how to save the world

The late Sara Stein wrote two books a decade ago, Noah’s Garden and Planting Noah’s Garden, that showed not only that it is not hopeless, but that it is our responsibility, as stewards of even small patches of land, to do so. I’ve just finished the former book, which provides the rationale for this responsibility and the grim history of how we in North America have ruined and impoverished our land, and I’ve ordered the latter, which explains in some detail how to rectify the damage we have done.

These books are not easy going. Ms Stein was an earnest and scholarly writer, and a ruthless debunker of well-intentioned behaviours. Many readers will be inclined to give up trying to implement what she recommends before they start, because most of what we’ve been taught to do, or intuitively seek to do, to restore a level of natural life to our altered landscapes, seems to do more harm than good.

Here are some of the key messages and data she conveys in the first book:

• Our children, brought up in artificial environments and exposed to nature only in “stay off the grass” managed excursions, may never appreciate or realize what they’re missing once natural environments are forever gone.
• Our suburbs, notwithstanding how green they are, are dreadfully impoverished landscapes, supporting a tiny fraction of the diversity of life natural landscapes do.
• Our assault on the natural environment in North America has been going on relentlessly for four centuries, and is so effective that there is virtually no native landscape left anywhere: even parklands and conservation areas are dominated by invasive species and severely depleted of biodiversity, what Ms Stein calls “an appalling blankness” concealed by “a mask of naturalness”.
• The succession process by which a devastated landscape returns to balance, richness and diversity involves many successions of one species with another, and cannot be rushed or leapfrogged.
• Our clearing and mistreatment of land is causing excessive erosion of topsoil across North America at an average rate of 4-7 tonnes per acre per year.
• Invasive species, some introduced to try to ‘naturally’ restore imbalances, have negative effects on biodiversity that linger for decades and even centuries.
• The average American suburban lot is 10,000 sf (about 1/4 acre), about twice that of the average suburban lot in other affluent nations, including Canada.
• Even small lots can, with some diligence, be ‘restored’ to allow a substantial improvement in biodiversity using a combination of native species (lists here) to create (a) meadows, with sedges, grasses and wildflowers, (b) artificial ponds, (c) wetlands for bog plants, (d) hedgerows of berries and other species, and (e) woodlands. The diagram above shows how these areas can be integrated, while still leaving some ‘lawn’ in the area most visible to neighbours.
• Wild animals in our temperate ecosystems need large areas to stay in balance: 5 square miles per fox, 9 per coyote, even more for larger predators, and a substantial amount even for herbivores like deer. Excessive numbers are generally encouraged by our monoculture, which hugely upsets this balance and devastates species lower in the food chain, causing overpopulation and hardship to the predators. Our unnatural behaviours have severe and usually unobserved consequences on whole ecosystems.
• So-called ‘natural’ herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers introduced to try to restore health or balance aren’t really natural and can do more harm than good. Ironically, occasional restricted burns can be healthier than ‘organic’ products.
• The loss of wetlands across North America is barely visible to us, but is massive and has had dreadful consequences to most amphibian and songbird populations.
• A lawn is the opposite of a natural meadow or prairie; a replanted monoculture ‘tree collection’ is the opposite of a woodland or forest.

In sum, renaturalization takes enormous restraint, learning, patience and hard work. The natural gardener’s job is best limited to planting appropriate native species the right way in the right places at the right times, being patient, trusting the soil and otherwise not interfering. It entails responding to what Mirabel Osler calls “a gentle plea for Chaos”, to achieve in time what Ms Stein calls “a humor of richness and meaning”.

Half of the property of our community is protected wetland, which we are not permitted to touch (though some of our neighbours have stupidly ignored the law and done considerable damage trying to ‘clean up’ their property). At first I was ashamed of the green algae cover on the kettle ponds, alarmed at the dozens of trees felled sloppily each year by our resident beavers, distressed by the bare drowned trees and windfalls that made us look like messy caretakers. Now I realize how essential these untouched elements of the rich local ecosystem, replete with amphibians and songbirds and wild turkeys, are, and I have pledged never to disturb them, except to harvest a small number of windfall trees for firewood. I worry that the growing warmth and drought may mean the end of these fragile wetlands, perhaps within a decade. I am determined to gradually introduce native species on the rest of our property, and to persuade my neighbours to do likewise.

