Owning our Own Ecology

In part, this essay is born out of the current local discussion within the Floyd County Board of Supervisors about the best way forward for the county. The fork in the road offers the options of continued reliance on “cheap” fossil fuels (if price at the pump is the only cost) versus making the transition to other no- or lower-carbon energies, as well as a commitment to using MUCH LESS energy, wood, and the stuff we purchase at a low price but a high cost to the well-being of people and planet.

…The bottom line is: Neither humans or non-humans can live healthy lives on an unhealthy planet. We cannot achieve a shared ecology of wellbeing if our personal ecologies contribute to the depletion and ruin of the planets living systems. And there are so many of us now.

…Will we amend our failed relationships with nature and with each other while there is time? By definition, no unsustainable process, movement or culture survives.

Essay Towards a Whole Earth Ecology posted at medium.com and appeared in the Floyd Press on 4 Jan 2017. Read more…

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fred
fred

Fred First holds masters degrees in Vertebrate Zoology and physical therapy, and has been a biology teacher and physical therapist by profession. He moved to southwest Virginia in 1975 and to Floyd County in 1997. He maintains a daily photo-blog, broadcasts essays on the Roanoke NPR station, and contributes regular columns for the Floyd Press and Roanoke's Star Sentinel. His two non-fiction books, Slow Road Home and his recent What We Hold in Our Hands, celebrate the riches that we possess in our families and communities, our natural bounty, social capital and Appalachian cultures old and new. He has served on the Jacksonville Center Board of Directors and is newly active in the Sustain Floyd organization. He lives in northeastern Floyd County on the headwaters of the Roanoke River.

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  1. I am so glad this was published in your local paper. You are off to a good start on your plan for 2018. I hope you are encouraged to continue with more work as the year unfolds.