Sustainable Wedesday: Overfishing

The December 2012 issue of Cruising World* is a "green" edition: meaning it is full of "green" things and information about the cruising / sailing life. Included is an interview / article by Paul Greenberg of Four Fish fame. The article "Overfishing: What Sailors Should Know" (20-22) includes the following questions by Crusing World (I'm purposely only giving you the questions to perk your curiousity):

"CW: Let's start with the word overfishing. A lot of us don't really know what it is. What is overfishing?"

"CW: How do you stop overfishing?"

"CW: Then does it really matter which fish we eat?"

"CW: Does that mean that you're against farmed fish?"

"CW: Speaking of local ports, if I own a sailboat, what can I do in my home port to help fish populations?"

"CW: So we should eat a lot more farmed oysters and mussels?"

     By the way, I learned something new with Greenberg's answer. I didn't realize that "mussells actually have massive amounts of heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids - nearly as much as salmon." I wonder how many mussells one has to eat, however, to compair with a serving of salmon.

"CW: Is there anything we can do differently to help the ocean?"

"CW: But is it still OK for me to throw out a line while under sail and catch fish for dinner?"

"CW: With overfishing, global warming, ocean acidification, energy and mineral mining of the ocean floor - is the ocean doomed?"

And what are Paul Greenberg's Dos and Don'ts about eating and fishing? From the side bar (21):

Dos

- Buy seafood from small-scale fishermen who use gear that does not harm the bottom and that doesn't kill untargeted species.

- Find a community-supported fishery near you. Start your CSF search with the Northwest Altantic Marine Alliance (namanet.org/csf) and Local Catch (www.localcatch.org).

- If you eat farmed fish, choose Arctic char and barramundi.

- Cooperate with shellfish farmers in coastal waters near you.

- Eat more farmed oysters and mussels.

- If you're sailing in state-regulated waters, check first with state fish-and-game authorities so you know the regulations. When in federal waters, be suer toe check the federal regulations.

- When you fish, make use of barbless and circle hooks.

Don'ts

- Don't dump raw sewage overboard. It contributes to an overabundance of nutrients, and this eoxgenated the marine enviornment.

- If you're fishing from your boat, don't use treble hooks.

- If you have a choice between a motor and a sail, sail.

Blessed Be,

Joel

___
* I thought this article and issue would be on-line, as the magazine is in the library. But apparently, it's not quite up yet. We'll have to wait for the links.

The Universe is God's - Madeleine L'Engle

The Universe is God's

A while ago when I was at Berea College in Kentucky I was asked the usual earnest questions about creationism vs. evolution.
   I laughed and said that I really couldn't get very excited about it. The only question worth asking is whether or not the universe is God's. If the answer is YES! then why get so excited about how? The important thing is that we are God's, created in love. And what about those seven days? In whose time are they? Eastern Standard Time? My daughter in San Francisco lives in a time zone three hours earlier than mine. In Australia, what time is it? Did God create in human time? Solar time? Galactic time? What about God's time? What matter if the first day took a few billennia in our time, and the second day a few billennia more?
   I told the student at Berea that some form of evolution seems consistent with our present knowledge, and that I didn't think that God put the fossil skeletons of fish in the mountains of Nepal to test our faith, as some creationists teach. But if I should find out tomorrow that God's method of creation was something quite different from either creationism or evolution, that would in no way shake my faith, because that is not where my faith is centered.

****
Madeleine L'Engle. Glimpses of Grace: Daily Thoughts and Reflections. HarperSanFrancisco: 1996. 282-3.

Attunement through Breathing

And the Breath of God swept across the face of the waters

~ Genesis 1:2

The 10th day out I suddenly noticed that my breathing was in tune with slow breathing swells of the ocean, writes Pat(ricia) Henry in By the Grace of the Sea: a Woman's Solo Odyssey Around the World. It appears that Pat was suddenly surprised by this, yet expecting it, too. She only mentions this while crossing the Atlantic, but then mentions that as it was day 10, she was finally in sequence with the ocean and a trade wind passage, something she had experienced on two other long passages.

