Balance

Large centralized concerns considered by humans as “too big to fail” are in fact, bloated unbalanced systems that would die under their own weight–without support from the nation. Infrastructure disruptions, supply chain disruptions, subsystem disruptions, market disruptions, processing level disruptions, economic disruptions, human mistakes, energy constraints, and climate wakes all declare gargantuan systems defenseless against any intense alteration. Weather events can cause simultaneous damage to control and production facilities, as well as key suppliers, exposing climate-induced choke points for important products. There would be no Gaian bailout for the damage. Our planet has no notion of too big to fail. Immense centralized concerns are dinosaurs.

Even so, the subject here is balance, not size.

Of the many issues associated with the changing climate, food sits high on the list of important products. Hydroponics at the community level supported by intelligent local planning and design promotes a resilient system that can quickly adjust to the changing poise of our climate. Small scale, non-circulating hydroponics can grow considerable amounts of food. By small scale, I mean neighborhood-sized hydroponic systems as well as family-sized hydroponic systems. Large industrial farms have their place as well; the efficiencies of those systems are a tribute to intelligence, science, resourcefulness, and our creativity as a species. If these large systems were in equilibrium with their environment, they would be perfect–but they produce excessive waste, require uniformity, and foster disease. Too big a target, too dependent on technology, too needy of exterior support mechanisms, the tenets of extinction prowl our food system–because of the priorities employed to build industrial farms and the metric (more is better) used to define success. Think of small-scale farming as a stabilizer, a hedge fund against starvation and revolution.

Did you know some of us still ignore balance, believing bigger is better?

Current wisdom says we could never be stupid enough to hobble our chances of success as a species by restricting food production. Terminator seeds, Zombie seeds, enhanced pest resistance, these items are recognized as the leading edge of big wedge–famine. Yet, some multinational manufacturers retain plans to produce seeds that cannot reproduce–or crops that can only reproduce with the application of proprietary chemical compounds. Then there is the cross-pollination issue: when a sterile strain causes a non-sterile strain to become sterile. Consider why over-sized seed companies would want to limit the use of second-generation seeds. Farmers, for millennia, have used their fields in the production of seeds for the next season. This can cut into larger corporate profits and limit corporate growth. So companies assume crops that produce infertile seeds would be a windfall to seed company profits, the stock price, and the overall economy. They retain technology that allows for the delivery of product that produces non-viable offspring. Corporate tactics that seize our original sustainable industry: farming, and turn it into a non-sustainable, non-resilient business dependent on economics. Should food be a cog in the money machine just when we need more resilient systems, not less resilient systems?

The idea is not to deride corporate policy or growth. The point here is this: Regardless of future implementation, a mania for BIGGER has injected a new randomness into the food supply, and it has traction; while a system for stability, like hydroponics, has far less traction. How odd.

From one standpoint, risking famine to enhance corporate profits appears idiotic; yet by the logic of economics, it seems a rational risk. Rather than this being an argument about which standpoint is correct, I am here to promote lucidity on the following topic: The energized ecosystem includes us. A concept far less banal than you might first suppose. Consider that our species may be moving towards augmented randomness in our procedures, promoted by our ties to the planet. We are compounding future challenges by not recognizing that the over-energized climate already impacts our actions. This clarity is a prominent step towards environmental balance for our species:

The climate may be driving nonlinearity into our actions–as if we needed help with that.

Perhaps some of the mule-brained responses we have seen regarding anthropogenic forcing of the radiative balance are part of a feedback loop for nourishing random events; special delivery from the planet through one of its components, us. Consider this occasionally whispered bit of wisdom, “The climate is getting dangerous so I am going to take care of me and mine. Therefore, my friends and I are going to produce as much product (oil, shale gas, coal, whatever) as we can. After all, more is better. That way we can protect others with a rickety economy, and ourselves with extra wealth.” Yup, that’s rational.

In the past, the solution was extracting resources to facilitate change. Now we must determine how to rebalance resources to promote permanence as we transition to the energized planetary imperatives. The vector towards an economy system based on balance is underway, whether we like it or not. This will also foster large production systems–environmentally balanced production systems–once we get it correct.

Lastly, regarding hydroponics, the development of a stabilizing system for growth and retention of nutrients on a neighborhood level, as well as viable seed stock, deserves an immediate effort at the community level. Part of that planning should include making sure the seed stock and storage methods will always be under local control. We cannot compromise food production as the climate, the economy, and perhaps Homo sapiens, moves into a more random bearing.

After all, and before all, balances are what our planet, our body, and our universe are all about–regardless of inherent scale.