(Prepared for Five Minute Presentations to Local Governing Entities in Seguin, Guadalupe County, mid-Jan 2023)
You know … it could be that the GOOD I learned from frugal low-input/-throughput Mom & Dad, through Catholicism (& Francis’ Laudato Si’), rural Devine-Texas, civil rights & ecological movements of the 1960’s & 70’s, the times of the horrible Vietnam Conflict, the ecology I learned at A&M & the University of Florida and from scientists, academicians, scholars (including Niebuhr & his Moral Man and Immoral Society), and experiencing some of the real poverty and desperate struggles for needs of friends in Latin America … it could be that that GOOD is “wrong?”
I don’t think so. I may be deemed as looney, off my rocker and super unrealistic. And I am certainly flawed, ignorant, & very imperfect. But I am not insane in my actions. Au contraire. The problem, rather, is an uneducated, stubborn, immoral (and relatively insane) global society, including of course its leaders.
A basic problem is WAR. Our rampant artificialization is de facto WAR on nature. And neoliberal capitalism results in, and even needs, WAR.
WAR! War on topsoil & quality air, quality water. War on photosynthesizers and sustainable primary productivity and biodiversity. War against the benefits of natural/sustainable capure of daily solar energy. War against each other. War on sustainable social & ecological fabrics.
I want you to dig deep into your psyche and ethos and begin to see the Why? and How? we change this culture of WAR; and What? we must do … and relatively soon! Consequently, you should immediately recognize that the only decent, moral, and ethical option is DEGROWTH and that you all should be robustly & sincerely, strategically, “teaching, preaching, & politicking”* this.
(*The great Texan, Lyndon Baines Johnson, emphasized that the only thing worth being is a teacher, preacher, and a politician. We all do some of this. Hopefully we do it well, and for the good of all of the Eaarth.)
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Real change from the inertia of status quo is tough. (At my “young age of 76” and “youthful knees”, it is generally difficult to simply rise from a couch after sitting for a period of time.)
We don’t emphasize enough that capitalism is a systems root-evil of socio-ecological injustice in many of our (superficial) accolades for one of the greatest of peoples, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who we honored on January 16th and in the days surrounding. But Dr. King knew and spoke often of the toxicity of what we often refer to in today’s world as neoliberalism … and the need for change from status quo. And he taught, preached, and politicked against capitalism in a positively strategic way regularly in his 39 years of life. Therefore, concordantly, I humbly agree that we desperately need systematic-system, strategic change from socio-ecologically destructive capitalism which results in MINDLESS CONSUMERISM, inequity & racism & xenophobia & anti-immigrant/anti-have-not policies, militarism, buildup of guns and armaments … and resultant inevitable WAR.
Locally and globally, we must realize action (vs. satisfaction, complacency, apathy) to radically modify our lifestyles and our institutions toward a system different from growth-dependent neoliberal, laissez-faire capitalism. Of course, if you folk of our local governance have a mind to, you can truly help locally … and hence globally.
Now even though I have perhaps jarred you a bit and maybe even totally closed your minds, I am going to continue for a while longer.
Back in the 1950’s when I read my Weekly Reader (You remember the 1950’s don’t you [Mayor Dodgen, President Guerra, Judge Kutscher]?), there was a piece about how the frutos del mar, the ocean, will always be a dependable source of feeding the world. Of course, that was before plastic, or widespread use of plastic. And it was before widespread knowledge of global climate change caused by the use of fossil energy and fossil materials when we make plastics and other artificialities, and before widespread mass production of other toxically addictive stuff … in this global world which de facto worships at the altar of the God of growth-dependent neoliberal capitalism.
Anyway, current scientific predictions are that the mass of plastics in the oceans will exceed the mass of fish 30 years from now, IF we don’t realize profound & comprehensive systematic system change.
Recently in a neighborhood gathering with snacks in our front yard, when I said something detrimental about disposable plastic bags, and the desperate need to ban them, one of our elected officials quickly pointed out that “THE alternative”, multiple use/reusable plastic bags, is even worse, or at a minimum not better. A problem is that that elected official was not critically thinking, and (apparently) certainly not critically acting. “THE solutions” lie not in reusable PLASTIC bags but in strategies of no-growth, consuming less, and reuse, and along with this, profoundly sharing and deeply caring in a “christian” (with a small “c”), or jewish, muslim, buddhist, secular humanist, etc., etc. kind of way. One aspect of this “solution” is the homemaking of shopping bags from old cloth scraps, like this one (in hand) of many made by Mom St. Louise Kneuper Martin. And I am going to give this one (in hand) to young Jackson Biesenbach, who recently has been regularly attending Seguin City Council meetings as a wonderful and conscientious good citizen of Seguin.