Have you ever had times in which you have suddenly found yourself in sequence with the environment around you? Have you had an experience of being at oneness with the Divine? Did you long for them to continue? How did these come about? How did you keep this attunement going? How did you lose it? How can you get it back?

Blessed Be

Joel

Hymns of Harmony

[At the going away party, I felt] grateful to be alive then and there with such good fortune and so many loving, special friends. It was almost too much for me, and I had to wander off to the edge of the redwoods to be alone for a little while. I started listening to the insects absently, until I began to hear patterns and waves of patterns in their music. I could hear one chorus end and another start and hear the creatures all shift and syncopate their music to the new wave, and I realized, for the first time in my life, astounded, that they weren't making random noises, that they were actually singing in huge harmonies, harmonies of sweeping waves, harmonies involving thousands of voices! Ripples of subtle shifts were repeated as heard and transmitted for as far in any direction as I could focus my hearing. I looked up at the sky and the clouds and the stars and moon, and I looked at the silhouettes of the magnificent trees around me, the motion of the branches in the gentle wind. I thought of my many friends who loved me, .... I felt that rare oneness with the universe, that sense that maybe it all does mean something. I felt complete.

~ Reuel Parker

I think this sums up why we need "wild places."
How do we remain connected to the wider/larger harmonies of the world, with God's creation, with a sense of Paradise here and now?
As people on the water, where do we find these moments of astounding connection?
How do we share them with others?
How do they shape our lives as Beloved Children of God?
How do we join in this hymn of praise?

Blessed Be

A Book Review: Harlan Hubbard's Shantyboat

In 1944, Harlan (an artist and viola/violin player), and his new wife Anne (a librarian and cello player),  build a shantyboat on the shore of the Ohio River (at Brent, just downstream from Cincinnati) and drift down to the Gulf of Mexico.

I had no theories to prove. I merely wanted to try living by my own hands, independent as far as possible from a system of division of labor in which the participant loses most of the pleasure of making and growing things for himself. I wanted to bring in my own fuel and smell its sweet smoke as it burned on the hearth I mad made. I wanted to grow my own food, catch in the river, or forage after it. In short, I wanted to do as much as I could for myself, because I had already realized from partial experience the inexpressible joy of so doing (Hubbard, 38).

They spend two years after the construction learning their "apprenticeship" to river life, and growing a garden along the shore to stock up their provisions. Down the Ohio they go, stopping at Payne Hallow after a winter of drifting. Here they set about growing a large garden, fishing and bartering for eggs and milk during the spring, summer and fall before setting off down the river again. Little do they know at the time, that they will return to Payne Hallow and homestead there. The next spring, they stop at Brizzle's Bluff on the Cumberland River. Again a season is spent growing garden crops before setting out for another winter drifting, this time moving quickly to the Mississippi. Their next layover is at Natchez. Then the following winter they are off again, getting to New Orleans in March, 1950. The total distance is 1385 miles.
One of the interesting things about this voyage, and the book, is that Harlan never mentions the United States is fighting World War II, nor that the war ends, while they are drifting down the river. This story is told with delight, humor and an overriding sense of passion about living life. Lest you think they are a young couple, Harlan is 44 and Anne 41 when they marry. And, as Wendell Berry points out, this experience shapes their relationship to one another and the world around them. In some ways, their homesteading is a continuation of this way of life.
Many people have an idea that cruising, or shantyboating, costs lots of money. But it needn't. I'm not saying the life that the Hubbards lived on their shantyboat is for everyone, but I will say that their life provides a different way to live, one that is full of time for leisure as well as work. (For those familiar with the Nearing's books on the Good Life, you may find some similarities here).
By traveling every winter, the Hubbards were able to use the strength of the rivers' currents to move their boat/home. Their only other power was of a human kind (sweeps on the shantyboat, oars on the john boat) plus a few times in which they are towed a short distance. This allows them to grow/catch their own food, and by canning, keep it until they are able to grow more. For eggs and milk (and the like) they barter what they have for what they don't (i.e. catfish for milk and eggs). For heat, and other supplies, they use drift wood.
Harlan lived, as Berry points out, a life of faith: "What we need is at hand" (Berry, 93). Is this not truly seeing the world as a place of abundance?

