In all honesty this article in the Guardian about the ongoing mass-extinction of species inspired me to cobble a few words together just so that I might have a context in which to share it…
"In all, our single species now commandeers somewhere between 25% and 40% of primary productivity on Earth. It is a productivity, that over large areas of land, is “hyper-fertilized” by the extraction of millions of tons of nitrogen from the air, in the Haber-Bosch process, and by digging comparable amounts of phosphate from the ground.
These super-fed crops are fed, highly efficiently, to farm animals, that we eat in turn. The scale of this operation is a large reason for the scale of the ongoing mass extinction of other organisms.
The scientist Vaclav Smil, of the University of Manitoba, has calculated that simply measured by mass, humans now make up a third of land vertebrates, and the animals that we keep to eat – cows, pigs, sheep and so on – make up most of the other two thirds. All the wild animals – elephants, giraffes, tigers and so on – are now less than 5% by mass. It’s a measure of how they have been pushed to the fringes by humans."
As I read this I was reminded of our train trip to Iowa this past April, our first time back in the Midwest since moving to New York in January. The endless expanse of raped and poisoned Earth gave a solemn comfort and a solid affirmation that I was indeed ready to move on. It's surely no coincidence that I fell in love with one of the most wild, overgrown and unmanaged pieces of property available in the Hudson Valley. I'm even warming up to the poison ivy. It sure beats living amidst the stench of thousands of confined animal feeding operations.
Also inspiring me lately: This fantastic new book by Ken Druse discusses in an intelligent and not-at-all alarmist or political way the means by which gardeners might acclimate themselves to the changing climate. The long hours I've spent toiling in the hot sun the past several weeks have me pining for an ice age, but I suppose a shade garden will do.
To everyone that I've been too lazy to talk to and write to: I love you.
