Human dominion to negotiation, control out of our heads

Kathryn McCallum had said on 6/9,

I am interested in this idea of communicating the “systematic tendency to overestimate human knowledge and control…predicated on the premise of predictability” as discussed very eloquently by my friend Kate Rigby in Dancing with disaster. “It’s more like the practice of ‘contact improvisation’…”

Kathryn,

Coming back to this, I’d entirely agree that humanity is part of nature, and just feels alienated because our minds confuse us so much. We’ve been trying to force nature into the shape of our thinking rather than work with nature, so I think discussing it as a switch from dominion to negotiation is quite appropriate. Continue reading Human dominion to negotiation, control out of our heads

1 Acre of Bliss, for 1 sq mile of destruction

Eric Rimmerhad said on 6/11:

“Thanks Peter – I do like your second paragraph – though there is a catch. The UK and the US and many more relatively low-birth-rate countries cannot live within the food-production capacity of the land they live in!”

To Peter Salonius’s statement on 6/11:

‘That said, there certainly is sentiment suggesting that food aid — offered to populations that have overshot the food production capacity of the land they live on – should not be lavished on people until they institute well defined programs that WILL begin to decrease their numbers toward levels that can be supported/sustained by the productive capacity of their OWN LAND.’

and
Ashok Agrwaal responding to my comment on 6/15

I find this brief analysis by Phil Henshaw far more meaningful than reams of speculative stuff churned out by Americans in general.

 

I replied on 6/13:

Eric,

Right, and the way to measure that “unaccountable” footprint on the land, far away from the user is the trick, that I think I figured out.

It’s using the statistical principle that most dollars can’t have way below average impact, so unless you can show it, consider your spending to have average impacts.      Continue reading 1 Acre of Bliss, for 1 sq mile of destruction