The nexus of sustainability and the peace movement

I was asked to be one of the speakers at Tucson's annual Peace Fair and Music Festival on February 27, 2010. Here are my prepared remarks.

Good afternoon. My name is Dave Ewoldt. I'm an ecotherapist, systems scientist, and executive director of Natural Systems Solutions, a non-profit whose tagline is "Facilitating Sustainable Lifestyles, Organizations, and Communities." Our work is based in ecopsychology and involves reconnecting with nature for health, healing, and wisdom. If you've seen the movie Avatar, we help you remember how to deeply connect to our own living planet without sensory fibers coming out of the end of your ponytail. We do personal and group counseling, but since you can't counsel an organization (even though they actually need it), we "consult" with them to institute sustainable changes in all levels of business relationships. We also work with communities on sustainable policy development and economic resiliency without the disempowing and costly dependence on growth. It's all about becoming better instead of bigger. To try to sum all that up, I've started calling it Paradigm Shift Coaching.

Today, since this is Tucson's annual Peace Fair, I'm going to talk about the nexus of sustainability and the peace movement, and connect the dots amongst the greatest set of converging crises facing industrial civilization and perhaps life on earth as we've become comfortable with it, which are global warming, peak oil, and corporatism (which I refer to as the Triumvirate of Collapse), but we can't ignore economic growth, material accumulation outrun only by accumulating waste, empire and hegemony, an ever widening wealth gap, environmental toxicity, biodiversity loss, and the paradigm underlying them all--force-based ranking hierarchies of domination and control that depend on fear and a pathological sense of the other, whether that other is the natural world, a different culture, or a different name for god.

And I'm going to let you know that there is something we, together, can do about it all--a readily available, viable, systemic alternative. One that doesn't make us put on hair shirts, return to the cave, and start carrying water. That would improve people's quality of life and start giving ecosystems the opportunity to begin their own healing.

But, that's quite a bit to cover in five minutes, so you're going to have to listen up.

Our modern times are waiting for the terms and expressions to emerge necessary to describe them. Apocalypse is forecast, but never arrives. Unprecedented systemic changes are taking place, and the blue-light specials are still available at K-Mart. From an ecological perspective, apocalypse may well have occurred already. We really have no fucking idea how to even really begin to measure it. And it's started to take on a feeling of normalcy, as it unfalteringly unwinds itself on a daily basis. We've come to expect it, and that in and of itself is probably the greatest violence that's being done to our sense of self and nullifying our potential as a species.

So, we find ourselves with front-row seats to a planet in steady decline; a catastrophe in slow motion.

Whatever shall we do? Do we really want to institute change, or have we become resigned to an eventuality? Do you find yourself thinking that this is just the natural state of things, the only way it could have happened, it's our human nature and couldn't be changed even if we did want to? Perhaps you're among the group that's silently praying that some genius will invent something to allow us to go on livin' large, while simultaneously hoping that a Predator drone didn't just drop a bomb on his wedding party.

I'll tell you one thing. If we have any hope of pulling our collective ass out of this one, it's going to take more than the cosmetic and superficial changes of swapping out squiggly lightbulbs and buying Priuses. In fact, the latter just has to cease post haste. We have to quit wasting our collective dwindling resources and money on making the world more convenient for, and continuing our dependency on, the automobile. We also can't waste our time hoping for things to return to normal, because normal is what got us into our current sorry state.

But we can change, and do so rather quickly should we decide to. I base this assertion on evidence, research, experience, and historical precedence. There is a viable, pragmatic alternative available. Whether or not we can do it in time is an open question. But, there is no inherent reason, no natural law or principle putting roadblocks in our path, only cultural ones--which means it is nothing more than blind adherence to a story that is holding us back.

When activists get together and talk about creating coalitions or hub organizations of some type, they often come to the conclusion that we must organize around our commonalities. I submit that our core commonality is that we all come from the earth, and in an interconnected and interdependent universe, that is fundamentally friendly to life and its evolution, what we do to the earth we do to ourselves. Thus, the one goal that can support all of our individual passions and life's work as change agents is the goal of creating a sustainable future.

To do this we must first realize that sustainability is not a meaningless buzzphrase. It can be defined in a way that is both legally defensible and objectively measurable. We must quit allowing the other side to define our terms and then tell is that it's not possible.

There are three necessary clauses that make up a viable, comprehensive definition of sustainability. They are:

1) The integration of human social and economic lives into the environment in ways that tend to enhance or maintain rather than degrade or destroy the environment; 2) A moral imperative to pass on our natural inheritance, not necessarily unchanged, but undiminished in its ability to meet the needs of future generations; 3) Determining, and staying within, the balance point amongst population, consumption, and waste assimilation so that bioregions, watersheds and ecosystems maintain their ability to recharge, replenish and regenerate.

Transition Pima, which is a regional hub for Transition US, is an organization based on these principles that can provide the framework for a "big tent" type of effort. Generically speaking, the transition movement looks to create a sustainable future through an on-the-ground process known as relocalization. More than just food and energy security, though, transitioning into a sustainable future--which means one based on ecological wisdom, social justice, economic equity, and participatory democracy--requires all the puzzle pieces, including the one labeled "fun," to be in place. We don't get partial credit if any of the people who contribute to quality of life are missing--ecstatic dancers, farmers, caregivers, bookkeepers, cops. Relocalization is not slapping band-aids on the wounds of empire; it is both anathema and antidote to corporate globalization. It's not single issue branch clipping; it's pulling the diseased root of domination and empire all the way out and planting and nurturing something completely different.

At a fundamental level, sustainability is a term that connotes any living system's ability to adhere to the natural systems principles that allow an ecosystem to become and remain healthy, vibrant, and resilient. This also means adherence to ecological carrying capacity (the third clause in the definition of sustainability), which is the point at which most Westerners tend to run screaming in the opposite direction. Sustainability spells the end of the culture of narcissism. It sounds the death knell for dominator hierarchies, centralized control, and economic growth. It forces us to face the addictive substitutes we've come to rely on for the natural fulfillments that are withheld, through various means from schooling to advertising, in a paradigm that focuses almost exclusively on consumption, accumulation, aggressive competition, and hyper-individualism.

Sustainability is not a special interest--it is life. It isn't my way, it is our way if we truly wish to leave a habitable planet to future generations; if we want to learn how to holistically co-exist with the other millions of species that make up the web of life and the food chain on which we depend for our basic sustenance--as well as all higher levels of fulfillment.

