Blas Jacob Cabrera

red@cats.ucsc.edu

Earth Dwelling

Jude Todd

New Living

Introduction

Kaufman’s Development

Sustainable Development

Community Development

Conclusion

Introduction

One of the biggest problems we have on the earth is the exponential growth of ‘developments’ that tear down nature. Recently there has been a uprising among people who have attempted to change this destruction, but it is not enough. Here is disscussed three main outlooks that are being disscussed in today’s world. How we are dealing with nature today, as shown in Kaufman’s Development, an example of a developer out to change things, our Sustainable Development for the future, and the bettering of our community, threw Community Development. Much of what is being done today is just extending this rampage of destruction, and we need to change to a more hospitable direction. Recently we have seen hype about Sustainable development taking us into the future, and the theories that go with it. Will it actually work? Who knows, there are still implications of the theory that reflect the destructive ways of today. The environment must come before economic and personal benefits. There are other ways of developing our earth, and we must keep striving to make them endlessly better.

Kaufman’s Development

Today’s constructual developments do nothing to attempt to balance out the destruction caused to the earth. Just to build a place where a family can live they must first clear cut the land and level it in a chaos of noise, dust, and toxic chemicals all locked up in a chain linked fence. Even developers like Wallace Kaufman, the author of ‘Confessions of A Developer’, have striven since the seventies to change the ways people develop. He can see the monstrosities that are being used, but when his clients are the ones who want the roads and leveled forests, what can he do? Buyers and developers need to find their own balance to ensure our earth’s sustainability. For years Kaufman tried to work on projects that would spare as much natural environment as possible. Even when he went into a forest with his own chainsaw to cut as few trees as possible to make a road, his efforts proved futile. Still more land had to be cleared, including huge old growth, to widen the road to standardized limits. Kaufman's clients must not have understood exactly what’s involved when they demand unnecessary luxuries.

In the face of such idiocy, the only possibility we can turn to is education. People must be clear on all the possibilities in the field of ‘development’, and must know what their money is doing to the earth, and how the words of others can mislead them to costly future outcomes. ‘Development’ is a tricky word, which has an infinite number of meanings, and with that comes confusion about how to approach human development in our immediate future.

What is development anyway? The Webster’s New World Dictionary (p 170) defines ‘develop’ as: “1. To make fuller, bigger, better, etc. 2. To show or work out by degrees.” Kaufman’s ‘development’ made nothing fuller or bigger; instead he used a montage of bulldozing and clear-cutting which the buyer never hears about. This type of development needs a suitable word so even the buyer can understand its meaning, and what’s ironic is that the definition that is suitable comes in the entry right before ‘development’, which is the word ‘devastate’: “1. To lay waste; ravage; destroy. 2. To overwhelm.” As far as I can tell, today’s definition of ‘development’ is to devastate. However, there are many other ways to develop without devastation, we just need a way to differentiate between them. Devastation development could be a clear statement to Kaufman’s clients about his development. How would you like your house built, with devastation development or low-impact development? When clients only get to choose from ‘development’ there is a confusion in its meaning, but using an adjective in front helps to understand how the earth will or has been treated.

Education must also stream past definitions to the fundamental ideals for why people develop in the first place. Certan methods of constructual development have been causing destruction to the earth for about one hundred years. Before Kaufman even started his suburban development, many of his methods were problems to begin with. He mentions how investing money before the construction means more risks. He shows that he does much of his work for money so everything has to do with the amount of risk. Developers are in this business for the money and wish to take as few risks as possible. Why take risks to save the environment when you might loose money? Kaufman talks about risks that he couldn’t take because of the money, and money is the fundamental problem in all of developing and a whole lot more. Nothing good can come of anything if it is just done for money. Although it is possible to risk money, its meaning seems secondary and only lived in the mind. To actually get a statement across, Kaufman needs to take some real risks. How about hanging power lines up in trees with his own two hands clasped to the branches, forty feet off the ground instead of clearing an extra ten feet for power polls? It sounds crazy but isn’t it also crazy to kill a tree before it can hold a wire? Better yet, he needs to risk his money for the sake of the environment. As long as he has his mind on making money, no one will see him as a different developer. He admits that he is personally doing things that are wrong, but he thinks that’s just the way developers do it. When will people see that there are other ways?

