Yes, but mines ruin villages and their water supply; and if the villagers protest, then the company may kill them

I feel the need to clarify that these types of projects usually don’t bring “generational jobs and careers” but usually bring outside workforce who will leave when damage done.

garden plot corner

made a tiny berm out of all the leaves I raked and the grass I cut from the garden bed!

I was just talking about an alternative to those farmers. The whole thread was about those farmers, not the vote. If they want to restore the damaged landscapes, they could leave that to us as well, because we could cover the damaged landscapes with humanure compost that will break down most toxins. (Kitchen scraps also go into humanure compost.)

Also, besides mulch and native plants, we could grow drought-tolerant crops instead of irrigating, and to the degree that we can make gardener communities, we can scale up our gardens to farms.

We could garden and farm by ourselves and the communities we can make, staying as close to nature as possible, without tilling, irrigating, or using chemicals, and by using mulch and some native plants instead.

Yeah, but from an anthropologist view, cities (and specialization) have basically been the downfall of our species. I don’t know; I guess bolo’bolo mentioned some city-like places supported by farms. (and Çatalhöyük)

Don’t do it. Quit fighting nature. Move inland. Quit living in cities! Okay, I know no one is going to do any of this.

Benjamin Franklin wanted everyone to be apprentices.

Privet also does just fine as a hedge, and people in the UK actually use it for this purpose. Ironically, that’s where I’ve seen privet growing—along borders, so people who hate privet might as well leave the stuff unless it’s in their way.

For biodiversity, for example, if the rate at which species disappear is less than 10 times the average extinction rate over the last 10 million years, that is deemed acceptable.

In reality, however, extinctions are occurring at least 100 times faster than this so-called background rate, and 10 times faster than the planetary boundary limit.

Will the miracle of life actually survive our self-induced extinction?

I would just do the cover crops along with some nitrogen fixers for several years.

PS – I would keep getting the lawn clippings and use them to mulch my plants.

Try this search engine for native plants in your zip code.

Try clover again for the fall and winter. You can sow clover seeds until late spring. If necessary, you can start back again in mid summer.

I don’t wait for rain, but when I see there’s going to be a few days of rain, I try to get some seeds out there before it rains. A few days of rain might give the seeds a good start, and then, you could mulch the seedlings to help them make it to the next rainfall. You could use a handheld tool to cut competing plants like grass and use them as mulch. If you can spend a little time every day or week, then you’ll figure out what works.

With radical demands such as a 32-hour workweek

oh my gosh, go, go!

although the company has been successful, they haven’t paid the employees back for that.

This is why they deserve a raise and why we all deserve a raise. There’s no reason to keep all the wealth at the top, but of course, saying so is blasphemy in America.

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/08/24/the-united-auto-workers-are-redefining-what-is-possible-for-us-labor/