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Today I want to talk about literally the only thing that actually matters.
This video is going to SUUUUCK…
I have a really hard time making a video on this, because I’m a forever optimist. I also really want to avoid existential nihilism. We can only save humanity if we act. Giving up because things look bleak is how humanity fails. It’s for this reason I’ve gone 3 years without making this video, but it’s also why I’ve made this past series. Laying the groundwork until this moment.
I wanted to end this video on the pathways to decarbonization work that has been done by the IESO, and many other country’s around the world. Similar reports are being done, on HOW humanity transitions to a future economy.
The problem is, they all have one fundamental flaw in them. They want to sustain our current society. I.e. … They ignore overshoot.
The story begins in 1980 with probably the most important book ever written on this topic, and that is “overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change” by William R. Catton Jr. Actually, that’s not entirely true. The story REALLY begins with the invent of one single tool: The plough.
Why?
We’ll talk about this in the video. It is because the plough represents humanity’s fork in the road. We had sustainable human societies on one path, and on the other side, we have what we created.
Why does Canadian Permaculture Legacy exist?
My youtube channel exists to teach you how to garden. What I’ve not been clear on is why. I’ve kind of lied to you all. The reason for this isn’t deceit, it’s because the reason is too big. CPL exists because gardening is no less than step one of saving the human race. Yes step 1. Of about a thousands steps, but it’s step 1.
Saving the human race? That’s a bit grandiose, isn’t it?
It is what it is.
This isn’t a gardening channel. Sure, technically it is, but that’s not why it exists. You may be asking yourself, why am I showing you the man behind the curtain (wizard of oz)? Why am I telling you these things? Why am I even spending all my free time, working for $1 an hour on videos about gardening?
When I got into permaculture, I devoured everything I could on the topic. I read a hundred books. I read every article I could. I became consumed by it. Not only permaculture, but WHY we needed it. I got consumed by the works of people like Mr Catton. Richard Heinberg. Jean-Baptiste Fourier, John Tyndall, Wallace Broeker, Thomas Chrowder Chamberlain, Gilbert Plass, William Ophuls. But not just Western “white” writers, also indigenous writing such as Daniel Wildcat, and Robin Wall Kimmerer. The more I learned about the environment, about humanity, about our trajectory and problems, the more I realized I needed to do something about it. So I started teaching people how to garden. We’ll get to why, later. First we need to get to the point here.
This channel teaches gardening, but that’s not why it exists. It exists because the real purpose of this channel is trying to save humanity. So what is this video about?
It is about the only one thing that matters.
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Resources – get engaged! Consider joining groups for change or contacting your leadership:
https://www.climatechangemakers.org/policy-advocacy
https://www.climatechangemakers.org/action-playbook-public-utilities
Equitable Building Electrification: A Framework for Powering Resilient Communities
https://contactsenators.com/
https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative
https://www.globalcovenantofmayors.org/
https://www.usmayors.org/mayors/meet-the-mayors/
Things to Google:
“Find my local city council meeting” + [Your city/state or zip code]
“Public Utilities Commission” + [Your state]
“Mayor climate change policies” + [Your mayor’s name or city name]
Music credits:
Epidemic sound: https://www.epidemicsound.com/referral/qfqvpi/
Closer by Jay Someday | https://soundcloud.com/jaysomeday
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en_US
25 Comments
I just directly donated $20. I don't know why it's taken me so long, I've gotten so much more than $20 value out of your content over the last 4 years. I want you to keep making content, your content is some of the most important stuff on the internet. This one here was at a whole other level though. I would rather watch this than a feature film.
What I'm already doing:
Food:
– growing quite a bit of my own food (on a total of a tenth of an acre in rented allotment plots — these have rules about trees and livestock, so it is more annual-focused than I would otherwise have it and we sadly don't have hens or ducks, but there are at least some perennials in the mix and I use low-till, low-dig techniques)
– growing food in the churchyard to supplement other donations for our soup kitchen, and using that growing space to teach others how to grow their own food
– encouraging my neighbours to grow some of their own food too, mostly by handing out free tomato seedlings at the appropriate time
– supporting regenerative agriculture where we can, especially for animal products
– composting everything we possibly can to build soil, including scavenging cardboard and leaves and, well, anything compostable (other composters will relate, I'm sure!)
Transport:
– I don't own a car or have a driving license, neither does anyone else in my household, instead we walk or cycle or take public transport; a lot of people are surprised at what I can get on a bicycle
– Unfortunately, Past Me moved to a different continent than my family of origin, so some flying is still needed if I ever want to see them, but I do try to reduce trips to one every few years 🙁 this is probably going to get a bit higher as my parents age, I'm at a point where I can probably count on my fingers the number of times I'll see my father again. If I moved back to Canada we would have the opposite problem with my spouse's relatives, though, and overall we can live with a lower environmental impact here than there for a number of reasons. I wouldn't make this choice now, but it's one I have to live with.
Energy:
– Trying to only minimally heat our home — we rent, so improving insulation can only go so far, though we've made some progress with it
– We did manage to convince the landlord to get rooftop solar panels! They aren't doing much at this time of year in the UK but we are hoping for drastically reduced bills in the summer, because ooof it's expensive here
– Using energy-efficient cooking methods when possible: if I put the oven on, I'll cook several things in it, rather than using all the power to preheat it just for one part of one meal.
