Joined: Dec 03, 2004 Posts: 1134 Location: Seattle, Wa.
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 1:39 am Post subject: Hope in a boat that can't float.
Some of us for decades have forecasted the consequences of overshoot and excess consumption. As we approach the limits of resources and as we approach the calamities and consequences of overshoot many have connected the dots. Recent years have seen a resurgence of awareness amongst a small but growing part of the human population of the dire straits that we find ourselves in. The exponential growth in awareness of peak oil is but an example. But the population at large remains hidden still in the folds and shadows of a system that continues to function with just enough intact infra-structure to permit the illusion still that all is ok.
The rate of cultural change and willingness to enter a new paradigm seems directly related to the rate of failure of the existing paradigm, infrastructure and related political and economic institutions. The current dysfunctional and unsustainable cultural paradigm continues to provide in two very distinct ways. One is the actual physical ability to provide as in available fuel and food and stable climate to permit the physical infrastructure to continue to support the majority of human populations. The other is the ability to keep the dream alive and going; to provide enough hope that all is still ok, that we just have to tweak a little here and there to fix our problems.
You can’t really expect the collective human culture or even a significant percentage thereof to embrace a new paradigm until you abandon the ship that held the previous one. The consequences of overshoot and excess consumption have us all in a boat full of holes but still floating enough to keep the dream and physical infrastructure going.
It is logical to conclude that increasing the size of the holes in the sinking ship will accelerate the rate that humans will jump over to a more seaworthy vessel, a new cultural paradigm . The sooner the better for the sake of the remaining intact ecosystems and better for the remaining humans to still have some intact sinks of resources after the die-off to insure some ecological quality still of human existence.
Of the two aspects of the current paradigm, the dream and the physical reality, which is the more resilient? If these are two boats full of holes it is also logical to conclude that if we can sink the boat that holds the dream then we might be able to preserve a bigger part of the boat that holds the physical infrastructure as we descend down to a sustainable population.
If there is any luxury remaining in believing in a just and humane transition to a new paradigm maybe the best compromise is to surrender over to nature the task of enlarging the holes in the ship that still holds and sustains the physical reality while humans have to concentrate in increasing the holes in the ship that holds the dream and hope that all is still ok. In reality it is the interplay of both that will act as a catalyst toward a paradigm shift in our culture. _________________ Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2571 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 3:01 am Post subject: Re: Hope in a boat that can't float.
Ibon, Thanks for taking the time for writing such a carefully thought out introduction. Admittedly, many observers in this community are fully aware of the problems you talk about and despair that we are all doomed. I don't share the latter view. There are some in our society especially the business and political elites who still insist that our present energy paradigm is the best way to proceed perhaps because they can't see a viable alternative and it is the only way they know how to make money and hold onto their power. However, there are others who are fighting for change because they recognise the limitations of our primary energy resources and the environmental damage that these cause. I'm glad that you posted this thread in the environment forum because I believe it is in this sphere that will finally see widespread grass-roots and hence political change.
I was just reading today two important articles that shed light on the changes that are already occuring around the world. The first of these is by the Alliance For Climate Protection, which is today announcing that they will spend $300M to "spread the word on how to cut greenhouse gases". To emphasis the resistance to change I referred to above:
Quote:
As a point of reference, U.S. automakers and industry trade associations spent $62.6 million on lobbying in 2007 to counter energy bills and efforts to craft new fuel rules.
The second article of interest is this one:
For Carbon Emissions, a Goal of Less Than Zero
Quote:
IF the world is going to sharply reduce the amount of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere by midcentury, then many businesses will have to go carbon neutral, bringing their net emissions of the greenhouse gas to zero.
But some could go even further by removing more CO2 than they produce. Instead of carbon neutral, how about carbon negative?
In academic and industrial labs worldwide, researchers are working on technologies to reach that goal. Success could create the ultimate green business — for example, one that produces fuel whose emissions are more than offset by carbon dioxide stored during production. The businesses would be successful if, as anticipated, Congress puts a tax on emissions or starts a trading plan that makes carbon credits valuable.
For some experts, it’s not a question of whether businesses will go carbon negative but when.
Carbon-negative technologies of some sort will be essential, said Daniel M. Kammen, director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. The world is facing the certainty of massive emissions for decades to come from plants already running, he said, adding that atmospheric concentrations must be stabilized. “We’ve got such a carbon overshoot looming in the future that this is going to have to happen,” he said.
To conclude, I don't think that our boat is sinking. _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 8:41 am Post subject: Re: Hope in a boat that can't float.
Graeme, I love your sunny demeanor (even if I don't always share it) and your always-interesting articles.
I think the metaphorical "ship" ibon was referring to was that of the culture of excess, the culture that uses more of the earth than the earth can sustain.
