This I have known in my gut.

A professor argues that in order to get sustainability, we will have to submit to a “new world order”. I agree that at the heart of sustainability is awareness for the health of the global ecosystem and everyone in it. That could be considered a “new world order”. However, the grandiose idea of one world government dictating the actions of everyone on the planet is a dream I call “green fascism”.

If we can live sustainably (and that’s a big “if”), local communities will trump global governments every day of the week. This is because unique local environments that have unique local challenges require unique local solutions that a world government can’t provide for.

Via: The Green Market

The current economic hardships serve as a catalyst for change. According to William E. Halal, professor emeritus of science, technology and innovation at George Washington University, “the normal level of social resistance and political stalemate is likely to oppose change. Thus, it may take an occasional environmental collapse, global wars and terrorism, or yet unknown calamities to force the move to global consciousness…Even with the turmoil that is sure to follow, this will mark the serious beginning of a unified global intelligence – a fine web of conscious thought directing life on the planet.” [1]…

“We need a unified one world order to replace the collectivity of nation states at the international level. The Euro-American model which now dominates the world systematically disables people, destroys the earth and creates dependency on wage labour.” [8]

“In this model, politics loses its left-versus-right conflict and moves instead towards a fundamental concern for the health of the ecosystem…Democracy remains a need within this model, at both local and global levels, but as one part of the whole system. “Participation” becomes more than people’s physical presence and deepens to contain a cultural and spiritual dimension…To implement these concepts, we start with bringing the community together and look at the land resources available. We decide how we want the community to evolve and decide who has control of the resources.” [9]

Likewise, the following statement from the Canadian federal government to the United Nations contains a similar thread — a sustainable world order based on complete world management. “Canada believes the establishment of an international financial and economic system that is conducive to sustainable development must be a cornerstone of efforts to implement Agenda 21. Canada strongly supports efforts to reform international organizations to ensure effectiveness and efficiency in the promotion of global sustainable development.” [10]

Westmount and Montreal will recognize Earth hour where electricity is symbolically turned off for one hour. This event, which started in Syndney in 2007, is spreading around the world.

That’s nice, but how about us putting our heads together to design a street light that doesn’t need to burn 1,000 watts all hours of the night? Earth hour is just a small salve on the wound of living a life that is painfully unsustainable to those who have a “Green” awareness.

I suppose awareness is the first step towards making a change. However, the economic realities coming will force people to become “Green” and “sustainable” simply becuase it’s a much less expensive way to live. Awareness won’t be a part of most people’s motivations for this change. And so the band plays on…

For the record and if you interested in contributing to this symbol, the time to turn off your lights and TVs is: 8:30 p.m. on March 2.

An excellent view of the challenges we face from a man who has been a comic and inspirational force. For those who choose not to read the full article, here is a summary of trends he sees:

1. Hope will fuel a mini “euphoria” for the first few months of the Obama Presidency, then reality will set in. He expects the Dow Industrial Stock Average to end up at 4000 sometime in 2009.
2. Thousands of companies will fail and millions of jobs will be lost. Downsizing will occur at all levels of society: government, business and family.
3. A new “servant class” will be created as domestic workers will start moving in with their employers.
4. A massive return to home gardening: “Gardening is the new Golf”
5. Oil and gas prices will rise and there may be spot shortages
6. The U.S. dollar will be 40% of it’s current value by the end of 2009
7. An end of robust globalism – the world is round after all, Tom Friedman.
   

Via: Clusterfuck Nation

There are two realities “out there” now competing for verification among those who think about national affairs and make things happen. The dominant one (let’s call it the Status Quo) is that our problems of finance and economy will self-correct and allow the project of a “consumer” economy to resume in “growth” mode. This view includes the idea that technology will rescue us from our fossil fuel predicament — through “innovation,” through the discovery of new techno rescue remedy fuels, and via “drill, baby, drill” policy. This view assumes an orderly transition through the current “rough patch” into a vibrant re-energized era of “green” Happy Motoring and resumed Blue Light Special shopping.