Looking back to the past could bring us forward out of this rut of destruction. For thousands of millions of years, our types (animals) have been using trails to get one place from an other. The genius is that when a trail is no longer used, it disappears. Now we have cars, which need roads. Most animals on this planet don’t even know what a road is! If you look at a road as an ecosystem, it most resembles a desert where anything that enters becomes dry and dies. Not only is it hot, dry, and rough, it’s also toxic with fast moving monstrous machines that do nothing to help sustain life on this planet. This is no deterrent for Kaufman: “The roadbed must be twenty feet wide and paved.” (Orion, 1989) How can this be true? I have seen roads that are dirt and not even ten feet wide. This is the direction we must go. Dirt roads can grow back and leave no mark in a relatively short period of time. This doesn’t mean that cement is the devil, it came from the earth, didn’t it? We must use it as sparingly as possible, but when it is necessary we must balance out the death with life. For almost one hundred years there has been no balancing. We have a lot of catching up to do.

Sustainable Development

Sustainable development is a new way of looking at the possibilities of the future. We are going to have to do something drastically different if we would like to save our earth. The idea of sustainable development was first mentioned in the World Conservation Strategy of 1980. Since then, as stated by Michael Jacobs, it has become the “key concept in the integration of environmental and economic policy” (Fabian Society, 1990). A formal definition of sustainable development is: “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”(Jacobs, 1990). We must not degrade the earth and leave nothing for our children. We are tenants (leasers) of the earth. We own nothing. We are all going to die and leave this planet for our children. Luckily, sustainable development is not just a noun, but a theory which can be put into practice as stated by the Society.

“ It demands, first, that policy be directed towards a wider notion of economic well-being, which must include a proper valuation of the environment; second, that the distribution of wealth is considered as important a goal as its creation; and third, that decisions are made not simply in the interests of the current generation, but in those of future generations too.” (Jacobs, 1990).

What does that mean? Our economy needs a fundamental change that takes in account the future of our environment and this planet. Our livelihood and health now has as much to do with sustaining the future as exercising and relaxing in a hot tub helps us immediately. We must keep this planet sustainable for our lives to be worth living not just for our future and our children, but for right now.

“The economy and the natural environment are inextricably intertwined”. ( Jacobs, 1990) When developers are conflicted by choices about degrading the environment or leaving it, there is only one side they can examine, how much money they will loose if they protect the environment. There are always net benefits and profits for degrading the environment and costly losses for protecting it. This must change. The direct loss of welfare to those using the environment must appear in the budget. There must be an economic value for the environment. If the worst effects of ecological crisis are to be averted, economic and environmental pollicies must be integrated. Companies need incentives to save money by helping the environment instead of hurting it. This can be done through taxes, rewards, new technology, and other ways that haven’t been thought up yet. Taxing business for polluting, and giving rewards for keeping clean, will encourage companies to observe and act on their role in the environment. Making new technology available to everyone could easily help the pollution problem. Nothing just happens though, there is only one way to influence multimillion dollar companies.

The government is the only way to control people, running businesses or not, from abusing the environment. There is no other way to completely stop the raping of our planet. Yet, it will do no good to just pin regulation after regulation on all the companies and people. This will just bring everything to a standstill. There must be sufficient education and leadway to go along with all new regulations imposed on both business and people. These kind of regulations do exist. Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), or Cost Benefit Analysis’ (CBA), are required by law when development is allowed in a previously protected area of the environment, which happens quite frequently, where the costs and benefits of the development are assessed. The problem right now is that they are not required for anything but large constructional development. These kinds of assessments must be made compulsory for any destruction to the environment including waste and consumption. Every country, state, county, city, company, construction, business, organization, household, person, not to mention the entire globe, should have to fill out a simple assessment on their environmental impact not just for the record but to educate everyone on how they directly impact this planet. Is this ever going to happen? Not with the government we have. Unfortunately, within sustainable development theory, the only alternative to EIA’s and CBA’s is no economic valuation at all.

