In May our
new book Det levande (The Living)
will be published in Sweden. ”We” in this case is Ann-Helen Meyer von Bremen,
my partner, wife, co-farmer and co-writer and myself.
As can be
gleaned from the title, the book’s theme is the relation between us and the
rest of the living, nature. As the theme is an eternal point for reflection and
negotiations it is probably not surprising that we don’t land in a definitive
position on the bigger issue. Nevertheless, we believe we shed some light on
the many aspects of humans’ interactions with the rest of the living world. We
certainly have some ideas for improvements but the book is definitively not one
in the 10-things you can do to save the
planet/be a better person/have a happy life - genre.
We draw
from our own experiences from our small farm which is located into a forested
part of the country, where we try to manage land, meadow, bogs, lake and
forests in a regenerative, organic, sustainable, nature-friendly (words come
and go to describe how we can interact with and ”manage” nature in a way that
on the one hand gives humans a nice life and respects the rest of the living. I
have long lost faith in that we can find a word that encompass that without
being corrupted by the market) way. In addition, we report from various
experiences, such as a visit to the Sequoia National park in California,
fishing salmon in the lake Vänern, palm oil plantations in Sumatra just to
mention a few.
What is the
unique selling point of our book is
that we tie those practical experiences into historical, philosophical,
spiritual and political perspectives as well as to the ecological and economic
contexts. There are books that dive deep into the fascinating life of trees, eels
or mushrooms; there is research about how lichens can survive in outer space; there
are books about the spiritual or philosophical aspects of human nature
relations and books about how we are hosts to millions of bacteria. We try to
knit those many aspects together and make some sense out of it.
The term Anthropocene
which has had such an appeal the last decade is double edged. On the one hand,
it does point to the very big (mostly negative) impact humans have on the
planet, on biodiversity, on the huge cycles of carbon, nitrogen and water and
alike. It cautions us to take it easier, reduce our foot print and adjust
ourselves better to nature. On the other hand, Anthropocene can also fuel the notion
of how the exceptional creature Homo sapiens has powers bigger than nature,
that we can shape nature in the same way as the potter shapes clay.
Ecomodernists and transhumanists often talk about the Good Anthropocene, a new Golden age of humanity. In
some way this is just a continuation of the sustainable development narrative
that since the 1980s have fooled people that there are ways to eat the cake and
grow it at the same time.
Having a
farm means that we manage a piece of nature. To some extent, we shape it
according to our own minds. As everyone that ever has farmed can testify, it
doesn’t always work out the way you would like it to. Again and again, nature
limits our reach as farmers, nature strikes back, nature doesn’t always do what
we want it to do.
But has nature
really agency? Well, kind of. I am not really a believer in a Gaia or Mother
Earth with a purpose and a meaning or to ascribe intentions in a bigger sense
to the deer eating our vegetables or the moth eating our cabbage. Having said
that, it is still obvious that all the living make things happen, and that we
(humans) are not as much in control as we pretend to be - or believe we are.
Despite all
the bravado of the Anthropocene, we are to a large extent still at the mercy of
the living and dead. Even the distinction between the living and the dead is a
construct of our mind that is obsessed with categories, dichotomies etc. All
life is based on the dead matter and essential elements. Plants and animals are
dependent on the process by which lichens and roots extract minerals from rock.
And life
has created its own conditions and changed the dead planet into a wonder of
life. The story of extreme growth and the subsequent collapse of fern forests during the Carboniferous period is
a tale of that other life forms also can change the planet in ways even more than
humans have ever done. The modern industrial technosphere which underpins the
modern world is based on the dead organic matter from this period. In light of
this we are scavengers, feeding on long dead life turned into lifeless matter.
Are we also
parasites sucking life out all other life on the planet? Listening to some
environmentalists one can certainly get that impression. While there is some
truth in it, it still leads our thoughts in the wrong direction. As William
Cronon says in his essay The Trouble with Wilderness: “ if nature dies because we enter
it, then the only way to save nature is to kill ourselves.” The view that the
planet would be a better place without humans is in some way understandable but
in most ways it is illogical, inhumane and in particular not really actionable.
If we kill ourselves we will also kill nature as we know it, not only because
we will not be there to experience it. Most of the nature we can see and
experience is not wild. Even 12 000 years ago humans had transformed much
of the planet – admittedly not in the same way as we have done the least five
hundred years, but still radically. Most of the nature that people admire is
shaped or at least shared by humans.
Having said
that, it is obvious that humans today harm other life forms and ecosystems in a
negative way. Our species is engineers of ecosystems such as termites, beaver
and elephants. Of course there is a difference in scale and depth of ours
manipulations and there is also this notion of “ownership” or entitlement that
colors so much of human-nature interactions (something we explore at length in
the book). We have no unique “right” to nature’s gifts and the fact that you
“own” a piece of land, as we do, should not give you the right to exploit it.
Still, to live on (and off) the land is what we do, we just have to do it in a
lithe way. Sounds easy, but it isn’t.
The coming
months, I will expand on some of the themes of the book. Probably not too frequently
as spring is slowly arriving, cows are calving, we will be busy with the launch
of the book and associated events, I make a study for the WWF on the use of feed
in Swedish livestock farming and a building project on the farm keeps me quite
busy as well.
