Our technology won’t be able to help us solve our
environmental problems until it is based upon a thinking rooted in deep
systemic change and a relationship with the earth.
“What do you think of indoor farms?” the students in my high
school garden club asked me. We were outside in the garden cleaning out what
was left of the spring season and preparing to plant the summer crops. I took a
deep breath to organize my thoughts. I had recently watched a video on Facebook
touting the marvelous indoor garden in the middle of a grocery store inGermany. It gushed over the ability of employees to monitor soil moisture and
light via an app on their phones! “Or,” I thought, “They could monitor these
things with their brain and eyeballs…” I wondered, if the greatest advantage
was how close and; therefore, fresh the food would be, then why not grow the
food on the roof top? There would be all of the benefits of a green roof and
the sun is free. “I would hate to see their electric bill. “ I said to the
students.
I then saw another video on Facebook extolling the virtues
of a robotic garden tender; its greatest asset being you can grow your own food
without ever having to touch your garden. So once again, what are the true
costs here? Power? Materials? A lost opportunity? My heart breaks at the
thought of so many lonely gardens! Our gardens thrive depending on our
relationship with it and a garden knows when it is loved and appreciated.
Besides, we need to touch soil. Touching soil and tending a garden has been
shown to relieve depression and anxiety. We need to be around plants. We need
sunshine too. We don’t exist in isolation. We are a part of this web of life on
this planet and we need to cultivate a deeper relationship with our planet if
we are to solve the problems we face today.
Now, I am not against technology per se and I am not suggesting we should never farm in this way. There is much that is wonderful and useful about technology and some places in the world experience winter. However, I am cautioning against the assumption that more technology is always the solution, the best solution, or the only solution because, frankly, this isn’t necessarily true. We are so busy trying to create technology to solve our problems, such as pollution and environmental destruction, created by the technology we have invented (coal burning electrical plants and cars, for example) we don’t consider that maybe more technology isn’t the answer. Typically, the gains in sustainability we experience with new technology are actually overshadowed as we increase production, consumption, and consider the true costs of creating these sustainable technologies in the first place. So what are we to do? If technology isn’t the solution, what is?
Einstein is purported to have said, “Problems cannot be
solved with the same thinking that created them.” Our problem isn’t our lack of technology—our
problem is with our paradigm (an untested assumption taken for granted as
truth) and until we fix our paradigm, our technological ‘solutions’ will never
help us create a sustainable society. Modern society takes technology for
granted, assuming without question it is better and will make our lives easier;
however, research conducted by anthropologists have called this assumption into
question by showing that modern day hunter-gather societies have far more
leisure time than their counter parts in the developed world. Particularly here
in the modern west, we assume our technology is beneficial for humanity, but
this isn’t necessarily true when you actually consider all of humanity. Someone recently told me they believe humanity has
benefited from smart phones and the internet (these are things I really like),
but they forgot about the vast number of humans in the third world, and here,
who don’t have smart phones or the internet! We must also take into
consideration the lives of those who manufacture our smart phones and computers…
are they really benefiting? If you were a factory worker in China, would you
really say you were benefiting? What about the toxins people are regularly
exposed to in order to ‘recycle’ our old electronics? What about the damage
done to mine materials? If your land is contaminated, air polluted, and water
poisoned, have you really benefited? If you are stuck in a cycle of modern
slavery manufacturing phones or stuck on the consumerist treadmill of consumption
in order to afford your technology, are you really benefiting?
Considering all of this, what is the cost of soil and water
and sunlight compared to the building, machinery, and specially designed ‘to
mimic the sun’ light bulbs (I look out of my window toward the sun in utter
confusion… we need to mimic the sun?) and all of the electricity needed? As I
said before, our technological solutions tend to create whole new problems and
unintended consequences. Plants grown under strictly controlled, sterile, and artificial
conditions tend to be extremely susceptible to contamination from algae or
fungus or whatever. I know this all too well from my time running experiments
with lab grown moss as an undergraduate at UNLV. The lab bred plants just
couldn’t handle life. This is what tends to happen when living things are grown
in isolation under tight control as if they were merely machines.
This unwavering faith in technology is why we choose shallow
solutions like developing hybrid or electric cars instead of solving the
problem with behavior change toward public transit, bicycles, or walkability. A
shallow solution is bulldozing the desert to build ‘solar farms’ (which
preserves corporate utility dominance) instead of putting solar panels on people’s
rooftops. These shallow solutions give the appearance of creating a greener
world while allowing people to go about their business as usual. The deeper
solutions would break this pattern of ‘business as usual’ comfort and require a
completely different way of living and relating
to each other and the other living beings with whom we share this planet.
It seems the idea behind indoor farming is we don’t need the
sun and we don’t need soil or bacteria or mycorrhizae because we have liquid
nutrient solution! We don’t need to interact with plants or their communities
to understand their needs because we have an app to tell us what they need! It
seems like a step to further remove us and isolate us from the natural world
and this has been the source of our environmental problems in the first place.
Technology won’t save us, a relationship with the planet will save us and
indoor gardens and farms are taking us in the wrong direction with this
relationship. We believe we can improve
upon nature and grow more food in a lab setting. This is a very mechanical way
of thinking… again, the plants are seen as little machines and they just need
the right parts… However, plants (and people) thrive in community! Living
things are not machines; they are living systems and function within systems
(such as ecosystems). In a living systems perspective, relationships between
objects/things are emphasized and the flow of energy and information is
important. It is the relationships which make a thriving garden or society!
When plants are growing in healthy soil they aren’t just growing in a nutrient
rich substrate, they are growing, communicating, and participating in a rich
living community!
If we truly want to save this planet, if we really want to
create a sustainable society as human beings on this planet, then we need to
create a better relationship with our planet. Our technology won’t help us do
this until we change the way we think about and relate to all of the other
living things on this planet. Our paradigm needs to reflect respect, symbiosis,
and community!
Resources and Further Reading:
AJ Plus. (2016, July 29). Robot Grows Veggies. AJ Plus Facebook Page. [Web Video]. Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/ajplusenglish/videos/769827263158783/
Bell, M.M. (2004). An Invitation to Environmental Sociology, 2nd Edition. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
Brende, Eric. (2005). Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology. Harper Perennial. Link to information on the book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/143159.Better_Off
Kamenetz, Anya. (2013, July 29). A Day in the Life of An iPhone Factory Worker. Fast Company: 3 Minute Read, Technology. [Web Article]. Retrieved from: https://www.fastcompany.com/3014988/a-day-in-the-life-of-an-iphone-factory-worker
Kiss the Ground. (2016, May 31). Why Soil Matters. Kiss the Ground Facebook Page. [Web Video]. Retrieved from: https://www.facebook.com/kissthegroundCA/videos/1032566466810045/
Dr. Miller, Daphne. (2016). The Curious Case of the Antidepressant, Anti-anxiety Backyard Garden. Yes! Magazine, Winter. [Article]. Available online at: http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/good-health/the-curious-case-of-the-antidepressant-anti-anxiety-backyard-garden-20151112
Putnam, Robert. (2000). Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. New York: Simon & Schuster.
Ryan, John C. and Allan Thein Durning. (1997). Stuff: The Secret Lives of Everyday Things. Northwest Environmental Watch. Link to more information on the book: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/318690.Stuff
Spradley, James P. and David W. McCurdy. (1990). The Hunters: Scarce Resources in the Kalahari. Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology, 7th Edition. Glenview, Illinois: Scott, Foresman and Company.
