Endgame Volume I_ The Problem of Civilization - Derrick Jensen [52]
If you agree with my premises and arguments, yet find yourself for whatever reason unable or unwilling to take the offensive, your talents are still needed. I think often of the military tactic called Hammer and Anvil, used most famously by Robert E. Lee at the battle of Chancellorsville. Lee kept Anderson’s and McLaws’s divisions in place while sending Stonewall Jackson’s corps around the enemy’s flank to crush that part of the opposing army between Jackson’s hammer and Anderson’s and McLaws’s anvil. Both parts—offense and defense—were, and are, necessary.
At another talk, this one last fall, a man asked a question I’d never heard before: “If ten thousand people lined up ready to do your bidding, what would you say to them?”
My answer was immediate: “I’d tell them sure as hell not to listen to me.”
His was just as fast: “That’s a copout. How many dams could ten thousand people take down? People know how bad things are, but they don’t know what to do. They want to be told. That’s your responsibility. What’s the purpose of writing if you don’t tell us what to do?”
I shot back: “Instead of telling me what hypothetical readers want, tell me what you want.”
“Tell me—”
“Do you want me to tell you—”
“—Yes—”
“—what to do?”
He nodded, then said, “You’ve had more time. . . .”
“Okay,” I said. “Tomorrow, go to Barton Springs”—Barton Springs are a set of defining, and critically imperiled, springs in Austin, huge and beautiful, dying before the eyes of those who live there and love them—“and sit.”
“Then what?”
“Wait until the springs tell you what to do.”
“Why won’t you—”
“I just did. Barton Springs know this region much better than I. They know what this region needs, know what sustainability looks and feels like here. The springs are much smarter than I am. They’ll tell you exactly what to do.”
Somebody else asked, “Is it Barton Springs?”
“Yes,” I said, “And no. It’s everywhere. Just listen. Not to me. To yourself. And to the land.”
CARRYING CAPACITY
It is axiomatic that we are in no way protected from the consequences of our actions by remaining confused about the ecological meaning of our humanness, ignorant of ecological processes, and unmindful of the ecological aspects of history.
William R. Catton, Jr. 123
I’VE BEEN THINKING A LOT LATELY ABOUT CARRYING CAPACITY, AND WHAT that will mean for life through the crash. The best book I’ve read about carrying capacity—what it is and what it means—is Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, by William R. Catton, Jr. Any environment’s carrying capacity, he states, is the number of creatures living a certain way who can be supported permanently on a certain piece of land, for example how many deer could live on a certain island without overgrazing and damaging the capacity of that island to grow food for them. Permanently is the key word here, because it’s possible to overshoot carrying capacity—to temporarily have more creatures than the land can support—but doing so damages the land, and permanently lowers future carrying capacity. This is true when we talk about nonhumans, and it’s just as true when we talk about humans.
Consider the land where you live. How many people could it have permanently supported before the arrival of our extractive culture? How many people did it support? What did these people eat? What materials did those who came before use to make their homes?
And now? What will those who come after eat? If you were to rely only on local foods harvested sustainably—by which I mean entirely without the assistance of civilization or its technologies (e.g., no fossil fuels or mining)—what would you eat? Do the plants and animals eaten there before still call this their home? How many people could live in your place forever? How many people will live there after the crash?
There are a few ways one can temporarily exceed a place’s carrying capacity (I first wrote, “There are a few ways one can temporarily exceed the carrying capacity of one’s home” but realized that the sentence is