How are we living? Are we living in ways that give us growth: in spirit, in character, in creativity, in accomplishment, in pleasure, in joy?
Here's to a New Year filled with this kind of growth!
Blessed Be
Rev. Joel

***
See Harlan Hubbard's Shantyboat: A River Way of Life. (University of Kentucky Press, 1953) and Wendell Berry's Harlan Hubbard: Life and Work. (University of Kentucky Press, 1990).
Or visit the website devoted to the Hubbards: Harlan Hubbard.com

Advent 3, 2011

Advent Readings for the 3rd Sunday in Advent:
Isaiah 61:1-4, 8-11; Psalm 126; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-24; John 1:6-8, 19-28

Eternal God, in your providence you made all ages
    a preparation for the kingdom of your Son.
Make ready our hearts for the brightness of your glory
    and the fullness of your blessing in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

(The Book of Worship 1944, Alt.)

Lighting of the Advent Candles: Third Sunday

We light this candle as a symbol of Christ our Joy.
May the joyful promise of your presence, O God,
    make us rejoice in our hope of salvation.
O come, O come, Emmanuel.

(United Methodist Book of Worship)

This week I am discussing the environment that Jesus was born into: not in terms of politics and economics, but the physical environment, the land. I do not have any direct references to these conditions, so I will have to extrapolate.

Peasant is an interactive term for farmers who are exploited and oppressed - a definition presuming that somewhere there must be exploiters and oppressors. ... aristocrats "live off" peasants. Granted that they so live off, where, then, did they live off? In cities, of course. In agrarians empires, peasants and elites imply, in other words, peasants and cities. A peasant without a city is simply a happy farmer. To rephrase Kautsky: cities "live off" peasants.*

Three final comments on peasants and cities. From Robert Redfield: "There were no peasants before the first cities. And those surviving primitive peoples who do not live in terms of the city are not peasants" (31).  From George Foster: "The primary criterion for defining peasant society is structural - the relationship between the village and the city (or the state)" (8). From Moses Finley: "The peasant was an integral element in the ancient city" (1977:322). It is necessary, once and for all, to stop confusing isolated with rural with peasant and to start taking the term peasant as it is used in cross-cultural anthropology and archeologists who do not will simply talk past one another forever. Peasants and cities go hand in hand. They are the necessarily twin sides of an oppressive or exploitative system. **

I know this is "political" rather than "land" based, however, it is necessary to see how cities and peasants interact. Take a look at how much "land" a city would have required in the Galilee to survive, especially when the cities are Roman in nature.

Andrew Wallace-Hadrill ... notes the symbolic interaction of water, aqueduct, and bath: "The relationship [of town and country] is more visible if we picture the tentacles spread out by the Roman town into its hinterland in the forms of aqueducts [rather than roads]: symbolically siphoning off ... the resources of the land into the urban center, to feed the public baths where the imported water acts as a focus of sociability, and as a symbol of the 'washed' and civilized way of life that rejects the stench of the countryman. Implicit in the aqueduct is a dynamic of power, flowing between country and town; and if we wish to represent the dynamic as exploitative, we may extend our picture to the sewers to which the water eventually flows ... as an image of the wasteful consumption of the city" (x). Even if the peasants did not miss the water, the high material viability and great costs of aqueducts underlined another flow from country to city, that of taxes and supplies. ... Mireille Corbier adds, "Among the images which evoke the way cities siphoned off resources from their territory, we may briefly recall two centripetal movements: the channeling of water and the stockpiling of grain" (222). ***

Even if the peasants may not have needed the water, I'm sure the land noticed. Crossan spends an entire section on looking at the resources that the two Galilean cities (Sepphoris and Tiberias) consumed, the result being that these two towns, strangely omitted from the Gospels, consumed more than the surrounding countryside could produce.

One more distinction that bears repeating, the land was now seen as a commodity itself, and the peasants were becoming landless and watching things turn for the worse.