Sustainability is foundational to the peace movement. A truly sustainable world will be a world at peace, but the reverse is not necessarily true. We could quite peacefully and "greenly" consume ourselves into extinction. Peace on Earth requires peace with Earth. The exploitation of all of nature must cease. This explicitly means that we must quit providing the legitimacy for the stories, religious and otherwise, that exploit, abuse, and stifle our own inner nature.

According to the thousands of scientists who study catastrophic anthropogenic climate destabilization, we're quickly running out of time. According to geophysicists and biologists, we're running out of natural resources and the biodiversity needed to keep the food chain from collapsing. No food chain, no food. It doesn't get much simpler than that. We have to quit being afraid to say this is exactly what's happening just because it might alarm or upset or challenge deeply cherished worldviews.

I mean, since America already ranks next to last out of 150 countries on the UN's happiness scale, when 50% of the American population requires at least one prescription drug per day, when our lifespans, our incomes and our sovereignty are steadily decreasing, what have we got to lose by being honest with people, with forthright truth telling? We actually are capable of handling it. The myth that insists otherwise does nothing but support the status quo, so be very wary of those who repeat it.

The concept of relocalization, as manifested by transition initiatives, is a path toward sustainability. It's a different way of doing things based on the four natural systems principles of mutual support and reciprocity, no waste, no greed, and increasing diversity, and the values we tend to share that emerge from these principles. These values are perhaps best expressed by the four pillars of the Earth Charter--respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, social and economic justice, and democracy, nonviolence and peace. The Earth Charter is an internationally recognized and widely adopted and endorsed soft-law document for sustainable development that has already undergone a decade long vetting process. We don't have to reinvent any wheels, nor are we alone here. In fact, we're actually the majority.

And the thing is, reconnecting and relocalizing, undertaking this Great Turning, this shift in consciousness, can't do any actual harm to anything except a story. Well, and to bankers and insurance companies. But it doesn't require anyone to sacrifice themselves... or their pet goat. Instead of burning energy, renewable or otherwise, for continuous industrial growth, let's shift our focus and priorities toward the development of our human potential and start measuring wealth by the quality and quantity of the mutually supportive relationships one can develop and maintain. Let's fully engage in the entire transition process. Let's rebuild community through safe and healthy neighborhoods that are energy efficient and ecologically benign. Let's create local steady-state living economies that are vibrant and resilient. Let's start to think and act the way nature works. Let's embody peace.

When one truly understands sustainability and all it entails--the interconnectedness of all beings--it makes one more afraid of hating than of dying. And I can't think of a better foundation for an effective and lasting peace movement than that.

An open letter to liberal/left issue advocates

While the following was written in response to an e-mail from TrueMajority titled "Our plan for 2009" it is not just directed to TrueMajority; I'm not intending to pick on them (they're actually my personal favorite out of the bunch), because the following is also addressed to MoveOn, Codepink, Democracy for America, Progressive Democrats of America, and the dozens of others who believe that a little "progressive" reform around the edges, taken in slow and easy incremental steps, with heaping helpings of compromise with a system that is anathema to life itself constantly added to the mix, will be sufficient to stave off the collapse and chaos we're heading toward--which is being brought on by clinging to and legitimizing this mindset. Thus, this critique also fully applies to the mainstream environmental groups such as Sierra Club, WWF, NRDC, etc.

Sorry to be so blunt, but until the whole lot of you find the backbone to be honest about the blatant destruction caused by your corporate benefactors, and help dispel the myth that economic growth is necessary for prosperity and progress, your progressive and environmental ideals will remain unfulfilled.

On 29 Dec 2008 at 9:48, Matt Holland, TrueMajority wrote:

> Dear Dave,
>
> What a whirlwind year. In the past twelve months we celebrated
> the election of a new progressive President and witnessed an
> economic collapse brought about by a failed right wing ideology.

Dear Matt,

It would be a whole lot easier for me to support TrueMajority (or any of the other liberal/left issue advocate organizations--please don't feel like I'm singling you out) if it felt like any of you either understood the issues or were willing to support a realistic and viable alternative to their root cause.

Let's take the latest TrueMajority e-mail that triggered my response as a case study. First, Obama is not progressive. He is solidly middle of the road. He wouldn't have been vetted by the DLC for his presidential bid were he otherwise. Second, the economic collapse is the only logical outcome of the Ponzi scheme known as free-market capitalism; right-wing ideology merely hurried the collapse along by exposing its faults to the light of day in a manner that is hard to either ignore or deny. But blaming our current economic situation on the right or thinking that we can "green" economic growth merely shows that stupidity knows no political allegiance.

You almost always take the proper "progressive" stand on issues, but without ever acknowledging that each of these issues is a symptom of a failed cultural paradigm. It is a paradigm of domination; of hierarchies of control that function through power over an other that's assumed inferior. New issues will continue to emerge from this paradigm as long as the inherently faulty analysis of liberalism is being applied. While the left may be more compassionate than the right (speaking only of the political ideology, not the real people who get swept up in it), the fact that compassion continues to be necessary on such a wide-spread scale is proof that a fundamental problem remains--unexamined and thus unresolved.

There is at least one recognized but as yet not well known path to a sustainable future that is based on ecological wisdom, social justice, economic equity, and participatory democracy. As a further incentive in requesting your support to help publicize the alternative I advocate, a sustainable future based on these values will create a culture of peace, something both the political right and left insist they desire.

One core aspect of the process to blaze this path is known as relocalization. It includes the decentralization of vibrant and resilient local steady-state economies that exist in harmony with their bioregional ecosystems. Relocalized communities don't require growth in consumption or energy use to be considered healthy, i.e. they are powered down and prepared for the energy descent the world will be experiencing as the reality of Peak Oil settles in.

The other core aspect of creating a truly sustainable culture is overcoming our separation from the natural world--which includes each other. This entails reconnecting the human spirit and all the rest of our dozens of natural senses to their roots in both the creation and to the creative tendency of life itself to build and nurture relationships of mutual support that are conducive to life in its ever increasing diversity.

While this systemic alternative won't, indeed can't, support infinite economic growth or consolidation of power, it will create the foundation for the quality of life people all over the world say they want. Evidence for this claim can be found in the global acceptance of the values espoused by the Earth Charter. This systemic alternative is also the only rational response to catastrophic climate destabilization and the poisoning of the biosphere by industrialism that I'm aware of. If any of you should know of another, please quit keeping it a secret.

The alternative of reconnecting and relocalizing can create more opportunities to reach the potential the natural bounty a life-affirming planet assures any species that stays within its ecosystem's carrying capacity. This includes the opportunity we have to participate in the creation of sustainable lifestyles, organizations, and communities based on the natural systems principles from which sustainable ecosystems emerge. It presents a new way of being that is resonate with the natural creatures we actually are, instead of putting us in constant reaction mode to the toxic symptoms the status quo keeps handing us.

