The Nutting Moon goes dark tomorrow. Monday, the new Harvest Moon will be a thin crescent over the setting sun, which, in my part of the world, will be setting about due west after passing the ecliptic on its journey south at 2:19 in the afternoon. On Tuesday, the sun rises and sets at true east and west, and Thursday brings the true equinox with sunrise at 6:41am and sunset at 6:41pm. Friday, we enter into the dark half of the year with night’s dark lasting longer than day’s light. And then Monday the 29th is Michaelmas, the Harvest Home celebration, though I fudge on the exact day, usually aiming for the closest weekend day — so it can actually be a celebration. This year, I’ll be observing Harvest Home on the 28th.
Some folks honor the day with a thanksgiving feast, and I’ve done that from time to time, more so back when the boys were young. Feasting loses its appeal when you live alone. Also, my old body isn’t interested in feasting. So my Harvest Home rituals tend to focus on putting the garden to bed. I will plant the garlic, compost dead plants, and cover everything with straw. Most years I have also planted some veg for over-wintering and will spend a bit of time preparing that bed of youngsters for hibernation. However, with the drought, I haven’t planted anything but greens in the cold frame, so there’s no need for elaborate row cover construction this year. It’s a bit too early to bed down for winter anyway. We still haven’t seen frost, though several times it has dipped close to freezing in the hour or so before dawn, and yesterday there was a frost alert that spurned me to bring all the tender potted plants indoors (which needed to happen anyway because I’m tired of watering them all). Still, it’s warm enough by day that I’m not even sure I should plant the garlic yet… Only, it’s my tradition to do so…
But that’s a week away. It still might freeze this week. Heck, it might even rain… Maybe… Probably not…
Just as long as it doesn’t rain tomorrow, because tomorrow is Sun Day. I’m not entirely sure what this entails since I’ve been keeping it real and not spending a good deal of time on screens. Ostensibly, it is a day to show our support for clean energy. “Rise up for a Sun-powered Planet” proclaim the promotional materials. I haven’t seen any local evidence of this initiative, but there may be bike rides and EV parades where you live. Online, there are petitions and, of course, fund raising, though I have no idea where the funds go nor what they would be funding. But I have a feeling that the collection coffers are going to be rather hollow, not because people don’t want to stop sending carbon into the skies, but because most of us are struggling to fund our own lives. And in any case, the funds are not going to stop the carbon streaming. Likely, those dollars would just be supporting more attempts to convince our insane government to “pass legislation” or “regulate Big Oil” or some such non-thing that our insane government has no intention of ever doing. Even if our insane government had any hope of reining in the actual polluters… Which is probably not realistically true… (Who governs whom…)
As you can undoubtedly tell from my tone, I am rather ambivalent about Sun Day. Mostly because I’m rather ambivalent about “clean energy”. I don’t think there is such a thing. Solar and wind are certainly less directly responsible for carbon emissions, but both burn a good deal of carbon fuels to mine and manufacture, to transport and maintain and retire when worn out. Both also rely on infrastructures such as storage and transmission lines that require even more carbon burning. And, at grid scale, both need base power generation to balance out intermittency, and the only non-intermittent power generation we have right now is burning carbon.
(And carbon isn’t the only pollutant… Solar and other “renewables” are accompanied by copious waste streams, from toxic mining to mountains of electronica landfill. A whole ‘nother can of worms…)
Furthermore, while a parade of EVs is nice, and while, if you drive a car at all and if you have even the slightest possibility of affording it, an EV is better than a gasoline engine (mostly… as long as you’re not dumping a functioning car to buy the new one), still nothing electronic is going to have much of an effect on carbon spewing. Because carbon spewing is not primarily in service of electric energy. Carbon spewing is fueling long distance transport, manufacturing, mining, and other industrial processes that require high temperatures and torque. The heaviest carbon streams are flowing from processes that can’t be electrified. Even building an electric vehicle is hard on the atmosphere, sending tons of carbon into the skies. The battery alone can have embodied carbon emissions several times greater than driving 10,000 miles on a gasoline engine. Still, yes, it’s a good idea to replace your dead gas hog with a hybrid or an electric. Just don’t think that, by doing so, you’re reducing your carbon budget. Buying an EV isn’t going to do much about carbon streaming… Because it’s the buying that is causing the streaming, as well as where your purchases are coming from and how they are produced.
You would do better to simply drive less. Take public transport. Go few places other than work. If you can, find work that doesn’t require a long commute.
Now, I’m not saying buying is a problem because we are greedy hyper-consumers… though some of us are… and probably not those who pop into mind when you hear that term. It’s not the Walmart-shopping, country kitsch lovers who have too many cat sweatshirts. Nor the old guy with the model train fetish. It’s the couple with three, four, five cars. The people who have multiple homes. The experience chasers who spend thousands of dollars globe-trotting to resorts that are nothing but suburbia translated. But anyway… trading up for an EV is not hyper-consuming. Nor is slapping PV panels on the roof or insulating your house. Those are all excellent goals… if you can afford it… if you even have a house… But buying is not how we’re going to stop carbon emissions. Even buying “good things”. Because buying anything is supporting the system and is supported by the system that generates pollution. Buying anything is the problem. Buying generates the flow. And the more you spend, the more you are keeping the carbon flowing.