There are still other fundamental problems to the sustainable development theory. Some interests are “discounted” for our future. For example the ozone layer is not given full weight in CBA’s and EIA’s because it is not credited as an asset which we need right now. Is it possible to live without it? Even if you do get values for the environment you can’t just pop them into a calculator and compute answers and apply them. This whole idea is way too intertwined with economy and money. Value is a variable term when applied to money. When protecting natural land, it can be just as valuable to a rich person as it is to a poor person, neither want to see it cut down; but when asked how much money they will sacrifice to save the land, each will give a different price (Jacobs). This has been ignored too long, but first this world needs to be educated on different values, and environmental ones must come before economic. We need something separate and definite that comes before economy and money, definitely not after, as it is now, and not equal, as sustainable development wants it. The environment must come before both the economy and ourselves. We are going to have to make sacrifices. How can a California condor or a African rhinoceros have a price, what about a tree? Living things can not have prices. There is no way to put a price on any environmental subsidy. They are all priceless. We just don’t know the meaning of priceless. We think it means 0$ instead of ∞$. Prices that are placed on environmental pollution must reflect this, and we must make these prices, because as stated before, there must be a correlation between economic issues and the environment. The environment is priceless including the earth itself and not all the money in the world can be paid to destroy it. There are other ways.

Community Development

This planet is on the brink of becoming a unsustainable waste dump. There are three steps to take to balance out the destruction that we have created on this planet; and I do mean ‘we’. Even though we have not created all of these monstrosities, we are directly responsible for them and are the only ones who can do anything about it. We must act, and do it right now. Any human who blames any living organism for anything at all, is more to blame than the person who did the action. Putting blames on someone else just delays fixing problems and actually increases them. Right now there are millions of people running this country and the entire world, who don’t care what this planet looks and feels like in three hundred years, fifty years, or even ten tiny years. All they care about is their own house, their own car, and their own money. What else is there to live for? If only these people could just wake up and see it! Its right in front of their face! Live for the air, for the water, for the sun! Live for the earth! Live for the plants, insects, fish, animals, sunsets, trees, music, hills, children, and all the humans that are spilling waste into this planet as we speak! One can’t live for one’s self, one must live for others. If one only looks at their self, their life is miserable, it’s insignificant. Only others can give one the power to help this earth. That’s why we must help this planet, not for ourselves but for others. Everything in this three step plan is to help others

First, we must start right away on distributional-cultivation development in our cities. What does this mean? That we must distribute plant growth in our cities to counter balance all the concrete which has been laid. Cities are death traps now where people need to be revitalized to see that there are other worlds. We live in Santa Cruz, in the heart of a beautiful forest, its hard to even imagine what takes place in the human mind when someone doesn’t step on natural dirt for a day, a week, a year, or even ten years at a time. People’s minds are closing along with all their hopes and dreams. These people need plants. It has been proven that plants help peoples mental and physical health. The easiest way to start plant distribution is putting pots of soil just about everywhere that has an open space of concrete. Some good places to start would be sidewalks, roads, rooftops, and inside peoples houses. Plants must be grown everywhere that isn’t being used at this moment in time. If the land needs to be used the pots could easily be moved. Old lots that are not used, and property for sale must be bought and cleared of human waste to allow natural growth to occur. Lots must expand throughout all cities and give people access to open areas where the environment comes first. Then all of these lands, and potted plants must be made sacred through value and education to ensure there preservation for the future. When people start feeling the benefits from plant human interaction then we can move to the next step.