Doesn't it make more sense for a national organization such as TrueMajority to live up to its name and champion a different way of being that supports and provides for the majority?

Planning the Future

There's been a recent back and forth between the blogs of John Michael Greer, "The Archdruid Report" and Rob Hopkins, "Transition Culture".

One of Greer's critiques of the Transition initiative, based more on a single conference presentation by overly enthusiastic proponents rather than a thorough understanding of the Transition Towns movement, is that deliberate planning for a better future is both "impossible and counterproductive."

This critique of Hopkins' (and company) Transition Initiative might be more about semantics than anything else. Postcarbon cities and transition towns aren't planning the future. As Greer rightly points out, doing so in the literal sense is impossible, although the attempt is not necessarily counterproductive. We are, however, participants in the future and our actions have consequences. We can examine these consequences and make choices. For the moment, let's not argue about the percentage of time Western culture actually spends doing this. Or the percentage of time an elite subclass spends doing pretty much exactly that to the detriment of all other.

We can rationally examine, and sensually experience, that the Industrial Growth Society is causing much harm and is about to collapse through self-cannibalization by clinging to mistakes in foundational assumptions that are adhered to and defended with religious fervor. The clearest indication of this tendency is that industrial civilization is pretty much diametrically opposed to the sustainability of life, living organisms, and the natural world they depend on.

So, since humans tend to do things, let's do things differently. In a manner that not only honors life, but that models the creative and sustainable processes that underlie it. Since we obviously have to start doing things differently due to global warming, peak oil, and the loss of sovereignty to corporatism and the dominator hierarchies which support it let's start by stating what we do want. If we wish to switch from a culture of death to a culture of life, we need to start by picking a new set of values as a base. And the future we all seem to agree on is a sustainable one based on ecological wisdom, social justice, economic equity, and participatory democracy (which are goals unto themselves as well).

But this isn't planning the future. This is making intelligent choices based on an honest assessment of what the world is currently facing, and what has caused it. This is just common sense based on a different paradigm that rejects the old assumptions. While proponents of post-carbon cities and transition towns may not know exactly how it will look, there's a whole buncha stuff we know we don't want to do again. Certain options, which mainly revolve around selfish greed and exploitation, have been taken off the table.

Relocalization is a dynamic process based on the natural systems principles from which emerge ecosystems that are vibrant, healthy, and resilient, i.e. sustainable. It's based on a model that's been working for billions of years. It's a model we're intimately familiar with, even if it's been repressed and unexpressed under Western civilization.

There are certain things we do know about the proposed process to create a sustainable future. Permaculture and the relocalization process Transition Towns are based on don't contribute to resource depletion, toxicity, waste, or economic growth. Thus, it doesn't contribute to war. Carrying capacity of both the environment and the economy becomes the prime factor in its calculations of success.

Now, no one is saying that the world is going to majically revert back to a pristine state, or even that this will keep collapse entirely at bay considering how far into the ecological overshoot range we are. But it is a way to start effecting the negative feedback loop of restoration and regeneration instead of feeding the positive feedback loop of destruction.

So, I do see reason for being optimistic about taking the initial steps toward a way that works; that is about being more rather than having more; that just plain feels better. A way where we start thinking and acting the way that nature works. Where we shift the priorities from domination, aggression, competition, separation, and destruction to partnership, compassion, cooperation, connection, and creation. New choices based on giving priority to a different set of values.

And, ya know, at the very least, relocalization sure sounds like a whole helluva lot better plan than the current one to grab whatever you can before someone beats you to it. The reason social change from the imperialism of industrial civilization hasn't worked before is that we've never thrown out, or even seriously examined, the underlying assumptions and replaced them with ones perfectly in keeping with human nature. As Greer points out, follow through is necessary (and Transition Towns help inspire that), but we must also make sure the business as usual plan is dismantled and its harms mitigated.

Dealing with petrocollapse can take other forms than the two Greer says are the only options--finding a replacement for fossil fuel to continue powering industrialism, or replacing the energy dependent parts of modern society. Most people who are looking at the bigger picture throw overpopulation into the mix, and overconsumption is a perennial favorite. Greer is correct in pointing out that little would be left of modern society if we rid ourselves of the energy dependent parts.

In spite of Greer's claim to the contrary, however, the parts for a low-energy society are indeed sitting on the shelf, and there are many who are pointing out the quality of life benefits. The changes that are required socially are even pretty much spelled out in detail in the Earth Charter. Nitpicking energy descent seems like a distraction, unless the real goal is to attempt to keep the economic growth necessary for industrialism chugging along.

Currently, we know how to build things to last, and to be easily repairable. We know how to make them more energy efficient, and less toxic. We know we could quit fetishizing shallow status symbols. The only thing any of this threatens is economic growth and financial empires--which are the drivers of peak oil, global warming and inequity, as well as the major hindrance to democracy.

The choices for where we want to go, and what to stay away from, should be pretty clear. And it sounds like a plan to me.

Prelude to "José Can You See? Bush's Trojan Taco"

I wrote this prelude when forwarding Greg Palast's (excellent as usual) article to most of the lists I'm on to help keep people up to date on what's going on behind the scenes while the Left continues to be distracted by the Punch and Judy show of the Democratic primaries, the anti-war movement continues to be deluded that either defunding or pulling out of Iraq will bring world peace, and as Commercial Totalitarianism continues to tighten the noose of state fascism ensuring that nothing effective will be done to address catastrophic climate destabilization within the rapidly shrinking necessary timeframe.

And yes, there is something we could do about all of this, but too many people today insist on the pathological clinging to the propaganda that there's nothing we can do, it's too big, we can't make a difference, a growth economy is necessary for progress, prosperity and alleviating poverty, and besides it's just human nature to act like sheep and do the bidding of our overlords.

Sigh.

Our overlords are just fellow Bozos on this bus, boys and girls. They put their pants on one leg at a time, and they have grandchildren they care about. Well, except for those very few true sociopaths like Cheney, or those whose higher neural functions have been lost through cocaine abuse and alcoholism like geedubya, of course. The rest of the ruling elite all believe the same propaganda/story, and for basically the same reason -- the dominant OldStory is insidious in not allowing an alternative to be known, or in framing any alternative as inferior.

Creating and telling the NewStory is going to take all of us putting aside our sectarian differences; not succumbing to factionalization; not being led astray by the egos of movement leaders who believe in power-over hierarchies. The goal of a sustainable future based on ecological wisdom and social justice, based on globally shared values such as those expressed by the Earth Charter, is an alternative we can choose. This goal can both unite us and build from the strength inherent in our diversity.