When one knows that one's own live depends upon the land, one tends to it as best one can. I don't imply that one cannot know more about caring for one's own land. Merely, I am pointing out that the relationship between a piece of land that will be passed down to heirs and has been inherited is different than land one is only working for someone else. It is the exceptional farmer who treats both sets of land similarly, if not the same. Nor am I implying that the Romans didn't have anything to contribute. Apparently erosion has been a long standing problem in the region. Roman terraces are still in evidence in the region.

We are left with a feeling that the land was deeply under stress in this period. A period into which Jesus was born.

Here's a pdf link I found that examines the current "land" issues in the region: www.kintera.org

Next week, I plan on briefly presenting how Jesus responds.

__________

* Crossan, John Dominic. The Birth of Christianity. 216.
** Crossan. 218 (quoting: Redfield, The Primitive World and Its Transformation; Foster, "Introduction, What Is a Peasant?" Peasant Society: A Reader; Finley, "The Ancient City: From Fustel de Coulanges to Max Weber and Beyond" Comparative Studies in Society and History.
*** Crossan. 215-6. (Wallace-Hadrill. "Introduction" ; Corbier. "City, Territory and Taxation" )

Patagonia's Don't Buy Advertisement

Patagonia ran an advertisement on Black Friday (the Friday after the USA Thanksgiving that for some strange reason starts the Christmas shopping season) and Cyber-Monday that I only heard about on the radio. So I went and did a quick Internet search.
Here's the advertisement:


Patagonia (PDF)/Promo image


While this advertisement may bring more people to Patagonia to shop, I don't believe that this is the reason for the running the ad in the New York Times. I do think Patagonia is very concerned about their (and our) environmental impact. As they say, there is more to the purchase price:

It’s Black Friday, the day in the year retail turns from red to black and starts to make real money. But Black Friday, and the culture of consumption it reflects, puts the economy of natural systems that support all life firmly in the red. We’re now using the resources of one-and-a-half planets on our one and only planet. ...

The environmental cost of everything we make is astonishing. Consider the R2® Jacket shown, one of our best sellers. To make it required 135 liters of water, enough to meet the daily needs (three glasses a day) of 45 people. Its journey from its origin as 60% recycled polyester to our Reno warehouse generated nearly 20 pounds of carbon dioxide, 24 times the weight of the finished product. This jacket left behind, on its way to Reno, two-thirds its weight in waste.

I also find their adding two new "R's" to Reduce, Reuse, Recycle a great insight and idea:

REDUCE
WE make useful gear that lasts a long time
YOU don’t buy what you don’t need
REPAIR
WE help you repair your Patagonia gear
YOU pledge to fix what’s broken
REUSE
WE help find a home for Patagonia gear you no longer need
YOU sell or pass it on
RECYCLE
WE will take back your Patagonia gear that is worn out
YOU pledge to keep your stuff out of the landfill and incinerator
 REIMAGINE
TOGETHER we reimagine a world where we take only what nature can replace 

In the course of the search, I also found the article below ("Don't Buy This Shirt Unless You Need It").

I couldn't help but find it a bit serendipitous after my last Monday's blogging about how we tend to attempt to purchase items with a long life (sometimes we choose wisely, sometimes not).

Patagonia Article:

Don't Buy This Shirt Unless You Need It by Yvon Chouinard & Nora Gallagher 

(Late Summer 2004)

 
Chouinard and Gallagher start by talking about the Chumash Nation that lived in Northern California, near the Patagonia headquarters, and "Gerald Amos, a member (and former chief) of the Haisla Nation in Kitamaat, northwest Canada" as examples of other types of economies before continuing with these tid-bits. Note that I have included them here to prompt you to read the article.

Such lives are often called subsistence, which brings to mind the barest, hardscrabble survival. But there is another way to look at them. At Patagonia we choose to call them “economies of abundance.” In an economy of abundance, there is enough. Not too much. Not too little. Enough. Most important, there is enough time for the things that matter: relationships, delicious food, art, games and rest.

Many of us in the United States live in what is thought to be abundance, with plenty all around us, but it is only an illusion, not the real thing. The economy we live in is marked by “not enough.” ...

We don't have enough money, and we also don’t have enough time. We don’t have enough energy, solitude or peace. We are the world’s richest country, yet our quality of life ranks 14th in the world. As Eric Hoffer, a mid-20th century philosopher, put it, “You can never get enough of what you don’t really need to make you happy."

