Use 10 Percent Less

All things must change when the consumer changes

Nature

Nanabozho was fishing

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I’m half-way through reading a wonderful book by Robin Wall Kimmerer called Braiding Sweetgrass, and I fell in love with this story about Nanabozho. It’s the perfect story for use10percentless.com as it warns against taking and using too much. I hope Robin doesn’t mind me copying her story here and I hope you enjoy it.

Nanabozho was fishing - fish in the lake
Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Nanabozho was Fishing

Nanabozho was fishing in the lake for supper, as he often did, with hook and line. Heron came striding along through the reeds on his long, bent legs, his beak like a spear. Heron is a good fisherman and a sharing friend, so he told Nanabozho about a new way to fish that would make his life much easier. Heron cautioned him to be careful not to take too many fish, but Nanabozho was already thinking of a feast. He went out early the next day and soon had a whole basketful of fish, so heavy he could barely carry it and far more than he could eat. So he cleaned all those fish and set them out to dry on the racks outside his lodge. The next day, with his belly still full, he went back to the lake and again did what the Heron had showed him. “Ahh,” he thought as he carried home the fish, “I will have plenty to eat this winter”.

Day after day he stuffed himself and, as the lake grew empty, his drying racks grew full, sending out a delicious smell into the forest where fox was licking his lips. Again he went to the lake, so proud of himself. But that day his nets came up empty and Heron looked down on him as he flew over the lake with a critical eye. When Nanabozho got home to his lodge, he learned a key rule – never take more than you need. The racks of fish were toppled in the dirt and every bite was gone.

Cautionary stories of the consequences of taking too much are ubiquitous in Native cultures, but it’s hard to recall a single one in English. Perhaps this helps to explain why we seem to be caught in a trap of overconsumption, which is as destructive to ourselves as to those we consume.

Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 2020, Penguin Books (first published in 2013, Milkweed Editions)

I love Robin’s comment that we’re “caught in a trap of overconsumption” and that hurts us as much as “those we consume”. It’s true – everything we do consumes some other form of life, which is fine but we should do it with respect and gratitude, and not take more than we need.

Robin’s book, Braiding Sweetgrass, is such a joy to read with so many examples of indigenous wisdom (makes it obvious that we don’t have a lot of wisdom in our current culture). When I’ve finished the book, I’ll write a full review on my other blog – lifeintherightdirection.com – but I can already tell that this is a book that I’ll be highly recommending.

The front cover of the book Braiding Sweetgrass

References and Links

The Power of Less – from Good Energy

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The Power or Less – a video from Good Energy

I’ve been a customer of Good Energy for about 5 years now and I have to say they appear to be a good, responsible, renewable energy company. I don’t have any affiliation with them at all, and I’m receiving nothing from them for writing this article (they have no idea I’m writing it). When I saw that they had recently released this short, one-minute video, “The Power of Less”, and that its message was so closely aligned with the sentiment of “Use 10 Percent Less“, I just had to post the video here. It’s only one minute long – please take a look. [Read more…] about The Power of Less – from Good Energy

250 potatoes

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I was watching a episode of “Countryfile” on BBC television a few weeks ago (Nov 10th, 2019, it was their Autumn Special, originally aired on Nov 3rd, 2019) and was stunned to learn a surprising fact about 250 potatoes. Let me explain.

First, the programme showed a farmer who was cultivating his field with a large tractor with a large array of angled, metallic discs behind it, rapidly cutting through the soil and turning it over. Across the whole farm and as far as I could see, there was only bare soil that had been turned or was about to be turned. I was wondering what happens to any wildlife in the soil when this tractor comes through slicing everything up and why nature hasn’t had to do this sort of thing in all of history until now.

But then I learnt the first surprising fact. This farmer was preparing to sow a crop of barley, not for any food purpose, but in order to make beer. I was amazed at the size of the fields being churned up just so we can drink a glass of beer and I felt a little sad. All those trees had to be cleared and all of nature has to be sliced with rapidly moving metal discs, so we can drink beer (I like a glass a beer, but I still felt sad).

Next, they went to a farm that was harvesting potatoes. Again, it was a huge farm with rows and rows of mounds under which were potatoes ready to harvest. There were truckloads after truckloads of potatoes going back to the sheds.

And now the second surprising fact is that these potatoes were, once again, not being used to feed anybody, they were being used to create vodka! [Read more…] about 250 potatoes

Reforestation is working!

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This is great to see. It looks like reforestation is working!

I read an article in forbes.com by Trevor Nace that explains how NASA says the Earth is greener today than it was 20 years ago. That’s a real surprise, but a very pleasant one. But an even bigger surprise that a lot of the thanks has to go to China and India.

Why is this a “Use 10 Percent Less” issue? Well, simply because humans use too much of the Earth’s surface. We have destroyed large amounts of forests, and this is not just a recent phenomenon. All of the farms that we see in the countryside, that may have been there for many generations, were naturally forests and woodlands. The human use of natural land for profit growth is putting too much pressure on the world. We have to use less of the Earth.

The following map shows, in green, areas that are greener today than 20 years ago and how large parts of China and India and much greener. [Read more…] about Reforestation is working!

The Natural World is Disappearing

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I saw this article in the news recently and it caused me to pause and take stock. The article was in The Guardian and it was called “Our natural world is disappearing before our eyes. We have to save it.” by George Monbiot. Some of the comments in the article that had the most impact on me were;

  • natural world is disappearingThe swift decline of the swift (down 25% in five years)
  • I have lived long enough to witness the vanishing of wild mammals, butterflies, mayflies, songbirds and fish that I once feared my grandchildren would not experience: it has all happened faster than even the pessimists predicted.
  • The cause of this acceleration is no mystery. The United Nations reports that our use of natural resources has tripled in 40 years.
  • The great expansion of mining, logging, meat production and industrial fishing is cleansing the planet of its wild places and natural wonders.
  • What economists proclaim as progress, ecologists recognise as ruin.
  • the rush to carve up the last intact forests; the vanishing of coral reefs, glaciers and sea ice; the shrinkage of lakes, the drainage of wetlands. The living world is dying of consumption.
  • We have a fatal weakness: a failure to perceive incremental change.
  • Watching the cutters being driven at great speed across the field, he realised that any remaining wildlife would be shredded… he went to investigate, he found her fawn, its legs amputated.
  • The merger between Bayer and Monsanto brings together the manufacturer of the world’s most lethal pesticides with the manufacturer of the world’s most lethal herbicides.
  • We forget even our own histories.

[Read more…] about The Natural World is Disappearing