Two necessities for creating and living this NewStory are going to be accepting what sustainability actually means (morally, scientifically, and legally), and that humans are actually an intimate and inextricable part of a larger living system that has imbued us with the intelligence, heart, and spirit to actually do so. This NewStory is more in keeping with true human nature. It adheres to the principles of natural systems. It helps us realize that sustainability is not merely an environmental movement; it is a community movement.

Does anyone else feel up to this task, which actually works with the life-nurturing energies that create and support life (that have a successful track record measured in the billions of years, pretty much regardless of which story you believe of their origin), or do you really think that putting band-aids on symptoms (otherwise known as incremental reform), or that separating yourselves from the rest of the world in little eco-village enclaves out in the wilderness as the current system collapses around our ears and we're rounded up by Blackwater mercenaries into the already funded Halliburton built concentration camps is the best path we can choose -- or worse yet, have you succumbed to the disempowering cynical view that this is our fate, and so, like urban growth, we have no choice but to accommodate it to the best of our abilities?

Reconnecting with nature and relocalizing our lifestyles and communities provides a systemic process to create a NewStory we can all joyfully participate in. In fact, we all must. This alternative to the status quo is both realistic and imminently achievable, in no small part because it will unleash the current constraints on human potential and provide increased opportunities to meet our natural expectations of fulfillment.

Which future do you want to choose? Go ahead. Take the red pill. Offer it to your family and neighbors.

Let's party!

Responding to Peak Oil and Global Warming: Beyond Power Hierarchies and Economic Growth

Another excellent article by George Monbiot, published in the Guardian and posted on his website connects some dots amongst Peak Oil, global warming, and the looming environmental disaster known as biofuel. The reality of these crises are becoming slowly accepted by the mainstream, as a new report by Citibank points out the reality of Peak Oil. Monbiot wonders, since governments won't listen to environmentalists or even geologists, will they also ignore the capitalists?

Well, I think this depends on exactly what the capitalists say, and what they continue to ignore and deny. Fossil fuels are decreasing in availability--this is, after all, what nonrenewable means. A switch, even a relatively small one, to agrofuels make our overall situation in regard to environmental degradation and human suffering even worse. There are, however, short term profits to be sucked out of both--which begs the question of what comes next? What the capitalists simply can't bring themselves to publicly admit, however, is that we can neither maintain an elite run class structure nor keep powering a growth economy. They are unsustainable and a barrier to human progress.

So that leaves it up to us (the vast majority of the global population) to take this inescapable conclusion--what Jan Lundberg of CultureChange.org calls petrocollapse--to the next step, where the only logical response that I can see is to start being honest with ourselves and admit that dominator hierarchies and a sense of superiority over the other was a mistake based on false assumptions, incomplete information, discounted variables, and self-centered individualism. We must get over and then go beyond the idea that a growth economy is necessary for prosperity and well-being, and that reversing or simply doing away with economic growth need necessarily cause panic, disruption, and massive suffering.

We must start making people aware that in fact, we could do something that would have the opposite effects. We could begin moving into a dynamic, holistic integration with the creative processes and energies used by natural systems to be sustainable. This would allow us to tap into natural abundance, including our own creativity, that natural resource carrying capacity constraints actually provide and which should guide the direction of our efforts to develop and improve.

Our reliance on technology is making us less human physically, emotionally, and spiritually. I don't see that as a sign of progress. Our goals should be to do away with cars and auto dependent sprawl and infrastructure, rebuild our cities to be livable and walkable, reduce consumption and material lust, adhere to the precautionary principle, instill quality and craftsmanship into clean zero waste production, provide health and food security while voluntarily lowering birthrates, and reclaim the commons for the foundation of community sovereignty that is an integral part of interdependent networks of consensus based bioregional governance. That the entire world desires this is demonstrated best by the international acceptance of the common values expressed in the Earth Charter principles: respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, social and economic justice, and democracy, nonviolence, and peace.

We must reconnect the human soul to its home in the soul of the Earth. This is the intellectual and spiritual challenge of the 21st Century. This is the promise of relocalization, which also supplies the antidote to corporate globalization and centralized control. That we continue allowing exploitation and destruction of our life support system by pinning the blame on a lack of political courage is both a distraction and a cop-out.

There is no time to abrogate the personal responsibility to begin making new choices, the first of which is to quit legitimizing the status quo. The second is to accept that we actually deserve to enjoy life naturally, and not by depending on antidepressants, stress reducers, pain relievers, and chemotherapy to make living on a despoiled planet of broken relationships tolerable.

Doing What Comes Naturally: Responses to Systemic Crises

Global warming is becoming the rallying cry of many environmental and social justice organizations. As can be expected, they each insist that solving their particular issue is the best solution, or the best place to start, as we begin work to shift demand to renewable energy sources. None, however, mention reducing demand. Of course, we must also remember that these groups all find themselves firmly enmeshed in triage situations of a system that has become normalized; that we legitimize.

For example, a recent Oxfam e-mail action alert starts out by listing aspects of the dire situation global warming is creating; a particular species going extinct, disappearing ice caps, more destructive storms. Then they say what's missing from the global warming debate is the effect on the world's poor. And to a certain extent, that's very true.

However, it seems that what's really missing from the debate about global warming is questioning what the true underlying cause of this crisis is. Nor are the intimately interconnected aspects of the equally devastating crises of energy depletion, mass extinctions, overpopulation, and biospheric toxicity often mentioned. Of course, we can also throw all the deteriorating quality of life indicators into the mix as well as we contemplate what 'dire' really means.

Might there be some overlooked connections between global warming and poverty that run deeper than coastal flooding?

From nearly every vantage point, when you closely examine any of these crises, you quickly uncover one or more aspects of the excess of economic growth and exploitation, which provide the commonality for these issues through their requirement for a never ending quest for more producers, consumers and natural resources. The crises and their secondary manifestations all lay very close to the diseased root of materialism which encourages usury, celebrity status of financial wealth, and materialism's addictive substitution for psychological and spiritual health and well-being.

It's not just poor people, but the 90-95% of the world's population outside of the power and control structure who will, at least initially, suffer the brunt of any negative changes to the environment and to their livelihoods. Meanwhile, those at the top of the control hierarchy--the ruling elites in our Plutocracy (or more accurately, Kleptocracy)--hold fast to their fantasy of having security in troubled times because their credit rating assures them of acquiring the latest technologies. Technology is thought to meet the economic dictum of perfect substitutability.

We don't need poison free food, air, or water. We don't need fossil fuels for the Industrial Growth Society. Atmospheric carbon can increase to 550 PPM and the planet can warm six degrees... or even more. We've got technology!

