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| Flooded field in Market Rasen |
Once, it was simple and easy to see
I had extra bulls and I needed poultry
you had extra chickens and needed a steak
A swap was the easiest way to partake
Someone invented the mint one fine day
Then we could use shiny coinage to pay
I paid you for chickens and sold Bert the beef
And you could buy oysters and prawns from the chief
Thus far it is easy to follow ye ken
I sell you real stuff, you can sell it again
I get a real coin with a value and know
That I can buy other stuff, quick cash and go
But here's what I don't understand any more
The way that it works seems wrong at the core
If I sell my house to a guy and his honey
They get a house and I get the money
But a lot of the markets alas and alack
They sell what they don't have and then buy it back
The banks got our money and some of our tax
And they're using that now to screw us to the max
I'd like to know who is in charge of this mess
The great machine clanks and the people have less
Though the world seems as bountiful as it did ever
The bonuses seem to reach my people never
F. Berry March 2013
Something has gone badly wrong with our economics system. Farmers can't sell the wool they have, yet wool for a jumper costs more than a ready-made sweater from a shop. Dairy farmers have gradually gone out of business, and more and more have taken a suicidal way out, when the price of milk has dropped. Meanwhile we have begun importing milk from other countries in the EU.
When talk of Brexit led to discussions about the things which might suddenly become scarce, we learned that we export 40% of our tomatoes... and meanwhile we import 40% of our tomatoes from the EU. This just doesn't seem to make sense to me - I know that we have decided that the balance of goods out and goods in are an important part of our economic system, but that isn't laid down by some deity in the sky - it is something we can change. And it seems to me that on the brink of leaving the EU, we should first be discussing whether it is a desirable thing to add miles of travel to the costs of basic items like tomatoes. For the planet, it has to be a good thing for milk, tomatoes and meat to be grown locally to the places where they are consumed.
I think that one of the things which has gone wrong with our system is that we have allowed people to gamble on the outcome of crops and thus have divorced the cost of things from the actual value of them. We have also not valued the sustainability of crops or good management in producing them.
I think we need to stop arguing about whether global warming is man made or part of a natural cycle and recognize that whichever it is, our systems for manufacture, building housing and crop management needs to be realistic and to plan for the changes which may be to come. We need to stop building housing where floods are likely to happen. We need to start building to recognise the dangers of flooding in particular areas.
The Netherlands is under sea level in many places, and a system of dykes and flood management measures have kept the country safe from flooding for many years. We could learn from that experience.
I think that physically, man is meant to be omnivorous, and there are some nurtients that are hard to obtain from a vegetarian or vegan diet, but that doesn't mean that I believe that our current system of industrial food production is good for us or our planet. We need to return to a time when a very small amount of meat or fish went a long way, and the diet was mostly fruit and vegetables - and we need to find ways of promoting the production of more fruit and vegetables. Meanwhile, the traditional orchards of England are being converted to wine production, and the land is being farmed out in many places. We could learn from permaculture, and the innovative ways that food is being produced in inhospitable places - and producing a better and more bioactive soil.
We have politicians who barely look beyond next week, in a situation where we need to be planning for years, if not decades. If this warming of the planet follows the mediaeval warming period (although experts agree we have already exceeded the maximum point) then it may go on for centuries. We need to be looking to see what we need to change, and changing it, but currently that is unlikely to happen without pressure from ordinary people.
Our planet will sustain us, but we need to be clever with our resources. My major argument against exhausting the petrochemical resources we have on our planet at present is not just that the pollution is causing harm and may be driving warming, or increasing it, but that our descendents, far into the future, may need petrochemicals for uses that we cannot even guess at. Our great grandchildren may curse us for using so many plastics for ridiculous things, if they need the elements we have used for novelty toys and sock connectors.
We already have a shortage of medical helium, while people are still filling party balloons. Yes, it may be possible to harvest elements from other planets, but that's a long gamble. We haven't even reached Mars yet. And the cost is likely to be astronomical.
There is a tragedy in the way that we have been given a beautiful planet, with enough resources for everyone to have clean water, a home to live in and food to eat, and yet we have chosen to hoard resources and place power in the hands of a few people who now have a vested interest in making war and profitting from the weapons of war. It's going to be a hard awakening when we find that we have ignored the real fight with the four elements, in order to fight endlessly with ourselves.
I'm going to finish this here. Rant over. I hope that you all have a happy and healthy new year, and all consider whether what you are doing, buying, working on, is consistent with love, and with your true self. I know that isn't true for me, and I am going to work towards making it truer in 2020.
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