September 2010
Could this be true? Could the use of carbon fuel, extracted from deep into the earth, whether coal or crude, be compared to the apple in Eden, that fateful fruit that set us off on the wrong track? The word ‘track’ reminds me of 1939 when, in grade 5 of the J.C. Wirtz School in Groningen, the teacher told us that some religious fanatics saw the inauguration of the first train between Amsterdam and Haarlem in 1839, as the work of the Devil. The class found this notion absurd, of course. Now I am not so sure.
I was thinking about this while weeding my extensive vegetable garden on a humid day, right after torrential rains. Hoeing is hard work, subject to sun-stroke and bug-bites, yet eerily reminiscent of Genesis 3 which mentions toil, thorns, thistles and painful sweat, a far cry from farmers in air-conditioned, stereo-equipped tractors, fully fed on fossil fuel, mingling so-called Monsanto super seeds with Round-up, generating super weeds in the process.
Oh, that oil thing again. Yet, since 1981, the quantity of oil extracted from the earth has exceeded new oil discoveries by an ever-widening margin. In 2008, the world pumped 31 billion barrels of oil, but discovered fewer than 9 billion new barrels. World reserves of conventional oil are in a free fall, decreasing every year.
It can’t be denied: food is oil and oil is food. Tractors use gasoline or diesel fuel. Irrigation pumps use diesel, natural gas or coal-fired electricity. Fertilizer production also is energy-intensive. Natural gas is used to synthesize the basic ammonia building block in nitrogen fertilizers. The mining, manufacture and international transport of phosphate and potash fertilizers all depend on oil. The glib answer to the question of how we can end world hunger has always been to focus on more technology. Unfortunately this requires even more fuel and more Climate Change.
I am afraid that the Christian answer to less oil-consumption is whipping our bodies in shape and use muscle power, and so become re-acquainted with working without the ‘convenient’ carbon-powered tools, a definite no-no in the Kingdom to come.
When I started my garden 35 years ago, the soil was almost pure sand covered by a teeny-weeny bit of topsoil, enough to sprout stubborn weeds. So, in my wheelbarrow, I hauled untold many loads of decade old manure from a neighboring farm: pure black soil, one hundred percent unadulterated goodness, almost worth its weight in gold. This I worked into the sand, so that now, after more than three decades, aided by continuous increments of compost, my original sandy patch is a dark, loamy, fertile plot on which I grow potatoes, beans, raspberries, kale of course, lettuce galore, tomatoes, beets, carrots, everything. Every spring, black flies notwithstanding, I double dig my garden, and form raised beds. All hard, healthy work, and very satisfying: also a real nest-egg when troubling times arrive. And they are on the horizon.
I am a news-freak: subscribe to umpteen magazines, and view numerous news sources every day: believe me, things out there are getting more frightening by the day. I know that our press hates to publish bad news: it’s bad for business. After reading Barbara Ehrenreich’s Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World, I know that I am right when I voice the odd negative comment: I am merely acting as a human, calling a spade a spade. It reminds me of Jesus, who, in Luke 12, states that he came to bring division, even within the most intimate relationships. There He also tells us to be culturally aware, and interpret what goes on in the world lest we be fooled by false appearances.
But back to my 50 acre plot, the little piece of earth that I may call my own, and for which I will have to give account on the Day of Judgment. It’s typical Eastern Ontario terrain: bush, swamp, rock, and some arable land, and since I am not a farmer, I have planted most of the open spaces with trees, both silver maple and pine, thousands of those, made possible in the good times, when I could purchase them for a penny a piece and got 10 pennies for planting them.
Our oldest son gave me a book by Diana Beresfors-Kroeger The Global Forest. In it this botanist-medical biochemist-poet tells us that “A healthy tree with a wide canopy around the house will significantly reduce particulate pollution…. They form a living wall for health and a basic barrier to the pillage of pollution.”
Get ready for Christ’s return: plant a tree, get a veggie garden, shop at farmers’ markets, drive less, walk or bike more, always keep the Kingdom in mind.
Bert Hielema lives in Tweed, Ont., 5.6 km from the village, where the recently repaved highway has room for a bike, a real blessing. His blog is “hielema.ca.”