The second is redistribution development where the wealth of our country and globe must be redistributed. There are huge areas of the world that have been developed and either abandoned or turned into ghettos, where so called “poor” people live. Why spend more and more money on the destruction of the earth when we can spend less money on fixing areas of our culture and civilization that have been left far behind. Bettering our own lives is only an illusion that distracts us from our own petty problems, and in the long run makes our lives much worse. What needs to be done is what isn’t even being considered; where is all the renovation development, community development, and global communications development. Old houses are crumbling to the ground while the homeless aren’t even allowed to sleep in the streets. Ghettos are expanding exponentially. Our communities are non-existent, everyone just takes there own little bubbles, we call ‘cars’, to work because we don’t even have the courage to say ‘hello’! The whole global structure is in ruins and no one even knows where to begin in international government organization; our governments are still spending more money on bombs than education! If only TV’s would implant great messages in peoples heads like this one which I spotted on the back of a car in the form of a bumper sticker. “It will be a wonderful day when the schools get all the money they need and the airforce has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber”. When will people wake up and smell the black tar dripping from the trees onto their own quadruple chili-cheese onion burgers with extra mayonnaise and canned pickles on the side? If we do nothing, no one will.

This is a perfect time to bring in an important part of everyone’s lives which has brought barriers to all classes and groups which can be used as a perfect answer. If we wish to fix our community, there must be a coming together of people for no other reason than love and emotion where new connections with the earth and those around you are made. This requires an event which is so powerful that no one even talks. There is only one way that cuts through all human blocks and that is music. Music is a type of communication that comes in the form of emotions that are felt directly by the body and through the heart. Everyone is effected by music; it effects their clothes, friends, habits, lifestyles, and much more. For those who play music, it is a part of them. One cannot get the full extent of meaning and emotion by just listening to someone play an instrument. They must be able to join in themselves. Only when someone can join in, and its not that hard, will they be one with the music. I have experienced this, while playing you are not able to hear the full music being played, just the beat and sometimes yourself, but when you hear the music on a recording it sounds much different than when you were playing it. This is the difference between listening and playing. Everyone must be able to feel the beat, and once you can feel the beat all you have to do is pick up a drum and hit it. Everybody must know how to play music, all it requires is to learn how to listen to others. Once you learn playing just fine tunes your ability to listen to others. This is what our community needs. We need festivals where you don’t go to watch someone play music, but instead you actually go to play music even if you have never played before. Where hundreds and maybe eventually thousands of people can get together and play. The more people in one place playing music, the more energy there is and the better it gets. The possibilities are unimaginable, anything could happen.

Before we can start on the third and final step in making this world livable, we must first make huge impacts on the previous ones. Once every house is renovated, and every community is able to support itself with love, food and music festivals, then slowly we can allow ourselves to move to new ways of expansion into the small amount of untouched land that we are still blessed with on this tiny planet. This third step is a carefully calculated balance of non-impact expansion development. We must become one with our environment to the extent that we are actually enhancing the life of others including the earth itself. Some say this cannot be done, but it has been done before and can be done again. These types of development depend on a value system which puts the natural environment before any economic substances. This includes not laying any cement, no cutting down of trees under any circumstances, and in general, having as little impact on the land as possible. This all requires the close relationship of plants and humans. Today’s constructual developments work against the plants by just clearing them like they weren’t even there. We must work with them and together find a new relationship where we can both benefit. In many ways these types of developments are much harder to do and sustain, and for the most part this is true because it is new and very rarely done. Anything that is new is always harder at the beginning, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be easier in the end.

