Can Civilization Survive Industrialism?

An increasingly frequent and quite disturbing occurrence are the public pronouncements from people who should know better, such as climate scientists and environmentalists, that nuclear power can be a solution--temporary or otherwise--to our energy woes and quickly collapsing economy and environment.

NASA's Jim Hansen is the latest to join James Lovelock, George Monbiot and the other high-priests of the Church of the Techno-fetishist at the Rocky Mountain Institute in shilling for continued exploitive development with the myth of a need for green economic growth. Some people are pointing out that Bill McKibben seems to be not far behind. Even Lester Brown of all people has called for a need to protect and reinvigorate economic growth as long as it's done "greenly."

Why would otherwise intelligent people be advocating a return to the normal that brought us to the edge of this cliff, albeit with a fresh coat of green paint?

Is a green apocalypse (sustainable apocalypse, anyone?) really any better than what the captains of industry and their financiers have in store for us? The left likes to disparage religious fundamentalists, but the Green Divas' vision of a techno-rapture seems to be every bit as divorced from reality. They say their goal is to save civilization from the imminent collapse that is becoming harder to deny, but that's just a cover story. What they're really trying to protect is Industrialism, and it makes no difference whether the economic system at its base is capitalism or socialism.

Industrial civilization, which requires constant economic growth, which means continuing to regard Earth as both an endless supply of resources and a bottomless pit for waste, has become conflated with the concept of civilization. Intentionally destroying one's life-support system is just about the best definition of insanity I know of. It is anything but civilized.

Although, as we start discussing alternatives we must also keep in mind that civilization as we know it has some rather glaring shortcomings apart from Industrialism--just ask an Indian or any of the other peoples who have experienced genocide for land grabs. Or, open yourself to feel the suffering of other species and the planet itself from the onslaught of unrestrained growth, resource extraction, towering mountains of toxic waste, and festering pools of radioactivity just so a CEO somewhere can build yet another summer home in a protected wetlands.

One point I keep reiterating is that Industrialism is actually anathema to civilization, regardless of how Industrialism is powered--nukes, fossil fuels, or photovoltaics. It requires economic cannibalism in its single-minded drive to grow and subsume. Industrialism (not to be confused with technology) devalues both people and planet, and the underlying paradigm it emerges from--force based ranking hierarchies of domination and a pathological sense of the other--must be delegitimized and replaced.

Industrialism, however, is only one disease whose symptomology expresses in the wounds of empire. Others are spiritual transcendence, scientific reductionism, and various stripes of dualistic dichotomies that all assume a linear, mechanistic, disconnected universe that is unfriendly to life--at least in the here and now.

Yes, it is somewhat mind-boggling that Western minds claim this to be true--the latter point especially--while simultaneously insisting that they're rational.

Fortunately, there is a systemic alternative to all of this. It entails reconnecting with nature (our inner nature, each other, our communities, other species, and our living world--our planetary life support system) and relocalizing our communities and economies as a foundation for change. Reconnecting and relocalizing will improve quality of life for all life. This alternative is solidly based in the systems science of non-linear dynamics in an interconnected and interdependent universe, employs the principles of steady-state economics, and works with and benefits from the self-organizing tendencies of living systems to create mutually supportive relationships. Thus, it would require less energy and effort to make available more of what really matters in the human quest for progress and prosperity than the status quo of Industrialism can even dream of.

Which brings up the other point I keep repeating--we must realize that economic growth and increasing market share are not necessary for either progress or prosperity. We could quite rationally decide to shift our focus to becoming better instead of bigger. If we were to factor in all the waste in the current system, and add in planned and perceived obsolescence, the rational conclusion is that we don't actually need all the energy we're producing today, let alone additional capacity from nuclear power. Standard of living would hardly be affected, and quality of life would measurably improve.

Becoming sustainable does not necessitate moving back to the cave. Should we decide to keep our wits about us (I know, little historical precedence, but that doesn't mean it isn't possible) sustainability and technology could co-exist. We must start being intelligent instead of restrictive regarding family planning, and realize any industry deemed necessary in a sustainable future will have to be clean and zero waste to meet one of the basic tenets of sustainability: The ability to stay within the balance point among population, consumption, and waste assimilation so our life support system can recharge and regenerate.

The systemic alternative I'm advocating is perfectly in keeping with true human nature. It would allow the innovation of an inquisitive, intelligent species to truly blossom as it would no longer be shackled by the limiting, self-serving growth imperative. It would focus on creativity, compassion, and nurturance; it would seek to fulfill our senses of community, belonging, and acceptance instead of offering addictive substitutes and creating pharmaceuticals (or building more prisons) to deal with the pathologies that arise (greed, aggression, narcissism, etc.) from withholding natural expectations for fulfillment in order to further consolidate wealth and power in the hands of a self-selected elite.

This latter system is the one that we the people must exercise our power to withdraw the legitimacy we have granted it. We can, and must, start implementing a practical, affordable alternative that can rationally, emotionally and spiritually provide the fulfillment we seek in both expressing and achieving our potential.

Who is more delusional, the Left or the Right?

I had a very interesting conversation the other day with a Republican activist--a true Republican, not a Tea Partier. I was explaining relocalization from a political perspective, and she replied that this was a message that Republicans needed to hear, as it tends to resonate with traditional Republican values (think Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt).

She was also wondering if I had any thoughts on how Tea Partiers in general could so willingly accept statements that had no basis in any aspect of reality that pertains to the known universe we spend our daily lives in, and if there was some core defect in that particular political demographic.

Now, I don't generally have a problem with being thought of as a lefty, at least along what is generally accepted as the political spectrum today. Even though I prefer to think of myself as neither left nor right, but out in front (definitely NOT the middle), I had to point out that the left today exhibits the same defective cognitive tendencies in accepting utter nonsense as if it were truth.

The example I used to make my point was the increasing "disappointment" with Obama policies now that the hopium has just about worn off, even though the rabid core of the Democratic Party continues to mindlessly defend him.

Let's honestly examine the facts known before the 2008 general election. Obama is an Ivy League lawyer (not a show-stopper in and of itself, of course, just look at Van Jones. But let's connect some more dots). His campaign received major donations from BigEnergy (hmm, this should start raising some red flags over allegiances as well as ideologies). Finally, he was vetted by the center-right Democratic Leadership Council--over Hillary Clinton, no less--before he was allowed to win the Democratic primary. As this latter fact is the real show-stopper, why would people be disappointed that Obama was doing exactly as he was trained, and is expected, to do?

The left, and especially the liberal elite, rather staunchly refuse to address the fact that we have less freedom today, fewer social liberties, and a larger and more powerful police state under the US's first African-American president than we did under the presidency of Ronald Reagan--and we can no longer blame it all on bush jr. Our overall greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise as fast as the rhetoric of a green energy economy. Corporate welfare is further entrenched with the insurance industry's disease care medical model and the left accepts it as health care reform.