Other:
– avoiding plastic textiles wherever possible (though I still have trouble with finding plastic-free footwear and rainwear that actually keeps me dry, and socks and some underwear do have elastane in them, sigh; making my own brassieres is on the list, but it's pretty specialist and I am more of a generalist)
– mending clothing rather than replacing it; then repurposing it to make something else or use as household rags
– when I do buy new textiles, focusing on wool, linen and hemp rather than cotton (which uses a huge amount of water and pesticides)
– attempting to eliminate single-use plastic packaging (this is one where we have quite a bit more work to do)
– buying less stuff in general
I love that you have a preface about eco-anxiety, it's very kind of you
You might also be interested in the work of the Post Carbon Institute.
I had to leave a little comment as a "thumbs up" isn't enough to say thank you for making this video.
I pray that humanity wakes up to the destruction that we are causing and at the same time do something about it before it's way too late!
WASF, not going to fix it because we are too selfish and obstinate.
Also a mech engineer. Considering moving to alt energy like you. Enjoyed listening to your thoughts.
Humankind, like everything under the sun, will become extinct one day, and I don't see anything depressing in it. Besides, I'm not overly impressed with humanity. People leading us are good at being corrupt, or being popular, or both. Very rarely you can see a ruler who actually knows how to do something. We are currently in year 3 of this pandemic, when it all could have been over in those 40 days of quarantine – looks like medieval times were better equipped to deal with something like that. But no, people would take to the streets and protest for their right to go to the pub…
Frankly, I'm amazed that the whole planetary supply chain hasn't collapsed yet. We barely had fridges for under 100 years and we act as if it's our God given right!
But it isn't all gloom and doom. We survived 2 ice ages and at least one great flood. And I'm willing to bet that a last tourism hurrah will take place when most coastal areas will become Venices. Or maybe earth will become a second Venus in our solar system…
Those activist straped to the logs were funny! I would leave them there… 🙂
Usually i love your videos, even if i dont agree with something. But this was just a compilation of " news", bad news, quotes, narratives and propaganda. Nothing new. And no science.
I would expect more from you, a engenier, a nuclear engenier. Specialy because the main danger to humans and other species is…nuclear!
Meanwhile, feral pigs are thriving all over america, rats and cookroaches too. And a single hand of dirt still have bilions of microbiology…
Here where i live the ocean dosent seem to be rising, the clima is the same as i remember as a kid, and there are more and bigger forest…althou in the news they are always saying its becoming a desert fast!
Im just go and buy a papaya that travel the world by plane, and plan my next vacation to some tropical paradaise…and put a like on your alarmist video. I feel good to show others how worried i am!
Incredible consolidation of thoughts! Love this! I had to watch in bouts. It was tough but I love the way it flowed and explained so much from both a visceral and intellectual perspective. Always here. Always willing to help.
Black Dirt Farm – they collect local waste from nearby towns and process it into beautiful compost. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq-TkB8zZsI I have never thrown away my veg+fruit scraps (I don't even own land/house). I put them in the middle of planter pots as I transplant or have them in a garbage can w manure in winter
Excellent, excellent, discussion.
This is absolutely amazing. Thanks a ton for making this. Very well explained.
I teach environmental science so I am well aware of these issues. I like how you put everything together. Unfortunately, the fossil fuel industry spreads so much disinformation and bribes politicians to vote in their interests. So the public is either uneducated, miseducated, or they have been brainwashed to not care. Greed will be the cause of our demise.
i love you
it's so refreshing to hear someone connect environmental awareness with the actual systemic causes of the alienation from our labor, each other, and the environment itself. i really respect you mentioning labor extraction and ownership of the means of production because i think the prioritization of unnatural wealth and hoarding of wealth in general is how we got into this mess in the first place. i've always been a thinker and a problem solver so i'd be happy dedicating my life to repairing these ecosystems whether there's support behind me or not, but increased awareness/support and expanding opportunities for younger people like me who want to foster a world worth living in makes all the difference.
This video was incredible, thank you so much for putting in so much hard work and time into it. I've been looking into collapse for the last 8 months, so much of this didn't come as too much of a surprise for me. Having it all lumped together will make it easier to reach some people in my life that are on the fence.
The comments are a mixed bag of encouraging and discouraging, which pretty much explains why we are where we are right now with the (dis)belief in climate change. I was talking with my youngest kiddo (17yrs) the other day about current events and said something to the effect of: We need a huge, horrible, event to take place to get us to stop hating each other so much. So we can start to work together on the things that actually matter. I certainly don't WANT to see something horrible happen, but I have no other idea how to get the general public to come together…. Income inequality, climate, pollution, food insecurity, etc. – these are the things that we should be trying to resolve…but we can't because the people who currently control the narrative make far too much money when we aren't paying attention to THEM. So, they create reasons for us to hate each other and set us loose.
Not sure I'm making any sense, but I mostly wanted to tell you Great Job! I'm really enjoying this series of videos, thank you for all of your hard work!
True wealth comes the ground. Fossil fuels, forestry, mining and agriculture…
Etc every other business is just dollars changing hands derived from those industries.. our economy collapsing by shutting down industry is also very detrimental to our environment.
This is the real algorithm of you tube. I am surprised what a important video for humanity and Earth being ignoring by this platform.
Hey man hope you doing good. Hope the negative comments didn't get to you. It's such a polarizing subject lol. Hey I had a quick question. Whats your opinion about worm farms? The idea of introducing a non-indigenous species of worms in an area and spread it in the garden seems sketchy to me now that I think about it. What if that highly productive species spread in my area, could it compete in a unfair way with local micro organisms … I'm starting to think that my worm farm idea ain't a good idea.
Any thought on that?
We are fucked Mother Earth wants us GONE ❤️🌎❤️
That Netherlands bike network is a dream. 😍
I wish billionaires wanted to use their money to help people on earth instead of sending them to space.
You should read braiding sweet grass. I rented the audio book from my library.
Good video. I hope it reaches people who need to hear it.