We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Fracking puts squeeze on drought-stricken farmers

Click here to access article by Lauren McCauley from Common Dreams
Through an examination of industry-compiled fracking data and the US Department of Agriculture's official drought designations, AP reveals that by driving up the price of water and burdening already depleted aquifers and rivers, the high-polluting and water-intensive shale oil and gas removal process is placing an increasing threat on states currently suffering from ongoing drought.
The symptoms that illustrate humanity's approach to ecological limits are surfacing almost daily. And, the symptoms are starting to interact in the Earth's ecology. Here we see that the new energy technology of shale fracking impacting the ability of farmers to grow food economically due to conditions of drought brought on by global warming.

Of course, what is driving all of these threatening factors is the underlying system of capitalism which requires cancerous like growth, and growth in turn requires the burning of more fossil fuels causing more climate destabilization. If humanity cannot better adapt to the ecological system on which it depends, humanity will disappear from the Earth. To live in harmony with our Earth, the message is clear: we simply must eliminate the social-economic system of capitalism and construct another that can support human life without destroying the conditions that support human life. 

Friends of the Earth Europe have run a series of articles regarding the use of GMO crops that require pesticides, and they serve to illustrate the same maladaptive human-Earth interactive processes. In this series we see pesticide components showing up in our bodies and likely having dangerous health effects. See if you can identify the underlying capitalist forces that are driving these effects.