Moving away from fossil fuels and towards more renewable energy sources is one way to be sustainable, as well as sharing resources in an economy that’s based and driven with the awareness that we live on a planet with 70 billion other people on track to be 90 billion sooner than we think. Also understanding that resources are finite and the main cause behind the global conflicts and political regime changes, which in turn lead to the crises of immigrants and refugees seeking asylum from the global South as well as the East to the industrialized West and Northern hemisphere.
Growing food at a small scale agriculture model, as communities in the large scale gardening model rather is another solution. Replicating food forests, and homesteading of species to rehabilitate Ecosystems such as feral cattle to sequester carbon rather than the captive industrial ranching complex is one example. Backyard beekeeping and pollinator gardens rather than lawns, to help recover from Colony Collapse Disorder is another example. Also using plants and organic matter as fertilizer and pesticide as an Integrative Pest Management method, rather than synthetic chemicals is another way.
Eating a plant based diet goes hand in hand with these other practices, mindful consumption of material goods and entertainment as well as food dictates with our monetary vote in the first world what we demand extraction from in the third world and how we coexist. We export 97% of grain to feed cattle around the world so that it can be shipped elsewhere as meat then once it’s slaughtered, and these subsidized grains use industrial chemical pesticides and fertilizers that pollute the soil and water which drive the economic conflicts abroad that in turn make people flee their homeland. At home, this commercial genetically modified organisms laden dairy and meats cause inflammation which in turn leads to high blood pressure and heart disease as well as diabetes.
By Herbé Zapata