the materials together for that.
Made my first arrow heads when I was 12 but prefer an air rifle.
Not allowed ice cream anymore but we have made it, and our own cream, and kept ducks, chickens, bantams and an allotment.
Do you work, in the traditional sense, or is bushcraft your complete life?
Strikes me that bushcraft as a life would be very hard and require a full time commitment in the West. In Africa it seems to be about surving day by day while acting as tourist bait for the fiscal benefit of others.
In my imagination it takes more than imagination to live a bushcraft life; unless one could be happy, and legal, as a hunter gatherer in a post industrial society.
Is the RE, in StotRe, for Royal Engineers?

 

[Hunter Gatherer]

...'unless one could be happy, and legal, as a hunter gatherer in a post industrial society'...now you're getting the idea!
Alex...as always a Hunter Gatherer

 

[stotRE]

Hi StotRE
I am a bit busy building a 4 metre coastal cruiser at the moment but I have made furniture: shelves, desk, beds, tables and chairs. I am a reasonably competent woodworker and limited metal worker, but a lousy spoon carver. On my first I managed to cut my thumb by making the bowl so thin that I went through. The second is too embarassing to detail. No doubt my third try will be better if I decide to bother with a third. Thing is wooden spoons cost just pence in charity shops. Bought a 2 seater settee just days ago for £15 in a charity shop. I couldn't get the materials together for that.
Made my first arrow heads when I was 12 but prefer an air rifle.
Not allowed ice cream anymore but we have made it, and our own cream, and kept ducks, chickens, bantams and an allotment.
Do you work, in the traditional sense, or is bushcraft your complete life?
Strikes me that bushcraft as a life would be very hard and require a full time commitment in the West. In Africa it seems to be about surving day by day while acting as tourist bait for the fiscal benefit of others.
In my imagination it takes more than imagination to live a bushcraft life; unless one could be happy, and legal, as a hunter gatherer in a post industrial society.
Is the RE, in StotRe, for Royal Engineers?

Hi Nobby,yep im guilty of being in the Corps (please don't hold it against me)

Costal crusier,know your talking Clinker,stitch and tape or carvel?I,ve made a few clinker skiffs before and i'd love to build something bigger.(that and my own radial engined STOL aircraft,too many hobbies )

I work now as a timber framer,building homes and barns in Oak and Douglas fir and sometimes make greenwood windsor chairs.

As a life,im trying to get there but its hard as your rightly point out (the real world gets in the way)

In the UK we seem to be drifting further and further away from nature which for me is sad,to the point of almost making me ill.

 

[nobby]

...'unless one could be happy, and legal, as a hunter gatherer in a post industrial society'...now you're getting the idea!
Alex...as always a Hunter Gatherer

I'm glad I'm getting there Alex :0)
But I bet the Canadian experience is a lot different to the UK one!

 

[william#]

as we are part of nature
then civiliation is a result of us so therefore is also nature
just as any other species if we begin tipping balances too far we will get the excess skimmed off
so i would say its not at odds
however i feel the the catagising numbering and general pushing people into ever smaller boxes and choices is stifling to our natural instinc and will invariably be our down fall

 

[Great Pebble]

Thanks all for your views, plenty for me to think about, although I'm not sure I phrased the question exatly correctly...

I've been thinking about this issue for some time and keep coming up against the same "issues" which I cannot see anyway around.

The most basic being (something like) "We cannot adopt a more ecologically sound method of living because the techniques and technologies available will not sustain our society".

Which is absolutely true.

But assumes that "our society" is a constant.
Which I don't believe it is. How though, do you manage to make people realise that? And more to the point how do you persuade them to see the alternatives as being more attractive?

Which is well off on a tangent from the original post, sorry.

 

[Martyn]

Depends how philosophical you want to be. It's possible to argue that an ecologically friendly lifestyle is a selfish one, that only motivated by the desire to see the human race at harmony with a green planet that you like the look of.

Are huge volcano eruptions at odds with nature? What about a giant meteorite strike that plunges the planet into an iceage and destroys 95% of all life on earth? Are these at odds with nature, or sublimely natural? It has been argued that the last really big meteorite strike, put an end to the dinosaurs, but in so doing allowed mammals to prosper.

Perhaps total obliteration is in our future. While devastating for us, it might just be another chapter in the life of this planet.

The earth is around 4,000,000,000 years old. I wonder what it will look like in another 4 billion years?

Who knows!

I'm not sure humans are all that significant either way.

 

[Great Pebble]

Woooo... See that's the way that I started to view things, with regard to humans significance. Which worries me somewhat.

Particularly the fact that I've actually started to wonder if something very bad happening to us might not be a good thing in the long run.

 

[gregorach]

Lets not start getting all eliminationist now... Perhaps we should just hope that one day the human race manages to raise its collective intelligence to a level greater than that of a yeast colony.

As some food for thought, you might be interested in Prof. A. Duncan Brown's "Nine Laws of Ecological Bloodymindedness":

The First Law - For every action on a complex dynamic system, there are unintended and unexpected consequences. In general, the unintended consequences are recognised later than those that are intended.

