From: dc_ags@ac.nsac.ns.ca (Don Christie)
Subject: Re: Real-world solutions
Reply-To: dc_ags@ac.nsac.ns.ca
Organization: Nova Scotia Agricultural College, Nova Scotia, CANADA
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 13:49:37 GMT

In article <-1363908066snx@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au>, gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick) writes:
>
>In article <1992Nov15.172626.14620@cal.isac.ca> jameson@cal.isac.ca writes:
>
> > What puzzles me is that everyone talks about finding ways to sustain
> > the current system, instead of recognizing the fairly obvious futility
> > of doing so.  Why don't we talk more about reducing the consumption of
> > the current system---until it's sustainable---and THEN concentrate on
> > making things better and bigger?
>
>Whoever else might be talking about ways to sustain the present
>system, I am certainly not and I doubt very much that Don Christie is
>either. My comments have all been directed to the political problem of
>*maintaining* the present system until a future implementation of
>sustainable agriculture is possible, as the underlying difficulty
>some of these activists and panic merchants are chafing hysterically
>against.
>

thank you, Gil. You are absolutely correct... much of the criticism I've 
received in this newsgroup and in email relates to how people regard my
efforts as being contrary to theirs. I am just as environmentally-minded as
anybody who has posted to this group to date.... I just see it in a little
different light. 

A few of my email friends have taken shots at my education and its lack of
meaning (at least in their opinions). When I started that process (as a mature
student)... I was FULL of piss and vinegar to get some new ideas into the
ring... as time went on, one by one, all my ideas were proven TO ME to be
impractical and/or just plain WRONG... the reason usually being because I
didn't have a grasp of the industry, its scale, or its intensive nature....
there are many, many people working very, very hard to try to find ways to
overcome both the damage we have already caused and new methods which will
prevent further damage in the future. Many, if not MOST of those people are
better qualified than I am. 

the solutions they seek are to problems that exist in a scale beyond any 
that mankind has tackled so far. What I'm saying is that answers to the ills
that agriculture has and is causing are VERY elusive.. I was sort of hoping
that someone out there in net.land might have some ideas worth bashing around,
but instead I've found that all they want to bash is established agriculture.

>That period will cover several generations at least, so the added
>burden we have is to educate the next generation of educators, some
>of whom will need to take on that task for their next generation in
>turn, and if you do not want to be involved with that process you
>might as just well relax a little.
>
>If you do want to be involved, doing whatever you can do locally in
>your own community to reduce consumption on the one hand, and to be
>a little more productive and self-sufficient on the other, would be
>a very worthwhile contribution, let me assure you.

When John F. Kennedy said "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what
you can do for your country" he was responding to a sentiment shared amost
universally by the public at large. They all have their hands out .... and when
someone gets something that someone else does not get there's hell to pay...
but when the shoe is on the other foot... i.e. when your country is asking 
you to warm your brains up and contribute something useful... then that's
a horse of a different colour altogether! At that point John Q. Public 
decides to pass the buck and point to someone else... anyone else... just so
he/she doesn't have to (shudder..) THINK...  

//Don
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Who ELSE could have written The Adventures of Wild Bill Groady??
Newsgroups: alt.sustainable.agriculture