Why Green?

Ditulis oleh : San Lo

What does it mean to be Green? What does it mean to be an eco or environmental activist? Why do you buy organic? Why Why ?
I guess there are many of us who simply understand that making green organic ecological environmental choices keeps us healthy and if we aren’t healthy then life isn’t worth living. I thought I would try and shed a little light on how actually profound ecological choices are to the benefit of all.
Organic foods should be grown without any chemical fertilizers and or the use of any chemical pesticides. For growers adopting this philosophy or understanding it means that food now has to be grown in harmony with nature, and this involves multi-cropping plants, allowing animals to roam pastures (read natural fertilization), rotating crops, for birds and bees to pollinate plants and fruits, for birds, bees, spiders, frogs etc., to work as natural guards against insects and other pests. As this process evolves the land itself becomes healthy and healthier, earthworms flourish and the soil becomes rich in nutrients. The plants that grow in this rich soil become naturally healthier and in fact more resilient in their own right to disease, insects or pests and in turn the animals that eat these healthier plants grow to become stronger and healthier. This is in short the virtuous circle and understanding of organic farming.
When plants are industrially grown using mono-cropping techniques or are mono-cultured the opposite occurs. Chemical fertilizers are basically (N)itrogen, (P)hosphorus, and (K)potassium, produced from fossil fuels (like natural gas). NPK is the equivalent of living on white bread and water. You’ll grow, live or survive but you’ll be terribly sick and unhealthy.
Commercial industrial agriculture effectively grows a lot of its crops in this way, and all grains, vegetables, beans, etc., are all effectively sick and undernourished. They become increasingly susceptible to insects and pests, and so then chemical pesticides are introduced but to make the crops resistant they are then genetically modified to be resistant to these pesticides and herbicides.
As time has gone on, plants have been increasingly genetically modified to grow faster, look pristine (when they have negligible nutritional content)[1], and be increasingly tolerant to any new/stronger pesticide and herbicide developed. In turn growers in their chase for increasing crop yield simply dump as much NPK they can on their farmland, resulting in enormous runoff of excess fertilizer, causing toxification and dead zones of rivers, lakes, and oceans [2].
In turn the animals including us, and or the (unhealthy) animals we eat  that eat these plants grow to become unhealthy and sick. As they say, you are what you eat. How it manifests is perhaps another huge topic in itself (and perhaps an unnecessary can of worms at this point to be particularly specific, let’s just say it’s not rocket science to connect the dots).
I think understanding the impact or ‘green’ choices we make is a huge topic or essay. Whether we choose to eat meat (at all), or vegetables, is it organic or pasture raised does make a significant difference. Of all the items you buy from the supermarket, how much has corn based products in it?
So when you choose to be really green and organic, aside from your health be additionally comforted that you are making the ecology of the planet work again, that you are helping to preserve and nourish what biodiversity that still exists. This is priceless.

Link: www.Green Kampong