I call this the techno-rapture. These are the people who will be the most devastated, by being the least aware of and prepared for, the consequences of business as usual.

Being honest about what the problem really is the necessary first step in formulating responses to these systemic crises that will be both effective and lasting.

Capitalism is a system that has failed--dangerously. Fortunately, there is an alternative that just happens to be both life affirming and capable of improving quality of life. The alternative is relocalized steady-state economies and embracing sustainability, especially its carrying capacity aspect. But this alternative is discounted by the system that is threatened by it. Centralized control and power over have no role in this alternative system. We are told any alternative to the status quo is unrealistic or worse, utopian. If this doesn't work to scare people away, we're warned that it's communist. Therefore, no meaningful discussion can take place, as it would be an idealistic or unpatriotic waste of time.

As the various social change groups lobby for change, they all point out the U.S. is the world's largest polluter. It's this abstract other that is the villain. But... the U.S. is us. You and me with our hybrid cars and our solar powered 10,000 sq. ft McMansions filled with our energy-star rated products that use more energy, like 42" plasma screen TVs, than their predecessors did. But, we assure ourselves that everything's really ok because we switched to compact fluorescents and we reuse our shopping bags. We've allowed the system to convince us that discrete individual actions to redecorate our staterooms as the ship of Western culture continues steaming toward the rocks is the best we can do.

What we must realize is that we can simultaneously work to alleviate the symptoms of dominator hierarchies and the economic cannibalism of unfettered free-markets--symptoms such as poverty, oppression, inequity, privatization (piratization) of the commons, and separation from the natural world, each other and our own inner nature--as we create a sustainable future based on ecological wisdom and social justice.

Embracing a common goal of sustainability would lay the foundation for a democratic culture of peace. This would be in keeping with the life affirming principles of natural systems. It would, therefore, actually be easier than all the effort we're currently putting into maintaining and enhancing a system at odds with these principles. It wouldn't, however, increase GDP.

So, the first decision we must make as we grapple with what to do about global warming is: Which is more important, profit... or people and planet?

If we decide for the latter, let's see of we can agree on a foundation for a sustainable future.

A first point would be recognizing that a healthy ecosystem is the master of sustainability. It is the best place to examine the principles that create the mutually supportive relationships that keep an ecosystem healthy, vibrant, and resilient. Each organism has an abundance of opportunities to find fulfillment within carrying capacity constraints, which include being part of the food chain.

A second point is recognizing that humans come from the Earth. Whatever created natural systems principles used them to create us as well. We do, after all, have over half of our DNA in common with a banana. (And if this isn't cause for humility, I don't know what is.) We naturally embody the ability to be sustainable, and can look to healthy ecosystems for the models and metaphors we need to create sustainable lifestyles, organizations, and communities.

The best way I've found to express this is to start with the four core principles of natural systems: mutual support and reciprocity, no waste, no greed, and increasing diversity. These combine to keep an ecosystem sustainable. The prime activity of living systems in expressing these principles is to self-organize mutually supportive relationships that create more life. It must also be noted that living systems at all scales grow to maturity, and then continue to develop and contribute to keeping the system healthy and in harmony.

From this we can also develop a legally defensible definition of sustainability that has environmental, moral, and scientific aspects. The defense of this definition and what it means to human societies can be founded on a strong constitutional argument that is based in Supreme Court jurisprudence dating back to the beginning of the U.S. It protects property rights by providing a foundation to base property rights on. The definition I propose is:

Sustainability: integrating our social and economic lives into the environment in ways that tend to enhance or maintain ecosystems rather than degrade or destroy them; a moral imperative to pass on our natural inheritance, not necessarily unchanged, but undiminished in its ability to meet the needs of future generations; finding, and staying within, the balance point amongst population, consumption, and waste assimilation where watersheds and bioregions maintain their ability to recharge and regenerate.

If we can agree that the above points are reasonable, we can use them to start analyzing an issue like poverty from a fresh perspective.

We can start by removing the requirement for economic growth in any response developed. We should also take a close look at what human enterprise has made available to us. It's instructive to note that in the overall global economy, 1/3 of the population creates everything that is consumed on the entire planet. What this means is that we should all be working 2/3 less and have full global employment. Then we can start increasing this ratio even more by looking at increasing efficiency, environmental constraints, quality and craftsmanship, and doing away with throw-away consumerism by helping people discover and remember that being more fulfills in a way that having more never can.

We can quit running people off their land and provide the knowledge to plant and harvest a wide diversity of ecosystem adapted crops instead of a single luxury export crop that requires unsustainable inputs. We can make sure basic nutrition and medicine is available and reduce infant mortality and the need for large families. We can provide honest family planning education that is culture sensitive and return elders to their respected mentoring roles as valuable community members. We could very quickly stabilize global population and start allowing it to drop to a sustainable level, estimated by many to be about 2 billion.

None of this is particularly radical, it's all perfectly feasible, and there are functional examples of each aspect we can draw on. We have both the necessary wisdom and the technology available today. This has been the promise of science, technology, and religion all along. People will not turn into layabouts, but will gain the time to find the fulfillment they've been seeking instead of using shopping or sitting captive to mindless entertainment as a substitute.

The above factors would combine to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, decrease demand, increase personal security and satisfaction, and the need for war greatly diminishes or disappears. If people's natural expectations for fulfillment are being met, poverty would no longer be a symptom of a system seriously out of balance.

And of course all of the above is relevant in other contexts. Democracy advocates, some of whom express their goal as being the desire to experience democracy in their own lifetimes, will focus on an issue like campaign finance reform as being the cure. But this is just another symptom whose root is the same paradigm of domination as the other global crises. If activists of various stripes would concentrate on cooperating to change the root, using their prime issue of concern as a guide for their actions, the branches on the co-evolving tree of life would be different instead of coming out diseased in a different location on the trunk.

What this all comes down to is agreeing on a common goal--sustainability; guided by a set of values such as those in the Earth Charter--respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, social and economic justice, and democracy, nonviolence and peace; and developing a willingness, and accepting the responsibility, to become fully human.

It's in our nature to do so. It is a rational choice that also just happens to feel good.

There are numerous tools we can use on the journey to a sustainable future. A few of the effective ones include a process from applied ecopsychology, Dr. Michael Cohen's Natural Systems Thinking Process, that can both empower us and reconnect us to all aspects of nature--personal, social, and environmental. There's a project known as relocalization that provides a new blueprint for our social and economic development. The Green Party provides a political platform that deeply embodies these concepts. And there are a number of social studies that show widespread support is available and growing (Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson's Cultural Creatives), that rapid change is possible (Paulo Freire's work with illiteracy in indigenous tribes and Marian Diamond's work with enriched environments), and that a partnership society is both functional and provides a precedent for balanced cooperation between the natural world and human society (Riane Eisler's Partnership Way).

