eco101.newie.oz

I’ve spoken to a number of people about this topic, but I’ve never seen any definitive answers. So I’m going to try and find some of my own. For a student or architecture, permaculture, and ecology, it’s important to understand just how much of an impact it’s possible to sustain on this planet. Currently, I’m looking at the issue from an anthropocentric view point, though if anyone else can suggest another wider way of looking at it, go right ahead.

There are two main questions, I guess:

• How many people can the planet support?
• How many people can a City of a given size support?
  • How much hinterland does it need?
  • What is the relationship between increased density and food/goods transport, and the sustainability of the system?

These questions both hinge on another, more basic one: What resources does a human need to survive well?
Resources being food, water, air, clothing, shelter etc.
Human being of any gender/weight/metabolism (average).
“Survive well” being completely healthy, minimal stress, and having a decent amount of free time (and what a “decent” amount of free time is).

So that’s my question set. My base requirements for data will soon follow. I don’t think I need a hypothesis.

NOW would be a good time to point out any problems with these questions.

Note that I don not intend to apply these findings to any real life situation. That would be stupid. Real life situations deal with real people, not averages.

just visited Deviant Art (a great art site, if you can get past all the shit anime), which I’ve been going to for long stints with large breaks for a few years (since mid 2001), and I noticed that my website was still listed as http://naught101.atspace.com/, which is pretty amazing, ’cause that site is probably 5 years old, and I haven’t touched it for at least four and a half… I think..

It was my second site ever (first was http://naught101.cjb.net I think, an abandonware site). It still has some songs on it for download, feel free to check them out, if they’re still up..

Amazing what you find…

This is something I started that was going to be the first post on this blog, about 6 months ago. As you’ll see though, I got lost, and I have never really made it back to it, having gotten lost in many other things in the intervening period. I thought I’d post it anyway. It might inspire me to come back and add stuff to it (doubtful), or, with a few comments, it might set off that train of thought, and inspire me to write some kind of conclusion. So go ahead, criticise, wonder, ramble, insult. See what happens.

– work in progress, 14th December, 2006 –
“In trying to find a low common denominator that would “mobilize” virtually everyone, the new “anti-nuke establishment” really educated no-one. It was Three-Mile Island that did much of the education, and often public understanding of the issue goes no further than problems of technology, rather than problems of society” – Murray Bookchin, “the Power to Create, the Power to Destroy”, 1979, p. 50, (in “Toward an Ecological Society”)

Bloody hell. Not much has changed has it? seems like, 27 years later, the environment movement is still struggling in two directions – firstly to get people active, often through short, punchy catch phrases and shocking images, and secondly to educate, which obviously require a longer attention span, and more in-depth analysis of the issues. It’s a pity that these two objectives sometimes seem almost mutually exclusive. (more…)

Please note that the intent, order, and formation of the title of this post is sarcastic. There is no way that I would ever put “money” before “going green” in normal conversation.

Anyway, looking around for places to promote envirowiki (http://www.envirowiki.info/ – knowledge database for environmentalist and social justice activists, which you should check out and contribute to), I came across http://envirostats.info/, a reasonably cool site. On the “green your life” page I noticed a link to “29 Ways to Save Money on Gas” (on another site). I kind of get pissed of at these light-green/neocon in camouflage posts, I mean who cares about the money? If you fuck the planet you aren’t going to be able to buy anything anyway! And if you have enough money to care about how much you save of it on fuel for your car, then it’s pretty much guaranteed that you have enough money not to worry too much about money.

But anyway,it got me thinking, if there was an ecoanarchist approach to “how to save the planet, in ways that are also, co-incidentally, economically efficient”, what would it look like? And pretty much, I reckon it’d be this:

naught101’s big list of saving the world (and some cash on the way):

1. STOP BUYING CRAP YOU DON’T NEED.
2. STOP designing/manufacturing shit that doesn’t work, so other idiots won’t buy it.
3. STOP thinking of ANYTHING as waste, and start thinking of it as a resource.

Maybe I’m missing something. Obviously, I could also add some crap about being slightly more efficient or whatever, but Jevan’s Paradox kinda fucks that right up, doesn’t it? No, I think that really cover’s most of it..

Good buy, and lucky planet saving!