The initiative you reference seem to me to be the metaphorical rats fleeing the ship (or better the ships fleeing the sinking rat).
Even stating as a goal that a building or society should be not only carbon neutral but carbon negative goes directly against the major paradigms that have driven (and are still largely driving) Western and now global industrial culture.
But I would love for ibon to leave the realm of metaphor just long enough to let us know what he means specifically by "holes."
Joined: Dec 03, 2004 Posts: 1134 Location: Seattle, Wa.
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 10:54 am Post subject: Re: Hope in a boat that can't float.
dohboi wrote:
But I would love for ibon to leave the realm of metaphor just long enough to let us know what he means specifically by "holes."
WE know what the holes are that threaten to swamp and sink both boats. Climate change, environmental degradation, energy, food , water, soil and general resource depletion, disease, wars etc. are the holes in the physical boat. You can sum it up by saying that these are all physical manifestations of overshoot, of an overpopulated species. That is the common denominator. Take any of the suite of issues threatening our species physical survival today and you can solve any of them if we had a sustainable population.
The dream boat that allows us to believe that all is well is also full of well known holes; The financial crisis, personal and national debt, the ability to maintain a society of the personal automobile, staggering commodity prices, the general stresses that will no longer make it possible to believe in a culture of consumption. Most people believe still that there is no great cultural change required and they see looming problems in isolation and solvable and are not able to see the underlying common denominator that overshoot will soon take out the consumption dream paradigm and sink this fantasy boat.
The point here really is to understand that a fundamental cultural paradigm shift toward a more sustainable culture will only take place once the current cultural dream boat is sunk. There can be no awakening really until the holes expand to the point that the boat is undeniably sinking. What this means in a tangible sense is that people need to experience hard core material limitations to the point where the dream has to be abandoned. That is when a new paradigm shift can be embraced. Where values shift from chasing wealth and objects over to valuing community, a clean environment, sustainability, etc. Many people have the naive belief that we can make this transition freely without suffering the deprivations. But that wont happen if we don't sink the dream boat first.
If you really understand the dynamics here you have to conclude that the most effective way to push the transition forward is to be a facilitator in increasing the holes both of the physical and dream boats. It is a paradox we find ourselves in because it is morally repugnant to want to consciously weaken the physical boat that will cause suffering even though it is the very suffering that is required to bring about a fundamental cultural shift away from the destructive path we have taken. So that leaves us only with the option of deferring to nature to handle the execution of our physical way of life that is unsustainable and leaves us really the only “moral” option to be facilitators in increasing the holes in the dream boat.
Unless you do not find it morally repugnant to want to weaken the resiliency of the Kudzu Ape. There is an argument in support of this position in the sense that the suffering that will result in allowing a further expansion of the current dysfunctional paradigm is exponentially greater than the suffering that will result if we act to increase the holes in both boats today.
Do you remember fat Wimpy from the old Popeye cartoons. His catch phrase, “ I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”. This is the attitude that results in our grandchildren paying next Tuesday for the excesses of our current culture. How about turning that phrase 180 degrees around and saying, “ I would gladly deny you the hamburger today (poke further holes in your boat) to spare you the consequences of what will happen next Tuesday”.
Is that really morally repugnant? _________________ Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
Joined: Aug 03, 2007 Posts: 3133 Location: Boston Suburbs
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 3:04 pm Post subject: Re: Hope in a boat that can't float.
I think you're a little too stuck in the metaphor and not the real world. I don't think the problems we face need to be expressed in metaphors. Maybe for people who don't get it yet, but not those who already do.
Joined: Sep 17, 2006 Posts: 623 Location: No man's land
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 3:57 pm Post subject: Re: Hope in a boat that can't float.
Ibon, just curious...what are some of the ways in which we can increase the holes? Do you mean educating people about the consequences of their actions? If so, I agree that this is very worthwhile task.. Not everybody will connect the dots between their individual actions and the global state of affairs but some will.
While I do think that increased suffering of the human race due to overshoot is inevitable and will be educational to some people, I'm skeptical that the suffering will teach everybody. For example, a child in Africa dies due to drought linked to global warming...but what has that child learned? Nothing. A rich person commits suicide because of economic collapse which he believes to be caused by the fiscal policy mistakes of Alan Greenspan. He learns nothing.
I think that we can teach all we want, but when it comes down to it, it is the individual who chooses what he/she will learn from any experience. _________________ "It is no measure of health to be deemed sane in an insane society" J. Krishnamurti
Joined: Sep 17, 2006 Posts: 623 Location: No man's land
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 4:31 pm Post subject: Re: Hope in a boat that can't float.