The minority reality (let’s call it The Long Emergency) says that it is necessary to make radically new arrangements for daily life and rather soon. It says that a campaign to sustain the unsustainable will amount to a tragic squandering of our dwindling resources. It says that the “consumer” era of economics is over, that suburbia will lose its value, that the automobile will be a diminishing presence in daily life, that the major systems we’ve come to rely on will founder, and that the transition between where we are now and where we are going is apt to be tumultuous.

My own view is obviously the one called The Long Emergency.

Since the change it proposes is so severe, it naturally generates exactly the kind of cognitive dissonance that paradoxically reinforces the Status Quo view, especially the deep wishes associated with saving all the familiar, comfortable trappings of life as we have known it. The dialectic between the two realities can’t be sorted out between the stupid and the bright, or even the altruistic and the selfish. The various tech industries are full of MIT-certified, high-achiever Status Quo techno-triumphalists who are convinced that electric cars or diesel-flavored algae excreta will save suburbia, the three thousand mile Caesar salad, and the theme park vacation. The environmental movement, especially at the elite levels found in places like Aspen, is full of Harvard graduates who believe that all the drive-in espresso stations in America can be run on a combination of solar and wind power. I quarrel with these people incessantly. It seems especially tragic to me that some of the brightest people I meet are bent on mounting the tragic campaign to sustain the unsustainable in one way or another. But I have long maintained that life is essentially tragic in the sense that history won’t care if we succeed or fail at carrying on the project of civilization.

more…

Merry Christmas to all who celebrate it. May we all come to understand the predicament we live under in the developed world (East and West): an unsustainable way of living that destroys life itself, including our own.

The joy in this realization is that there is a new way of living at our fingertips. We just have to create to our liking what our lives would be like in the future and then let the power of our imaginations take over.

Rejoice, oh ye faithful!

Via: Energy Bulletin:

In a general sense, “societal overextension” is a condition in which a society is living beyond its means ecologically and economically. The significant consequence associated with societal overextension is that the society’s population level and material living standards exceed sustainable levels.

Societal overextension (overextension) occurs when a society’s lifestyle paradigm, its “way of life”, is enabled by the persistent overexploitation of ecological resources and economic resources.

In industrialized societies, ecological resources are the raw materials (natural resources) and waste repositories (natural habitats) that enable people to produce, provision, and utilize goods and services. Ecological resource overexploitation occurs when a society:

* Persistently utilizes renewable natural resources that are critical to its existence, such as water, croplands, pasturelands, fisheries, and forests, at levels greater than those at which Nature can replenish them;

* Persistently utilizes nonrenewable natural resources that are critical to its existence, such as oil, natural gas, coal, minerals, and metals, which Nature does not replenish; and/or

* Persistently degrades atmospheric, aquatic, and terrestrial natural habitats that are critical to its existence, at levels greater than those at which Nature can regenerate them.

Economic resources provide the “purchasing power” that enables people to procure goods and services. Economic resource overexploitation occurs when a society:

* Persistently depletes its previously accumulated economic asset reserves;

* Persistently incurs intergenerational debt, which it has neither the capacity nor the intention to repay; and/or

* Persistently defers indefinitely investments critical to its future wellbeing.

An overextended society and its lifestyle paradigm are unsustainable, and will inevitably collapse.

…

The prevailing American perception[31] is that “our system is broken” and must therefore be “fixed”, or “rescued”, or “bailed out”… This perception is fundamentally inaccurate; as a result, the proposed prescription is fatally flawed.

As the preceding analysis clearly demonstrates, we are irreparably overextended—living hopelessly beyond our means, ecologically and economically[32]. Our resource utilization behavior, which enables our “system”—our American way of life—is detritovoric[33]; that is, we are systematically eliminating the very ecological resources and economic resources upon which our ever-increasing population and our historically unprecedented living standards depend.

