Friends,
Author of Farmageddon and Dead Zone, Philip Lymbery is at it again. His latest book: Sixty Harvests Left has taken its title from a chilling warning made by the United Nations that the world’s soils could be lost within a lifetime, Sixty Harvests Left uncovers how the food industry is threatening the planet. Put simply, humans have broken covenant with the soil. Without soils there will be no food: game over. And time is running out.
One of the horrors I discovered reading the book was that there is a 160,000 cattle-capacity site at Karan Beef feedlot south of Johannesburg. When I think of industrial cattle farms – I think US – which has over 26,000 such farms that hold over a thousand cattle each. “Instead of grass, these animals are mainly fed cereals: corn, wheat and barley, along with soya and leftovers like distillers grains.” [p 29] They are also “hormone-treated” on arrival. There are not many such industrial cattle farms in SA but who knew we had one of the largest in the world? I didn’t. Lymbery doesn’t use the word repentance in his book but his call to a new future through: regeneration, rethinking protein and rewilding is a clear call to repent – to change.
On a similar note. You may well have heard the ‘Anthem’ for Our Burning Planet, but just in case you have not, here it is. This “music journalism” of Daily Maverick deserves a punt. In 1965 Barry McGuire sang Eve of Destruction (written by PF Sloan). Please listen to it because it remains a prophetic (truthful) word for the world to heed. Well, Daily Maverick have now adapted Eve of Destruction with words that speak to our “Burning Planet”. Featuring Anneli Kamfer, they address through song and visuals the greatest challenge facing life on earth.
Here are words…but best to hear them sung and see video:
The burning world, it is explodin’,
The burning world, it is explodin’,
Violence flarin’, fear & loathin’,
You’re bad enough to scream, but your throat is chokin’,
You don’t believe in oil, but it’s your car that’s smokin’,
And even the Jordan river has no water floatin’,
But you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.
Don’t you understand, what I’m trying to say?
And can’t you feel the fears I’m feeling today?
When the threshold is crossed, it’s the end of the game,
There’ll be nothing to save when the world is aflame,
Take a look around you, girl, it’s bound to scare you, boy,
And tell me over and over and over again my friend,
Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.
Yeah, my blood’s so mad, feels like coagulatin’,
I’m sittin’ here, just contemplatin’,
I can’t twist the truth, it knows no regulation,
Handful of senators don’t pass legislation,
And marches alone don’t bring the solution,
When the human race is so close to dissolution’,
This whole crazy world is one big confusion,
And you tell me over and over and over again my friend,
Ah, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.
Think of all the coal that’s blazing your soul
Then look at your own town spinning down the hole
Ah, you may leave Earth, for four days in space,
But when you return, the same old scorching place,
The poundin’ of the drums, the fright and disgrace,
You can bury your dead, but don’t leave a trace,
Hate your next door neighbor, but don’t forget to say your grace
And you tell me over and over and over and over again my friend,
You don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.
No, you don’t believe we’re on the eve of destruction.
In grace, Alan