For pure comedic value, though, Tea Partiers do take the prize. Keep your grubby gum'mint hands off my Medicare. The tendency of the radical right to accuse Obama of being a socialist fascist--a contradiction in terms which displays their ignorance of both political terminology and history--is every bit as ignorant as the left claiming Obama has progressive tendencies. Calling Obama a socialist is somewhat mind-boggling when you consider that no actual socialists think that Obama has a single socialist bone in his body. He is a corporate stooge and staunch defender of the status quo Kleptocracy and their agenda of free-market imperialism.

A reality based politics would have today's right embracing Obama much more enthusiastically than the left does, and I'm far from the first to make this observation. But we find ourselves in the rather depressing situation where a carnival freak show has been substituted for rational political discourse, very few seem to have noticed, and even fewer seem to care. What's there to worry about? Wal-Mart is still discounting cheap toxic plastic crap from Asian sweatshops and local governments still give them millions in tax breaks and exemptions for the privilege of covering the health care costs of their minimum wage part-time workers--and this is the economic "normal" both right wings of the Corporate War Party want to return to as the minions on both sides cheer them on.

So, which end of the political spectrum is the most delusional? It sure looks like a toss-up to me.

Monbiot Goes Strangelove

A number of people have already commented on environmental writer George Monbiot's recent coming-out for the captains of industry with his fresh and exciting love affair with nuclear energy. So, I don't want this to seem like piling on, but this issue isn't going to go away as long as we (Western industrial humans) continue to cling to the growth myth, or even continue with the assumptions that "economic recovery," "increasing energy demands" and a "return to normal" are even in our best interests--either short or long term.

In his article, Seven Double Standards , Monbiot starts by asking why we don't hold other forms of energy to the same standard we're trying to impose on nuclear. So, let me start by giving the short answer--because they don't produce thousands of tons of radioactive waste for which we still don't have a feasible method of disposal. Low level radiation is not the issue. While most of his seven points are good ones, especially why we unquestioningly accept deaths as a matter of course in the coal industry, they are mainly a distraction from the questions we should be asking.

Monbiot is within the environmental majority in seeing the benefits of greatly reducing our overall ecofootprint. I believe he genuinely cares about the welfare and well-being of people, other species, and Earth itself both now and for the future. He believes that anthropogenic global warming and the reasonable probability for disastrous consequences accurately describes reality and that the status quo response is wholly inadequate.

But, like so many others today, he frames his response to life threatening crises in the terms and with the assumptions of the dominate paradigm that created these crises.
It is taken as a given that human ingenuity will rescue us and we can go on with livin' large in a green economy using clean renewable energy--never mind those pesky little concepts like entropy, conservation, and finitude.

While more accurate than many over the years in his description of the damage being done and the sure likelihood of further increases in destruction and suffering by staying the course of business as usual, Monbiot doesn't seem willing to lay the blame on Enlightenment thinking, let alone examine the deeper roots from which this mindset emerged and is being nourished. He falls rather firmly in line with Maggie Thatcher in claiming There Is No Alternative. Even though Monbiot insists this isn't what he's saying, he pulls in references from others who also claim abandoning nuclear power will surely result in increasing greenhouse gas emissions.

Monbiot believes in a false dichotomy that comes straight from industry PR when saying the only two possible options to increasing nuclear energy capacity are to either burn more fossil fuels (and we agree that's a singularly bad idea), or "To add even more weight to the burden that must be carried by renewables."

Now, there is no doubt that industrialism is a burden on renewables. But, surprise, industrialism is a burden on humanity and Earth. There is also no doubt that human ingenuity must be pressed into service, and starting to do so sooner rather than later would be a singularly good idea. However, stating these are the only two possible paths for humanity's energy future is a case study for the opposite of ingenuity.

We don't need the majority of the stuff that's being produced (let alone new versions every six months), and we don't need wars of empire. Dealing with those two issues alone would remove the need for any new nuclear power capacity, remove the need to replace reactors ready to be decommissioned, and remove well over half of the need for fossil fuels. If we were to start producing what we do need to last and be easily repairable, implement some sensible conservation measures (like not keeping our cities lit up like a cheap Nevada whorehouse at night), and decentralize (but remain standardized and safety regulated) the energy grid, we'd be just about down to an energy demand that renewables are already producing today and well within their ability to pick up any additional slack if needed.

Then there's building our homes and businesses to require less heating and cooling instead of using the cheap ticky-tack construction approach, and all the other low-hanging fruit options everyone is already familiar with. Estimates are that these will get us 23% of the way down to where we need to be just on greenhouse gas emissions, so they're a good idea regardless of their additional energy savings.

If we also factor in the high percentage of people leading lives of quiet desperation (Thoreau) (without which the travel industry couldn't sell "getting away" and would become a mere shell of itself)--those 50% of Americans who take at least one prescription drug per day, and which led to America being ranked 149th out of 150 countries on the UN happiness scale--we start to see even more clearly and completely how much less energy we actually "need". Because if what we're doing now isn't making us happy, will doing even more of it make us happy, or just a whole lot unhappier? After all, it is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society. (Krishnamurti)

When is the environmental left going to become willing to start supporting organizations and electing representatives who are willing to speak this truth and begin implementing the relocalization alternative that can be shown to improve quality of life? To help people understand that sustainability has real meaning and that it is within the capabilities of humans to decide to start moving in that direction. One thing I can pretty much guarantee is that we won't develop a sustainable future as long as people who should know better keep insisting that it either can't happen or isn't necessary.

Mainstream editorial writers are starting to talk about the need to at least switch fuel sources "without either bankrupting or enslaving the citizenry." (M.D. Harmon, Portland Press Herald ) They realize that biofuels are too expensive to produce without government subsidies, but then the logic flys out the window. We don't need Saudi oil, we just need to lift the ban on drilling off-shore and in ANWR. We need more nuclear power plants, lots of them, really fast. Our demand for energy must be met, and this demand must continue to grow for the sake of the economy--often coupled with the myth this is the only way to lift the developing world out of poverty, with poverty narrowly defined against a Western consumerist model. Sanity seeps back in slightly when they admit we sure can't look to the government to solve this problem, but disappears even quicker with thinking that capitalism can be counted on to solve our energy problem, as long as all regulatory and environmental fetters are removed.

The willful ignorance of the supposedly educated and well informed never ceases to amaze, and mortify, me. Don't call for conservation, don't call for efficiency increases (in the product, its manufacture, and its use), and don't insist on using the Precautionary Principle. Don't think about any of the other factors I mentioned above, and definitely don't call for ways to do more with less. And whatever you do, don't dare mention that the problems we're facing with rising energy costs, shrinking supplies, and increasing biospheric toxicity are a direct result of capitalism's growth economy in support of Industrialism. This is economic cannibalism. Its only logical consequence is ecocide while material wealth continues its upward consolidation into fewer hands until it finally catastrophically implodes.

The only unknown is which will occur first. The implosion or a biosphere inhospitable to life.

It's time to honestly look at the damage our energy demands are doing to the environment and to our spirits. And then to examine the implementation of a rational alternative.

