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Theology of Ecology Outline
I would like to use the Return of Prodigal Son to illustrate the present day crisis of global warming. The story tells us that the Prodigal son took his money and went to a far away country. Now, this far away country could mean free trade in other parts of the world. Now, the free trade of today is the globalization of free market which is called World Trade Organization and the key component of this WTO is the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). The evil of this TRIPS is the monopoly by the intellectual property rights protection on life related items, such as air, water and seeds. These are life related common property of nature and human race and they are not trade related. Worst of all, there is even the monopoly on the Terminator Seeds protected by intellectual property rights by the WTO.
I strongly feel that Family Organic Farming will Reduce Global Warming. And now I would like to present this theme separately as follows.
First, Family. Family farming is fast disappearing especially first in the western world. This means that industrial scale farming will eventually take over the entire agriculture production. This will also mean that farming will become less sustainable due to the increase use of chemical fertilizers, chemical pesticides, GMO seeds, heavier mechanization and ground water depletion. All these will consume energy to make them and will increase greenhouse gas production in making them, and tremendous increase in global warming. Soils with chemical fertilizers can not retain moisture very well and the water vapour escaping from the soils together with the nitrous oxide (N2O) of the chemical fertilizers will contribute more to the global warming than the carbon dioxide. However, family farming is labour intensive and which holds the family together with examples from the Hutterite and Amish families. Since it is more labour intensive, it will employ more people and therefore, reduce unemployment in the world. Family farming is also locally produced and locally consumed which cuts down on energy consumption in transportation. And increasing family farming will increasingly bring back population from the city to the farm and will cut down car driving and hopefully will also cut down greenhouse gas production and reduce global warming.
Secondly, Organic. Organic means life. It is the Tree of Life. It is the Divinely Ordained or the Chinese will call that Heavenly Mandate. In the West, Organic farming is also known in Europe as Bio-dynamic farming which also means life or life force. In the West, manure is considered as unhealthy. Therefore, the organic farmers in the West often grow cover-crops of legumes, for example Alfalfa is the chief one. The advantages of growing alfalfa are manifold. The roots of alfalfa can fix nitrogen of the air for use as free nitrogen fertilizers. Many farmers like it because it is free. This way they do not need to use chemical fertilizers which will destroy the soil structure in the long run. Why do plants need nitrogen? The micro-organisms in the roots of the legumes will transform atmospheric nitrogen into ammonia, and from ammonia into chlorophyll and enzymes. Together they will perform photosynthesis and plant growth. In both operations, they will fix carbon dioxide and water into carbohydrates.
Usually, farmers will plough legumes into the soil to use them as green manures. Green manures has organic fertilizers, micro-organisms and fibres to provide the soil with nutrition and structures. Such organic soil can retain moisture much longer in the event of drought compared with soil of chemical fertilizers which actually are inorganic salts. In short, organic soils retain water and resist heat because the specific heat of water is higher than any materials in the soil. It takes a lot of energy of the sun to evaporate water and it does not take too much sun’s energy to heat up the ground without moisture. The desert is an example. The desert is much much hotter than organic farm land. When the hot air is rising up from the desert it will move the clouds away and the rain will fall in other places cooler than the desert. That’s why the desert gets less rain. The difference lies in water content of the two. So organic farm lands can resist heat and reduce the reflected sun’s energy back into the air and thus can reduce direct global warming. The moisture that the soil of organic farming retains is the same as the water cooling the engine. The moisture retained by the organic soil will act like all the forest of Canada to suck up carbon and produce oxygen and produce a shield against global warming.
The greenhouse gas, the carbon dioxide is twice heavier than air itself. Since it is heavier, it will come into contact with soil first. Also, carbon dioxide is quite soluble in water. Together, photosynthesis and plant growth will absorb carbon dioxide from the air and with increased solubility of carbon dioxide in the soil moisture, organic farming will absorb more carbon dioxide from the air into the ground. It must be mentioned here that corbon dioxide soluble water will form weak acid, such a weak acid will react with a weak base namely carbonates of any minerals. In so doing, it will release the minerals for absorptions by the roots. And that is why organic food is more delicious and it has more nutrition than non-organic food. Carbon dioxide is the greenhouse gas which is responsible for global warming. Increased absorption of the green house gas into the ground will decrease global warming. Therefore we may say that organic farming by the various reasons just stated will reduce global warming.
Third, Family Organic Farming. Ever since the Industrial Revolution of some two hundreds years ago, population has moved from the farms to the cities. Today in the developed world some 99% of the people are living in the cities with only 1% percent left doing the agriculture production. With 1% of population feeding the other 99%, this 1% will have to resort to non-sustainable way of food production. However, family organic farming is beginning to slowly increase in a sustainable way. Attempts have been made to destroy this gradual increase of organic farming for reason of monopoly. This is done by introducing GMO alfalfa seeds with the hope that GMO will contaminate the soil, the plants and the food by GMO alfalfa green manures. By the way, alarming reports say that 70% of bees have died off in North America and 20% of bees are equally affected in Europe. Preliminary suspicion has been that these bees have been affected by GMO pollens.
Therefore, the traditional Chinese social structure is in the order importance. First, the scholar at the top, then the farmers, then the artisan, then the merchants, then the soldiers. One may ask why put scholar at the top? The scholar are the ones who study the classics and who upholds the value of classics which promotes family farming as the Mandate of Heaven and the foundation of the Chinese civilization.