There is no way to incorporate these kinds of drastic changes immediately, but there are some things that must be done to start. When constructing on natural land, regardless of weather it has been logged or not, you must take into account two obstacles. One, that you can’t build over trails, and two, that you must build around trees. If it is absolutely crucial that someone must cut down a tree, there are many ways of moving a tree and still keeping it alive. The most important part is keeping the roots moist. There is a limit on how big a tree can be before it can no longer be moved. If you can’t carry it with a couple of people, it shouldn’t be taken away. Unfortunately this does create a problem. Where do you build your houses if there are trees everywhere? The answer is simple, you build your houses up in the trees. We use dead wood as our material for building, but the truth is that the wood is stronger and lasts longer when it is alive. Unfortunately the number of trees that are capable of supporting human life have been drastically diminished in the last two hundred years. Luckily, there are enough left that it shouldn’t be a problem, especially in the realms of the Redwood trees. Redwoods are one of the fastest growing trees, and also have a perfect shape for climbing and arbolistic development within. If a Redwood tree is planted in the right place, and taken care of, it can be ready to climb in build in, in less than one hundred years. Redwoods also supply a builder with ample wood of dead branches. Why do building boards need to cut into rectangles? The round branches of Redwoods are perfect for building, and the trees make them for us. People need to realize that these amazing trees are worth much more to us alive, not just for money, than dead.

Unfortunately, people are going to develop untouched land using many techniques that leave very little to nature. No one can stop them, but if one influences them with one’s own actions and good techniques like non-impact development, it’s possible that the destructive development of today could be a twenty volume history book on what not to do to the earth, left by us for our children. We are at that critical turning point where the line is being crossed, and there is no going back. Our world needs to engage with distribution cultivation development now. Our deaserted streets, rooftops, and sidewalks must become green to give people that wanting to get up in the morning. Then we can fix up old houses to make them livable along with our communities. And finally move into the natural environment where we will find our true home, which might possibly be in the trees where we came from. We must wake up, and do it now, because soon it’s going to be too late.

Conclusion

In recent years people like Kaufman have been revising there strategies for developing, but obviously it is not enough, not only for the constructual developments, but also for business. We need new ways of connecting our environment to our economy in a way that is beneficial to our communities and the earth. The businesses of today are destroying our earth with pollution, and we are paying them to do it. I went to a talk on sustainable living and Hanumat Presaka Swami taught me many interesting facts. He has accepted, threw the failure of many of his sustainable communities, that it is now almost impossible for us to completely switch over to living off the land, where do we begin. We have been brainwashed and molded to live the way we do, and build, construct, and destroy as shown in Kaufman’s development.. Swami believes that in about two generations of community and expansion development, it would be possible to relearn how to live off the land. The most important value is community, and that is what we must work on. There must be a balance of humans and nature, and however hard we work against finding this balance, it must eventually come. For those who don’t help to find this balance, what else is there to live for? What about your children in the future, its all connected to how we are treating the earth. If none of these last twelve pages has changed your views, maybe Paul Hawken will:

“…how will we explain that the disappearance of songbirds, frogs, fireflies, wildflowers, and hundreds of thousands of species that will become extinct in our lifetime had no justification other than ignorance and denial? How will we explain to our children that we knew they would be born with compromised immune systems, but we did nothing?” (Hawken).

Although Kaufman, and others like him, have tried to do something, it is not enough. Nature is still being harmed in these types of constructual developments which just add to our insustainability of earth and effects our health directly. It is up to us to find new ways of living. The time to change is right now, and I believe there is nothing we can do about the ways we conduct our constructual developments. All we need to do is observe what goes on, and go with the new flow of our community. If people learn and educate themselves and others on the possibilities of change, it will inevitably come. As Swami says, “Observe, observe, observe”, and in that observation will come a new light showing our communities how to come together and not only help ourselves, but the earth.

Jacobs, Michael, 1960-

Sustainable development : greening the economy / Michael Jacobs. London

: Fabian Society, [1990].

Series title: Fabian tract 538.

UCSC McHenry HX11.F25 no.538

Swami, Hanumat Presaka, Talk given on Tuesday, March 8, 1999, at the Pizza Junction.

Kaufman, Wallace, ‘Confessions of a Developer’, Orion: Nature Quarterly, Vol. 8, No. 4, Autumn 1989.

Websters New World Dictionary, Warner Books, 1987.

Websters New World Thesaurus, Warner Books, 1990.

Hawken, Pawl, The Ecology of Commerce, 1993, HarperCollins Publishers, NY.