There is no other building material which has so well built the arrogant city and wrought such damage to the Land as concrete. Has there ever been an instance in which cement was used for a purpose other than to plaster over the Land? Whether it is made into buildings, fences, wharves, Hume pipe, or to make channels, its ultimate role is inevitably to block off the Land. So for every bag of cement that is produced, that much more of the Land will be covered over. And the cement factories are running at full capacity every day, turning out great amounts of cement (to cover over the Land), and sending it to be sold in the city. "Urbanization" can now be perfectly equated to "concretization." 49 Nostradamus hinted that "the crisis of humanity will come raining down from the sky," but, while I have no intention of contending with the Great Nostradamus, I believe that the crisis of humanity will come from the Land -- not as fast as falling from the sky, but just as surely. I have said it many times, and I will say it again: As long as our present "peace" continues as it is -- destruction of the forests, desertification, the loss of topsoil and the accumulation of salts, the contamination of soil and water with synthetic chemicals, and the accompanying expansion of the cities -- we will see the desolation of the Land continue. "Peace" signifies the stability, prosperity, and prodigality of the city, and it is impossible to maintain this kind of peace without sacrificing the Land. It is "peace" that destroys the Land and leads humanity to ruin. Furthermore, if a war should start Nostradamus will be correct; either way, it means we have no future. The only thing that will barely guarantee our survival is a scaled-down life, a life of regression and austerity. To put it another way, our survival depends solely upon the disappearance of the Maker of Peace (the peace of prosperity and ease), that is, the city. 50 The reason wars over land do not occur in the natural world as they do in the human world is because other living things take and accumulate no more than they need. A lion kills no more than it needs to eat its fill, and a sparrow will not store up more insects and seeds after it has eaten enough. Only human beings, for whatever reason, establish economic societies, and go wild over the accumulation of wealth. If we too do not know sufficiency we will surely perish. Wild (natural) animals should be our model. CHAPTER IX Independent Farming Of all the occupations on Earth, the only one that allows us to be independent is farming. All occupations other than farming must depend at least upon agriculture, or else they have no source of life; for this reason independence is impossible. If, as a result of their contempt for agriculture, the other occupations try to become independent of it, their practitioners will soon die!