Let's get busy.

The Systemic Core of Sustainable Change

Not only do we need to understand dominator/taker culture, but its tendrils; how they affect us, and be honest with ourselves about the myriad ways we're complicit without assigning blame or wallowing in guilt; what our true strengths are to oppose it, and the tools at our disposal to undertake the process of change/making new choices; and the benefits that are possible from a partnership/leaver culture we can develop through our abilities and responsibilities as living organisms to self-organize and create, maintain and enhance mutually supportive attraction relationships that work with the cooperative, compassionate, and nurturing energies of the creative life force.

As change agents, we must lay out the roadmap, or framework, for change for all nodes in the web of life, and evaluate decisions and choices on whether or not they are congruent with the natural systems principles that lead to a healthy, vibrant, resilient ecosystem's sustainability.

To achieve this requires agreement on 1) the overall goal, which I submit is sustainabiltiy; 2) the process with which to achieve it, which I submit is relocalization; and 3) the values we share that uphold and quide this vision and mission, which I submit are contained in the Earth Charter--the international people's declaration of interdependence.

Here are the definitions used in the above.

Dominator Paradigm - ranking hierarchies of control based on force, fear, and the threat of force - exploitive, competitive, aggressive, destructive - selfish individualism where the other (nature, people, culture) is inferior and to be used to one's own advantage

Partnership Paradigm - networks of mutuality based on trust - nurturing, cooperative, compassionate, creative - relationships, community, actualization of potentialities through interconnectedness

Natural Systems Principles - mutual support and reciprocity, no waste, no greed, and increasing diversity

Sustainability - the balance point amongst population, consumption, and waste assimilation within a systems' rate of regeneration and recharge; holistic integration of society and economics into environment so as to enhance rather than degrade; a moral imperative to pass on our natural inheritance to future generations, not necessarily unchanged, but undiminished in its ability to meet the needs of future generations

Relocalization - a return to local autonomy within bioregional self-relience - production and distribution of renewable and non-toxic goods and services as close to point of consumption as possible - global growth economy based on increasing supplies of cheap and abundant fossil fuels will be replaced by steady-state local living economies - interdependent eco-cities not built on automobile dependent sprawl

Earth Charter Values - respect and care for the community of life; ecological integrity; social and economic justice; democracy, nonviolence, and peace

Carbon Trading, Caps, and Offsets--another market driven scam?

There's a "green" gift suggestion making the rounds this holiday season that's touted to be a way of making a difference. Called carbon offsetting, it's a way of contributing to renewable energy in an amount equal to how much carbon you contribute yearly to global warming.

So, I have a question. Does carbon offsetting actually do anything besides assuage a little guilt about killing the planet? I mean, look at the term they chose for this scheme. Offset, not reduce or stop.

It seems to me to be at best an attempt at payoff, or little more than a financial incentive to continue supporting destruction, but I'm sure there must be something more to it than that, at least from all the hype it's getting from mainstream (large and well-funded) environmental organizations.

One of the better explanations--from the advocacy point of view--of what carbon offsetting or becoming carbon neutral means, as well as some of its promises and rationalizations, comes from the website of someone who's passion and commitment to a healthy environment as well as for social justice is both well known and respected, Dr. David Suzuki.

Let's examine a few of the salient points from www.davidsuzuki.org/Climate_Change/What_You_Can_Do/carbon_offsets.asp

"A "carbon offset" is an emission reduction credit from another organization's project that results in less carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than would otherwise occur."

Ok, let's see... Plant A doesn't do something, which allows Plant B to do it instead, there is a transference of money accompanying this agreement, and this is supposed to be an offset of overall harm to the system on which life depends for its support?

"The buyers of the offsets benefit because they can claim that their purchase resulted in new non-polluting energy, which they can use to mitigate their own greenhouse gas emissions. The buyers may also save money as it may be less expensive for them to purchase offsets than to eliminate their own emissions."

Isn't all we're actually accomplishing with this scheme slowing down the overall rate of increase? And once again, money wins out over environment. You can abuse me in any way you want, just give me enough money to make the payments on my hottub and Hummer. And this is supposed to be a "principled" stance for the environmental movement? Did they skip the same ethics class most business majors do?

When are people going to realize that you don't compromise with evil? Less bad is not good. It still leads to systemic collapse, thus is not sustainable, and is the one option that really does need to be removed from the table.

"[S]elling offsets from tree planting projects is particularly problematic for a number of reasons, including their lack of permanence and the fact that these projects do not address our dependence on fossil fuels."

What they also don't address is our underlying addiction to consumer society and blind faith in the myth of infinite growth.

"Significantly, only offsets from energy efficiency and renewable energy projects qualify for the Gold Standard, as these projects encourage a shift away from fossil fuel use and carry inherently low environmental risks. Tree planting projects are explicitly excluded by The Gold Standard."

Translation: We've even invented a standard to ensure you that as little as possible happens to seriously challenge the status quo. The one activity that doesn't generate any income for polluters is excluded

"Gold Standard projects must meet very high additionality criteria to ensure that they contribute to the adoption of additional sustainable energy projects, rather than simply funding existing projects. The Gold Standard also includes social indicators to ensure the offset project contributes to sustainable development goals in the country where the project is based."

Here's a part that actually does make sense, and I think why so many people buy into the rest of the story, and not bother searching for alternatives to the initial creation of whatever harmful product is under consideration.

Net energy use must decrease, and the efficiency of the decreased use must increase. The confounding variables in this equation are excess consumption, excess population, and excess greed--not topics of conversation in polite company, and especially not the incestuous relationships amongst these variables. A techno-fix or accounting sleight-of-hand is much more palatable in maintaining the grand illusion of the consensus trance.

"Finally, all Gold Standard projects have been independently verified by a third party to ensure integrity."

Oh, great... and by someone with the sterling reputation, say, of Arthur Anderson, Inc.?

Ok, in all fairness to our cultural loss of the ability to think systemically, a lot of good people buy into the theory behind carbon trading schemes, and they do so because they truly care about the plight of the planet and a future that is at least livable by humans. It does make sense, in a very limited way, to attempt to curtail our addictions to all the stuff that pumps excess carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere by shifting some of our dollars to industries that don't pollute as much on the assumption these industries wouldn't exist at all without at least this level of support, and the pollution from the old industries at least won't be increasing... or hopefully at least not at the same rate, anyway.

