Message-ID: <36522E96.29B4F199@netlink.com.au>
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1998 13:19:02 +1100
From: rc&am <rcollins@netlink.com.au>
Reply-To: rcollins@netlink.com.au
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To: PROGRESSIVE POPULATION NETWORK <ppn@csf.colorado.edu>
Subject: Re: two fundamentals
References: <v04003a00b277bf14163d@[205.134.222.98]>
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Francis G. Bartlett wrote:

> using agriculture without compensating for its eventual effects

francis,

this seems to me to be the most pertinent point in your post.  there is a distinction betwen agricultural practices that do, and kinds of agricultural practices that do not, recreate the conditions wherein the land etc is capable of sustaining such agricultural practices without depletion and/or eventual collapse, and in some cases with the capacity for an enhancement of the life of the flora and fauna.  this means that agriculture per se is not a problem - what is a problem are the kinds of practices which have no regard for nature as the source of all values.

also, it is not entirely true to think that only humans engage in agriculture: as anyone with a vegie patch has observed (sometimes despondently) ants farm aphids in a very clear sense.  we could debate the implications of such a relationship (whether it is good or bad for the aphids or ants), but the point still holds that this is a pastoral realtionship that occurs outside and despite human practices and makes the life of both the aphids and ants possible.

angela