It's time to shift the foundation of the debate. It's time to discover the dynamic resiliency and increased opportunities in steady-state local living economies. It's time to start strategizing to power down, instead of sucking up every last iota of fossil fuels--or shifting even a fraction of the "demand" to the more potentially destructive nuclear industry--in order to support overly consumptive and wasteful lifestyles which require an economic model of infinite growth to service debt that has absolutely no basis in reality. It contravenes the laws of physics. It's not just loss of habitat and species being driven to the brink of extinction, but the ability of the biosphere to support life as we know it that's being lost as we keep breaking links in the food chain simply to continue corporate profits, keep the GNP graph on a positive slope, and the ruling elite firmly in control as they continue to successfully carry out class warfare.

The degree of madness that underlies this frenetic activity is approaching the unfathomable. And it seems to have terminally infected even the best minds of the environmental left.

Peak Oil: Apocalypse or Promised Land?

The Energy Bulletin published on November 24 the following response I wrote to an article by Erik Curren, which was first published on Transition Voice which you might want to read through first for the full context, and especially to some of the articles Curren links to as they provide good background information on what we're facing.

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I found it rather hard to tell what point of view Erik Curren is actually arguing for or against in "Peak oil risks becoming an apocalyptic cult." But it seems to be don't tell people the truth as they might ignore you, or even worse, laugh at you. So, let's browse through the sections of Curren's article.

First off, though, if we can't honestly admit that staying the course means slamming into a brick wall at high-speed before the wreckage sails over a very high cliff we won't make the necessary changes to do any more than stave off the inevitable--at best. The reality of the global situation today is that if you're not scared, you're not paying attention.

Predicting collapse becomes a pretty safe bet considering how far into the overshoot range we are--in the areas of population, consumption, and waste generation--and the fact that our "leaders" still believe we can get away with even more of what got us into our current dire straits, coupled with their insistence that we're not actually in dire straits, but even if we were, some whiz-kid will invent something to take care of it and we can all happily get back to the normal that created our dire straits in the first place. This is the type of optimism that makes pessimism redundant.

Curren starts out with a refrain that is becoming a bit too familiar. Mentioning the facts that the Industrial Growth Society is entirely dependent on cheap and abundant supplies of fossil fuels to power the growth necessary to pay off yesterday's debt, and since we've passed the peak in conventional supplies the global financial system can't survive much longer is somehow seen as equivalent to the American survivalist movement--and Curren throws Glenn Beck in as an additional bogeyman just for good measure.

Now, if one were to stop their inquiry into the peak oil movement at that point it would be easy to come to the conclusion that it's nothing more than bunch of doom-n-gloom misfits who can't adapt to civilization and are praying for the apocalypse. But being that superficial is generally associated with swimming at the shallow end of the gene pool.

The peak oil movement, pretty much since its inception, has always pointed out that there is an alternative--at least if we begin to implement it before too many tipping points are passed. Powering down, relocalizing, reconnecting, and remembering how to build mutually supportive community relationships are all mainstays of the peak oil movement. As well as of the global warming, social justice, and ecological integrity movements.

Communities are sets of relationships which operate at many scales. Curren says the guest post by Yevgeny on Dmitri Orlov's blog "deconstructs the idea of 'community.'" I'm at a total loss to see how he comes to that conclusion. Yevgeny does an excellent job of describing exactly what community is when talking about his father's village. The word itself may not be exactly translatable into Russian, but the concept is pretty universal. Who is rejecting the idea of community? I sense an attempt to create a straw-man, but I'm not sure who or for what purpose.

Nicole Foss does a good job of helping people realize our current economy is built on fairy dust. If Transition Norwich is an indication, I'm glad to see the Transition Movement waking up to reality, and especially their very mature response to it: "We didn’t have to be Pollyannas anymore." The end of affordable consumer goods would be a blessing in disguise, because none of them actually deliver on their promise of fulfillment. $225/barrel oil would help people discover they don't actually need the stuff in the first place.

By remembering how to share, build stuff to last, decentralize the grid with clean renewables, and a handful of other common sense changes that are technologically feasible today, it's not hard to come to the conclusion that we could have technologically advanced societies that are sustainable (and yes, there's a humane way to deal with the overpopulation problem). The only "downside" is that none of this supports economic growth. The main concept that changes is growth being necessary for progress and prosperity goes into the dustbin of history. The only suffering falls on bankers and insurance salesmen. But as Richard Heinberg says, we need 50 million more farmers anyway. The sunshine will do them good.

The collapse of an economic system that is based on debt, exploitation, and destruction is the opposite of an apocalypse, especially when relocalization/transition offers a positive alternative that actually can improve people's lot in life. Innovation and entrepreneurship can finally fully blossom because it won't be narrowly tied to only those products and industries that prop up the growth machine.

The fact is that we've been lied into our current perception of reality by the status quo, and it's not meeting the needs of everyday people, let alone offering anything approaching fulfillment. Cultural maturation beyond this story sounds much more like the promised land than the apocalypse.

Mitigating Global Warming: Protecting Water

The following is a transcript of my talk at Transition Pima's Oct. 2 Chautauqua for Change, where the focus of the day was water.

Good afternoon. I'm glad so many of you could join us today. My name is Dave Ewoldt, and I'm one of the co-founders of Transition Pima, as well as being an independent candidate for Arizona State Senate in LD 28.

My research background, professional life, and community activism are built on a foundation of ecology, systems science, and policy analysis pertaining to sustainability and its basis in scientifically validated natural systems principles. I've also been a member of the Arizona Hydrological Society, and had a paper published in their annual conference proceedings a couple of years ago, so I'm at least marginally qualified to speak on the issue of water.

Today, more groups such as the Southern Arizona Green Chamber of Commerce, are springing up almost daily whose primary interest is sustainability; who advocate a community based on ecologically sound policies and sustainable practices; and who lobby to enact practical legislation to encourage green practices in our communities. Locally, the City of Tucson and Pima County have created sustainability departments. We also have the Watershed Management Group, Drywater Harvesters, Sonoran Permaculture Guild, Barrio Sustainability Project and other groups who focus on food and energy security that is sustainable.

My contention is that in order for these efforts to be successful, the first thing we must do is honestly define what we mean by sustainability. This can be done in both an ecologically sound and a legally defensible manner. This will provide a foundation that is consistent, that will allow rational planning, and will provide a yardstick by which to measure progress.

Most of you here today have heard the definition I propose using before, but I'll repeat it because we must keep it in mind as we talk about the water situation here in Southern Arizona. This definition contains three clauses that are intimately interrelated and that inform and support each other.

Sustainability: 1) Integrate 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) Entails determining, and staying within, the balance point amongst population, consumption, and waste assimilation so that bioregions, watersheds and ecosystems can maintain their ability to recharge, replenish, and regenerate.

The third clause it what gives the definition its legal teeth, because it is scientifically measurable. It provides the foundation for setting growth threshhold standards and optimum population size studies which have been successfully carried out in other communities around the country.

With this definition in mind, one thing that stands out to me in the various water forums and symposiums I've attended or participated in over the past few years is a term commonly used by local, regional, national, and international water experts. This term is overdraft. Everyone says, that everywhere you look, fresh water supplies are decreasing. We're using more than can be naturally replenished. But then, often in the very next sentence, they all go on to say we're not in danger of running out of water.