However, let's face it, this is the typical behavior of addicts. We'll get off heroin, just give us the methadone.

I mean... do the math while considering the whole system. With increasing demand, there is no net decrease in either natural destruction and resource depletion, nor to human exploitation. CO2 may (or may not) decrease at a specific site, while methane, nitrogen, and sulphur may increase somewhere else (hopefully in a different country so it's easier to ignore). Regardless, deforestation and oceanic deadzones keep increasing, glaciers keep disappearing, and Prozac profits just keep rolling in.

I think I'm going to add the following to a hot-key sequence, I find myself using it so often anymore: Wakey wakey, boys and girls! It's time to take the red pill and cast off the consensus trance!

You really don't have anything to lose but choking to death on your own vomit.

This might not be the prettiest picture imaginable, but try honestly imagining the alternative of not doing so.

Proponents of the various carbon schemes, which include "cap and trade" (cap but not reduce their "right" to pollute) then respond that no, a carbon offset establishes the fact that there is a cost to carbon pollution. Once it is in place the market will establish a true value to that pollution.

Well, yeah, that's pretty much what I said above. If you have enough money, we're willing to let you destroy the planet in any manner you please. The only factor that warrants consideration is the economic one. This is even reflected in the way proponents phrase it--the value of pollution.

Now, I do understand that we do need to shift investment to clean and renewable energy sources. I just don't see any way of escaping the fact that carbon offsets are a way of attempting to work within an inherently destructive and exploitive system. This is one of those inconvenient truths.

What would make more sense to me is to simply tax carbon out of existence, as well as the advertising that supports materialism, and put the money into quality of life initiatives that meet the goals of a sustainable future based on ecological wisdom and social justice.

I think there are many avenues this could take, but first we must come to a social agreement that this is the goal and on how we intend to measure progress toward this goal. This would both tone down the posturing, and more easily illuminate spin.

Are we going to continue pursuing the structural inequity, with nothing but a promise of a better tomorrow, from the Industrial Growth Society, or are we going to power-down and learn to maximize our potential within the biosphere's carrying capacity?

When an activity displays a bias toward harm, do we curtail the activity, or simply decide that paying off the victims still keeps the profit margins at an acceptable level?

While proponents of the carbon schemes will admit the concern about giving polluters an option to merely pay for what they are doing as they keep on polluting is valid, they then try to qualify their support by saying it will take time to make a transition from fossil fuel to renewable resources, and they see the polluters as those who will subsidize this transition.

I don't buy this rationalization at all, however. It's been pretty widely reported that conservation would save about 25-50% of energy use. Decentralizing the national grid would save about 50%. Not producing so much needless crap would save an unimaginable percentage. The only thing the transition scenario supports, knowing or not, is the time to shift elite control structures without losing their grip on power by continuing to propagate the myth that growth is necessary for prosperity and well-being. What they're really trying to protect, however, is the myth that elite control, based on one or another permutation of divine right (like eugenics), is really in the best interests of the "masses."

It seems that the aspects of an equitable and sustainable culture that we should be talking about are restoring community, creating walkable cities, building stuff to last and be repairable, restoring pride in craftsmanship, and shifting status and value to how much one contributes to society instead of how much one can accumulate from it. Plus, as numerous climate and energy experts state, we don't have the luxury of time to create a long transition strategy.

And not to be facetious, but it seems to me that a shift to a sustainable future could be done--it is within the realm of physical possibility and violates no known natural laws--to create this shift today with no harm to anyone but central bankers and insurance brokers.

Of course, when I made this point in a recent on-line conversation, one immediate response was that without central bankers and insurance brokers there is no research and development, no innovation.

To which I replied, more than a little incredulously, who funded the wheel? Pottery and glazing? Agriculture and plant hybridization?

Humans, after all, are creative, if nothing else. Banking actually stifles innovation, because only the innovation that benefits the banks gets funded. If it doesn't further or support the industrial growth paradigm, and provide a decent return on investment, it is neither fundable nor insurable.

This line of argument is similar to stating that if it weren't for the Patent and Trademark Office, none of these technologies would have occurred. This is also like the theory subscribed to by Pentagon planners, who assume aggression and competition are both natural and necessary for innovation, which is then used to justify the existence of a military because there will never be peace if we want to have human advancement. What this all is is patent nonsense.

I was, after all, being facetious--at least a little bit. My point was to bring to light but one of the many layers of social deadwood that have managed to create a story that we provide the legitimacy for.

The argument was also made that it seemed disingenuous to use a technology such as the Internet, which was funded by bankers to promote a shift in society that only harms bankers and insurance brokers.

As opposed, say, to a system that harms everyone else and the planet they depend on? And let's be real. The only harm it is going to do them might be a bit of job retraining and the need to re-evaluate their sense of self-worth.

Please consider, what real goods, necessary for the continuation of life, do bankers and insurance brokers actually provide?

Might the necessity and funding arguments be related to a general confusion in the public between appropriate technologies and appropriate use of technnology?

Rather than relying on the manipulation of fear and scarcity, don't you think we could come up with a better way to meet our needs and evolve our culture? We are, after all, supposed to be intelligent, rational creatures with the freedom of choice.

Of course solar, wind, and other alternative yet to be available on the shelf need investment; many people want to do something; and most of them would rather not have it resemble rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.

And I'm of this mindset as well. But I keep thinking that our efforts will be best spent if directed. Stopping global warming is not a direction, it is a response, necessary as it may be.

It seems to me that we (the environmental and social justice movements) find ourselves in the situation common to high school youth, who when bored, say "let's just do something, even if it's wrong."

To have a direction implies a goal. If we were all to simply agree that sustainability is the goal, and use something like the Earth Charter for our common, shared values and to provide a framework for sustainable development, then we have a yardstick by which to measure progress and with which to evaluate proposals as to whether or not they further us along the path to the goal, or whether they're just holding measures that do little to nothing to address the cause of the problem we find ourselves faced with.

I'm of the opinion that we don't have the time for holding measures, and that a viable alternative is available that requires neither a techno-miracle nor a savior. It also happens to increase numerous indicators of what most people consider to be quality of life.

The alternative that can create a sustainable future based on ecological wisdom and social justice is the process of relocalization based on the natural systems principles of mutual support and reciprocity, no waste, no greed, and increasing diversity. These are the principles that keep an ecosystem healthy, vibrant, and resilient. Since these same principles created us--they are a natural part of who we are--it makes sense to me to apply our intelligence to ways we can benefit from these principles in our lifestyles and communities.

But instead, we exert all this energy going through all these extremely convoluted rationalizations to justify a social system based on greed, aggression, domination, and competition, none of which actually contribute to the creation of life. The best that can be said for any of them is that they may temporarily maintain an individual life, and generally at great cost.

