When green isn’t green - and blather
Sunday, July 29th, 2007 at 8:05 amJust read this in The Age today. The jungles of Malaysia, already being logged at a rapid rate for palm oil plantations, are under further threat, it seems, from the demand for bio-fuels, which can be made out of palm oil. The article doesn’t say how much of recent palm planting has been for bio fuels, neglecting to mention that massive logging in the Malaysian forest, for timber exports and oil plantations, has been going on since long before the interest in organic fuels. But I think it does go to show that if you want to honestly live green, you have to check out the credentials of products claiming to be environmentally friendly.
I’m also posting this because of something that struck me as interesting about the Penan people who live in the threatened forests: ‘Because sharing is habitual, there is no word for “thank you”. Anthropologists recorded that anger is so rare among the Penan that 40 years after two women argued over an incident of adultery, the location was still known as “the house of hair pulling”. ‘
It was their having no word for ‘thank you’ that really interested me, but I think it’s also interesting that - if the anthroplogists are actually right, and not just seeing the Penan on their best behaviour for guests - they rarely get angry. One wonders why. The article claims that they ‘live by a gentle code’, but I would be surprised if any code has the power to do more than decrease displays of anger (in Thailand, for instance, where public displays of anger are frowned on and are not often seen, there’s still a higher murder rate per capita than the US). But I could be utterly wrong. Maybe when you live in a small community the chance of getting away with a violent crime is so low that you stay in line. Or maybe the Penan are just very content, in which case, again, why? The mere fact of living in a rainforest doesn’t make you a nice person - according to this article, the Penan are the only non-headhunting indigenous people in Borneo. And do the Penan refrain from aggressive and annoying behaviour, or is the onus on the recipient of such behaviour to shrug it off?
According to the same article - and I mistrust fannish anthropologists, but they are often the only resource one has - ‘the greatest transgression in Penan society is see hun, a term that translates roughly as “a failure to share.” Dependent on the forest for life, and each other for survival, the Penan have, in effect, institutionalized individual generosity as a means of insulating the group as a whole from the inevitable uncertainties inherent in a hunting and gathering way of life.’
Is it this security, perhaps, and the sense of being cared for, that keeps the peace?
At the end of the article the anthropologist tells a story which is no doubt intended to illustrate the wisdom of the Penan, versus ‘our’ pride and discontent: ‘Several nights later there was a full moon. It reminded Asik of a story he had heard about some people who had travelled there and returned with dust and rocks. He asked if the story was true. Told that it was, he asked, after a moment of silence, “Why bother?” ‘
Doesn’t work for me. Those dust and rocks tell us about the history of the solar system; they increase our information about minerals and elements offworld; and well the anthropologist knows it. The Luciferian spirit within man - proud and discontent, questing for everything from money to the meaning of existence - may do his stress levels and his soul no good, but that spirit nonetheless carries the long-term hopes of the human race in its grubby hands. This is a splendid planet and we should take care of it; but all our eggs are in one basket here. We do, at some point, have to get ourselves beyond the earth, if we don’t wish to surrender entirely to the tides of cosmic fate - and since poor Alexander has no worlds left to conquer on this sphere, his spirit, too, is surely looking skyward. I wonder sometimes whether anger and curiosity are linked. Discontent can certainly give rise to both; but one doubts that the headhunting tribes would be any more impressed with moon rocks than the Penan man was.
Perhaps I’m thinking like a child. Enlightened people tend to pooh-pooh the idea of progress and view discontent only as a spiritual problem to be solved. I suppose I am less concerned with the spiritual evolution of humanity than our material evolution. Still, I am curious as to how the Penan have managed to make themselves so serene.
July 29th, 2007 at 8:34 am
I tend to think if life were pure happiness we’d be listless. What is happiness without misery to measure it against.
Biofuels aren’t the best idea from an environmentalists perspective, I don’t think. It’s not like there are great stocks of food just going to waste, what waste there is isn’t really all that great, so in order to generate what would at all be considered a meaningful amount you have to consume more land or feed people less. In any case, you do have to invest energy to turn agricultural product X into something that’ll burn efficiently in some sort of engine. The world would be much better served by investing the money going into biofuels into means of transporting and storing electricity more efficiently. Also, high efficiency Solar and safe nuclear power. But these things won’t be ready by “the next election cycle.” So it hardly registers on a politicians radar.