Buying is the only thing this system wants from you. Well, it sort of wants your labor also, but not so much anymore because machines will work for no wages… in theory… But machines do not spend money. Machines can’t create demand. That’s on you. And you must be that demand or the whole system falls apart. No demand, no market, no spending, means no selling, no manufacturing, no supply… You are driving this system. It is dependent on you. And you have the power to shut it all down. So why are our demonstrations so often about doing more of the same? Go spend more money, go buy more stuff, crank up those exhaust streams into overdrive. Do anything but what will actually hurt this economy of pollution.
My problem with Sun Day is the same as with many other forms of demonstration. It doesn’t address the problems. Not at all. It may be a nice way to meet people who agree with you, a fun way to vent off steam, making sardonic posters and marching down the street yelling catchy slogans like feral cheerleaders. But you are not having any effect on carbon. Even if it wasn’t just an exercise in silo screaming, preaching to the choir. You’re not having any effect because the things that you are asking of the universe — even if by some miracle some politician decides to commit political hara kiri and slap some rules on Big Oil — do not staunch the flow. (And let’s just not talk about the carbon you are spewing to get to the protest…) The only thing that will have that positive effect is to not buy stuff… to not go marching… to stay home.
Yet we keep marching… to no effect… because marching does nothing, doesn’t even annoy Big Oil all that much. You want to know what does? Staying home. Keeping your dollars in your wallet. Not participating in this market system. This how you put pressure on polluters. Curbing your spending, dropping out of the market to the extent that you are able, or at least setting aside one day when you do not spend anything at all — these are literally the only things that will reduce carbon emissions. These are the only tactics that will grab the attention of polluters and politicians, because you are hurting them financially. Going small and local is the only thing that will make a real difference. And it doesn’t cost you a dime…
With these dramatic public demonstrations, there is never an exhortation to not drive, to stay home, to stop buying things, to fix what you have and make do with less. There aren’t marches to reduce the commute and fix settlement patterns so that driving isn’t necessary. There aren’t petitions to re-localize food and fiber, to lower housing costs and improve home quality in places near jobs. There aren’t even garden initiatives or fundraising for repair cafes and libraries of things. And heaven forfend we even dream about walking away from this mess and taking care of our own lives, our own communities, our own places.
Now, that care work might involve solar panels, though in my part of the world solar heating panels are more useful than solar electric panels. That care work might create a small turbine farm or micro-hydropower collective. Those things at small scale work quite well. They also tend to be less hard on the planet, being locally built usually from local materials as much as possible (because local is cheaper as long as it is available…) That would be a wonderful Sun Day fund drive — raise local money to create our own local energy networks. Fund energy grid independence for whole neighborhoods. That would have devastating effects on polluters.
Yes, care work does include crafting our energy systems. But that’s just one part of caring — and, really, it’s not as important as many of the other things.
Putting energy into building up local systems for feeding and housing people — systems that meet those needs well, not just adequately — is far more important than keeping the electricity on. And that can be done with no input whatsoever from government — or protest marching — though it works better with the support of local governance (or at least a lack of hindrance from local governance). It also must be done in place, not elsewhere. No need to go marching in some distant location. No need, even, for a parade. We did that back in the summer heat. Instead, if march you must, then march down to the neglected community garden and start pulling weeds, planting garlic, fixing the wonky beds.
Which is about where I started this rambling post… this is the time of year for Harvest Home. It is time to gather in, to be home, to be in place, settling down for winter. It’s time to celebrate the harvest, or just to acknowledge that the season of growth is over. In actuality as well as metaphorically. Wouldn’t that be a lovely slogan? The season of growth is over. Time to give it a rest, give over to rest, give in to the need for rest. Time to stop pretending in evergreen infinities and perpetual motion. This, right now, is the end of the growing season.
There is always an end, mind you. Best we don’t fight it and just let nature take its course.
Seems a more effective and practical protest. As well as an infinitely more pleasant way to spend a SunDay, this last day of the Nutting Moon. And it is something all of us can do to make the world a better place. For all of us… And if you like, I’m sure you can still make a goofy placard and chant feral cheers to the sleepy trees… But quietly… It’s time for winter…
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Eliza Daley is the pen name of Elizabeth Anker. Elizabeth worked in geochemistry at the University of New Mexico and has degrees in math, history and journalism. She was the owner of Alamosa Books, a now-closed children’s bookstore in Albuquerque, New Mexico. She’s taught science to elementary school kids and freshman geology at UNM. She had two books of poetry published by Indiana University Press and is an award-winning musician and composer. She is also an avid gardener, baker, and home-maker who believes firmly in creating place. She currently publishes the blog
By My Solitary Hearth and writes for All Poetry as Elizabeth Murmuring. Her work can also be found on Resilience.
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