Peter Madden, chief executive of Forum for the Future, writes a monthly column for Gristmill on sustainability in the U.K. and Europe.
We have a problem, we greens. It has to do with the way that we talk about the future. We do need to have a more plausible account of what the kind of world we are recommending would be like.
However, our main narrative about the future talks of apocalypse and doom and gloom: the earth is dying; species are disappearing; the planet is overheating.
If people want to do something about it, too often they're told they'll have to lead a life of sacrifice and constraint. And if they won't, we'll guilt-trip and scare them 'til they repent.
And even if they do as we say, they also worry that it probably won't make much difference anyway because the Chinese, Indians, and North Americans are all busy ignoring the issues.
I'm painting a caricature, of course, but you get my point. Our story isn't very attractive to lots of people: it is too grounded in fear and negatives. We need to stop peddling what one recent report called "climate porn."
The majority of people want positive things they can aspire to. We need to paint more attractive visions. This, however, is easier to say than to do.
Recently in my organization, senior staff were sharing the first five minutes of the presentations we give externally, the bit where we explain sustainable development, climate change, and so on to a skeptical audience. The idea was to compare notes on our best presentation techniques. But guess what? We all started off on the negatives. We opened with different variants of "We're in real trouble, guys." We then mostly had some graphs, facts, and predictions showing how "we are going to be in even more trouble soon." Sounds familiar?
I'm not saying we should go too much in the other direction. If we are too optimistic and cheery, we can come across as all Panglossian, implying that we can solve the world's challenges by some easy "green consumer" choices or the development of new technology.
Of course we still need to scare people a bit, to grab the attention. But we risk paralyzing and de-motivating people if that is all we dwell on.
When greens do paint visions of the future, they are often utopian, hippie, bucolic, and frankly unbelievable. They either seem to think that everyone will live in some variation of rural France, on a small-holding complete with small vineyard, goat, and squeaky bicycle. Or they describe the kind of world that most normal people would run a mile from. I certainly don't want to live in a future where I have to hold hands with strangers and wear flowers in my hair.
At Forum for the Future, we are trying to play a small part to change the way we talk about the future. We always try to tell the good news in our magazine, Green Futures. We have recently set up a futures program that is running some interesting projects. For example, we are doing a "positive futures" project on climate change. This is of course a scary subject; but we are trying to paint a picture of all the ways our lives will genuinely be better if we get the responses to climate change right -- through healthier lifestyles, more time, better functioning communities, a cleaner local environment, and so on. We want people to look at a more sustainable future and think: "I want that!" Over the coming years, we intend to pick off some of the key sustainable development challenges, and try to tell aspirational stories of what the future might hold.
I know that people in the U.S. have been thinking along the same lines. I remember that a couple of years ago the authors of "The Death of Environmentalism" argued for a positive, transformative vision of the future as a necessary part of renewing the movement. I would agree with this, though I think it would be wrong to try and fashion a single story for the environmental movement. That would probably be too constraining and too easy to attack. It would risk alienating as many people as it attracted. Our stories of the future should be multiple and competing, but positive.
How are you guys handling this need for attractive and believable visions of a sustainable future? Have you got some good stories to tell? And if you shared these down at the local pub, do you think that ordinary people would listen to them, and then want to be part of them?
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Comments
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Sean Casten Posted 7:43 am
20 Jul 2007
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JMG Posted 7:50 am
20 Jul 2007
At this point in history, talking about "Economic Growth" is simply discussing the size of a cancerous tumor -- that is, bigger isn't good news.
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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Sean Casten Posted 7:53 am
20 Jul 2007
Don't make the economy the enemy of the environment.
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JMG Posted 8:24 am
20 Jul 2007
Or do people spend it on other things, things that use energy and materials?
What do you mean "don't make the economy the enemy of the environment?" Isn't that like saying "Don't make the whaling ship the enemy of the whales?"
Save the world: Reduce greenhouse gas emissions 5% annually.
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justlou Posted 8:29 am
20 Jul 2007
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Sean Casten Posted 8:49 am
20 Jul 2007
To frame it another way, imagine a world where 100% of the energy comes from pure renewables with zero environmental consequence. (This is a pure thought experiment, since even a world that produced all it's power from wind will face concerns about bat fatalities. New solutions have a habit of creating new problems.) If we lived in that world and started using more energy efficient appliances, we would have more money in our pocket. Our investment in a more efficient toaster (manufactured with zero environmental impact all the way up the fuel chain, since that's the nature of our imaginary world) generates positive cash flows for us and grows the economy. Presumably you're with me so far.
So now let's temper our idealism a bit. Let's imagine that we are transitioning to a new energy model which isn't quite 100% perfect, but is 75% better than the one we've got. It's also more plausible. The odd bat fatality, but still a hell of a lot better than where we are right now. Now suppose we make the same investment in our efficient toaster. Still causes economic growth. But now it's also causing environmental benefit, because we're reducing the upstream consequences of energy that we're no longer consuming. Clearly, this same logic applies no matter how clean we think the underlying energy system is.
But now look what happens when the investment is in the energy system itself. Our company is currently working on a project to recover waste heat from the top of a silicon manufacturer, which is sufficient to generate 40 MW of fuel-free electricity. That investment will generate a nice return on investment based on the savings in purchased energy (idling upstream coal-fired generation). Economic win. Reduces coal-combustion for an environmental win. Meanwhile, the silicon plant's customers include folks who turn silicon into consumer products, including photovoltaics. Which means that the cost of PV goes down and brings more solar on the grid. Thus, by investing in the infrastructure of a cleaner energy system, we get recursive benefits.