The Second Law - Any system in a state of positive feedback will destroy itself unless a limit is placed on the flow of energy through that system.

The Third Law - Any sedentary community, by virtue of its sedentism, will encounter problems of sanitation. The manner in which sanitation is managed will affect the manner in which supporting agriculture is managed.

The Fourth Law - For every increment in the agricultural surplus there is a corresponding increment in the volume of urban sewage.

The Fifth Law - Stability or resilience in ecosystems requires that all essential reactions within the system function within ranges of rates that are mutually compatible.

The Sixth Law - The long-term survival of any species of organism requires that all processes essential for the viability of that species function at rates that are compatible with the overall functioning of the ecosystem of which that species is a part.

The Seventh Law - If any species of animal should develop the mental and physical capacity consciously to manage the ecosystem of which it is a part, and proceeds to do so, then the long-term survival of that species will require, as a minimum, that it understands the rate limits of all processes essential to the functioning of that ecosystem and that it operates within those limits.

The Eighth Law - Long-term stability or ‘sustainability’ in ecosystems (including agricultural systems) is dependent in part upon the recycling of nutrient elements wholly within the system or upon their replenishment from a renewable source, provided such replenishment is not itself dependent upon a finite source of energy.

The Ninth Law - If a population continues to grow exponentially it will eventually consume essential resources faster than they can be replenished. The provision of or access to additional resources will extend the ‘life’ of such resources, and hence the duration of growth of the population, only to a very small extent.

Until we accept these laws and learn to work within them, I think it probably is fair to say that our civilisation is "at odds" with nature.

 

[Martyn]

Woooo... See that's the way that I started to view things, with regard to humans significance. Which worries me somewhat.

Particularly the fact that I've actually started to wonder if something very bad happening to us might not be a good thing in the long run.

Good for who?

All life ends, including a planet.

I dont know if good or bad is the right way to think of it. I'm absolutely certain human life on this planet is time limited by the planet itself and there is nothing we can do about that.

The question that bothers me, is whether we survive long enough to be able to go somewhere else when this planet dies? Or more to the point, should we go somewhere else? We might just turn into the vogons of the universe.

 

[Great Pebble]

Oh Lordy... Don't be giving me documentary evidence, please!

I wonder if there's anywhere local that requires a hermit?

 

[Martyn]

Lets not start getting all eliminationist now... Perhaps we should just hope that one day the human race manages to raise its collective intelligence to a level greater than that of a yeast colony.

As some food for thought, you might be interested in Prof. A. Duncan Brown's "Nine Laws of Ecological Bloodymindedness":



Until we accept these laws and learn to work within them, I think it probably is fair to say that our civilisation is "at odds" with nature.

Excellent post.

 

[Great Pebble]

Good for who?

Good for whatever or whoever is left after "it" happens.

I'm not really looking forward to a catclysm BTW, just injured me back and not able to wander far. Have to keep myself occupied somehow.

Actually, if you take the "Nine Laws of Ecological Bloodymindedness" how does one go about persuading people to recognise and live within them?

(I'm confusing myself all in all)

 

[locum76]

how does one go about persuading people to recognise and live within them?

refer to thomas malthus again -

"The Principle of Population, i.e., the inevitability of misery due to the power of population to overwhelm resources, provides the mainspring behind the advance of human civilization by creating incentives for progress.

in other words it'll be a lot easier to persuade folk to have responsibility for their environment when the s**t hits the fan.

 

[gunnix]

I think civilized humanity is at odds with it's surroundings indeed.

I believe civilised humans can kill this planet, like I believe many other creatures could just as well if they wanted, and we have to stop this madness as soon as possible. The sooner it is the less suffering we and the earth as a whole will have to take.

Just look at how far we've come. Our water is undrinkable, our lands turn into deserts, there's only 10% of the life in the oceans left of what was there 100 years ago, we've got huuge wars going on with terrible weapons like uranium bullets and atom bombs which have impacts lasting for thousands of years, we even spray poison on our own food!

Some argue that civilisation will automaticly crash, before the earth collapses as a whole.
Like when oil wil have gone to expensive, etc.

Who knows..., it MIGHT happen. But we're not sure if it will.
So it's our duty to do anything it takes to stop the destruction of our world. And make a better place out of it.

Every action and every person matters.

We should also not judge anyone on which way to do this. There are many many good ways to live.

In some scenes you have to be a vegan or you're a murderer who only wants to destroy the animals. Or you have to go protesting in every march because that's the only thing that could change the world...

I like the idea that everyone should do what (s)he wants and what (s)he loves, follow her/his passion fully. This time is just crazy with all these people who have jobs or even lives they don't like. Just "killing time". Damn! We even kill our time! We must be mad!

I think civilisation is a sickness, and we have to be cured!

--------
But..., how do we cure ourselves?!

 

[william#]

on the positive note though
without civilisation we would of never made the mars bar
i mean can you imagine
lol
i love the quote
"not only is the world/universe stranger than we think , its stranger than we can think"

well maybe that just applys to me .
but this is a great thread hope it sparks some great fire side debates

 

[Templar]

I'm not touching this one..... but safice to say YES!! :swordfigh