Reply To: 2. Wed 12 Feb: Donald Worster on Environmental History

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Josefin Heed	# Posted on February 19, 2015 at 08:27
	Comment on Ylvas reflection: Dear Ylva! Thank you for wise reflections and interesting observations. Your text inspired many further questions and thoughts that I am not expecting you to answer here but which I will bring with me further into this course. What do you think about regulations agreed upon locally? Do locally manifest regulations necessarily guarantee a more sustainable land use? How does this resonate with the fact of the decreasing percentage of rural inhabitants (compared to urban)? This means that a smaller percentage of the people is there to witness the exploitation, and they often are depending on the exploitation for their sustenance. What are the democratic aspects of this? I also ponder on what your ideas would be on an alternative to capitalist culture and how this would be connected to regulations? Will local regulations suffice when in fact the multinational global corporations find ever new ways of exploiting? Can we democratically organize people in favor of sustainable land use? How would such a mobilization take form? What would be the prerequisites? I remember you spoke once about land taxation instead of income taxation. How would that impact the agricultural methods? Can other techniques and methods in agriculture (such as mimicry) ever compete with industrial agriculture, in a capitalist system? And how would it affect land users? Is there a risk of an even more intensified use of land, even though ownership might be more diversified? I believe that regulations are an important aspect as well, but the question is what arguments and perspectives we need to mobilize a majority of people in favor of that. How can we constitute a deliberative discussion were these matters can be brought up on the agenda and taken into account in the public debate? Another question would be that of making a transition for farmers and land users to a more sustainable agriculture possible. Even if we had the regulations, what would such a transition require in terms of capital, knowledge, machinery, labor and, perhaps most difficult of all, perspectives, attitudes and values? /Josefin This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by Josefin Heed.

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Josefin Heed

# Posted on February 19, 2015 at 08:27

Comment on Ylvas reflection:

Dear Ylva!

Thank you for wise reflections and interesting observations. Your text inspired many further questions and thoughts that I am not expecting you to answer here but which I will bring with me further into this course.

What do you think about regulations agreed upon locally? Do locally manifest regulations necessarily guarantee a more sustainable land use? How does this resonate with the fact of the decreasing percentage of rural inhabitants (compared to urban)? This means that a smaller percentage of the people is there to witness the exploitation, and they often are depending on the exploitation for their sustenance. What are the democratic aspects of this?

I also ponder on what your ideas would be on an alternative to capitalist culture and how this would be connected to regulations? Will local regulations suffice when in fact the multinational global corporations find ever new ways of exploiting? Can we democratically organize people in favor of sustainable land use? How would such a mobilization take form? What would be the prerequisites?
I remember you spoke once about land taxation instead of income taxation. How would that impact the agricultural methods? Can other techniques and methods in agriculture (such as mimicry) ever compete with industrial agriculture, in a capitalist system? And how would it affect land users? Is there a risk of an even more intensified use of land, even though ownership might be more diversified?
I believe that regulations are an important aspect as well, but the question is what arguments and perspectives we need to mobilize a majority of people in favor of that. How can we constitute a deliberative discussion were these matters can be brought up on the agenda and taken into account in the public debate?

Another question would be that of making a transition for farmers and land users to a more sustainable agriculture possible. Even if we had the regulations, what would such a transition require in terms of capital, knowledge, machinery, labor and, perhaps most difficult of all, perspectives, attitudes and values?

/Josefin

This reply was modified 8 years, 1 month ago by Josefin Heed.