So let's try to answer your question for this specific project, but recognizing the generalizable truth. The first silicon plant to do this probably keeps some of the money for himself, but also likely lowers his price a bit to gain market share (thus moving money out of his pocket, and into his customers'). This puts pressure on his competitors to do the same. Ultimately, this drives down the cost of their products, and all that downstream stuff, including PV. Which accelerates the deployment of PV. And because the grid is getting (recursively) cleaner, the fuel chain impacts of each subsequent step become ever cleaner.
This is economic development in a nutshell. And - as we've shown, through too many capital projects to count - it is not at all incompatible with environmental benefit.
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GreenEngineer Posted 9:24 am
20 Jul 2007
We can create a world in which human prosperity and ecological health are mutually compatible and reinforcing goals. I do not know how to tell credible, believable stories about what that world would look like. (Dammit, Jim, I'm an engineer, not a storyteller!) But I do believe I know the basic changes we need to make, in order to create such a world.
Three basic things need to happen:
Move from fossil energy sources to renewable energy sources. The fundamental difference between fossil fuels and renewable energy is that fossil fuels are concentrated (literally, by time and pressure), while renewable energy is widely available but diffuse. We simply cannot collect the same total amount of energy from renewable sources that we can readily tap from, say, an oil well. Which means that in order to run a civilization on renewables, we will have to use much, much less energy than we currently do. Which brings us to point #2.
Implement radical energy efficiency. The good news here is that there's lots of waste to "mine" for negawatts. Conservative analysis says that we waste 2/3 of our total energy, and 4/5 of our transportation energy. The reality is that we can do much better even that that through good design.
Eliminate the concept of material waste. Our present manufacturing systems are based on digging up material, processing it, and wasting most of it, for one simple reason: it's convenient in the short term, and cheap. Human beings are the only creature on the planet that produce true waste. Make the market tell the ecological truth, and we will quickly figure out how to replace our linear material flows with cyclic ones.
Design in the context of and with respect for natural forces and conditions. By ignoring the natural context of buildings and other human artifacts, designers are not only damaging the planet unnecessarily. They are also passing over an opportunity to harness the enormous regenerative power of nature.
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cfigallo Posted 9:41 am
20 Jul 2007
Having lived collectively for the first 12 years of adulthood, it's definitely not everyone's cup of tea, but neither is it completely unappealing if you like living around your good friends. And if times begin to get hard or scary, many people tend to bond tighter with one another. Some people will rise to the challenge and some won't.
Yes, it matters what everybody does, not just the environmentalists. But it's hard to push an idea before it's visible as a reality. And persuading people of the reality that's coming is going to meet resistance.
Cliff Figallo
Climate Frog
climatefrog.blogspot.com
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GreenEngineer Posted 9:48 am
20 Jul 2007
Any time one of us is confronted with an apparent conflict between the needs of nature and the needs/wants of humans, it is imperative to step back and consider the fact that this perceived conflict is likely just that: a perception.
If you are faced with this sort of dilemma, try asking the question a different way. Try looking for ways to serve both groups simultaneously. If you keep coming up against unresolvable conflict, keep turning the problem over, looking for connections you might have missed. If ultimately there is no practical solution that supports the needs of both humans and nature, then see if you can think of an impractical solution: i.e. one that perhaps can't be implemented in the current context, but would work under a slightly different set of constraints. Oftentimes, considering such an impractical solution will lead you to a practical solution. And even if it doesn't, it's a good mental exercise.
This is an important form of mental discipline for everyone who cares about the environment to cultivate. We have been so heavily conditioned to assume that we must either ride roughshod over nature, ignore human desires, or reach some kind of lose-lose compromise, that we rarely seriously look for other possibilities. But the possibilities are there, if we look hard enough. And learning to see these possibilities takes practice. We must all become designers. Start practicing now.
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sunflower Posted 9:48 am
20 Jul 2007
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:11 pm
20 Jul 2007
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tico89 Posted 1:52 pm
20 Jul 2007
As for the doom and gloom point of view, in my opinion trying to paint a pretty picture of the future just to be liked and to cheer people up is plainly irresponsible. In the same way, refusing to do anything about global crises because it seems too difficult to do anything is double irresponsible. Obviously "we're doooommeed....doooommed" doesn't help much either, but humanity is more likely to make major changes if we see the dangers, than if it seems like just a little bit can help. "Someone else can do that..."
It's not defeatism, it's realism. Doesn't the upsurge in 'reality' shows prove people are interested in reality? (Actually, it proves the opposite: they're interested in watching reality and not being a part of it. Theory blown.)
I'm not quite sure if this has been said before, or is off on a tangent, I didn't have much time to do more than scan the comments, but I think JMG's wrong about the dangers of economic growth. Some, certainly, but when it comes to energy use, it seems there's two options. Regress with energy use, or try and head towards technological advancements. Regressing would take us through all the 20th century oil use and irresponsible bandying around with nuclear power, through to the coal of the industrial revolution. By the time you get back to a sustainable way of life, it may sustain the planet but certainly not humanity.
Forwards, on the other hand, takes us into the realms of much more efficient ways of exploiting renewable energy, or of using current energy resources. There is a way forward, economically, though mass consumerism doesn't help.
If I'm totally lost, ignore, please.
If I share initials with 'Global Warming', is that a sign?
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Bart Anderson Posted 1:56 pm
20 Jul 2007
- Physicist Richard Feynmann
(Report on the Challenger disaster)No matter what the Sierra Club or David Roberts or any of us say, things aren't looking very good.
PR Rule One: Respect your public. Don't condescend or sugar-coat the truth. Deep-down people know that Priuses and cloth shopping bags aren't enough. When we humans know what we are up against, we are capable of amazing things.
PR Rule Two: Have values and a vision. People will catch on if you are just catering to their whims. This is the reason that Republicans have dominated U.S. politics during the last 25 years; they believed in something and were committed to achieving it. The Democrats, in contrast, had lost their way.
PR Rule Three: Don't whine or nag or threaten (I think this is what you're getting at in your post).