I want to point out that there are some pretty mammoth size holes in the boat right now (geez, the Arctic ice cap lost over half its volume in the last year), but our collective consciousness will not allow this bit of information into the national discourse. DENIAL runs so deep in the human collective psyche that it will require something quite extraordinary to wake people up. I'm afraid that by the time we wake up collectively, if ever, it will be too late for our species.
The awakening happens now or never and is occurring on an individual basis. It all starts with the individual. _________________ "It is no measure of health to be deemed sane in an insane society" J. Krishnamurti
Joined: Mar 04, 2005 Posts: 2571 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Wed Mar 26, 2008 7:36 pm Post subject: Re: Hope in a boat that can't float.
Ibon wrote:
Graeme wrote:
To conclude, I don't think that our boat is sinking.
Dream on.
Actually Ibon, I see a glimmer of hope in your previous statement addressed to Dohboi:
Quote:
The point here really is to understand that a fundamental cultural paradigm shift toward a more sustainable culture will only take place once the current cultural dream boat is sunk. There can be no awakening really until the holes expand to the point that the boat is undeniably sinking. What this means in a tangible sense is that people need to experience hard core material limitations to the point where the dream has to be abandoned. That is when a new paradigm shift can be embraced. Where values shift from chasing wealth and objects over to valuing community, a clean environment, sustainability, etc. Many people have the naive belief that we can make this transition freely without suffering the deprivations. But that wont happen if we don't sink the dream boat first.
I believe you can see the goal that we all need to strive for but you think that the transition will be painful. I think that we both share the same dream boat or new cultural paradigm to put it in your words. It is the transiton that is the scary part because of the uncertainty of where we are actually heading. None of us are privy to all business plans of all energy companies around the world, nor do we know exactly what energy policies will be implemented by governments around the world. We can only surmise from the scraps and snippets of partial information released to us through the media. I don't believe that all energy companies and governments are stupid. Therein lies our hope for the future. _________________ Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe. H. G. Wells.
Fatih Birol's motto: leave oil before it leaves us.
Joined: Dec 03, 2004 Posts: 1134 Location: Seattle, Wa.
Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 10:37 am Post subject: Re: Hope in a boat that can't float.
billg wrote:
I think that we can teach all we want, but when it comes down to it, it is the individual who chooses what he/she will learn from any experience.
I grew up in the age and in the subculture where personal individual spiritual growth was deemed the most noble pathway toward acheiving an enlightened society. Although I still beleive in the importance of individual self actualization I have come to realize that a very small percentage of the world's population really is oriented this way and that the vast vast majority of humanity is ruled under collective indentities; be these religious, cultural, generational, media driven, etc. I speak in the metaphors of the cultural dream boat because as a species we are under an enormous influence of this collective.
There is a paradox here. The collective 6.5 billion humans on the planet as a whole are moving toward suicidal instability even though within those 6.5 billion there are many fine examples of individual intelligence and genius. This won't change so I would have to disagree with your premise that the individual can be a driving force for change. The vast majority of humans have and will follow and align themselves with the values of the groups and collectives they associate themselves with. And as long as these collectives continue to occupy a dream boat of unsustainable illusions then clearly we can have the most impact in what ails us if we can help this boat sink so that culturally the collective can fill a new boat; a new paradigm.
It is fine for Graeme to suggest that we don't know what surprises all the energy companies and research working on energy issues may come up with to prevent massive suffering. But if the underlying value system of the collective is still consumption object oriented then what will we really acheive in the end with innovations that only enable the Kudzu Ape to have a stronger foot hold?
Changing cultural collective memes is no easy task. Collectively the vast majority of humans are still under the influence of archaic obsolete religious dogma that is thousands of years old for example and the tragedy is that the only real new collective memes with the force to match the religious ones that have come about is the technology driven secular modern consumer culture. So all that science logic and reason hasn't replaced religion with an enlightened society following sustainability but instead a largely hedonistic society chasing material dreams.
Natural consequences to our overshoot that punch deep holes in the dream boat of illusions represent in my view the only real chance of large collective shifts in modern human culture toward sustainability. That doesn't mean we shouldn't already start building the new boat so of course I fully support all the efforts that are being attempted culturally and technologically to solve problems of depletion etc. but all this is for nothing if we do not equally acknowledge that as long as the current dream boat remains resilient we won't succeed in getting people to jump ship.
We need the catalyst of deep systemic infrastructure collapse as part of the mix together with innovations to shift the collective. We are going to get it from nature anyway soon. But why take a purely passive position of just letting nature take its course when those of us who understand can act as agents of instability to that dream boat?
I spoke of two boats in my introduction. Call the dream boat the idealogical boat. The other boat is the physical reality boat which is the energy infrastructure and technology that is the skeleton that allows the dream boat to exist in the first place.