Now, I realize that math skills are also decreasing in this country, but what planet are these people from? Is there a parallel universe, or another dimension that I'm not aware of where all this water is going to come from? Isn't "inventing" new water supplies the same as the alchemy used in the Middle Ages to turn lead into gold? The best any of these experts could offer is a belief in a future technological miracle occurring to save us from ourselves. I call this the techno-rapture. None of the experts want to address the inconvenient truth that pretty much every technology that we've applied against the natural world has had the unfortunate side-effect of decreasing the ability of the natural world to sustain life.

I have this bad habit of looking at everything from a systems perspective; of studying relationships; of being concerned with underlying causes. If we don't understand what the real root of the problem is, the solutions we develop won't change anything because we'll be responding to the wrong problem.

When properly presented, sustainability additionally provides an overarching meta-vision of a just, equitable, and peaceful democratic society that is in balance (or, more accurately, in holistic integration) with the natural world. Sustainability, when strongly defined from the perspective of ecology--which is the study of relationships--fully informs the work of progressive activism, as well as providing the support and nurturing necessary for progressive activists. While some people take the narrow view that sustainability is an environmental movement, sustainability is actually a community movement.

I'll get into some of the details of why here in a moment, but the status quo needs to change while there's still anyone left around to change it. And the experts who look at global warming trends (more accurately referred to as catastrophic climate destabilization) say we're going to be looking at greatly reduced populations in the Southwest deserts over the coming decades. There is an intimate relationship here with water.

Steven Chu, Nobel laureate and former director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in regard to diminished supplies of fresh water in the Western US from the 30-70% reduction of mountain snowpack says, "There’s a two-thirds chance there will be a disaster, and that’s in the best scenario." There are a number of credible studies that have been published within the past few years that come to the conclusion that the Colorado River could be functionally dry as early as the next years or two, but at least within the decade if trends continue.

Speaking of trends, it's instructive to note that many of the worst case global warming scenarios from less than ten years ago, which weren't predicted to occur until 2085 to 2100, have already occurred. The best example is the opening up of the Northwest passage in the Arctic.

We must begin being honest about the reality of the situation we find ourselves in. There is actually no disagreement that our current water supplies are running out. The water table in the Tucson region has dropped from 20 feet to over 300 feet in the past three generations, and is continuing to drop between 2-4 ft/yr. In the 1940s in Phoenix you couldn't build a house with a basement because the water table was too high. Now it's at 1,000 feet.

We're selling water to industry for $5.80/af, but the cost to CAGRD (Central Arizona Groundwater Replenishment District) to secure increasingly difficult to find replenishment supplies is $200/af. The snowpack in the headwaters of the Colorado River is decreasing and is expected to be at 40% below normal in the coming years. The Central Arizona Project is pumping water over 300 miles 2000 feet uphill to Tucson in an open concrete ditch through the middle of the Arizona desert.

We're betting our future on paper water. The current ADD water process (Acquire, Develop and Deliver Water) is analogous to the fed printing money to "solve" the financial crisis. It allows the continuation of rubber-stamping growth without the water actually being there. And we're allowing our local planning departments to continue approving trophy subdivisions in the foothills, and 60,000 home "planned" communities south of Tucson. As if putting the word "planned" in there makes everything alright. Everybody seems afraid to point out that smart growth gets us to the exact same place as dumb growth, we just get their first class.

One of the things we're told by status quo water managers is that we can continue growing if we manage our water resources better; for example, if we all just begin water harvesting.

What I'm going to spend the rest of my time talking about today involves deepening this overly simplistic view. We require a much fuller understanding of the system relationships within hydrologic cycles in order to craft realistic water policies.

The executive summary is that our collective abuse and displacement of water is contributing to both global warming and local weather disruptions. Abuse through industrial and agricultural pollution is fairly well understood. Displacement is less well known and concerns moving water from where it sustains healthy ecosystems and hydrologic cycles to where it gets used in irrigation or for cities, where it generally ends up in the oceans. There is also a "virtual trade" in water due to globalization, which is the 20% of daily water use for humans that is used for export crops or manufactured goods. Urbanization, deforestation, and wetlands destruction also cause the removal of vegetation necessary for a healthy hydrologic cycle, which leads to a loss of precipitation over affected areas. This all contributes to global warming, as well as lowering nature's ability to sequester carbon dioxide. Solutions must protect water as well as watersheds and all of their users.

Here are the details on how this functions and occurs. Much of the following is taken from the work of Maude Barlow, board chair of Food and Water Watch and senior adviser on water to the president of the U.N. General Assembly.

We can't ignore the interconnected nature of our world, its cycles, and humanity's role in them. Global warming is having negative impacts on global fresh water supplies. Warmer temperatures cause increased evaporation from rivers and lakes, decreased snowpack and earlier runoff, and increased glacier melting.

However, our collective abuse and displacement of fresh water is also contributing to global warming. This issue must be added to our strategies to mitigate global warming as well as the restoration of watersheds and the replenishment of aquifers.

There are two major factors in this.

The first is displacement of water from where it sustains healthy ecosystems and healthy hydrologic cycles. We've polluted so much surface water that we're now mining aquifers much faster than nature can replenish them. We move water from where nature has put it to where we need it for food production where much of it gets lost to evaporation, and to supply the voracious thirst of cities where it usually ends up as waste dumped into waterways and oceans.

We also lose water through the virtual trade in water. This is the water used for export crops and manufactured goods, and it accounts for about 20% of the daily water use for humans that is exported out of watersheds. Piping water long distances for industry leaves behind parched landscapes.

The second factor is loss of the vegetation necessary for healthy hydrologic cycles. Urbanization, deforestation and wetland destruction destroy water-retentive landscapes and leads to loss of precipitation over the affected area.

The living world influences the climate mainly by regulating the water cycle and the huge energy flows linked to it. Transpiring plants, especially forests, work as a kind of biotic pump, causing humid air to be sucked out of the ocean and transferred to dry land. If the vegetation is removed from the land, this natural regulation system is interrupted. Soil erodes, reducing the content of organic material in the ground, thus reducing its ability to hold water. Dry soil from lost vegetation traps solar heat, sharply increasing the local temperature and causing a reduction in precipitation over the affected area. This is the unmentioned side of the urban heat island effect. This process also destroys the natural sequestration of carbon in the soil, leading to carbon loss.

So, just as removing vegetation from an ecosystem will dry up the soil, removing water from an ecosystem means reduced or non-existent vegetation. Taken together, these two factors are hastening the desertification of the planet, and intensifying global warming. Even if we successfully address and reverse greenhouse gas emissions and our dependence on fossil fuels, we will not be able to stop global warming if we do not deal with the impact of our abuse of water.

It is also a tenet of sustainability that a region--however defined--cannot consider itself sustainable at the expense of another region. Central and Southern Arizona will not be sustainable as long as it depends on Colorado River water. The same can be said for some of the current pipe-dreams such as building another water canal from the Mississippi River or building desalinization plants. As if the communities dependent upon the Mississippi River would even allow the former to occur in the first place.