I believe you had a wartime Prime Minister who was superb at telling hard truths. He might be a good role model for us.
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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tico89 Posted 1:59 pm
20 Jul 2007
The report suggests that communications from government and green groups should treat climate-friendly activity as a brand that can be sold, making it feel natural to the large numbers of people who are currently unengaged with the problem.
Oh my gawd. A flipping brand! Nature's answer to Coke? Oh, I give up on humanity. Burn the bloody lot, I say.
If I share initials with 'Global Warming', is that a sign?
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Green Granny Posted 2:43 pm
20 Jul 2007
There's a "truism" that you will find what you're looking for. Its also true that you get more of what you encourage. Personally, I don't want more fear and doom and gloom.
Fear (and guilt) are lousy motivators. Positive reinforcement works much better -- on pets and people.
A "positive feature" I recently read is the US Postal Service is striving to be "green". The Postmaster General recently announced that Priority Mail shipping materials are now certified "cradle-to-cradle".
http://www.usps.com/communications/newsroom/2007/pr07_051 ...
"We must be the change we wish to see in the world." -- Mahatma Ghandi
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Rune Posted 4:58 pm
20 Jul 2007
Most of us could probably scare the average person into shock and denial by telling all we know of looming environmental and related social crises in a good, long blast. That's because most people have no sense of being able to do anything about those matters. The deer in the headlights reaction, or something more aggressively defensive, is quite natural because it does look to them as if they are going to get creamed.
It is helpful to point out the immediate advantages to technological and lifestyle changes that can accompany most of the shifts we need to make before dwelling too long on why we need to start making those changes right away. Generally, there are ways to address most of the big social issues people complain about (e.g., not enough time with family, friends, and neighbors, obesity and other health crises, rising energy costs, creaky economy for wage earners, etc.) while easing off the resource intensive activities and consumption that are putting the planet in peril. If you can talk in terms of how to feel less vulnerable to risks and craziness of modern life, people are quite happy to listen. And from there, it becomes easier to talk about some of the scary stuff and show how the same personal changes can contribute to greater environmental security and control over the truly essential needs to live a healthy and happy life.
It's also important to remember that everyone has a role to play, and for most people, that role is not taking ownership of some drastic save the world project or radical lifestyle change to be made overnight. We need researchers, teachers, helpers, TLC providers, administrators, and just people who can appreciate good efforts and good works and express that to those who might otherwise think they are wasting their time. It all counts. It is all necessary.
On the other hand, I agree with those who roll their eyeballs at the slick and feel good approach the article seems to promote. There is not only room for the whole truth and our authentic concerns and reactions to what we expect, there is no way we will ever make our best decisions and act on them with conviction if we keep hearing and echoing a fairy tale story that is guaranteed to have everyone living happily ever after. We are faced with huge challenges and huge unknowns, just as were generations throughout history. And like our ancestors, many of us will lead extraordinary lives that are rich and valuable to those around us and those who follow precisely because we have such challenges to call on our best and promote the same in our neighbors.
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justlou Posted 10:01 pm
20 Jul 2007
And trying to get 9 billion people through this approaching bottleneck just is not going to happen without a major dieoff. There is a certain amount of exemptionalism displayed in the above posts. Sorry, but the doom and gloom is very much warranted.
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GreenEngineer Posted 4:12 am
21 Jul 2007
There is a version of Pascal's Wager at work here. Either you're right about the inevitability of dieoff, or you're wrong.
If you're right, then there is no point in talking about it: Most of us are going to die, and that's that. Tell your friends and family, and maybe you can persuade them to hunker down in your bunker with you, and maybe you'll be among the 10% that survive.
If you're wrong, then you're actively spreading a defeatist meme. You're going around telling people that they are doomed, and that there is nothing they can do. If they believe you, and do nothing, then you will turn out to be correct because they believed you, not because it had to be that way.
So basically, you're not doing any one any favors by promoting a doomer perspective in a public forum. At best, you're doing nothing positive. At worst, you're actively reducing the chances for the survival of our civilization. Ultimately, the only thing you are doing is relieving your own internal tension. While I can understand the need for that, it comes at a cost. And it really has no place in a community of people who are dedicated to trying to solve this problem.
In other words, do us all a favor, and keep your doomerism to yourself.
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GreenEngineer Posted 4:18 am
21 Jul 2007
It's really odd to me that you recognize the potential upside for a product of service like that, and yet claim that economic growth is a sure and certain path to doom. If Zombu is successful, they will generate economic growth decoupled from increased material and energy consumption. And isn't that just what we need, to escape from the trap you describe in your comment?
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Rune Posted 5:07 am
21 Jul 2007
I happen to agree with JMG on his summary of the impact of energy efficiency that is not used to achieve energy conservation. Certainly his observations are supported by history thus far. We have increased energy efficiency by many orders of magnitude over time, and at each turn the ultimate result is that we find it attractive to use more net energy per period of time doing more things with our energy slaves than was attempted in the past. Also, there is a very striking correlation between global growth in energy consumption (both in aggregate and per capita) and population growth. It does not strike me as far fetched to anticipate that reversing one without the other is unlikely.
That said, I do think it is important to our future to take advantage of the massive potential for near term energy conservation through adoption of a plethora of opportunities for energy efficiency that should be readily adopted by people with minimal coaxing or lifestyle adjustments (although some smart financial assistance and true cost pricing is essential to getting the most out of that possibility). But that is only half of the answer, and it will prove to be a self-defeating enterprise, unless we invest minds and money into redesigning our way of life, our trend in global population growth, and the infrastructure that encourages and trains us to live as we have been in recent decades.