(Also, before I leave this aspect of my presentation which sort of deals with the culturally- and religiously-molded closed minds which Dr. King struggled and battled against in his short life, I must mention that that alternatives to so-called democratic capitalism don’t have to be an even worse system involving totalitarianism. We can go the route of democratic eco-socialism like the Nordic countries … or something even better.)
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You will probably be happy to know that I probably won’t be visiting your meetings much in 2023 for these presentations. I am currently working on a Portuguese version of our little applied ecology book, I plan to travel to do a considerable amount of volunteer work here in the U.S., with indigenous peoples, and in Latin America this year. Moreover, in just this recent holiday period, I spent a considerable amount of time traveling to Oklahoma, Weatherford-Texas, and closer Medina and Bastrop counties here in Texas, for funerals of family and friends who were about my age, and younger. I feel strongly that this and related visiting are appropriate actions I must fit in at this stage of my life. But these things do take time and energy!
Therefore, unless I really get really stirred up by silly pro-growth propaganda, or related issues, I don’t plan to be doing many of these little five-minute presentations (which do take considerable time for my little brain to formulate) to y’all in the future. But who knows? (I will probably bring in a young man from Brasil to say a few words along with my own, when he and his two young boys visit in mid-February.)
Finally, to assist in local critical thinking and action, herein this handout, I have included a list of books I wish you’d purchase and read.
I do appreciate your time and patience! And thanks for your efforts at ecological learning and critical thinking, policy-making, and action … and learning together with our populace, your staff, and our youth. And remember that as the great learner Dr. David Orr of Oberlin College has said (paraphrased a bit), “All education is ecological education!”
Readings Which Could Help Make You Good Decision-Makers
What Is Education For? David Orr (Historian, Political Scientist) What Is Education For? (context.org) PROCESS OF TRULY LEARNING, easy read
Less Is More. How Degrowth Will Save the World. Jason Hickel (Economic Anthropologist) NECESSARY ACTION, “easy” read (Hickel builds on the work of E.F. Shumacher, H.T. Odum, and the amazing Texan/Rice graduate, Herman Daly)
The Art of Commonplace. Wendell Berry (Farmer, poet, essayist, ecological activist. Along with his friend and genetic agronomist, Wendell is one of the best of humans.) LIVING SUSTAINABLY, Easy read
World Wildlife Fund Living Planet Reports. STATE OF THE EAARTH, many years of reports
Nature’s Economy. A History of Ecological Ideas. Donald Worster (Ecological historian) IMPORTANT HISTORY!, lengthy, but well written
An Inconvenient Apocalypse. Environmental Collapse, Climate Crises, and the Fate of Humanity. Wes Jackson & Robert Jensen (Jensen is an ethicist & journalist, professor emeritus, UT-Austin) PERHAPS THE MOST NECESSARY OF ALL THESE READS, well written and short, but it might be a difficult read for some
Food, Energy, & Society. David & Marcia Pimentel (Especially after the energy crisis of the 1970’s, entomologist David Pimentel led the way in many aspects of the science to some knowledge of energetics in agricultural systems, national and global systems. He was a friend, and influenced me greatly!) ENERGETICS, probably a difficult read
Resource Conservation and Management. G. Tyler Miller, Jr. (Chemist & author of many text books on ecology) GOOD LISTS OF PRINCIPLES FOR UNDERSTANDING & SUSTAINING THE EARTH in Miller’s books. I used the list from this particular book on pages 136-8 in Games We Play. “Easy” read
Behave. The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst. Robert Sapolsky (Neuroendocrinology) THE LATEST ON OUR “RIGHTEOUS MINDS”, fairly easy read, but it takes time to read
(I do believe page 141 (and other pages) of our little book on “Positively Ethical Applied Community Ecology/PEACE”, Games We Play is worth reading. I do wish that on page 141 (Giants of Education) that in some way I had added “basic life skills of gardening, carpentry, metal work, plumbing, electronics, …”.)
Games We Play (kite.pub)
paul vain martin
7 S’s / VV->^^
(Just for you to know me a bit better, I have included two photos with the written pages of this presentation, one from the early 1960’s and the other of the mid to late 1950’s of my formative years. I am the oldest of six. I do wish my sister, the youngest and the prettiest, would have been included in these photos from that period.
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And after hearing at the Seguin City Council meeting of the near-future work to be done on the golf course, I would refer you to some opinions about the relatively high-input and ecologically destructive game of golf on page 131 of our book, Games We Play. At the bottom of that page, I write “A sustainable golf course would be one of locally-adapted native plants, would use no pesticides and synthetic fertilizers, would be maintained with grazers & browsers, and would be mostly walked.”)