And of course there's also the tie-in to our energy production and use. Coal-fired power plants use approximately 1.5 trillion gallons of water a year in the US. Some folks might actually use more water turning on the lights in their foothills McMansions than by drinking a glass of it. Power plants also create more toxic waste than the plastic, paint, and chemical industries, and this waste gets dumped into rivers and other waterways from the scrubbing process. So, we've managed to clean up the air a bit and instead of breathing the toxins, now we drink them.

So, how do we answer the increasingly loud cry of, What can we do?

The solution to the water half of this crisis is massive watershed restoration to bring water back into parched landscapes. It's instructive to remember that the Tucson Valley used to be a desert wetlands. The only remaining example of this is a small section of the upper San Pedro River valley.

We must return water that has disappeared by retaining as much rainwater as possible within the ecosystem so that water can permeate the soil, replenish groundwater systems, and return to the atmosphere to regulate temperatures and renew the hydrologic cycle. This means we must be ecologically realistic about the unsustainability, as well as the basic infeasibility, of supporting a local population of one million entirely through water harvesting. Don't even get me started on the current growth lobby fantasy of doubling our local population by 2050.

We must restore forests and wetlands - the lungs and kidneys of fresh water. For this to be successful, three basic laws of nature must be addressed.

1) We must create the conditions that allow rainwater to remain in local watersheds by restoring the natural spaces where rainwater falls and where water can flow. Examples of water retention include: roof gardens in family homes and office buildings; urban planning to allow rain and storm water to be captured and returned to the earth; water harvesting and drip irrigation in food production; capturing daily water discharge and returning it clean to the land through technologies such as living machines.

2) We cannot continue to mine groundwater supplies at a rate greater than natural recharge. Future generations will not look kindly upon us if we do. Governments must regulate groundwater takings before these underground reservoirs are gone (and before our cities subside into them). This means a shift in policy from export to domestic and local production.

3) We must stop polluting our surface and groundwater sources, which is usually done merely to increase corporate profits. Water abuse in fossil fuel production and in mining must stop. We must wean ourselves of industrial and chemical-based agricultural practices and the techno-fantasy of water-guzzling agro-fuel farming. National policies and international trade rules must support local food production in order to protect the environment and promote local sustainable agriculture. Policies must also discourage the virtual trade in water, and ban the mass movement of water by pipeline. Government investment in water and wastewater infrastructure would save huge volumes of water lost every day. Local laws could enforce water-harvesting and grey-water recycling practices at every level.

Governments around the world must acknowledge the water crisis and the role water abuse plays in the warming (and drying) of the planet. All activities that will impact water must conform to a new ethic -- backed by law -- that protects water sources from pollution and over-pumping. This will require a strong challenge to government policies that exclusively focus on unlimited global economic growth, as well as directly challenging those who insist that it is politically infeasible to propose, enact, or enforce any regulations that might decrease profitability.

International policies currently focus on giving the two billion people in water stressed areas more access to groundwater sources. But current levels of groundwater takings are unsustainable. To truly realize the universal right to water, and to protect water for nature's own uses, requires a fundamental reordering in our relationship to the world's finite water resources, as well as all the other resources our economies, lifestyles, and very lives depend upon.

Until we find the courage to perform a systemic and comprehensive carrying capacity analysis, we won't know what we have to work with, or even the general direction we should be heading. This makes all of our current planning efforts moot.

We are currently overdeveloped. We are in the overshoot range of both environmental and economic carrying capacity. This is a very inconvenient truth, made all the harder to hear because we have defined our very essence by its negation.

Addressing these issues is a fundamental aspect of the relocalization project--a viable and pragmatic process to cooperatively develop a sustainable future. We're running out of time to get busy on it. But, it is something that is within our ability to do. And it starts by simply making new choices, in our lifestyles and with the people we elect to set our governing policies and regulatory framework. Simply replacing one color of the status quo with the second most popular color is not a choice our grandchildren are going to be very happy about.

Or our children. Or our spouses, for that matter. The time, quite literally, is now.

In a Nutshell

Since what we're doing today obviously isn't working when it comes to improving our lot in life and protecting our life support system, and we have an urgent need to develop realistic responses to the rapidly converging Triumvirate of Collapse--Peak Oil, global warming, and corporatism--who or what might be standing in our way? More importantly, what could form a realistic foundation for doing things differently?

The main group standing in the way of getting back in balance with the natural systems principles that create and nurture life seem to be those 1) who believe that economic growth and financial incentives are necessary for progress and prosperity, not that we're naturally innovative, inquisitive and intelligent creatures, 2) who believe we are separate from and in control of the natural world, and not subject to the consequences of our actions, 3) who believe that money and material accumulation are acceptable substitutes for spiritual and emotional health and well-being, 4) who believe we can "greenly" resume business as usual and have an economic recovery that returns us to "normal" and don't want to admit that normal is what brought us to this point, 5) who believe that because compound interest can be mathematically shown to expand to infinity that this "proves" natural resources can do likewise, and thus banksters are to be venerated in their wisdom of usury and worship of mammonism (the deification of greed), 6) who believe this is a cruel and heartless dog-eat-dog world and not that the Universe is friendly to life and its evolution, and 7) basically, those who believe that force-based ranking hierarchies of domination and a pathological sense of an inferior other (anything outside the ego) are normal.

While this may make life-supportive change sound next to impossible, I think it is important to help people realize that it's all based on nothing more than a story that emerges from #7. We (Western industrial civilization) can remove the legitimacy we grant to that story, and we can develop a new story that better meets our needs, which necessarily includes a healthy living world that increases diversity by remaining within the carrying capacity limitations of bioregions, watersheds and ecosystems.

I believe we can help people remember and rekindle their fundamental connection to a sensuous living world in which the prime activity of living organisms is the tendency to self-organize into mutually supportive relationships. This is the basis for community. For those missing this important link in the way we think, this part of the process can be easily learned through Project NatureConnect.

Depending on one's perspective, there really aren't major, if any, sacrifices to make--except within a few economic sectors like banking and insurance--when it comes to powering down and evolving beyond growth. Well, we'll sacrifice our body burden, as well as the major contributor to stress, depression, angst, anxiety, despair...

And there's a sizeable chunk of people who would welcome the opportunity to find an alternative to the rat race; to shifting their focus from having more to being more. This is what social studies for the last half century have been saying is exactly what people really do want.

However, no one in their right mind would accept less and contribute more to a system that practices economic cannibalism and ecocide. That's why modern psychotherapy and pharmaceutical companies exist. As J. Krishnamurti said, it is not a sign of good health to be well adjusted to a sick society.

There's a rational economic and ecological alternative that addresses the "doing with less" and austerity concerns of dropping the myth of infinite growth and that embodies the intrinsic rights of the natural world. This alternative is known as relocalization--a practical and affordable process to create a sustainable future--that is the polar opposite of, thus the antidote to, corporate globalization. It combines reconnecting with nature, steady-state economies, permaculture, bioregionalism, natural healing, non-hierarchical communication and organization methods, eco-cities that are people friendly instead of car friendly, alternative energy, and related areas. The leaders and teachers we need today are those already involved in all of those areas, as well as those working in the hundreds of cities around the world focusing on powering-down and becoming sustainable through Transition Initiatives.