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Sean Casten Posted 5:20 am
21 Jul 2007
"We have increased energy efficiency by many orders of magnitude over time, and at each turn the ultimate result is that we find it attractive to use more net energy"
This is not at all correct, and I think you may have confused different issues. Falling energy prices may well incentivize more use (or at least remove disincentives to conserve, which leads to the same thing). But the incentive to make do with less (e.g., efficiency) is by definition in favor of less energy use. The cost of energy encourages us all to conserve, to greater or lesser degrees. Conservation may take the form of making do with less (e.g., put on a sweater instead of turning up the heat) or of efficiency with no reduction in standard of living (e.g., put in thicker insulation). The two are indistinguishable from a energy use perspective, but both are driven by the desire to save energy costs.
But it is logically incompatible to suggest that the economic incentive to conserve creates a sudden urge to consume. Indeed, this is the reason why energy efficiency is so compelling. The paper company who figures out how to make their product with less energy than their competitor finds themselves with an economic incentive to keep conserving, and to drag their competitors into conservation with them.
I agree with the links between population growth and energy consumption, but on a per capita basis, there is no reason why one's total energy consumption should stay fixed, such as would be required by your assertion that increases in efficiency would suddenly cause me to consume more.
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justlou Posted 5:38 am
21 Jul 2007
A threshold of sustainability may not have already been crossed?
GDP is not a flawed measure of economy?
Growth cannot be questioned as a cure all?
That there is not a major reckoning on the horizon?
That our economic and political leadership offers practically no hope that we will deal intelligently with this reckoning?
That unjustified techno/optimism is not leading us further out on the limb of overreach?
That Malthusian theory has really been negated?
That our already overpopulated planet can endure another 2 to 3 billion people crowding into blighted hell holes?
Sometimes pessimism is a better survival tactic. And sometimes optimism leads to very tragic mistakes.
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GreenEngineer Posted 6:46 am
21 Jul 2007
Our civilization is at a point of transformation. We will have to question most of our assumptions, most especially the nature and value of growth. Collapse is a very real possibility but it is not an inevitability. The future will not look like the past; the future may be worse, but I believe there is the potential for the future to better, if we make some smart choices.
There is the possibility that we have already crossed the point of no return, but we don't know enough to say that for sure. In the absence of that certainty, there is no point in assuming that we are doomed, because it doesn't buy us anything except despair.
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GreenEngineer Posted 7:01 am
21 Jul 2007
Actually, we have not "increased energy efficiency by many orders of magnitude", at least not in this century. Many orders of magnitude is at least a 1000x improvement, and we haven't seen that. In most sectors, we've managed at most less than one order of magnitude.
And that matters, I think, because there's a big difference between the impact of a small improvement vs. a big improvement over time. Small efficiency improvements can (and often do) encourage the perpetuation of the same fundamentally destructive patterns; it let's them continue for longer, but doesn't change the story. Big improvements (factor 4, factor 10, or better) over a short period of time do allow you to change the story, because they enable fundamental changes that would otherwise not be possible.
For example: If you reduce the energy consumption of an office building by 15%, you reduce power bills, CO2 footprint, etc. But you're still basically burning the planet to keep your box cool. You can install solar panels, too, if you want to, but they aren't going to offset most of your usage.
If you reduce the energy consumption by 95% (which is challenging, but technically achievable), it's now possible to change the story. It becomes possible to power the building from current solar income, which is one of the benchmarks of true sustainability. This is why radical energy efficiency is fundamentally different from incremental improvements.
contrary to your mechanistic and psychologically and spiritually void analysis, there may well be a lot of value in discussing inevitable or highly probable doom
Ah, sure, if what you want is an emotional support group, then that's great. If you're actually interested in understanding and solving the problems among a community of people who already understand that we have a problem, then it's not so useful.
It is unfortunate that I am an engineer, and not a storyteller. I think sometimes that telling the story well is the more difficult and more essential task. So I do the best I can, but it's less that perfect, and perhaps is seems emotionally and spiritually bereft. So let's go to the source: Watch this and then tell me if what I am talking about is "psychologically and spiritually void".
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Rune Posted 7:03 am
21 Jul 2007
Well, first of all, many of us will crank up the thermostat a bit, since we can afford to get our homes as warm as we want without using as much energy as we had already grown accustomed to paying for to keep them just tolerably warm. So, the first effect is to undo some of the energy savings from efficiency by using more energy to do what we have done all along.
Of course, we benefited from massive efficiency gains, so even though we have cranked up the heat, we are still using less total energy than before. That translates into a drop in the aggregated quantity of demand for energy. Thus, the law of supply and demand indicates that, all other things being equal, we should see a drop in the price of energy.
A drop in the price of energy coupled with some newly freed up capacity to supply energy will stimulate manufacturers and consumers to use that energy for things that were once foregone when the price of energy was greater. And, before you know it, our energy use per capita is more or less back where it once was.
Oh, but wait, we can afford to spend more on energy (and things that depend on energy) now. See, productivity (the output of capital plus labor) is up. Turns out, that we also got some efficiency gains in manufacturing, too. That means producers can make the same amount of stuff we are accustomed to buying while using less energy (thus, another drop in energy demand and energy prices), which means they can make more money making that same stuff. Some of the drop in costs of manufacturing will show up as price cuts to consumers, leaving them more to spend on other stuff, and some will show up in profits to investors/consumers (and in a long forgotten dream, even better wages for workers), leaving consumers with still more money to spend on stuff. Gosh, more money to spend on stuff coupled with momentarily cheaper energy due to reduced need for it to keep doing what we have been doing. Guess what comes next?
Yep, a new wave of manufacturing more stuff per person (or providing more energy using services, if you prefer), which sucks up other resources (such as habitat, soil, water, various materials, etc.) and releases more pollution, as well as putting per capita energy use back in line with what it was before, or perhaps increases it due to the increased affluence of investor/consumers who benefited from the temporary drop in energy prices and the long term manufacturing efficiency gains that boosted productivity.