This involves generally doing less each year to meddle with nature’s struggle to recover from centuries of human destruction, disguised by the “mask of naturalness” that, to my unschooled eye, makes our community look so lovely, so unspoiled. Somehow, that is hard, but it is getting easier as, together with my neighbours, we learn to be humbler and modestly better stewards.

Ms Stein writes: “I’ve made the apple jelly and harvested the squash in the same spirit that squirrels have stashed their nuts and ants have dragged their grain. Our hearth is stacked with logs, our land is stocked with plants. I close my window against the frosty evening satisfied that ant, and mouse, bee, bird, squirrel, bloom and seed know well how to get from scary autumn to the next brief summer as long as we, bearing a shovel and a holly, can fill the gap-toothed faces of ourland and make the seasons’ smile complete.”

We do what we must, and sometimes, what we can.

1. That 26% of North Americans consistently spend significantly more for socially and environmentally responsible products, even if that caused them some financial hardship, and
2. That this percentage was modestly U-shaped against income — lowest for middle-income earners.

In the process of trying to find these articles, I reviewed some two dozen surveys dating back to 1992. They revealed the following information:

• The percentage who claim to be socially and environmentally conscious in their behaviour has been rising (from about 40% to 60%); the percentage whose actually buy socially and environmentally conscious products has stayed flat (about 4%).
• Depending on how the question is phrased, the percentage who claim to ‘buy green’ varies from 10% to over 90%.
• Actual buying behaviour studies suggest that price, quality and convenience still outweigh ‘green’ in the majority of buyers’ decision criteria: “people do noy actually buy the products they claim to prefer”.
• While a majority claim to be willing to pay more to buy ‘green’, studies suggest that a price difference of more than 5% discourages the vast majority of buyers.
• A third of people surveyed say they don’t believe social and environmental product claims.
• Few people surveyed were aware of which companies had reputations as socially and environmentally responsible, or irresponsible.
• Surveys were wildly inconsistent in assessing which demographic groups were ‘greenest; some said the oldest, others the youngest, some said the richest, others the poorest.
• Surveys in the 1990s suggest that 18-20% of all people (and more women than men) consistently shop for socially and environmentally responsible products, even if they cost considerably more.

So whether the number is 18% or 26%, it does seem to represent the percentage of people who are willing to put their money where their mouth is, and invest some time and energy to research and seek out green products.

I think it’s an encouraging number, and as information increases, the population ages and the middle class disappears, it’s likely to rise. The popularity of my Boycott List is a sign, I think, that these people really give a damn.

Suppose the number is 26%. Who are the other 74% that we still need to inform or convert? My guess, judging from the cross-section of people I know, is that they fall into five groups:

• The problem deniers: Those who think there is no need to be socially or environmentally conscious, because if there’s a problem ‘the market’ will take care of it. (My guess: 20%)
• The uninformed: Those who have no idea what’s going on in the world, or that there is any reason to be socially or environmentally conscious. (My guess: 14%)
• The disengaged: Those who are too busy to think about social and environmental issues (including those who never shop, and get others to shop for them, with specific instructions). (My guess: 10%)
• The cynics: Those who think all the consciousness claims are a con, and that it doesn’t matter what you buy. (My guess: 10% and rising)
• The well-intentioned: Those who think it’s important to be green, but get sucked in or distracted or pressured by other priorities (“No Mom, we have to buy this brand”) so their actions don’t match their values. (My guess: 20%)

Each of these five groups requires a different approach:

• The problem deniers: Ignore them: you’ll just waste time trying to persuade them. Wait until they’re ready to listen.
• The uninformed: Tell them, gently, a better solution. No lectures, no horror stories. Don’t harp on what’s wrong with what they’re buying, tell them what’s right about the green alternative. High road.
• The disengaged: Get to the people who do the shopping for them. Fortunately, those people are probably women.
• The cynics: Cynics are often romantics and idealists at heart. Tell them a story about a company that’s doing something positive that makes a difference. You can argue about data, but you can’t argue about a good story.
• The well-intentioned: Make it easier for them. Help green companies get shelf space, add value (recipes with food products) and convenience. Show this group by example that there’s no hardship in buying green.

