The frog represents our living world and all life therein. We are the frog...
We currently live in the Anthrocpcene, a period in time where human action is the measure of impact to earth's geography and eco-systems.
The story begins with the soil of our earth... we depend on the soil and its ability to provide for our most basic need... food
Over the years farming technologies have developed from individual farmers providing for single families into larger scale farming operations today, so that villages, towns and cities are fed by farms situated further and further away… and this means we need on transport and packaging to receive the food to feed our families… in doing this there is an unintended consequence of waste we throw away… which ends up at local landfills. The landfills incinerate and burn or bury the waste in the ground ... so the story of our soil is that we pollute rather than nurture and we become the benefactors of the pollution, the toxins and environmental destruction...
Our lives are lived in a linear economy: we extract from the earth the raw materials, we make and produce the most wonderful and innovative products that the world convinces us that we need, we use them without thought, and discard what is left over… and in this process of trying to care for ourselves and our loved ones we end up abusing our soil and our earth...
Our planet is our home. And we share our home with creatures great and small… in our daily caring for ourselves and the ones we love we have unknowingly jeopardised our planet for our children’s children’s children’s children
Nature measures success in the continuity of life over generations. Our success? Humans have built structures reaching high into the sky, we have walked on the moon, we have dug deeper into the earth than what has ever been imagined… but this success has come at what cost?
In nature, there is no waste. Every process in nature is food for the next, which is food for the next, and food for the next… Waste is an entirely human invention… we as humans are yet to evolve to the standard that nature measures as success…
The human brain understands addition and subtraction, but struggles to recognise exponential effect… and so, an example of exponential law our normal daily linear living activity multiplied by the number of people on planet, multiplied by dependence on and consumption of greater number of products has ultimately caused life-threatening harm to our planet. Science tells that there are 9 planetary boundaries that we should protect… but this same science says we have exceeded 4 of these limits already… and each interacts with the other so that we cannot properly understand the potential exponential harm that we have exposed our future generations to…
At the same time we have not adequately cared for each other… there is so much poverty and so many vulnerable people among us that need access to housing, education and medical care… our social boundaries need to extend so that all may live in an equal and just space, but in a way that does not harm to our life giving planet…
So who or what is the answer? We don’t have the answer! And ironically this is where the hope lies!
Scientists are understanding the power of community collaboration. People coming together where there are yet no answers, to explore and find alternate solutions… and this is the opportunity we have today, to explore alternate ways of doing and being and living…
For me the butterfly symbolises hope… it is thought that the flutter of a butterfly’s wings can effect a hurricane on the other side of the planet… meaning that a small meaningful action has the power for lasting and impactful results…
The butterfly transitions from caterpillar… and our linear caterpillar way of life can evolve from taking, making, using and losing, to a healthier option of regeneration and restoration … we need to look back to our ancestors to see how they lived and embrace the knowledge that they lived and valued…
We need to take back our power from the companies who decide what we do or do-not need. We need to take back our rights to purchase quality items that we can repair! We need grow community farms and nurture our soil. We need to place higher value not on money as a currency but on other alternate and complimentary forms of currency: respect, neighbourly care, self empowerment, self production, and self sustainability.
A young son of Africa was forced to leave school because of desperate famine in his country of Malawi, causing his parents to ill afford the fees for school and transport. He was blessed to have a library and there he read a book about green energy. He used the scrap and waste that he found and created a windmill to create energy… he was shamed to not be able to attend school, yet he had a line of community members queuing to use his energy to charge their phone. He then made a solar-powered water pump that provided the first drinking water to his village. William Kamkwamba was born in 1987. This young son of Africa found a way to use what others thought of as waste and turn it into a source of energy for the benefit of his community.
Or Ms Nzambi Matee, a daughter of Kenya who turns plastic waste into paving bricks
These are examples of evolving towards success as is measured by nature. Caring for our people in a way that cares for our planet. We can’t all be the William Kamkwamba’s or Nzambi Matee’s of the world, but we can try change our daily actions so that our butterfly flutters create exponential impact that is meaningful…
… what is success to you? Is it collecting the falling rain, is it farming your own vegetables, is it eating less meat? Is this not how our parents’ parents’ parents’ parents’ lived?
And the waste from our daily consumption… do we spend our hard earned money on items that are layered in single use plastics? And what do we do with this excess packaging? Do we sort it so that it has the chance to be reborn into a new life that supports our communities and is does not poison our soil
Recycling is not the purest of answers, but it is less harmful for the environment than digging for new raw resources… and it holds possibility for the William Kamkwamba’s and Nzambi Matee’s among us to come up with ingenious ideas to take these finite resources which were once seen as waste and use them for the good of our planet and our people.
And so, in closing we encourage you to support our revived recycling programme on Rhodes University campus, so that we can sort through the so-called waste and transfer it for a new purpose. The potential this holds is yet unimagined, but it could be new cheaper building materials for homes and infrastructure that we need, it could create new jobs for the future… but more so, we encourage you to dream dreams that may just hold the potential of meaningful change for our planet, for our people and for our economy.
We are creating a collaborative social learning project which focusses on regenerative sustainability within Rhodes University Campus… this initiative is open to every person who in any shape, form or manner works or lives within Rhodes University Campus… it is a safe space to express and explore and test ideas for a greener and regenerative campus… that may just hold promise for a greener economy for our extended community… we will only know if we come together to learn together…
ru.ac.za/environmentalsustainability
Last Modified: Wed, 15 Sep 2021 11:06:18 SAST