Page 3 - Nebraska Report Nov Dec 2020

fruits out there all make for the possi- something for dinner. reach. If we don’t need it to live, it’s
bility of eating well, eating local and • Buy only what you need and stop superfluous consumption and just
eating low on the food chain. What using ‘shopping’ as recreation… making our environmental situation
better time to get into the kitchen With our fixation on consumerism, worse.
and start exploring than when we’re shopping has been turned into a • Take the ‘No Fly Pledge’ and
stuck at home sheltering in place? recreational pastime. “Wanna go scrap your vacation travel…
The internet has tons of vegetarian shopping? We can just browse and Hardly anybody’s flying right now,
and vegan recipes you can try out. window shop and see if we see but rest assured there will be a big
• Convert inedible lawn into gar- anything we like.” But with the in- push to revive the airline industry. As
den and grow some of your own evitable contraction in the economy, flying is the single worst thing you
food (and if you don’t have gar- that frivolous behavior will be abat- can do for your carbon footprint and
den space, plant in containers or ing in favor of satisfying material fewer than 1 out of 5 people on earth
windowsills)… In the built urban has ever even been on a plane, we
environment, we don’t have much need to give up the notion once and
land available for food-growing, for all that air travel fits anywhere in
but what do have, we invariably the practice of Simple Living.
squander on lawn—even though we • Change your recreational
as humans can’t eat grass and in the habits… So we shouldn’t trav-
city we can’t keep the animals (cows, el, shouldn’t shop for recreation,
sheep, goats) that do. This danger- shouldn’t eat (much) meat and
ously wrong-headed mindset is part dairy, shouldn’t waste energy, water
and parcel of the city dweller attitude or food? Is there anything we can
that our sole role in the food system do to make life worth living? Sure
is to consume, to be ‘eaters’… and there is. We can garden, cook tasty
somebody else, somewhere, some- food, read books, write, make music,
how will grow it for us. If nothing make art, take walks, exercise and
else, the COVID-19 crisis is showing play games, socialize with friends,
us who those nameless, faceless food fall in love, raise children, take care
workers are, how risky their work is, By following of aging loved ones… We honestly
and how vulnerable our global food Mohandas Gandhi’s don’t need superfluous consumption
system is to shortages and scarcity. to be happy, when, after all, the best
To keep stuffing our mouths, urban prescription for things in life are free.
eaters are going to need to start
pulling their weight in the food sys- ‘living simply’— • AND FINALLY, Start seeing
tem—growing the perishable food your neighborhood as your
crops (the lettuce, spinach, tomatoes, taking no more than ‘world’ — as YOUR “Beloved
peppers, cucumbers, zucchini) that we need—we make Community”. In an age of pandem-
the city can grow better than anyone ics and growing climate disruption,
else, because what we’ll harvest will it possible for creating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s
be fresher and therefore more nutri- vision of the ‘Beloved Community’
tious. others in the vast right in our own neighborhoods
• Buy locally grown food whenever community of life to (where people can live with mutual
respect and cooperate with one an-
you can… If we want a more secure other) will be a material necessity.
local food supply, then, with our dol- ‘simply live’. Unable to get out and about like we
lars, we’re going to have to support used to, obliged to stay put where we
local producers who are out there this needs. Fashion, new car models, the are, we’re going to have start seeing
very minute in the sun and heat trying latest smart phone devices will be our neighborhoods as our world and
to grow it. Making ‘low price’ the the first to go, as they are inessential, a place we hold dear. Our immediate
ONLY criterion for what we buy is are ethically unjustifiable given the neighbors will be our social network
going to torpedo any effort to create damage their production inflicts on and lifeline—and we, in turn, will be
a vibrant local food system. Farm- the ecosystem, and, in any event, will theirs… Living simply together so
ers grow for markets, and without be beyond most people’s financial others can simply live.
markets they don’t farm. “Buy Fresh,
Buy Local” whenever you can. It’s
a down payment on always having NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2020 NE REPORT, P. 3