what, if anything
What, if anything? That which was ambition, desire, a dream has turned to something else. Must it now be abandoned because of the abandon of others?
It began with a notion to grow hazelnuts — small trees, easier to handle than chestnuts, simple to store. What could be wrong with that? At the time, predation wasn't an issue. I began even before a nearby commercial operation. Now it is abandoned, the trees grubbed out while my little grove remains.
Sure there were sulphur-crested cockatoos about when I began. Never or rarely did they venture into the village. They were birds of the bush; the rural places where their numbers were controlled and sustainable. Then on that peri-urban fringe it just took one person on the south-western edge to thoughtlessly, selfishly begin uncontrolled feeding and they were enticed to cross the road and begin the end of a dream. They have bred, and bred, protected by law and fuelled by cheap eats. Now they never leave and on grey, overcast days like today, they commit mischief instead of dispersing to forage.
Now there is no chance of a ripe harvest from my hazelnuts. They set plenty of nuts, but their small, white part-formed kernels will be torn out in just a few days of witless destruction. If only they waited we'd all get a share. Instead, what little yield there is gets squandered. Is it time to abandon this dream too?
Wait! Isn't this the way? Look to Svalbard. Wouldn't it be a frozen Arctic archipelago were it not for coal? Hasn't the delay in closing coal mine #7 come about because of the energy situation in Europe precipitated by the greedy grab for someone else's dream; of possessing Ukraine? And goodness me, Germany is so keen to keep mining low energy, dirty lignite because of the crisis that they're knocking down a village and detained Greta Thunberg.
Antarctica is worse. It has coal too. But the human denizens of the Antarctic stations are warmed by oil and that problem made worse by transporting it thousands and thousands of kilometres. And what for? Well, some is scientific research. Mostly it's political — strategic occupation of territory.
In the Northern Territory of Australia, great tracts of bush are being levelled, literally, and without authorisation — against legislative requirements — to grow cotton only to have it shipped to where it feeds slave-worked factories; or so we are told. How is this sustainable; like fuelling the over-population of cockatoos on hazelnuts?
During the recent Dakar Rally dozens and dozens of hydrocarbon powered vehicles raced through The Empty Quarter of Saudia Arabia; a place so inhospitable to be devoid of human life. Clearly, the application of energy is being exploited to put things into unsustainable places.
Is it time for the World, for humanity, to take stock? The energy crisis triggered by the invasion of Ukraine is a wake up call that we have been enslaved by energy dependence to go where without it we would not survive, to adopt lifestyles fuelled by exogenous supplies we do not control and of populations beyond sustainability. Some things, some places should for the sake of the lower energy, sustainable places simply be abandoned.
This all began in Great Britain with the dream of the Industrial Revolution. Now it's a island that cannot feed itself but for those energy resources to import food. Look to Singapore, a tiny island clipping the tickets of shipping yet producing nothing but more humans. It lacks the land to feed itself and to generate the energy to sustain its wastrel lifestyle. There was a notion proposed by two billionaires to use solar photo-voltaics in Australia and an undersea cable to keep Singapore alive, to tap into that ticket-clipping lifestyle. Except, now they are squabbling: one thinks it would be better for his business model to make hydrogen by electrolysis and ammonia by synthesis as transportable fuels while the other is most ardently an electrons man.
So I ask myself: what, if anything can I salvage from these part-grown green hazelnuts, or is it time to abandon old ways, old dreams, for new and sustainable ones?
what, if anything
What, if anything? That which was ambition, desire, a dream has turned to something else. Must it now be abandoned because of the abandon of others?
It began with a notion to grow hazelnuts — small trees, easier to handle than chestnuts, simple to store. What could be wrong with that? At the time, predation wasn't an issue. I began even before a nearby commercial operation. Now it is abandoned, the trees grubbed out while my little grove remains.
Sure there were sulphur-crested cockatoos about when I began. Never or rarely did they venture into the village. They were birds of the bush; the rural places where their numbers were controlled and sustainable. Then on that peri-urban fringe it just took one person on the south-western edge to thoughtlessly, selfishly begin uncontrolled feeding and they were enticed to cross the road and begin the end of a dream. They have bred, and bred, protected by law and fuelled by cheap eats. Now they never leave and on grey, overcast days like today, they commit mischief instead of dispersing to forage.
Now there is no chance of a ripe harvest from my hazelnuts. They set plenty of nuts, but their small, white part-formed kernels will be torn out in just a few days of witless destruction. If only they waited we'd all get a share. Instead, what little yield there is gets squandered. Is it time to abandon this dream too?
Wait! Isn't this the way? Look to Svalbard. Wouldn't it be a frozen Arctic archipelago were it not for coal? Hasn't the delay in closing coal mine #7 come about because of the energy situation in Europe precipitated by the greedy grab for someone else's dream; of possessing Ukraine? And goodness me, Germany is so keen to keep mining low energy, dirty lignite because of the crisis that they're knocking down a village and detained Greta Thunberg.
Antarctica is worse. It has coal too. But the human denizens of the Antarctic stations are warmed by oil and that problem made worse by transporting it thousands and thousands of kilometres. And what for? Well, some is scientific research. Mostly it's political — strategic occupation of territory.
In the Northern Territory of Australia, great tracts of bush are being levelled, literally, and without authorisation — against legislative requirements — to grow cotton only to have it shipped to where it feeds slave-worked factories; or so we are told. How is this sustainable; like fuelling the over-population of cockatoos on hazelnuts?
During the recent Dakar Rally dozens and dozens of hydrocarbon powered vehicles raced through The Empty Quarter of Saudia Arabia; a place so inhospitable to be devoid of human life. Clearly, the application of energy is being exploited to put things into unsustainable places.
Is it time for the World, for humanity, to take stock? The energy crisis triggered by the invasion of Ukraine is a wake up call that we have been enslaved by energy dependence to go where without it we would not survive, to adopt lifestyles fuelled by exogenous supplies we do not control and of populations beyond sustainability. Some things, some places should for the sake of the lower energy, sustainable places simply be abandoned.
This all began in Great Britain with the dream of the Industrial Revolution. Now it's a island that cannot feed itself but for those energy resources to import food. Look to Singapore, a tiny island clipping the tickets of shipping yet producing nothing but more humans. It lacks the land to feed itself and to generate the energy to sustain its wastrel lifestyle. There was a notion proposed by two billionaires to use solar photo-voltaics in Australia and an undersea cable to keep Singapore alive, to tap into that ticket-clipping lifestyle. Except, now they are squabbling: one thinks it would be better for his business model to make hydrogen by electrolysis and ammonia by synthesis as transportable fuels while the other is most ardently an electrons man.
So I ask myself: what, if anything can I salvage from these part-grown green hazelnuts, or is it time to abandon old ways, old dreams, for new and sustainable ones?