25February2008
Posted by Carleton Schade under: Economy; Sustainability.
Creating the kind of consensus necessary to effect a radical change in our institutions requires a fundamental shift in our collective consciousness. Hard economic times could, of course, have such an effect, if the Great Depression of the 1930s depression be any guide. During that difficult decade, tens of millions of Americans became openly supportive of socialist policies and alternative societal models. However, the argument has also been waged for millennia that one’s individual (as opposed to collective) action can be the key to a society’s transformation. This is the mystic’s path. “You must be the change you want to see in the world,” Mohandas Gandhi said. And Sartre in Existentialism and Human Emotions suggests that each person behave as she or he desires all people behave.
Instead of expecting our political and business leaders to blithely accept a redistribution of wealth, we can perform the end around. If Americans can accept, no aim for a lower standard of living, by letting go of the dream of ever-rising material wealth, of being the child with his face pressed to the candy store window, the addict begging for more even though more is killing him, we could regain our power. If we’re not jonesing for the goods, the peddlers lose their power over us. And by the way, in these same decades in which Americans have been working harder and consuming more, Americans have reported becoming increasingly unhappy, according to Richard Layard in his book Happiness.
The idea is simple enough: work less, produce less, consume less. Spend more time with family, in leisure, growing vegetables in your garden, puttering around the house, attending civic and social events, volunteering, exercising, meditating, praying, doing all the non-consumer things that bring happiness and ease and physical and mental health to a person’s life. With less ambition and less drive to consume, one’s daily existence becomes less stressful and life actually more secure. The house isn’t as big or perfect, the car isn’t as shiny, but more time allows for wiser consumer decisions (so that the drop in one’s material standard of living isn’t proportional to the drop in income). And, besides, we know, in our quieter moments, that inner happiness makes these priorities fade away like the illusion that they are.
The reverberations across the social landscape could be immense. Industry will sell their goods elsewhere, of course, continuing the post-modern form of imperialism, where companies become increasingly transnational, owing allegiance to no nation, to no one, having only to obey the laws their wealth cannot elude. This may, as it turns out, be good for equality across the globe, but it won’t be good for the environment and our continuing Ecological Suicide. It’ll promote equal opportunity suicide.
And some suggest that at home a downside of recession–whether voluntary or historically imposed– is that industry will invest less on Green research and development and that government and business will redirect their focus onto the economy at the expense of the environment. Perhaps. However, as every environmental indicator worsens, anyway, technology-driven solutions have thus far proven themselves insufficient. Economic growth and increased (Green) consumption hardly seem to be the way to improve the environment. Again, these objections sound more like the addict’s rationale for staying the course when their drug is threatened.
As for the recession, ours can become individual, voluntary and liberating.
15February2008
Posted by Carleton Schade under: Economy; Sustainability.
Robert Reich (1,2) in his Feb. 13, 2008 New York Times op-ed piece, Totally Spent, says “We’re sliding into a recession, or worse…” Americans have been spending beyond their means for decades by having more women join the workforce; by working longer hours; and by borrowing on the value of their homes through home equity loans. The American consumer is running out of ways to “keep the spending binge going.” He suggests that we either have to accept a lower standard of living, or “reverse the trends of widening inequality and more concentrated wealth.”
Both are radical solutions, given the power of the American beliefs in consumption as the way to happiness and in the inevitability of progress and economic growth. The etymology of the word radical suggests going to the root. The roots of our worldviews and of our behaviors need to change simultaneously. Since the levers of power are firmly in the hands of concentrated wealth, wresting any of that wealth would prove to be as difficult as it has been since the dawn of civilization.
In this country, however, the constitution is still enough intact to allow such a change. As Robert Reich says in his book Supercapitalism: “ government could change the rules. In theory, it could enact laws to make it easier for all employees to unionize, require all large companies to provide … …health insurance and pensions, enact zoning regulations to protect Main Street retailers from the predations of big-box retailer, and raise the minimum wage high enough to give all working people a true “living” wage.”
We could, if we saw fit, but we have been properly trained to hold sacred the separation of finance and state. So removed has economics become from the concept of freedom that, as Benjamin Barber notes in his book Jihad vs. McWorld, we now view ourselves as consumers, not as citizens. In other words, we have come to voice our opinion by what we buy, not through the voting booth.
15January2008
Posted by Carleton Schade under: Energy; Overshoot; Technology.
