Dan Kelly

Pākehā / from the fish’s head. PhD study @UoA: ecological farming, food justice, citizen science. Like words, gardens, collective self-organising etc

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

Growing food in cities offers multiple benefits – but many projects struggle to get the volunteers they need. How might we change this?

A thread summarising findings from my case study just published in Agriculture And Human Values https://t.co/inGXUlmpzF #openaccess #newarticle

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

@SikotiHamiltonR As a Tongan navigator told a wananga here: “Tonga no break”

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

Restoring a positive [perception of, and] role for humanity

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

There is a strange idea in some environmentalist circles that human population is the main cause of ecological breakdown, and that humans have an *intrinsically* negative impact on ecosystems. Both claims are incorrect.

First, human ecological impact is entirely a function of the system of production and provisioning. It depends on what is being produced, under what conditions, and how the yields of production are distributed.

For instance, an economy that uses mostly public transit, renewable energy, multi-unit housing and plant-based protein can meet human needs with a fraction of the impact of an economy that produces a lot of SUVs, fossil fuels, mansions and industrial beef, and which allocates a bunch of totally unnecessary production to service the fantasies of overconsuming elites.

Remember, we know it is possible to provide decent living standards (DLS) for 8.5 billion people with 30% of current global energy and material use, by ensuring efficient technologies and focusing production on socially necessary goods and services.

That much is fairly straightforward. But one might say that, even so, every person will always have some negative impact. This too is incorrect. Again, it depends entirely on the production system, and specifically, what people are mobilized to do.

Under capitalism, labour is mobilized overwhelmingly to produce things that are profitable to capital. But labour could just as easily be mobilized instead for regeneration. Using straightforward public finance mechanisms, we can fund massive programmes to reforest barren lands, regenerate degraded ecosystems, restore biodiversity, advance agroecological methods, etc.

Under these conditions, it is possible for societies to not only have minimal negative impact on ecology, but to have a net-positive impact, actively improving ecological indicators.

People buy into the myth of the intrinsic destructiveness of humans because we have come to take capitalism for granted. But it is 100% possible to organize production and labour differently.

Under capitalism, we are compelled to produce whatever is most profitable to capital, even if it is destructive to humans and nature. Under conditions of economic democracy, we can produce what we know is necessary for well-being and ecology.

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

@omniharmonic Is this another word for syntropy?

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

"The food system is a major producer of greenhouse gas emissions. There is a growing consensus that to achieve net zero we need to change production and consumption patterns." I think u mean OWNERSHIP PATTERNS https://t.co/BTMcNTMxgp #foodsovereignty

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

Another rigorous and highly detailed report on food insecurity in NZ that fails to mention land confiscation: the fundamental dispossession of Māori from their economic base that lies at the root of our food system today https://t.co/TZmO9Cnz2U

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

@DilettanteryPod Just plant a spinach

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

@RizomaSchool Very interesting thread, and I agree it’s what’s present in practice, just wonder if you’ve come across kin-based systems that are still geared towards consciousness-raising and social change? Ie many indigenous movements seem to incorporate both

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

@SikotiHamiltonR And from rot new life can grow

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

"When the government talks about doing the basics brilliantly, the basic we need to get right, even more than reading and writing, is empathy." https://t.co/c8223f3Hvv

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

Short article I wrote on the importance of IMAGINATION for climate action, as discussed by two excellent speakers: @JuliaBentz1 and Ruben Ritzén from @climaginaries - can't recommend their work enough https://t.co/xfzqXNIYGy

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

Based thread about unconscionable conduct against the sovereign Palestinian people

[Michael Fakhri @MichaelFakhri]

The Palestinian struggle for food sovereignty, is part of the universal struggle for the realization of the right to food. The tools that will free the Palestinian people from occupat'n, oppress'n &exploitat'n will be the same ones that can free us all Art by: Omar Khouri /end

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

@agronomistag From my perspective, the issue isn’t that fertilisers are synthetic in an ideological sense but that their creation involves fossil fuels that must be phased out, en mass, to avoid more extreme destabilisation of climate and the agricultural disruption that brings.

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

"Strong public support for healthy food policies in Aotearoa" - but na na govt wanna cut school lunches. Ideology all the way dowwn https://t.co/FpHJuEfy5Y

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

Post it straight into all liberal brains

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

@Mjreard @AndyMasley Do u think 97% of the world need to decrease consumption? I can hear the imperial bubble from here

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

@SikotiHamiltonR Almost like the problem is intellectual habits towards singular truths?? Contradiction that negates rather than enriches…

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

"A key part of the legitimating narrative of capitalism is the portrayal of this process of agrarian transition to modernism as an apolitical and ineluctable teleology" https://t.co/TgCk1EEoRs

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

"the value of community organizing, anchored on immediate, concrete issues that could deliver palpable gains to community members, all done using organizing and mobilizing methods that are subversive and irreverent" Borras Jr. on Alinsky https://t.co/jfBPKPUe8P

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

@AlexHeffron20 Romance and criticality can co-exist? Whatever sort of farming you desire, it needs passion and perspective. Just as a family farm could be hell, so can coops, corporates and state-run schemes. No to essentialist forms from me, but a big yes to romance.

[Dan Kelly @kellydanc]

"the guide prompted them to immerse themselves in the world by imagining who they were in 2053 and what they did during the transition years... In this way, a tool for time travel was provided to the participants" https://t.co/3tEh7knmty