Consider: Our society (our ’so-called’ advanced, developed western nations) are comprised of at least five (5) distinct generations of people who, after fifteen years of the formal educational system (jr. K – Gr. 12) have learned very little … if anything at all … of nature, ecology, ‘the environment’. And, through no fault of their own.
Is it any wonder that we have problems?
And with post-secondary, only those who pursue bio/eco studies have a real basis of understanding. But, then, in the typically ‘reductionist’ mode that doesn’t provide the basis for understanding the many aspects of emergent properties of dynamical systems – nature; Life; economics; society; climate; weather; and so much else are dynamical systems with emergent properties that cannot necessarily be understood from an a knowledge of their individual component parts.
This does not bode well.
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This lack of knowledge/understanding is so important since it is the decisions that people make (big and small) everyday that comprise ‘the economy’ and a civilized society.
The economy, in general, is the result of our social interactions. What people ‘busy’ themselves with – all day, everyday … their busy-ness, is, indeed, their ‘business’; and, ’the economy’ is the combination of everyones’ business. All of which is composed of decisions.
And virtually all of those decisions are based on a lack of knowledge/understanding … of the very ecological ‘asset base’ on which everything is absolutely dependent, and, from which everything derives.
Rectifying this situation … this eco–_social disconnect is a priority.
We can’t afford to wait for our educational system to generate this social knowledge situation. Even the unlikely ‘best case scenario’ would only ‘educate’ one generation at a time. We don’t have the time to wait many years and decades.
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We can establish/disseminate this invaluable ecological knowledge as a consequence of providing a valuable for-profit commercial gardening and property maintenance – Urban Agriculture – service.
All, while at the same time improving various air, soil, water quality; reducing auto dependency and traffic congestion; improving biodiversity, and the health of individuals/communities; and more.
Such is an integrated ’systems approach’.
Urban Agriculture (and new ecological Urban Property Maintenance) provides the means by which large numbers of people can learn, gain knowledge (by being broadly applicable/transferrable) … and do so in a sufficiently short period of time.
With this appropriately large number of people, and the appropriate amount of ‘eco-knowledge’ the necessary ‘critical mass(es)‘ can be attained to achieve systemic social ’shifts’.
Indeed, these critical masses can be utilized to achieve various systemic social shifts: to bring about an Ecological Economics, and an Eco-Capitalism; to establish the eco/enviro benefits of increased biodiversity, reduced pollution, etc.; the social benefits of healthier people … and so much more.
We can attain systemic non-reversible changes toward sustainability.
A new large scale eco knowledge/understanding will affect peoples’ decision making, and thus, have a profound positive effect on ‘the economy’ toward a thriving society.