Meanwhile, we have managed to ramp up the ability to support more people on the planet by making a unit of energy go that much farther. And so it is that population growth keep pushing up total energy use--especially if the conventionally measured standard of living continues to rise--even as energy efficiency per application or unit of output increases.
And there we are, using more or less the same amount of energy per capita, maybe a little more, maybe a little less, but with ongoing geometric growth in the number of people. And thus we find ourselves not conserving any energy as a whole, but using ever more of it, as we have every decade for hundreds of years, now, even as we have gotten much better at energy efficiency on the whole at every step of the way.
Big jumps in energy efficiency (using less energy to do a given amount of work) can show up as temporary gains in energy conservation (using less energy, period, regardless of how or why). But unless we draw the line on how many things we can and wish to do with energy, the long term enriching effects of energy efficiency tend to crowd out the conservation impacts and the greater population carrying capacity effect of extending the total among of production will continue to push energy use right up to the limits of supply--which is the primary buzz going around, now: more sources of energy, build them fast and build them big, not to be outdone (in the foreseeable future) by banging out ever more sources of conventional energy to go along with that.
Efficiency may be a part of the answer, but if we don't make big changes to business as usual, it will ultimately just magnify the extent of the problem when the chickens come home to roost. Some would prefer not to discuss such things, but until we do, and we truly understand what it implies and the direction of what must be done to address the issue satisfactorily, all the happy, hopeful talk in the world will only set us (or our children) up for ultimate failure.
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spaceshaper Posted 7:06 am
21 Jul 2007
"But it is logically incompatible to suggest that the economic incentive to conserve creates a sudden urge to consume." No-one said consumer choices were ever driven by logic. We have experienced a huge and continuing problem with growth in the consumption of energy even as we devise more efficient ways to use it. Jevons paradox if you like: as the engines in our vehicles have become more efficient we have simultaneously invented for ourselves more spurious reasons to drive those vehicles, both further and on faster roads. Meanwhile the disincentives to do so (environmental and fiscal responsibility, for example) have become meaningless to large sectors of a population which is living on credit cards and entertaining itself into oblivion.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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GreenEngineer Posted 7:10 am
21 Jul 2007
It's quite possible, even in very harsh environments. People usually just don't bother.
Although I do agree with one point you make (which may be your ultimate point): We will have to deal with our endlessly growing population, and no amount of technology or good design will get us away from that issue. Maturing as Homo Sapien Technicus will require that we confront and deal with our biologically-encoded urge to breed as much as possible.
The good news on that front is that, apparently, when you give people a high standard of living their rate of reproduction drops. The developed world is breeding at less than replacement rate. That's a very hopeful sign, IMO.
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Rune Posted 7:27 am
21 Jul 2007
Hopeless, suffering, scared, disoriented people aren't great problem solvers. Most people get freaked out and tend to turn away from major environmental crises if they don't have the company and support of others who understand and see some hope for going foreward. Thus, as I explained a couple of posts ago, there are ways of talking about gloom that can be quite helpful and meaingful to people and can lead to better problem solving possibilities than if we all just shut up and act like noting is wrong with half baked plans to make it all better using the same approach and limited grasp of reality that made things such a mess in the first place.
Too, if we find we can't find a happy way out of the mess for all now in it, it does help to make the most of our lot instead of being told to shut up and don't interfere with the true believers in happy endings, a vast span of reality and some very awful ends to entire populations notwithstanding. No one knows who we will fare. Could be good, could be grim. To simply assert that it will be good if we all believe that to be true is just as lacking in integrity as to assert that if it is bad there is nothing that can be done to make it less bad. Where is the evidence or logic to support that, especially when the comment was in direct response to a post that began with a conditional statement indicating that doom is possible but not inevitable based on what we do about the potential for said doom?
Actually, we have not "increased energy efficiency by many orders of magnitude", at least not in this century. Many orders of magnitude is at least a 1000x improvement, and we haven't seen that. In most sectors, we've managed at most less than one order of magnitude.
My seat of the pants analysis says that is about right or may as well be, given the practical implications of trying to allow the one-billion most resource consumptive people on the planet to live as they do, accompish what they do, and buy and through away all the things they do using the technology and materials of, say, the Bronze Age. The amount of energy required to grow, extract and process the materials alone would be literally out of this world, and many things, such as distributing this simple message around the world in real time for next to no energy expenditure at all, rise to infinity, as there was no way to do it no matter how much energy you put into it. Meanwhile, there are another 8+ billion people and rising (fast) to account for, too.
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Rune Posted 8:04 am
21 Jul 2007
That is the silver lining that is supposed to put the harbingers of doom to rest? Somehow, most of the world's people are going to be lifted into "high standards of living"? Maybe I am misunderstanding you, but isn't a "high standard of living" another way of saying "consumer of an extraordinary level of resources relative to today's prevailing, world wide standards"? This sounds like the sort of laughable solution I would expect from an economist trying to make a theoretical point rather than solving a real world problem. Here, let me help you out with that line of reasoning. "Assume we have the resources of 1,000 Earths. . . ." Now, just finish the story as you please, with everyone living in consumer heaven, too busy working and shopping night and day to acquire more stuff to actually have and raise a bunch of kids (or whatever it is that leads to the birth dearth in all the rich countries except the United States).
I think it is more reasonable to take the view I have mentioned many times, now. Unless we make a big shift in what it means to be well off and we build technology, infrastructure, beliefs, and rewards to support that shift, all the energy efficiency in the world will not save us from doom, it will just postpone it and make it that much worse when it finally takes hold.