The inescapable conclusion is that our American way of life is not sustainable—it cannot, therefore, be “fixed”; it must be displaced[34]. Desperate and futile attempts to perpetuate our existing lifestyle paradigm simply waste remaining, and increasingly scarce, time and resources.

Our only recourse is to transition voluntarily, beginning immediately, to a sustainable lifestyle paradigm, one in which we live within our means ecologically and economically—forever. Should we fail to do so, quickly, the consequences associated with our predicament will be horrific.

At the end of this great primer on Collapse at the TED conference, Diamond flatly explains how our current course of living is non-sustainable. Diamond explains that, “about a dozen ticking time bombs with fuses not longer than 50 years exist: water, soil, climate change, invasive species, population, toxics” all of which are scheduled to go off and cause the collapse of our civilization.

How will these problems work themselves out? Watch the video for a surprisingly optimistic answer:

From Culture Change:

With the IEA’s [International Energy Agency] World Energy Outlook’s assessment of depletion (including other factors such as sabotage) at 9.1% of the “natural rate,” and given the economic downturn’s momentum, we are looking into the gaping maw of collapse. This is the end of the industrial revolution and the agricultural revolution. Why am I choosing to sound so dramatic, and not call today’s “recession” a retreat from growth that we can recover from? The reason is we will be going all the way down in the trough after our rise to the top of consumption. It is the Category 5 storm we have unleashed. Now lash yourself to the mast or be swept overboard by the monster wave.

As Culture Change readers learned, agriculture is not sustainable for large populations. [Peter Salonius, author and soil scientist] And what gave us the industrial revolution? Answer: the easy coal and gushing, cheap petroleum.

From Derrick Jensen’s Book “Endgame”:

Premise One: Civilization is not and can never be sustainable. This is especially true for industrial civilization.

Premise Two: Traditional communities do not often voluntarily give up or sell the resources on which their communities are based until their communities have been destroyed. They also do not willingly allow their land bases to be damaged so that other resources—gold, oil, and so on—can be extracted. It follows that those who want the resources will do what they can to destroy traditional communities.

Premise Three: Our way of living—industrial civilization—is based on, requires, and would collapse very quickly without persistent and widespread violence.

Premise Four: Civilization is based on a clearly defined and widely accepted yet often unarticulated hierarchy. Violence done by those higher on the hierarchy to those lower is nearly always invisible, that is, unnoticed. When it is noticed, it is fully rationalized. Violence done by those lower on the hierarchy to those higher is unthinkable, and when it does occur is regarded with shock, horror, and the fetishization of the victims.

Premise Five: The property of those higher on the hierarchy is more valuable than the lives of those below. It is acceptable for those above to increase the amount of property they control—in everyday language, to make money—by destroying or taking the lives of those below. This is called production. If those below damage the property of those above, those above may kill or otherwise destroy the lives of those below. This is called justice.

Premise Six: Civilization is not redeemable. This culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. If we do not put a halt to it, civilization will continue to immiserate the vast majority of humans and to degrade the planet until it (civilization, and probably the planet) collapses. The effects of this degradation will continue to harm humans and nonhumans for a very long time.

Premise Seven: The longer we wait for civilization to crash—or the longer we wait before we ourselves bring it down—the messier will be the crash, and the worse things will be for those humans and nonhumans who live during it, and for those who come after.

Premise Eight: The needs of the natural world are more important than the needs of the economic system.

Another way to put premise Eight: Any economic or social system that does not benefit the natural communities on which it is based is unsustainable, immoral, and stupid. Sustainability, morality, and intelligence (as well as justice) requires the dismantling of any such economic or social system, or at the very least disallowing it from damaging your landbase.

