Crying wolf?

Those who look reality in the eye and share their observations often get flak. "Party pooper". "Negative attitude". "Cassandra". I like the humor and irony of the excellent thinker Ugo Bardi calling his old blog Cassandra's legacy. Most people don't want to know.

What could possibly go wrong?

Ten years ago, when I learned about our civilization overshooting the carrying capacity of the planet, I spread this picture to everyone I knew. It is a simple model of a species overpopulating a finite resource base. Simple. Collapse is avoidable only if we drastically reduce our resource use.

I thought that I could convince people and in some way influence their future actions, to tread more lightly on the earth. I had completely misjudged the human propensity for believing in fairy tales, make-belief and myth. What psychologists with a fancy word calls "motivated reasoning".

Adult people would tell me with a straight face that economic growth is always good and exactly that which we needed more of. Even close friends would tell me that it couldn't possibly be that bad: "Otherwise someone should have done something, right?"

Why is that?

In the subsequent decade, I have come to meet quite a few people who understand the situation and who dare talk about it, but most don't. Most won't. Most people have conciously or un-conciously decided not to let the ecologic realities of overshoot enter their worldview. They prefer to live in a self-affirming delusion.

Therefore, I have completely abandoned the plan to "convince enough people", to generate "change".

Instead I quietly whisper "wolf" and see who reacts. From the most surprising corners of my network, people come out discreetly to me, and ask to talk in private. In small groups. Building resilience, networks and trust to support each other in the coming turbulence. We talk about what we love and what can save. Similar to the Deep-Adaptation credo of looking into what to relinquish, what to restore, with whom to reconciliate and how to build resilience. I wrote a book (only available in Swedish) to cast a wider net to get in touch with more like-minded earth lovers.

These practices have helped me to find amazing people with fascinating skills and deep love for our planet. People who plant seeds for a humane and dignified tomorrow.

What else can we do?

Wolf!

Early January, M and me took a walk in a forest 15 km from here. It is a Nature conservation area called Göstorps skog.

It was the first time we went there, and it was a beautiful day with sunshine and snow and giant boulders and beech trees reaching for the skies.

We were the only people who walked here that day. No other human footprints to see in the fresh snow. Just our car coming to the parking place on the edge of the Reserve.

But we did see two pairs of paw marks halfway along the path and after the round hike, we came back to our car and saw that the canines had been sniffing out our little Volkswagen.

Stable, dog-like paw marks in the forest, just a few kilometers from the place where two parent wolves were shot a week earlier, leaving a litter of five youth behind. Were the young adults looking for mom and dad? Or looking for trouble?

We will never know.

Car troubles

We also had a visit of a louder kind, when a young guy from a village down the road sled into our tree nursery, landing on the roof. Fortunately nobody was hurt, but it was a close shave. The Volvo just touched a thick birch tree, so if they had been a meter to the side, probably nobody would have walked out of the wreck.

Here is a photo of the car, when the youth had managed to get it on to its' four wheels again.

Surprise visit at 4am.

Next day we had a visit of a young guy who came to apologize.

Next day, inventory of damages. Glass. Broken trees.

We agreed to fix the fence together and he would compensate the damaged trees. I guess this is how we get to know more people outside our eco-bubble here. Getting to know a handy guy in the next generation local carpenters.

A few days later, we fixed the fence.

More nuts

Nuts have amazing health benefits ...

I always kind of knew that nuts were "good for health" as our Chinese friends say. (对身体好!)

In preparation for a conference of health and the environment that was organized by our province, I decided to read up on the available literature.

There have been numerous studies of tree nuts (as different from peanuts) and health effects. With the exception of the 3% who are allergic to hazelnuts, most nuts have amazing health effects.

A study with thousands of heart-patients in Spain indicate that the risk of stroke goes down with 50% and the risk of cardiac arrest goes down with 25%. These are huge numbers. A simulation paper converted the results to the Swedish situation (Eneroth, H. et al., Risks and benefits of increased nut consumption, Nutrition 9, 2017). They found that eating 30 grams of nuts every day would reduce the disease load (DALY) with 8%. This is huge. It is on par with health effects of alcohol. Or the risks of a sedentary lifestyle.

A serving of nuts is a small cost (50 eurocent per day) for the individual and yearly savings of billions for society. Furthermore, roasting of nuts make most allergenes dissappear.

Daily dose of nuts - 20-30 grams.

Why is this not more spread? Is there any propaganda or health information in your countries regarding tree nuts and health benefits?

Me and my friend Marc sharing the joy of roasted hazelnuts

An image in Swedish sharing how many yearly deaths would be avoided if people would eat more in line with the Nordic dietary guidelines. The most impactful would be for people to eat more vegetables and more nuts.

Avoided deaths per year if people ate 20% more in line with the Nordic Nutritional Recommendations.

... and gloriously delicious

Together with our partners in nuts, Lova and Vidar, we tested our new machine. It is a rotary wet-grinder that is commonly used to grind cocoa beans into cocoa mass, for chocolate production. This is the process that Rodolphe Lindt invented in 1897 and that changed chocolate eating forever after.

The same process can be done to transform chopped, roasted hazelnuts into a silky nut-butter.

Friends loading the machine.

Inside the drum, there are two rotating stone wheels, in contact with a flat stone surface at the bottom of the drum. After an hour or so, the nut pieces are transformed into semi-liquid hazelnut butter. A pinch of salt and the spread is perfect for home-made bread.

The wheels are made of a stone material, and they grind onto a flat stone surface.

Scion cutting

A year ago I got a most excellent advice from my friend Philipp to grow the chestnut "mother trees" inside the polytunnel. I tried it this year and the results are amazing. I planted small trees in April 2024 and within one season they grew shoots of more than one meter. One tree generated six meter-long shoots with excellent scion wood.

If I compare it with outside growing conditions, the growth inside has been something like four-six times faster.

I cut the yearling shoots.

The branches go into zip-lock bags into a converted fridge that keeps 0-1degrees C.

No shit

Finally, the winter is a time for rotating equipment. One of the interesting things to observe is the workings of our composting loo bucket. After a year, there is nothing to see that reminds of the origins of the matter.

What used to be turds and loo paper is now rich humus.

According to local regulation, we keep this for another year before spreading it on selected areas of our garden. (There is actually a clause in the European organic farming legislation that prohibits us from using our own turd-soil in the certified tree nursery. So we put it in other places.)

We follow the rules as long as the European Union functions. According to Ugo Bardi, not for much longer.