Notes to a Dear Friend Stimulated by a Recent Tom Friedman NYT Article Concerning COP 26

a. a possible letter to the local editors about a need … a call … for young HEB workers in Seguin to strike toward banning the SENSELESS use of all these damn disposable, polluting, fossil material/energy-generated disposable plastic bags (It would be one start–if a very small one!),

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b. a statement to the SISD school board next week about the good they are doing, but also … how much more the schools could do re curbing ecological destruction,

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c.  what I need to do concerning the support & realization of PEACE art/poster efforts in collaboration with the Seguin Art League & the Lions … which we discussed recently (i.e., work on a facilitating grant proposal),

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d.  the making locally with locally-grown fibers & distributed locally of some T-shirts which advocate a journey toward regeneration & conservation of resilient, sustainable ecological community.

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e.  pursuit of realizing another little book, before I pass, … dealing with the life of young friend Deyling Rizo,  Nicaragua, & the influences of the imperialistic power of the U.S.  … with a bit on the detrimental influences of global climate change (changes brought about largely by relatively neoliberal capitalism) on coffee production & other agriculture … and immigration.

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(I’ll try to use the wealth of knowledge of Nicaragua at UT-Austin, the connections of friends in the Somoza family, agroecologist Miguel Altieri, a priest friend in Leon, Dos Pueblos of NYC & Nicaragua, and of course the family of Deyling, etc.  …

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And I do hope to discuss this book idea with a retired UT professor & successful author in New Mexico during travels there in the next two weeks.)  …

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Yes, as Haitian (roots) artist Marika Bordes once emphazized … I do dream too much … vs. taking real action.

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2.  I DREAM big dreams of activism & action, but also realize that I am for the most part a relatively uneducated, not overly bright, lazy, inarticulate son of a relatively poor hog farmer from South Central, ” backwards” Texas, and that the reality is that I will accomplish very little. … Still, I plan to continue dreaming and trying..

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3.  Like Friedman, I too fear GREATLY for the TERRIBLE challenges we, but especially our kids and grandkids and their progeny, and even more particularly, the 3+ billion have-nots on Eaarth … will face.

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The threat they face are of course because of the ecologically-destructive actions/habits/ethos that WE of recent generations, especially after WWII, have lived, including growth of our “conspicuous consumption, (but also human & domesticated species population numbers), our global-industrial exotic, energetically unsound food & fiber-agricultural systems; large, air-conditioned homes & other built structures; crazy use of automobiles, including hybrids & electric ones (& especially big pick-’em-up trucks)  …  .

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I have to add here that I am as guilty as most … but that some of those close to me, daughter Angie & her family and brother Kenny & his family, do a pretty good job of living through a light ecological footprint … compared to say, paul bain martin.

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4.  I understand the (what I think is LIMITED) power of “prayer,” meditation, & religious communication as well as employment of APPROPRIATE technologies.

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Nevertheless, I was NOT very pleased with the emphasis Friedman gave in his piece to prayer and technological fixes.  Moreover, nuclear energy, which Friedman at least suggested as a transitional fix, costs tremendous amounts of fossil energy inputs for development, building, and security of reactors & associated structures for generation & delivery … before any net energy is realized.  And we need LESS artificial input/throughput/output involving energy transformation, not MORE!

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(I try to deal with this in my little piece in:  PabloEco3500K – Tales of PEACE: Positively Ethical Applied Community Ecology (paulpeaceparables.com) , which was edited and hopefully improved a bit in our little book on applied ecology, Games We Play (kite.pub)  Renewable Energy as THE Key Asset of Commonwealth in Community by paul bain martin 1 – PabloEco3500K (paulpeaceparables.com)  Games We Play (kite.pub)  )

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5.  Finally (almost), the most important things we can do for immediate & more distant generations of humans are:

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a.  Live lives of “Less Is More,” Steady-State economics, “Small Is Beautiful,” ” A Prosperous Way Down” proposed by Jason Hickel, Rice U. graduate Herman Daly, E.F. Schumacher, H.T Odum and various ecological economists et al.

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b.  Set aside 50% of Eaarth to Nature & dynamic homeostatic symbioses as proposed by E.O. Wilson of Harvard U.

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c.  Begin reducing the War- and military-  ( and “policing-“) budget/actions of the U.S., & that of the world, toward zero.

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d.  a long- term dream/goal should be realization of a profound & holistic applied agroecology, which probably means a matriarchal agrarian society of local production, processing, & distribution … including appropriate technologies and in concert with dynamic homeostatic symbioses/”nature.”

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6.  I’m sorry for the length and continuation of my redundancy in this.  Nevertheless, I suppose I’ll pass or my mind will totally fizzle out before I stop.

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Love,

paul