And on a more tactical note, please recall several warnings that the climate destabilization crisis already underway, coupled with related resource limits, wars, and poverty, are expected to cause people from the poorest places on Earth to migrate to and toward the richest. That will result in population gains in rich countries. Either the migrants will join their new neighbors in getting richer and breeding less or the once rich nations will have their wealth diluted and will begin breeding their way into ever more poverty and strife (otherwise known as "doom") if your axiom about higher standards of living (as conventionally measured) being the primary counter force to the propensity of people to beget ever more people, generation after generation--except in periods of "doom," of course.
Ultimately, we seem to have one good way out of this trend, and it is unprecedented. We need to use our wealth and wisdom to consumer less while breeding less, yet still leading healthy, satisfying lives. It doesn't appear that the odds are with us. It is not even clear how that would happen. But I am all for talking about all the possibilities and making the best of whatever may come. Life is short for all of us. Live it well and help others understand how to do the same, I say, even if that means we must face great fears and frustrations along the way.
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Jon Rynn Posted 3:22 pm
21 Jul 2007
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wiscidea Posted 4:05 pm
21 Jul 2007
Were I spending less on energy, and less on everything that requires energy for making it and moving it around, right now, I wouldn't be buying more stuff, as in what I might find at a big-box store. I think I have enough stuff. I don't want more stuff. A person can use only so much stuff.
Here's some things I would consider buying...
I'd like to pay someone to convert 2-acres covered mostly by a few Eurasian species to 100% native plants. My other 2-acre project is progressing rather slowly, though surely, because there is not a whole lot of spare cash in my pocket right now.
I'd select a few more fruit trees to plant in my yard. Maybe some of the varieties I'd like to try but can't afford to try because it is not certain whether they will survive the winter cold and summer droughts.
I would consider installing a photovoltaic system on my house, which would be less expensive if I didn't use as much electicity as I use now.
Donate money to progressive political candidates.
Donate money to several additional conservation organizations I respect but really can't support right now.
Purchase more organic products, which unfortunately are still more expensive than conventional food... so I have to choose wisely.
Start purchasing other sustainable products, like clothing.
Perhaps just work less and spend more time outside and with friends and family.
Perhaps enroll in one interesting class at the local unversity each semester... a foreign language, a history, an ecology class.
Most likely... put that extra money in some sort of savings or investment program -- an environmentally and socially responsible investment program -- so it is there when I need it for an emergency or to retire earlier so I can participate more in the governing of my community or volunteering to promote conservation of natural resources.
I know... I'm weird... but I don't think I'm alone.
Combine (1) education of the public so they know intact ecosystems are important with (2) economic development so they can afford to care about preserving and restoring those ecosystems and -- I know it sounds naive and optimistic -- I believe we will all be better off. "We" meaning humans, other organisms, and the ecological webs that support us.
Forward!
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Rune Posted 1:30 am
22 Jul 2007
Jon, I am not sure what sort of feedback you want for me, but I can't see anything at all inappropriate about asking me to look over some related articles you have put together. In general, we seem to be about 80% to 90% on the same page from what I can tell, so I expect I'll find your articles interesting when I get a chance to look at them. Mo' later.
Wiscidea, yes you are wierd. I like it! But, by definition, most people are not like you. When you put more money in their pockets, especially these days when there is a negative savings rate (i.e., people are spending more than they are earning) in the U.S., consumption and disposal of stuff increases.
I tend toward your way of doing things, and when I do acquire stuff, I tend strongly toward the four R's. (The fourth R, long forgotten in most of the developed and disposable world, is Repair.)
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sbgerhard Posted 5:57 am
22 Jul 2007
This is the dream we still today live by, even though it has been turned into a perveted farce of itself. I am not saying it was wrong then, it is wrong now to not create a better dream and sell it equally forcefully.
But we environmentalists are so stuck in the guilt and doom and gloom mentality, not realizing that this will not attract Joe Sixpack's attention. We are all preaching to the choir, whis is our own small community. We need to speak to the people who don't think too much about the environment beause they have so many other things to worry about. If we can tell/show them how their lives will be better green, we will have kicked off an avalanche that won't be able to be stopped.
Let's focus on showing to normal people how being green will make their lives better. They will understand. Let's just stop talking about how doing what they are doing will destroy the earth and us with it.
Gerhard
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calvinjones Posted 9:58 am
22 Jul 2007
'Capitalism as if the world matters' by Jonathon Porritt.
With regards peters argument, i accept it completely but only wish for some guide as to where we go from here. I`ve seen this argument before (Notably from Futerra and IPPR)...hopefully in his next article Peter will take this argument as won and advance. The outcomes of the 'positive futures' project for example wuld be very interesting.
Interested in climate change?
http://climatechangeaction.blogspot.com
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Jon Rynn Posted 12:18 pm
22 Jul 2007
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Bart Anderson Posted 6:04 pm
22 Jul 2007
It's an almost impossible problem because money and goods are so abundant - or at least they seem to be. Frankly, I don't think people are going to be open to significant action until times get bad.
For me, the problem is more long-term: how to prepare the ideas, technologies, and networks for the coming crises. The looming crisis is the end of cheap oil... and the economic dislocations and expensive food that will follow. Climate and other environmental crises are not far behind.
I don't think it's been mentioned on Gristmill, but two big reports have been issued during the last month which tend to confirm the predictions of peak oil: by the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the National Petroleum Council (NPC). We've covered this in multiple articles at Energy Bulletin.
Here are two successful environmental campaigns:
Home-Front Ecology by Mike Davis (Sierra Club Magazine). Would Americans ever voluntarily give up their SUVs, McMansions, McDonald's, and lawns?
The surprisingly hopeful answer lies in living memory. In the 1940s, Americans simultaneously battled fascism overseas and waste at home. My parents, their neighbors, and millions of others left cars at home to ride bikes to work, tore up their front yards to plant cabbage, recycled toothpaste tubes and cooking grease, volunteered at daycare centers and USOs, shared their houses and dinners with strangers, and conscientiously attempted to reduce unnecessary consumption and waste.