Premise Nine: Although there will clearly some day be far fewer humans than there are at present, there are many ways this reduction in population could occur (or be achieved, depending on the passivity or activity with which we choose to approach this transformation). Some of these ways would be characterized by extreme violence and privation: nuclear armageddon, for example, would reduce both population and consumption, yet do so horrifically; the same would be true for a continuation of overshoot, followed by crash. Other ways could be characterized by less violence. Given the current levels of violence by this culture against both humans and the natural world, however, it’s not possible to speak of reductions in population and consumption that do not involve violence and privation, not because the reductions themselves would necessarily involve violence, but because violence and privation have become the default. Yet some ways of reducing population and consumption, while still violent, would consist of decreasing the current levels of violence required, and caused by, the (often forced) movement of resources from the poor to the rich, and would of course be marked by a reduction in current violence against the natural world. Personally and collectively we may be able to both reduce the amount and soften the character of violence that occurs during this ongoing and perhaps longterm shift. Or we may not. But this much is certain: if we do not approach it actively—if we do not talk about our predicament and what we are going to do about it—the violence will almost undoubtedly be far more severe, the privation more extreme.

Premise Ten: The culture as a whole and most of its members are insane. The culture is driven by a death urge, an urge to destroy life.

Premise Eleven: From the beginning, this culture—civilization—has been a culture of occupation.

Premise Twelve: There are no rich people in the world, and there are no poor people. There are just people. The rich may have lots of pieces of green paper that many pretend are worth something—or their presumed riches may be even more abstract: numbers on hard drives at banks—and the poor may not. These “rich” claim they own land, and the “poor” are often denied the right to make that same claim. A primary purpose of the police is to enforce the delusions of those with lots of pieces of green paper. Those without the green papers generally buy into these delusions almost as quickly and completely as those with. These delusions carry with them extreme consequences in the real world.

Premise Thirteen: Those in power rule by force, and the sooner we break ourselves of illusions to the contrary, the sooner we can at least begin to make reasonable decisions about whether, when, and how we are going to resist.

Premise Fourteen: From birth on—and probably from conception, but I’m not sure how I’d make the case—we are individually and collectively enculturated to hate life, hate the natural world, hate the wild, hate wild animals, hate women, hate children, hate our bodies, hate and fear our emotions, hate ourselves. If we did not hate the world, we could not allow it to be destroyed before our eyes. If we did not hate ourselves, we could not allow our homes—and our bodies—to be poisoned.

Premise Fifteen: Love does not imply pacifism.

Premise Sixteen: The material world is primary. This does not mean that the spirit does not exist, nor that the material world is all there is. It means that spirit mixes with flesh. It means also that real world actions have real world consequences. It means we cannot rely on Jesus, Santa Claus, the Great Mother, or even the Easter Bunny to get us out of this mess. It means this mess really is a mess, and not just the movement of God’s eyebrows. It means we have to face this mess ourselves. It means that for the time we are here on Earth—whether or not we end up somewhere else after we die, and whether we are condemned or privileged to live here—the Earth is the point. It is primary. It is our home. It is everything. It is silly to think or act or be as though this world is not real and primary. It is silly and pathetic to not live our lives as though our lives are real.

Premise Seventeen: It is a mistake (or more likely, denial) to base our decisions on whether actions arising from these will or won’t frighten fence-sitters, or the mass of Americans.

Premise Eighteen: Our current sense of self is no more sustainable than our current use of energy or technology.

Premise Nineteen: The culture’s problem lies above all in the belief that controlling and abusing the natural world is justifiable.

Premise Twenty: Within this culture, economics—not community well-being, not morals, not ethics, not justice, not life itself—drives social decisions.

Modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether these decisions will increase the monetary fortunes of the decision-makers and those they serve.

Re-modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are determined primarily (and often exclusively) on the basis of whether these decisions will increase the power of the decision-makers and those they serve.

Re-modification of Premise Twenty: Social decisions are founded primarily (and often exclusively) on the almost entirely unexamined belief that the decision-makers and those they serve are entitled to magnify their power and/or financial fortunes at the expense of those below.

Re-modification of Premise Twenty: If you dig to the heart of it—if there were any heart left—you would find that social decisions are determined primarily on the basis of how well these decisions serve the ends of controlling or destroying wild nature.

Source: Carolyn Baker