If we could win over the second, third and fifth groups and half the cynics, we’d have three quarters of the buyers buying green. The suppliers would have no choice but to listen and adapt.

Of course, we’d still have to do battle with the greenwashers. But in an age of increasing information and connectivity,propaganda is an expensive and risky way to keep customers.

We have the power. It’s time to use it. 26% is an army large enough to change the world.

Last week I mentioned that the seven qualities needed to be an excellent collaborator and those needed to be an exceptional sexual partner were surprisingly similar. It occurs to me that the capacities needed to be an ideal member of a Natural Community or Natural Enterprise are likewise similar to those needed to be an exceptional life partner.

I think there are sixteen such capacities, listed in the table above. Try this experiment:

1. On a scale of 1-10, rate yourself on each of the sixteen capacities. Circle the 3-5 capacities you rated yourself lowest. 
2. Using the same scale, rate your life partner or significant other, and your best friend or favourite work colleague. Circle the 3-5 capacities you rated lowest for each of these people.

If you’re like me, you’ll probably find that (a) your weaknesses (and strengths) and those of the people whose relationships you value most are complementary, and (b) areas of mutual weakness are real problem areas in your relationship.

The paradox is that we pick our life partners based on mutual chemistry, not on the complementarity of their strengths. Sometimes the chemistry is strong enough to keep the relationship together despite mutual weaknesses (which often result in incredible fights, especially when both partners are weak in capacities 1, 3, 10, 11, 14 or 15). At least when it comes to selecting partners with whom to make a living, or with whom to live in an Intentional Community, we tend to be relatively objective.

All creatures are born with most of these capacities, and in natural environments they get practice strengthening them, joyfully, from the moment they are born. These capacities are selected for in nature because they help us to survive. In natural environments the requirements of life are simple: make a living with those in your community (discover, harvest and share food and shelter), and work around obstacles that nature sometimes puts in your path (storms, floods, fires, droughts, diseases etc.) The sixteen capacities equip you brilliantly for these tasks, as anyone who watches birds or wildlife can attest.

Humans decided a few millennia ago to live an artificial life in self-constructed artificial environments instead. The sixteen capacities are still enormously advantageous in these more difficult environments, but our artificial environments create new challenges — overpopulation and overcrowding, and the resulting scarcities of resources, wars and poverty and pollution and epidemic diseases. Workarounds for these human-created obstacles to a joyful, natural life are much harder to find. I continue to believe that these artificial environments, and our excess numbers and consumption, are unsustainable and will lead to the inevitable collapse that has befallen every previous civilization. And I believe the best models of sustainability for those who survive that collapse will be natural, intentional communities whose members have worked to increase their own capacities and create a life together with those with complementary capacities.
My intention is, one day, to find the people I was meant to live with, and to create with them a natural community. In the meantime, I’m working on improving my own capacities. I suspect I’m like a lot of males in that I need to work most on capacities 1, 10, 11, 14 and 15. All it takes, I think, is practice.

I watch young birds and wildlife practicing doing these things and I’m amazed at how easy and fun it is for them. I watch young children, even before the school system starts to brainwash them, already starting to lose these capacities, already being told to spend their time doing other things, competing with each other, their curiosity and imagination atrophying from lack of practice, their self-confidence under siege, being desensitized and made into everybody else. Imagine an education ‘system’ that taught and encouraged thesesixteen capacities exclusively!

Imagine a world where we helped each other get better at these things. Imagine what might then be possible.