You are now entering an oil-free zone (Guardian): about "transition towns" in the UK. an increasing number of towns, cities and villages across the UK are doing it for themselves and committing to "relocalising" food, energy, transport and their economies. "The idea of transition towns has caught people's imagination," explains Hopkins. "All we have been able to do before is protest, lobby or campaign for change. Now we want to give people the tools to be self-sufficient and withstand the kind of shock that a reduction in oil would bring.
Rob Hopkins has a very effective blog about the movement: Transition Culture. Other articles are on the web.
BTW, I was impressed by the way the discussion in this thread didn't spin out of control, and stayed cordial and informative.
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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Billhook Posted 8:31 pm
22 Jul 2007
your interest in identifying and measuring what might be called "sustainable development" as the alternative to the illusory "economic growth"
is one that I share.
At its simplest, maybe the distinction is between sustainable resource capitalism
and finite asset capitalism.
(E.g. the Amazon can be managed under either outlook, according to extraction rates and managerial care).
While getting into credible positive "development" numbers will plainly take years or decades under the new metric,
at least that prospect would be visible to investors,
while for conventiona;l economic growth, under GW +PO impacts, the coming recession will predictably lack conventional reasons for the recovery of investor confidence.
Bart -
I share your pleasure that this thread has avoided mere bickering, so I'm wary of breaking ranks of approval of the "happy prospects" messaging.
Yet it has to be said that this approach has been gaining sway since Thatcher got power,
and we have not advanced one iota - on the contrary, I suggest that in real terms we are worse off by an order of magnitude than we were in say 1980.
As yet the public knows scarcely anything of the feedback loops' potency and ongoing acceleration.
Without that knowledge they are very unlikely to accept the scale and rate of change required to avoid more than 2dC of warming,
meaning that no politician can safely propose it, let alone demand it.
To give a real example of the happy futures story outcomes in the UK, it's worth noting that FOTE, with the backing of all major NGOs (and, I think, of Forum for the Future)
demanded that govt put into law its random target for emissions cuts of 60% by 2050,
i.e. less than what is needed even to stop adding to the problem of excess airborne GHGs, and taking a little over two generations to do so.
That the target was in direct contravention both of IPCC advice and RCEP requirement was simply ignored,
apparently due to the turf-war search for NGO subscriptions.
The formalization of that nonsense target into a legal requirement would thus of course be a gift to complacency & prevevarication for decades hence.
So if we, the environment movement are busy telling the public of happy futures,
who exactly is going to tell it like it is ?
Regards,
Billhook
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Delay And Deny Posted 1:22 am
24 Jul 2007
What I need are more personal stories and less huffing and puffing about what I "should do".
I have said time and again, I'm not cutting back one inch unless I want to, so long as the 3% of people who own 84% of the planet continue to burn the coal seam at both ends. Reason: because my contribution is irrelevent.
So, Gristers, don't tell me...show me. Show me personally, with text and photos and little You Tube videos, exactly what you -- personally -- are doing to "avert the crises".
And then -- the Global part -- put it in the context of how much of a difference it really makes. Sometimes, every little bit doesn't help, it just adds up to a whole lot of nothing, and you're better off just doing nothing and seeing what happens.
John Bailo
You Read It Here First
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wiscidea Posted 2:23 am
24 Jul 2007
It is clear what some of the Grist contributors and commentators are up to, but it would still be nice to see a thread or three devoted to the subject. I would find it inspirational and motivational.
So, I second the motion.
Forward!
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elasticsoul Posted 4:07 am
24 Jul 2007
is not that we should ignore reality, which is that we are in a bad way and getting rapidly worse. The best scientific estimates (Hansen and others) are that we have less than ten years to make significant changes or we will pass a tipping point of no return. Beyond this point, catastrophic climate change will be unavoidable, and it is quite likely that civilization-as-we-know-it will be destroyed or at best severely damaged.
When I took the Inconvenient Truth training, Mr. Gore talked about a "Hope and Despair" budget. Focus too much on the negative, and people give up because the problem seems overwhelming or believe that it is already too late. This is not what the scientists are saying - we do have some time, but not much.
The point of this article was that we need to get much better, fast, at protraying a better world. Use the impending disaster to motivate people to get moving - but toward what? I have been trying to show what Canada could be like, if we so choose, here: A Vision of Canada
Can it be done? It must be done. To quote Churchill: "It's not enough that we do our best; sometimes we have to do what's required."
* Inconvenient Truth presenter
* Green Party of Canada candidate
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david1111 Posted 6:01 am
24 Jul 2007
Advertising makes it happen: Instead of the 1970s crying Indian, we need a proud Indian installing wind farms on the Great Plains! This ad already exists -- go to NativeEnergy.com.
In short, we have to sell energy saving with a cross between the patriotic 1941-45 "War Effort" (put an American Flag on it!) and the way GE sold all-electric homes and appliances: With sunny ads and feel-good songs like:
"There's a great big beautiful tomorrow
Shining at the end of every day
Yes there's a great big beautiful tomorrow
Just a dream away!"
That was the theme song played at General Electric's Carousel of Progress in Disneyland in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Maybe it's a little TOO sunny. That future was based on "safe, clean, cheap" nuclear power.
But hey -- use the SUN! As a symbol and energy source. Subsidize it!
David D. Schmidt
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Jon Rynn Posted 6:26 am
24 Jul 2007
"Anger is better than despair". But good luck with the "Carousel of Progress", it's just that I'll go into flashback shock if I see it.
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wiscidea Posted 6:51 am
24 Jul 2007
Reminds me of one of GW comments I heard on the radio. He said there is steady progress in Iraq... sometime forward and sometimes backward!!!!!!!!! No wonder he can say we're making steady progress EVERYWHERE... for him, the term "progress" can be used independent of the direction things are going!!! What a jack-ass! Oops... there I go offending the our four-legged friends again. Sorry.