For practical examples, we could make less stuff if it were built to last and be easily repairable. We could share infrequently used stuff with friends and neighbors (or have a community rental coop). We could quit believing Madison Avenue when it insists that we are unworthy if we have last years stuff. We could make stuff less toxic, using less toxic processes, and more energy efficient by simply admitting that people and planet are more important than profit. We can build carbon neutral dwellings. We could decentralize the energy grid, quit losing the 25-50% that gets lost on long distance transmission lines, and have local energy independence.

We already know how to do all of these things but don't because of fear of losing "competitive market advantage" and the need to pay usurious interest rates on bank loans that have been extended on easy credit to keep the overall economy growing. What much of this comes down to is that we must admit it is highly irrational to continue believing that we can all continue to benefit forever from our mutual indebtedness--financial and ecological.

If we were to also get global population down to a sustainable level (and we've already proven it's possible to reduce birth rates below replenishment levels through education and giving women the right to control reproductive choice), we could probably get by just fine with even less alternative energy than we're already producing. It must be more widely distributed, but we don't need more of it. We could end our addiction to fossil fuels today. And I haven't even mentioned all the common sense conservation methods we can build into the social milieu, instead of propagating the fear that by conserving ourselves we're simply making it possible for others to use more.

Becoming sustainable doesn't require donning hair-shirts, moving back to the cave, and carrying water. Unless, of course, that's one's preferred lifestyle. (Most of us would probably skip the hair-shirt part.) I think most people would gladly contribute more if they knew they were contributing to mutually supportive community that was consciously and spiritually aligned, or holistically integrated, with a sensuous living planet. This is also the best manner of getting more back ourselves. Being a responsibly contributing member of one's community is how we satisfy those natural expectations for fulfillment that our senses of community, belonging, and acceptance require to be whole and healthy ourselves.

Changing the concepts of wealth and status from the size of one's bank account, yacht, or lawn to the quality of one's personal, social, and environmental relationships is integral to all of this. But I don't see anything irrational or unnatural about becoming better instead of bigger. This is actually where much of my overall optimism springs from, along with all the research that demonstrates that people can make fundamental change in a short time-frame with the proper motivation. The tricky part is finding that motivational trigger point for people thoroughly embedded in the consensus trance of the Industrial Growth Society.

We can mature beyond mechanistic, reductionistic, dualistic Enlightenment thinking and realize that in an interconnected and interdependent world, wisdom emerges from the combination of science and spirituality. While we must first heal the disconnection among body, mind and spirit so they can fully inform and support each other, we can simultaneously build on a framework that combines ancient indigenous wisdom with evolutionary biology, quantum physics, and ecology that requires less energy to increase opportunities for all to work toward their potential.

I believe this is the path to sustainability, and that a sustainable future is only possible if founded on ecological wisdom, social justice, economic equity, and participatory democracy. This means it must be founded on the core natural systems principles of mutual support and reciprocity, no waste, no greed, and increasing diversity. The models and metaphors amply supplied by a climax ecosystem as it develops health, vitality and resiliency--a system which has been successfully functioning for billions of years in order for life to support more life--can be used to create lifestyles and social systems that are every bit as sustainable.

Before it's too late, if it's not already. Gaia, our living planet, original mother to us all, will eventually heal. But without humans, she will have lost her voice for many centuries, probably millennia, more.

The system is not invincible. Elites are neither supernatural nor immortal; they exhibit the same weaknesses and foibles as you and I; their greed and arrogance is just slightly more pronounced. Systems of power--hierarchies of domination--have been created by humans, and we can remove the legitimacy we bestow on those systems. True systemic change starts by believing in it, not by talking ourselves out if it. And certainly not by trying to talk others out of it.

This means we could do it today; it is a natural aspect of who we truly are; we don't need to wait for a new technology to be invented, or for a new prophet to emerge; we can think and act the way that nature works. Collectively, we the people are more powerful than we dare to believe, and it's time for us to mature from Nature's children into Nature's adults regardless of the manner in which we internalize--the name we apply to--the creative life force.

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.

Alternative Energy Ignores the Problem

Gillian Caldwell, Campaign Director for 1Sky, recently had the chance for a quick chat with President Obama, which she blogged about here:
http://www.1sky.org/blog/2010/02/my-chat-with-president-obama-dont-be-stubborn-or-we-will-be
and to which I replied:

Hi Gillian... I think you and the Prez are both missing another, and much more fundamental, problem. We won't be getting all of our energy from wind and solar, either now or in twenty years, if the assumption is that we need to keep things going along their current trajectory, meaning a continued increase in energy demand.

The arguing over "clean" coal and nukes is a distraction to keep people from waking up to the fact that economic growth, and its role in industrialism, is a failed paradigm. Planned obsolescence, the throw-away society in general, and the substitution of materialism for psychological and spiritual health and well-being is a mistake--and a rather deadly one. The simple fact is that we could kick our coal habit today because all coal is doing is powering our waste and excess.

Plus, the Industrial Growth Society is only possible with the embedded energy of fossil fuels, which are post-peak and what's left of them is so environmentally destructive to obtain that only a society that has completely lost its way would attempt doing so. Even 100% LEED building standards, hybrid vehicles (or any other proposal that thinks we can "green" consumption and continued growth) can't overcome that basic ecological fact.

And since there is a viable alternative that would improve quality of life, that systemically replaces the diseased root of fear-based ranking hierarchies of domination instead of allowing itself to be satisfied with the occasional compromised clipping of branches, why are nationally recognized and rightfully respected organizations such as 1Sky reluctant to advocate fundamental systemic change? 1Sky's masthead states "America wants bold action," so why ask for minor reform on the fringes?

The bold, but thoroughly pragmatic, alternative to the status quo includes powering down, relocalizing, reconnecting to the natural world and each other, and giving ourselves the gift of time for what really matters. This alternative uses steady-state economies that focus on becoming qualitatively better instead of quantitatively bigger; it requires no new technologies and works with who we are right now--not after some shift to a higher state of consciousness or evolutionary adaptation; it can begin restoring all aspects of the natural world, which of course includes ourselves and our communities; it doesn't require mortgaging our future by bailing out industries thought to be too big to fail.

We could move toward true sustainability (which can be both ecologically and legally defined) and become a role model for the rest of the world that our grandchildren would be proud of--instead of our current sorry, disconnected path in which we won't have grandchildren.

We're supposed to be rational creatures. I think it is past time we started demonstrating it, and face the fact that it is not a technological problem that we're dealing with nor one that has a market solution. Thinking that we need more of what got us into this mess is not a rational response.

A Response to: Ask President Obama to Stop Global Warming

I wrote the following in response to an e-mail alert from Bob Fertik of Democrats.com, but I'm sending it out and posting it on the Natural Systems blog as an open letter to the progressive and environmental movement.

On 15 Aug 2009 at 9:49, Bob Fertik (Democrats.com) wrote:

> Ask President Obama to Stop Global Warming

Hello Bob... if the goal truly is to pass comprehensive legislation that will stand up to the best scientific evidence and analysis, then it should start with being honest with ourselves. After all, life on Earth and the future of Western industrial civilization is at stake. Although the latter must be seen as much less important than the former.