Anyway, that was quite the detour to get back to the various carbon trading schemes, and the need to start a conversation about the fact that the pollution economy is the path to imminent ecocide, we need to knock it off instead of financially rewarding it, and we need to start creating things in a new way--a way that's in balance with natural systems and that honors the intrinsic value of life.

Speedbumps on the road to sustainability

I'm just semi-randomly posting stuff I've written in the past few months to kinda lay a foundation for where I see changes occuring and the evidence I use to come to some of these conclusions. When it has no known basis in fact, I'll try to point this out. Usually.

Yesterday was three articles I'd written immediately after the 2006 mid-term elections. I needed something to fill some space as I was getting the blog setup and seeing how it looked.

I was originally thinking about calling this blog "Goring Sacred Cows: More Inconvenient Truths," but decided it would be way too limiting, as well as not really expressing the positive and creative focus I like to take on where we direct our effort, and on what do we base our choices. But it's going to be a recurring theme as we can't continue making bad decisions, and especially bad decisions that involve little more than making more money. Let's be honest about the sorry state this mindset has gotten us into and what a more rational and sensual alternative might get us.

And then let's just do it. It's all just a story that we believe in, and we can not only choose the interpretation of the story, we can choose an entirely different story as well.

Originally written in October, 2006, here's one in a set of Goring Sacred Cows: More Inconvenient Truths

Speedbumps on the road to sustainability

One of the biggest uphill battles in the quest for sustainability is going to be getting the "progressive" sector of the population to come to grips with their complicity in sustaining the doomsday economy and its voraciously expanding military budget. The denial that runs rampant, not just in the "limousine liberal" set, but with middle-class Democrats and Republicans, is more deep-seated and entrenched than anything you'll find at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.

While it's true that you'll catch more flies with honey than with vinegar, and that beating people over the head with the coercive emotional forces of fear and guilt will only produce resentment and defensive rigidity, getting help in overcoming one's addictions starts with admitting you have a problem. This entails becoming aware of the consequences, both personal and social, of daily lifestyle choices before healthier alternatives can be evaluated. One reason this admission may be so difficult is because so many Americans interact with daily life through a Prozac haze. The latest figures show that about 50% of Americans take at least one prescription drug daily, and 20% take three or more. When you add in alcohol and other recreational drugs that are self- prescribed, somewhere between 70-80% of Americans desperately need some type of chemical salve to either make it through their day or to be able to tolerate their day.

I once ran an ad for my non-profit's counseling services announcing the creation of a consumer's support group to help overcome the addiction to materialism and actually got a few calls, but no one followed through. It is more of a taboo subject than what gets classified as sexual deviancy. It seems most people would rather talk about why they masturbate than why they continue to drive the mini-van to the mall.

That the materialistic and mechanized mindset of Western Civilization's Industrial Growth Society is a root cause of systemic problems is something that even many social and environmental justice non-profits don't want to deal with. This first became apparent to me about five years ago. Our non-profit was invited to participate in an educational fair. A large regional mall was trying to show how much they cared about the local community by allowing a dozen tables to be setup one day a year for non-profits to interfere with the shopping experience and pass out literature. This basically gave them the justification to chase anyone off during the rest of the year who would dare attempt to awaken people from the consensus trance.

I decided that I'd put a large sign above our table that said, "We can help you overcome your addiction to shopping." The other groups wouldn't let me put the sign up. They didn't want me "causing problems" or distracting from their own messages. They were afraid that the mall management wouldn't invite them back next year. They didn't want to address the fact, or even be reminded, that the whole reason their non-profit group even had a mission was because the mall existed in the first place.

Does human happiness need to be opposed to the needs of the planet? Can satisfaction be found that is harmonious with nature and with people's inner nature? By seeking satisfaction through consumerism, we are doing as much harm to the planet as is caused by overpopulation. Not only does consumerism fail in its promise of happiness, but by decreasing our free time and by keeping us from developing satisfying relationships, consumerism makes us less happy.

Consumerism -- the concept of growth through consumption -- is US economic policy's primary goal. We are 4.5 times richer than our great-grandparents, but are we 4.5 times happier? In the effort to turn consumption into a ritual to deliver happiness and fulfillment, we have fooled ourselves into thinking that material goods can fulfill what are actually social, psychological, and spiritual needs.

Surveys have consistently shown that people have believed for decades that if they only had twice as much money they'd be happy, no matter if their yearly income was $15 thousand or $15 million. But surveys also show that the number of Americans who report they are very happy -- 1/3 -- is the same now as in 1957, despite a doubling of GNP and personal spending since then.

People are unsatisfied, without knowing why. They think they need more of what they have now. But, if what they have now is what makes people unsatisfied, will more of it make them more satisfied or more dissatisfied? Perhaps people are tuning in to the fact that if human desires are infinitely expandable, it is physically impossible for material consumption to provide fulfillment -- a fact either ignored or vigorously denied by orthodox growth economists.

Consumption fails to make us happy, and advertising then cultivates and preys on that unhappiness. Ads make people self-conscious about being human and unique; to be unhappy with whatever they have that doesn't match this year's fashion. The advertising industry then assures people that the corporate gods have the proper synthetic salvation for their falsely created, non-existent problems.

The things that people say make them happy and life rewarding include developing talents, building stronger family and social relationships, appreciation of nature, pursuing education, and having quality leisure time. These are all sustainable and non-consumerist. But the race to keep up with the Joneses is subverting these desires. Instead of having more leisure time, Americans devote one billion working hours per year to buying more leisure wear.

It's time to create a NewStory. The People's Declaration of Interdependence, known as the Earth Charter, points toward a path for doing this based on our common shared values of respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, social and economic justice, democracy, nonviolence, and peace. The Earth Charter provides a framework for the NewStory of sustainable development. Remember that the antidote to despair is righteous action. The more we focus on what we don't like, the more it increases. It thrives on that energy. We must focus on what we're for, instead of spending so much time protesting what we're against.

It is also instructive and empowering to realize that we are far from alone in the desire to consciously make new choices that are in balance with natural systems. The voluntary simplicity, Cultural Creative, and relocalization movements toward a post-corporate and post-carbon economy can combine with political progressives to make up about 45% of the electorate. It is estimated that about 90 million people in the U.S. are included in these groups, which makes them about nine times larger than the radical right of Christian fundamentalists, and three times larger than either the current Democratic or Republican Parties.

As the German Greens say, we're neither right nor left--we're in front. Would you like to help lead this parade into a sustainable future based on ecological wisdom, social justice, economic equity, and participatory democracy?