Since civilization began some 9,000 years ago, humanity’s impact on the environment has been accelerating by an auto-catalytic process of the mutually-reinforcing variables Surplus, Innovation and Population. One can think of Surplus as wealth, or the material and energy flows through our lives. Innovation, although encompassing knowledge and technology, refers to the mental energy, individually and collectively. Population stands as a multiplier effect in all its complexity. Through a slightly different lens, surplus represents the material, population represents the life force, and innovation refers to consciousness.
An inflection point in the J-curves of these variables occurred around 1950, so that from that point on, every factor worth measuring has exhibited a troubling skyward trajectory.
As in all natural systems, the environment’s responses (in this instance global warming, dwindling land, water, fossil fuels and wild animals, etc.,) signals a resistance to present behaviors. Awareness of these signals and their possible meanings has diffused so thoroughly through Civilization that even the power elite’s staunchest apologists (such as president George W. Bush) must publicly acknowledge them. We are likely approaching a crisis for the Civilization project. In all its uses (general, medical, psychological), crisis is the term used to indicate a turning point for the system in question, when it becomes clear whether the system will flourish or decline.
Our Environmental Impact is caused by the multiplier effect of Population, Consumption and the Resources/Wastes per amount of Consumption. Globally, voluntary reductions in either population or consumption are considered unlikely. Therefore, most analysts today suggest that Civilization’s only response to its predicament revolves around the Resources/Waste factor, and this comes down to a reliance on human ingenuity to power us through: finding new resources, substituting new materials, innovating efficiency. Let us wish us all, Good Luck.
30December2007
Posted by Carleton Schade under: Philosophy.
The following entry is the third of three from Neal Goldsmith, philosopher and psychotherapist, at http://www.nealgoldsmith.com/philosophy.html. One can–without much distortion –substitute “society” and “our civilization” for the role of the “client” in Dr. Goldsmith’s model. Then, it would be the healers’ calling to facilitate the natural development of an individual and of society. As part of our maturation, we–individually and collectively–become more in tune with what it means to live with others we progressively widen that circle of community. A child first learns the sustainable way to live with family, then with friends, school, etc. To live sustainably with the rest of life on earth, however, we can no longer afford to stop our sphere of inclusion at family or town or nation or humanity as traditionally has been our wont. We will have to become far more mature than we have been. We will have to continue expanding our community to include all life, the Earth, and even universe… Read the rest of this entry »
27December2007
Posted by Carleton Schade under: Philosophy.
This entry is the second of three from Neal Goldsmith, philosopher and psychotherapist, at http://www.nealgoldsmith.com/philosophy.html. I will add only that what is here referred to as Post-Modern might more properly be called Post-Post Modern or perhaps Integrative, as Post-Modernism has usually been seen as deconstructive in perspective.
“Every world view contains the seeds of its own eventual dethroning, contradictions that will be explained only by the next, superseding world view. Today, it is post-modernism supplanting modernity – the dualism of Descartes being replaced by a world view that accommodates and integrates opposites: of technology and art, mind and body, man and god, matter and energy, spirit and flesh. This is what I refer to as a “poetry science” - not the science of poetry, or poetry about science, but a poetical world view that positions modern, industrial, extractive science in the broader, undergirding context of cosmology, creativity, spirituality, and community. Read the rest of this entry »
19December2007
Posted by Carleton Schade under: Philosophy.
This entry is the first of three from Neal Goldsmith, philosopher and psychotherapist, at http://www.nealgoldsmith.com/philosophy.html.
“It was a devil’s bargain: Thought, ideation, intent, objectification, ego, the finger-eye-frontal lobe complex. A devil’s bargain, yes, but supremely adaptive, as we now dominate nature and occupy every corner of the globe. And the devil’s bargain was the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil: The first division, like light and darkness, soul vs. body, humans vs. nature, Christians vs. animists.
“Of course, it’s an old story by now how life started natural-yet-brutish and how we evolved adaptations to protect us and how now, the very traits and brain functions that enabled us to excel thus far, are proving counter-adaptive in the form of pollution, extinctions, cancer, obesity, overcrowding, competition, mechanization and social alienation.
“So how do we heal that rift? Read the rest of this entry »
12December2007
Posted by Carleton Schade under: Energy; Global Food; Rich and Poor; Suffering.