Forward!
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rlar Posted 7:04 am
24 Jul 2007
Personally, I think it is profoundly important to use audience analysis when we are speaking about the state of the world. And it is important also to keep in mind the seriousness of the situation. More than a decade ago, the Union of Concerned Scientists, consisting of 1,700 of the world's leading scientists, including the majority of Nobel laureates in the sciences, issued a Warning to Humanity. It read in part:
"Human beings and the natural world are on a collision course. Human activities inflict harsh and often irreversible damage on the environment and on critical resources. If not checked, many of our current practices put at risk the future that we wish for human society and the plant and animal kingdoms, and may so alter the living world that it will be unable to sustain life in the manner that we know. Fundamental changes are urgent if we are to avoid the collision our present course will bring about.... We, the undersigned, senior members of the world's scientific community, hereby, warn all humanity of what lies ahead. A great change in our stewardship of the earth and life on it is required, if vast human misery is to be avoided and our global home on this planet is not to be irretrievably mutilated.... A new ethic is required--a new attitude towards discharging our responsibility for caring for ourselves and for the earth. We must recognize the earth's limited capacity to provide for us. We must recognize its fragility. We must no longer allow it to be ravaged. This ethic must motivate a great movement; convince reluctant leaders and reluctant governments and reluctant people themselves to effect the needed changes. "
I know I'm speaking to the choir here. But it doesn't help to tell everybody to calm down and relax when the movie theatre is burning down if they all just stay in their sits. Different people are motivated in different ways and that's why I mention audience analysis.
Randy
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sunflower Posted 7:05 am
24 Jul 2007
I have been experimenting on my family. Many of the experiments worked out positively, with a few nonfatal mistakes, such as unwanted visibility from unconventional architecture and natural indigenous environs.
Following a least cost path towards self reliance worked very well. Much of what I could talk about would not be believed, so I won't try.
Transferring knowledge is the most significant barrier for community sustainability. Being green is an obscure religion. Making money is the big church. Using the press only stirred up lukewarm support and very hot resistance from big vested interests. I have found talking to the press to be too dangerous.
The best of my simple discoveries, thanks to AB Lovins, are the components of the energy self reliant home.
The best of my complex discoveries are the components of the solar mirror. The link to that is self promoting and grounded in others making money (forgive my digression, but this does respond to the big church transferable positive vision thing)... (rewritten thanks to Peter Madden)...
http://www.harbornet.com/sunflower/plan.html
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Bart Anderson Posted 9:09 am
24 Jul 2007
Good idea, John.
Actually, I think an idea like this might be better presented in a different format than the usual posts and discussion threads. Those tend to get lost over time, whereas I would think that a gallery of personal stories would make great browsing any time.
This could make a great feature for the Gristmill website -- an ongoing section in which people could "tell their stories." Perhaps it could be a part of each person's profile?
One argument for telling personal stories is that we begin to relate in a different way than abstract/intellectualized discussion.
Besides, we all like to talk about ourselves and read the juicy details about other people's lives. Could this be Gristmill's answer to People magazine?
Bart
Energy Bulletin
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wiscidea Posted 9:14 am
24 Jul 2007
Now if someone would just head over to https://www.blogger.com/start and set up a blog, folks could start emailing their personal stories for posting and a running commentary. Bold idea. But it would require a moderator.
Any geeky people out there?
Forward!
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David Roberts Posted 9:29 am
24 Jul 2007
grist.org
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GreyFlcn Posted 3:52 pm
24 Jul 2007
We already have a working fusion reactor which can power the globe hundreds of times over.
All we need to do is go out and grab the energy coming off of it, and integrate it into our grid.
http://greyfalcon.net/greenenergy.png
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swan Posted 12:12 am
25 Jul 2007
"Us nature mystics got to stick together." Edward Abbey
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James Goldstein Posted 6:12 am
25 Jul 2007
I agree with Peter that while we certainly need to acknowledge the urgency of current threats, greens and sustainability advocates have generally failed to provide a positive vision for an alternative future. Without a hopeful alternative, the "doom and gloom" story not only adds to feelings of disempowerment, it misses the fact that a particular future is not inevitable -- we all have an active role to play in creating the future. As Green Engineer stated in an earlier posting: "Collapse is a very real possibility but it is not an inevitability."
In recent years my colleagues and I at Tellus Institute have been working to create a coherent framework for understanding the current challenges, envisioning alternative futures, and inspiring action. Our work has been framed by the essay: Great Transition: The Lure and Promise of the Times Ahead (see: http://www.gtinitiative.org/documents/Great_Transitions.p ...). The essay places current challenges in historic context and presents alternative global futures - both "doom and gloom" and positive scenarios - in both quantitative and narrative terms. It advances one of these paths, Great Transition, as the preferred route, identifying strategies, agents of change, and values for a new global agenda. This vision reflects a move away from economic growth and material wealth as a key metric and embraces notions of material sufficiency, equity, and quality of life.
Our ongoing work around the Great Transition recognizes that transformational societal change is needed in terms of our environmental, economic, and social systems. While technological advances are necessary for addressing global challenges, they are insufficient without shifts in values and lifestyles. Through research, publications, and global networking we are sharing this framework and exploring ways to advance positive and plausible alternative futures (see: http://www.gtinitiative.org).
James Goldstein, Tellus Institute
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Jon Rynn Posted 6:49 am
25 Jul 2007
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James Goldstein Posted 2:16 am
26 Jul 2007
Great Transition essay: http://www.tellus.org/GTI/documents/Great_Transitions.pdf
Great Transition Initiative: http://www.gtiniative.org
James Goldstein, Tellus Institute
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saturnavenger Posted 2:46 pm
09 Aug 2007
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