First, the targets. We must reduce all greenhouse gas emissions (not just CO2) from human sources by 90% below 1990 levels by 2030. And continue down to zero from there post haste. And instead of just rolling your eyes in bemusement at naive idealism, realize that this actually is an obtainable goal if we change our tactics. Scientifically, technologically, and psychologically doable. There is a systemic alternative available that is viable and pragmatic; that works with who we are as living organisms instead of being constantly at odds with natural systems principles. Thus its tendency is to deliver on the always withheld promise of industrialism--to improve quality of life.

We must give up the idea that the world will come to an end--or at the very least our lives will lose all meaning--if our efforts toward the first goal should impact the profits of the industries who are at the root of the crises. The beneficiaries of this paradigm is such an infinitesimally small percentage of the population they can safely be ignored. Yes, they own all the big scary weapons, but they have neither the knowledge nor the skill to push the buttons--we do.

Just about the last thing we should do is focus inordinate amounts of time or energy in putting people back to work (in America or anywhere else on the globe) stamping out plastic parts for stuff that will be in a landfill in six months, shuffling papers for an insurance company, or working in a call center.

Let's start by taking a hard look at who we are, or think we are, as a technologically advanced civilization made up of people who exhibit the qualities we tend to refer to as intelligence and rationality. This begins by realizing and deeply admitting that our planet is our life support system and that due to the interconnected nature of reality, what we do to the Earth in the form of pollution, toxins, and resource depletion we do to ourselves which ultimately degrades any possibility of reaching our potential either as individuals or as a society. This vastly overrides any supposed benefits derived from the industrial system and its methodologies as it stands today. Industrialism and economic cannibalism... err, I mean growth, is making things worse, not better.

An interesting and highly relevant factoid is that it only requires one-third of the global population to produce everything the entire global population consumes. This means we should all be working two-thirds less with full global employment. We also make a whole lot of stuff we don't need, and the rest is either so poorly constructed it has to be replaced frequently or it's been built to not be repairable. Properly addressing this and decentralizing the grid would lower our energy requirements to what's available with off-the-shelf renewables. No clean coal. No nukes. No tithing... um, I mean carbon offsets and similar nonsense.

This also supports the conclusion that the last thing we should be worrying about is putting people back to work, but should instead concentrate on ensuring their needs are met and they have the time to do what really matters. You know, more quality leisure time instead of spending one billion working hours per year to buy more leisure wear.

This would all also go a long way in lowering birth rates and help bring global population down to a sustainable level over the next few generations, especially if we coupled it all with education on family planning, and provided pre-natal care and disease prevention as an intimate aspect of foreign aid. Then we could start providing people with a means of right livelihood that would include work on helping the Earth regenerate and replenish all the ecosystems we've been busy destroying and consuming in our ignorance and greed.

The alternative I mentioned above is known as relocalization. This is a process to create a sustainable future based on ecological wisdom, economic equity, social justice, and participatory democracy. One framework starting to seep into the social consciousness for implementing this process are the Transition Initiatives being undertaken in cities and regions around the globe.

The underlying paradigm which gives this movement such a high chance of success is its adherence to natural systems principles from which emerges the prime activity of living organisms--the tendency to self-organize into mutually supportive relationships. This process has been occurring quite successfully for billions of years. A question we must ask ourselves as a society is why have we created, and continue to allow to exist, an entire industry (marketing/advertising/PR, i.e. industrial propaganda) whose goal is to fight against it--when not busy denying it even exists or that basic ecological laws such as carrying capacity must be taken into account?

There are numerous studies in the social, psychological, and biological sciences that support the idea that we could raise awareness and change course rather quickly should we choose to. As Charles Darwin pointed out, survival goes not the the strongest or fastest, but to the ones most adaptable to change.

The Cultural Creatives study by Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson shows we could count on the support of over one quarter of the populations of Europe and North America. The democracy and justice movement in the Global South indicates an even higher level of support there. It is congruent with quantum physics. The math is supplied by chaos and complexity theory. Ancient wisdom traditions that understood the Earth, in one way or another, is a partner in our lives and evolution provide other necessary aspects of support for our psychological and spiritual health and well-being.

Applied ecopsychology/Natural Attraction Ecology provide a scientifically validated process to intellectually and sensuously reconnect, and experience first hand our nurturing bonds to the natural world, each other, and our communities. Other philosophically aligned hands on models and design tools that are currently being implemented include bioregionalism, permaculture, local currencies, integrative holistic health care, and voluntary simplicity.

There is absolutely no need, except to protect other's profits, to waste our time on compromise or incrementalism. The window of opportunity we have left to us negates either of those questionable strategies anyway.

So, why don't we all start advocating and supporting change we actually can believe in?

Awareness of Reality Seen as Doomsaying

A rational people would look at the title of this short essay and think it's a sci-fi piece describing an alternate bizarro universe.

A rational people would examine the facts--the assembled evidence and the veracity of the people presenting it--and use that as a basis for both determining appropriate action and the timeframe necessary to implement said action.

Because time is running out and things are getting worse. It should be obvious the manner in which we're going about our attempts to institute change isn't working, so we should re-evaluate proposed action plans.

Instead, we have somehow fooled ourselves into thinking that we will cause irreparable damage to tender, fragile psyches by pointing out that someone's actions will either not deliver the intended results, or will actually cause more harm. We have what resembles the attitude of too many modern parents, "Oh, isn't that cute, he's trying so hard" as the toddler destroys instead of saying "No" and taking the hammer away.

It appears that what may be happening is that the possible loss of a few modern "conveniences" as we run up against peak oil, peak soil, peak water, peak money and peak life is being equated with doom and gloom, as we glibly ignore the actual negative consequences of these conveniences. Or we spend inordinate amounts of time and energy attempting to find loopholes to continue the status quo instead of figuring out other ways to meet our needs or even seriously analyze whether those are real or manufactured needs in the first place. We want the economy to return to normal, when "normal" is what has caused the myriad global crises we face. We rationalize and excuse inaction, inappropriate action or compromise as we steadfastly ignore the improvements to quality of life from proposed alternatives that systemically challenge the fundamentals of the status quo such as reconnecting with nature and relocalizing our lifestyles, organizations, and communities. What this all mainly demonstrates to me is a lack of imagination. The main "convenience" we seem to be protecting is not having to think too hard about any of this.

It's like the oil company executives who say we won't actually hit peak oil until we run out of technology. Forget about climate and/or exploitation of people and nature and/or the known laws of physics and/or true human nature when freed from the shackles of dominator hierarchies.

The liberal, NewAge mindset that every view is equally valid is actually a sign of moral decay. It is a sign of a society that has lost its way; that has abandoned its soul because it has disconnected it from its sustaining and nurturing source. Spending a weekend at a grief workshop while pretending to be a nature spirit isn't going to overcome this. In fact, the likelihood of doing so seems to be inversely proportional to the number of books published on the subject.

Now, I fully understand that people who are working hard, for noble purposes, on "change" don't want to hear that cash-for-clunkers, ACES, and the public option for disease care are just reshuffling deck chairs; that sustainability initiatives that enable continued growth on an overdeveloped planet are anything but sustainable; that the natural world imposes real limits on both population and resource extraction that we ignore to our--and all other forms of life--peril.