July 29th, 2007 at 2:02 pm
Why bother to go to the moon and bring back rocks? Well, why bother to go travel to the jungle and observe indigenous tribes and bring back observations about them? It’s all the same basic instinct - the instinct to explore and understand one’s reality.
I agree - I doubt the headhunting tribes would be very impressed with moon rocks either. When making sure your next meal will be available is always an immediate concern, I’m sure going to the moon would seem pretty pointless. You can’t eat the moon (no matter how often I say I’d like to…)
I’m sure that they experience the curious instinct as well. I mean, we’re all humans. It’s probably just expressed in different fashions.
July 29th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Just burn every thing.
industry BURN IT
enviroment BURN IT
Monks they can BURN themselves
fire BURN it
Burns BURN it
or just kill all humans
and if you think that is to distructive compress all humans into bricks and make a wall out of them.
THEN BURN IT
July 29th, 2007 at 4:12 pm
Dave - Brazil has the right idea, I think. They sell their sugar crop as sugar when the price is good, and when it isn’t they turn it into ethanol. But they don’t grow extra sugar just for ethanol.
The election cycle is surely the Achilles’ heel of democracy. Though Spain has built a pretty nifty new solar generator. But I don’t know if the government had anything to do with it. An Australian company is planning something similar.
Laurie - I’m sure they do too. I wonder if living in such a rich environment means that there’s always enough around you to keep your curiosity satisfied? It occurs to me that it was people who lived in deserts who were the first astronomers. Obviously the clear skies had something to do with it, but maybe they were also just bored out of their minds, and took an interest in the only thing around them that wasn’t sand?
Colin - whoa, lad. Settle down! If you want to burn something, just burn some toast, ‘k?
July 29th, 2007 at 4:35 pm
I did burn my toast and it has had me cranky all day
July 29th, 2007 at 8:39 pm
driving up the cost of foods is almost never a good idea, but using what you generated is. Extracting what you can from waste oil from friers, or waste food is fine. I’m not against efficiency or conservation, but I do oppose policies that only make you feel good. Some problems for which we can see the beginnings of a solution for we can’t yet do with any practical benifit. Any process that takes 5 units of product A, and generates 4 units of product B, which is per unit equivalent to .8 units of product A is a total loss. Which would be a simplified view of Corn - > Ethanol.
I figure in 10 or 15 years people will finally get around to seeing the foolishness of claiming ethanol is somehow magically cleaner than petrol and then the US will be sitting on a truly terrific asset. A large supply of cheep, high grade, high proof vodka.
I plan to get very drunk that year. ^^
July 30th, 2007 at 11:15 am
well at 2 cents per liter in production you can drink to till drown
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:49 am
corn -> ethanol is very inefficient and used by the anti-ethanol crowd to poo-poo the idea of ethanol as an alternative fuel. Unfortunately, the US has so much waste corn (yes, there *are* great stocks of food going to waste) due to subsidizing their corn farmers that they are pushing this band wagon and providing an easy target. The FUD arguments tend to not hold water when you replace corn with some better alternative, such as sugar. And there are follow on effects too - even if it isn’t that efficient, I’d rather see the US use their excess corn to produce fuel rather than sold as cheap cattle feed and propping up the disease ridden, grass free US beef industry that is robbing us of viable antibiotics faster than we can discover them.
And ethanol *is* magically cleaner than petrol in our cities where most of us live and breath and die of respiratory diseases. Same for hydrogen and other clean combustibles - sure, there still may be pollution generated creating the fuels but it is a) a hell of a lot more efficient generating it in bulk when compared to the very inefficient engines found in our cars and motorcycles and b) can be done away from population centres. Did you know your lifespan in Bangkok is measurably longer if you live above the 26th floor?
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:51 pm
“Why bother”?
It’s a pretty good question, and it might have more to do with immediate survival needs. Whilst the long-term survival of humans would probably depend on us getting the hell off the planet before the meteroite strikes (assuming, of course, that our genetic code isn’t irrepairably mutated by the breakdown products of all the plastic we’re so fond of) in the veiw of a tribesman living on a subsistance hunter/gatherer diet, all that effort to retrieve some dust and rocks is a waste. Keep in mind the whole energy expired vs energy gained is the main focus on surviving for all creatures. If you’re perpetually on the brink of- well, not starvation, but going hungry if dinner gets away- going to the moon would be seen as essentially useless.