The Dec. 9, 2007 New York Times: Oil-Nations Use More Energy, Cutting Exports. “The economies of many big oil-exporting countries are growing so fast that their need for energy within their borders is crimping how much they can sell abroad, adding new strains to the global oil market.” Saudi Arabia, Russia, Mexico, Norway, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Libya, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Venezuela—all are producing—through petroleum sales—large wealthy and middle-classes, and we know what that means: more consumption per capita. More cars, bigger homes, air conditioners, vacations, etc.
And a number of large oil producers are already drying up. “Indonesia flipped from exporting oil to importing it three years ago, because of sagging production and rising demand. Iran [!!], Algeria and Malaysia are vulnerable over the next decade. Most oil experts view Mexico [!] as the next country to flip, in as little as five years.”
This, of course, affects peak oil debates, as well as rising oil prices, a struggling American economy and the global economy picture, in general. The big losers, however (the ones rarely mentioned in these discussions), continue to be the quiet billions of people who increasingly depend on high-yield grains for their survival. High-yield grains tend to require massive irrigation and intensive application of synthetic fertilizers, both of which require considerable energy. (Pesticides and farm machinery—which also require great energy inputs—can be substituted by manual labor.) Rising oil prices will continue to put the squeeze on poor farmers and the three billion undernourished people (1, 2) who depend on them. This will be one among many variables (degrading soil and water resources, global warming, population growth, desertification) that makes life for billions of people increasingly precarious.
3December2007
Posted by Carleton Schade under: Sustainability; Wisdom.
It is said that it takes a very aware fish to know that it’s wet. And we—the human species—are just becoming aware the physical and cultural medium which we inhabit. And just as we are waking up to a deep interconnection with all that is living and nonliving, we are becoming aware of the profound magnitude of the destruction we have wrought to our life-support systems. This is the human dilemma. Read the rest of this entry »
26November2007
Posted by Carleton Schade under: Energy; Future; Sustainability.
The October, 2007 issue of Wired magazine dismisses hydrogen, solar, wind, and corn-produced ethanol as viable energy sources, mainly as dramatic introduction to their cover story about the future of switchgrass. This is the plant, according to the article’s title, that will save America. Read the rest of this entry »
19November2007
Posted by Carleton Schade under: Carrying Capacity; Dieback; Future; Overshoot; Sustainability.
Sustainable, by definition, means that one’s behavior can be sustained indefinitely. If there were only four million people on the earth, they could probably cut down as many trees, clear as much land as they wished, use as many resources and produce as much waste as they desired. This is, of course, ignoring the moral argument. The immediate vicinity would be eventually destroyed, and humans would move on to another spot, behaving similarly. Meanwhile, the destroyed area would recuperate and become vibrant again. This would be sustainable behavior, and it is basically what Paleolithic and early Neolithic (early farmers) did. From our individual perspective, the earth is big and could likely sustain this sort of lifestyle indefinitely.
However, with 1000 times that number, soon to be 2000 times, such Neolithic conduct is not sustainable. Every indicator–deforestation, overfishing, oceanic acidity, biodiversity loss (1,2), desertification, water drawdown, fossil fuel resources, global warming, etc–suggests that the earth’s recuperative powers have already been overtaxed. That is, our behaviors are unsustainable. By definition, this means that the earth cannot continue to support present and projected human consumption indefinitely. And since global industries are primed to produce more than ever, it will get worse for quite a while before it gets better.
Many solutions have been proposed, and many of them are thoughtful, informed, and likely to be part of future sustainable societies. They are unlikely to be part of any large movement in the near future, however. Reading trend lines (albeit in a linear way), the destruction to earth’s life support systems is accelerating far faster than our behaviors are changing. Water, land and energy (in a easily usable form, namely oil) are diminishing so rapidly–so unsustainably–that a crash is imminent. Global warming has deservingly gotten a lot of attention, as has peak oil, mainly because the world’s wealthy billion people do not want to give up their high consumption lifestyles. However, as big a threat to humanity–at least in the timespans of decades–is the desertification/water scarcity issue. Numerous articles in the academic peer-reviewed journals have been documenting a disaster-in-the-making, threatening in the necessarily couched language of academia to a Malthusian dieback of humanity. Hundreds of millions, even billions, could die the horrific deaths of starvation and disease in the coming century. It is this event, perhaps more than any other, that will propel humanity into true sustainable action.