And while we work harder and harder to get more of what we don’t need, we lay waste to the natural world. Dr. Peter Senge, author and MIT lecturer, says, “We are sleepwalking into disaster, going faster and faster to get to where no one wants to be.”

We might call this economy, the one we live in, the economy of scarcity. (page 1)

Lest you think the economy of abundance is gone with the old Chumash, consider Europe. Europeans still buy only a few well-made clothes and keep them for many years. Their houses and apartments tend to be smaller than ours; they rely on public transportation, and small, efficient home appliances and cars. Europeans enjoy a 25 percent higher quality of life than Americans (while we consume 75 percent more than they do). (page 2)

I've blogged about this before. Check out What's the Economy For Anyway? In the essay by the same name, John de Graaf explores how the United States has shrunk in overall happiness/health/lifestyle while Europe has gained in these areas. In fact, Europeans have caught up to the USA in economic "production," too.

In the economy of abundance, wild salmon are given back rivers in which to run. Trees grow to their natural height. Water is clean. A sense of mystery and enchantment is restored to the world. We humans live within our means and, best of all, we have the time to enjoy what we have. (page 2)

St. Basil's Prayer for the Animals

Remaining connected to our surrounding environment, remains one of the things that excites us about moving aboard. For instance, today is a blowy rainy day. We hear the wind in the rigging, feel the boat move to the gusts, and hear the rain hit the deck. Living aboard invites us to pay attention to what is happening around us. We notice when the Harbor is having an algae bloom as the water turns a red. We notice when there has been lots of phosphorescence at night, as oars drip green and wakes glow. We are invited to notice. In the noticing the world around us invites us to join in songs of praise.

Noticing the environment, and indeed environmentalism is nothing new. In fact, I would hazard a guess that a blatant disregard for our environment is a rather recent development. So here is a quote from St. Basil the Great (c. 329-379 ce/ad) inviting us to pay attention, to mourn, the change our ways, and to celebrate with all of creation as the Kingdom of God becomes fulfilled in our midst.

O God, enlarge within us the sense of fellowship with all living things, our brothers the animals to whom you gave the earth as their home in common with us. We remember with shame that in the past we have exercised the high dominion … with ruthless cruelty so that the voice of the earth, which should have gone up to you in song, has been a groan of travail. May we realize that they live not for us alone but for themselves and for you, and that they love the sweetness of life.

~ St. Basil the Great, c. 329-379 CE

 

Nature Deficit Disorder

During the middle of summer, with many of us out on the water, in the woods, and otherwise enjoying nature, we may not give much thought to being deficient in nature "vitamins." The following is a quote from a men's devotional that a reader sent in after seeing last weeks Creation-Care 365 article. Hope you are enjoying the awe of nature and taking time for those free sunsets (if not sunrises)!

Day 292
Nature Deficit Disorder
My spiritual father, St. Francis, was one of the few later Christian saints who made a consistent and clear connection with nature. Yet much of Christian history has had to do with books, translations, and universities; internecine fights among academics and seminaries; and people arguing about words, salvation theories, and worship styles.
We are suffering from a major case of Christian NDD – Nature Deficit Disorder. At this point, I sincerely believe that the earth is the only thing shared enough, wise enough, suffering enough, and God-created enough to truly change most men [and women]. Get out, stay quiet, be alone, and listen long and happily. “Nature is the primary and most perfect revelation of the divine,” said St. Thomas Aquinas. It was the Bible before the Bible, and we stopped reading it.

How do I spend time with nature? How can I make that time more conducive to spiritual wonder?*

*Richard Rohr, On the Threshold of Transformation, (Chicago, Loyola Press, 2010), p 301

Living On The Margins

I've been thinking about Riparian Zones, those margins between one type of ecosystem and another; the zone where the two interact. Often one thinks of this zone as being alongside a river or creek. But what about the shoreline, the intertidal zone? It is where I and many others live.
We live at the margin, in between one ecosystem and another. It is a special place: I dare say sacred.
What happens when one ecosystem becomes unbalanced? How do we all suffer?
I, we, live on the margins.