I have to emphasize that we cannot be agents of instability to the idealogical dream boat if we are not at the same time able to embrace the truth that the physical reality boat must also be sabotaged, either by nature, our own collective stupidity or by intelligent interventions.
The most radical cultural transformation can happen by the collapse of the physical infrastructure that supports modern humans. Adressing only the idealogical cultural beliefs is putting the cart before the horse. _________________ Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
Joined: Dec 03, 2004 Posts: 1134 Location: Seattle, Wa.
Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 10:38 am Post subject: Re: Hope in a boat that can't float.
Graeme wrote:
I don't believe that all energy companies and governments are stupid. Therein lies our hope for the future.
They are not stupid. But they all sit on pillars of collective cultural belief systems that are flawed. _________________ Our resiliency resembles an invasive weed. We are the Kudzu Ape
Joined: Sep 17, 2006 Posts: 623 Location: No man's land
Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 11:57 am Post subject: Re: Hope in a boat that can't float.
I am skeptical that any kind of collapse scenario will create conditions for a more enlightened culture to emerge. It seems to me that a collapse will simply accelerate the destruction of the remaining ecological life support systems.
Look what's happening with the Amazon rainforest...after commodity prices increased (partly due to climate change), the rate of destruction doubled in the last few months of 2007. Look what has happened with the development of the tar sands in Alberto after oil prices shot up. Remember how BP was once committed to the development of alternative energy sources, and now they have given up on that publicity stunt because of profitability concerns.
I think history will show that people become increasingly desperate and reckless as their ecosystems and natural resources are destroyed and depleted. As a result, the social/economic collapse is more like jumping off a skyscraper than sliding down a slide.
I am aware that this is a view that doesn't contain much hope for the collective. But I am not hopeless for the potential of individual awakening. _________________ "It is no measure of health to be deemed sane in an insane society" J. Krishnamurti
Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 12:20 pm Post subject: Re: Hope in a boat that can't float.
ibon wrote:
"There can be no awakening really until the holes expand to the point that the boat is undeniably sinking"
The denialists will keep on denying no matter how obvious the evidence. 30,000+ dead in Europe's mega-heatwave in '03, collapse of the Arctic cap, golf games in Minnesota in January, reams of data and tons of studies...If all of these and more haven't convinced them, what do you imagine would?
Any event, no matter how dramatic, will quickly be spun by the hardcore denialists as normal and natural. Just look at the wacky claims on some of the neighboring threads here. And it get worse when you look at blogs that attract the cranks in droves.
And if by enlarging the holes you mean trying to make some disaster happen or more likely to happen, well... besides the massive ethical and legal problems there, this would be the denialist wet dream. If they could show that any GW event was consciously influenced in any way (though I am struggling to understand exactly how this would be physically possible), they would even more vociferously write off all claims of AGW as conspiracies and manipulation.
So, we are still waiting for a clarification of your elusive language.
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 12024 Location: zombie horde wonderland
Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 12:26 pm Post subject: Re: Hope in a boat that can't float.
Ibon wrote:
[
I have to emphasize that we cannot be agents of instability to the idealogical dream boat if we are not at the same time able to embrace the truth that the physical reality boat must also be sabotaged, either by nature, our own collective stupidity or by intelligent interventions.
What, specifically are you advocating? Blowing up dams, etc?
Or something less dramatic, such as withdrawing our support from the infrastructure? _________________ "...powerdown so soft and fluffy you'll think you're living in a pillow..." - jboogy
Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 2:50 pm Post subject: Re: Hope in a boat that can't float.
Ludi wrote:
What, specifically are you advocating? Blowing up dams, etc?
Or something less dramatic, such as withdrawing our support from the infrastructure?
The best way forward would be to carry on with status quo and continue misinvestment spree, until system comes to crunch.
So don't attempt to switch to electricity driven civilization - you will only extend agony, cause more destruction of environment due to longer duration of overshoot and in overall achieve nothing.
Don't attempt to teach large masses how to run permaculture.
Don't attempt to convince peoples, that they should live within means - the more they will go into debt to consume, the faster they are cooked.
Support development of high maintenance cities infrastructure to ensure that final collapse is swift and beyond any hope to mitigate.
Don't invest in healthcare and education.
Increase military spending to make sure that more of our resources are misallocated and ultimately wasted.
That should be sufficient to ensure collapse and we are already doing all of it.
Make sure, we keep on track, fingers cross and hope for the best.
And finally remember - you should focus on taking steps allowing to shorten duration of overshoot.
Derailing of system by allowing it to crash is perhaps a best bet here.
Any mitigation attempt resulting in extending duration of overshoot is a disservice to all.
It will cause more suffering and fewer survivors will be left in longer run.
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