But, there it is. And until you figure out a way to connect with a parallel universe, you're going to have to deal with it in a manner that is more effective than telling people to shut up when they point out the Emperor (regardless of ethnic background or which wing of the Corporate War Party he or she represents) has no clothes.

Until someone can explain to me the advantages of compromising with evil (that which doesn't support life) I will continue to hold moral actors accountable for their actions based on the way that natural systems principles contribute to healthy, vibrant and resilient--that is, sustainable--ecosystems. Which we are perfectly capable of duplicating. Right now.

Transition Industries Announcement

Hello All... you may have noticed I've been rather quiet on the blog and with other postings recently. The main reason for this is that it was time to put our talk into action.

The concepts of relocalization and steady-state local living economies can be rather abstract, especially without functional examples to draw from. So, Natural Systems Solutions, in conjunction with Transition Pima, has created Transition Industries.



The main purpose of Transition Industries is to serve as an example and demonstration model of ways to create small-scale light manufacturing and other "industrial" type endeavors at the neighborhood level that don't get caught in the trap of continuing support for either Industrialism or growth for the sake of growth. This can become a first step for communities to strengthen local economies, build healthy relationships, provide means of right livelihood, build skills and rekindle pride in craftsmanship, and create some of the necessary resiliency for rapidly changing times. The secondary purpose of Transition Industries is to provide a small revenue stream to support the non-profit Attraction Retreat and its major projects such as Natural Systems Solutions.

The idea is to create items that meet people's needs, adhere to the definition of sustainability, make use of used and/or recycled materials, and either use less energy or contribute to a higher quality of life that doesn't require manufactured energy. It's time to learn new skills (and relearn some that are quickly disappearing) for a new economy -- and door-greeter at a big-box, hamburger flipper for the harried, insurance sales, banker, and Pentagon planner aren't among them.

Our first product is a line of bicycle trailers, and we'll also be building low cost but efficient solar ovens. We'll also provide support for others desiring to explicitly address the need for right livelihood in an energy constrained, increasingly toxic, and warming world. And as you can see, you don't need a big fancy garage or workshop to get started on producing quality items.

Check it out and let me know what you think.

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?

Decision Time: Change or Collapse?

I wrote the following as an Op-ed piece for the NY Times. They declined to print it. Hmm, why am I not surprised? Don't want people thinking that their advertisers don't actually have anything worth buying? Or becoming aware that there might be an alternative to economic cannibalism that will not only improve their lot in life, but act as an effective response to global environmental crises? Or that it points out that our new Emperor has no clothes either? Or am I just not up to the Times' writing standards? Anyway...

Decision Time: Change or Collapse?

A recent editorial in the NY Times
"Save the Economy, and the Planet" rightly points out that the financial crisis is not a sufficient excuse to put off taking the necessary steps to deal with the global warming crisis. Indeed, putting it off will greatly aggravate both the financial and planetary crises, as national-level reports from around the world are showing.

However, President-elect Barack Obama seems content for his proposals to apply little pressure to either of these crises while primarily ensuring the protection of business as usual. His grand proposal to institute change consists of doing, according to the Times, "the minimum necessary to...avoid the worst consequences of global warming."

This is leadership?

Don't put any more effort into what many are calling the greatest crisis to ever face humanity and civilization (sometimes someone will bother mentioning the planet in an off-hand kind of way as well) than we absolutely have to, and let's just suck it up and learn to tolerate all the intermediate negative consequences. That is, only if this "plan" of action even comes close to delivering the expected results.

This isn't even change.

The increasingly common political goal of 80% greenhouse gas reductions by 2050, while well-intentioned and heading in the proper direction, is based on evidence that is at least 5 years out of date. It assumes the planet can handle 450 ppm atmospheric CO2 concentrations, when the effects of the 385 ppm that we already have today is not only pushing the environment into irreversible tipping points, but these are occurring many times faster than the climate models have been predicting.

This is the difference between modeling and reality. And clearly points out why the denialists should be cautious in using this in the attempt to substantiate their claims about a so-called global warming "agenda" or in their attempts to create an atmosphere of public doubt over the existence of a crisis due to modeling inaccuracy or errors. The only thing that truly matters in the case of global warming is the reality we're actually experiencing.

The actual minimum reduction thought to be required is 90% below 1990 levels by 2030. It's not expected that even this will keep us from all the tipping points -- the uncertainty is over which one will be first. Things are going to change, but these aren't going to be the changes we heard mentioned on the campaign trail by about anyone other than the Green Party's Cynthia McKinney. The Obama plan is to get the US back to 1990 levels by 2020, and this after we've experienced a rise of 14 percent since 1990. This simply won't be sufficient. Anthropogenic global warming was well underway before 1990. Do the math; it's elementary school level.

If Obama really wants to pursue a comprehensive approach, which he says he does, he must find the courage to start addressing the root causes of the global warming crisis. These causes are directly tied to the unsustainability of industrial and financial growth; the fetishization of these concepts in the creation of what can most kindly be called shallow social status; and the belief that we can treat our only planet -- our sole life support system -- as if it is both an infinite supply of resources and a bottomless pit for waste.

It can, however, be quite easily shown, from a number of different perspectives, that neither materialism nor growth actually increase quality of life beyond a certain level, and even then only for a segment of the population. These concepts are inherently unsustainable and often unfulfilling even in the short-term. And this is even in spite of Industrial culture spending much time and energy trying to convince people that increasing their material standard of living is an acceptable substitute for the lives they really do want and are so desperately missing.

This brings us directly and inescapably to what must become the fundamental question for our times: Which is more important, profit and power, or people and planet? If after deep soul searching and, just as importantly, rational analysis, you find yourself answering in the affirmative for the latter, it's time to start directing President-elect Obama toward evaluating a systemic alternative to business as usual instead of irrationally trying to protect it.

From a sustainability standpoint, protecting the growth status quo will prove to be a futile attempt anyway. We're way too far into the realm of ecological overshoot. Fisheries depletion, deforestation, top soil loss, diminishing freshwater, dwindling energy supplies, and increasing overall biospheric toxicity and its effects on declining ecosystem and species health are all measurable manifestations of this fact.

One well-researched alternative that is beginning to be put into practice in communities around the world is relocalization, which the popular Transition Towns movement in the UK is based upon. Relocalization is a systemic process to create a sustainable future based on ecological wisdom, social justice, economic equity, and participatory democracy. It seeks to move production of food, energy and goods closer to the point of consumption, and create thriving local economies that exhibit many of the principles of steady-state economics as developed by former World Bank senior economist Herman Daly -- basically, better instead of bigger.

A fundamental aspect of this process entails reconnecting our lives to the natural world, which includes to each other and our communities. This entails developing lifestyles, organizations, and communities from the models and metaphors provided by the natural systems principles which increase diversity and the opportunities for the mutually supportive relationships any sustainable ecosystem requires to be healthy, vibrant and -- most importantly in crafting the urgent response necessary to today's looming crises -- resilient.

It really just depends on making new choices, based on a new understanding of the human role within the web of life. This is the change we need to both see from our elected representatives and participate in ourselves.