Culture Change - Wealth at too great a cost

Wealth at too great a cost
Written by Jan Lundberg  

Culture Change Letter 181

An observation on modern society, from a Mayan village

Rich people can afford anything, or so it is assumed. But our rapidly changing world demands a new accounting of what goes on in the creation and distribution of material wealth amidst unprecedented global population size.

We've heard that the high mucky-mucks will eventually find they can't eat money, nor get into Heaven as well as a camel can get through the eye of a needle. We've heard that "You can't take it with you," from the Keef Hartley Band's song of that title. But now it's time to think in terms of the historic change facing humanity, as the excesses of the pinnacle of Western Civilization take our breath away.

The result of pursuing gain and privilege has been self-destruction for a large segment of modern humanity and life in general. The obliteration of countless species is seldom mentioned in mass-media commentaries or political speeches. Yet, even as we all -– rich and poor -– notice the unraveling of nature's intricate structure that wealth has been built upon, we see the blind continuation of massive exploitation by the few for the few.

There are two time frames being considered separately: (1) the present and short-term, and (2) the long-term that stretches beyond our own lives. The second time-frame is moving into the first one, when we see long-term effects (e.g., climate) showing up sooner than scientists thought possible a few years ago. In the present we see profit maximizers and foolhardy consumers closing their eyes to the future. They knowingly compromise the survival of their own progeny.

Those who either do not want to participate in predatory behavior, or who see the future's unfolding mega-crisis, are the rare element in the dominant culture -– when caring for fellow beings is a passport to self-imposed poverty.

Yet, living now the future -- what must become our sustainable culture -– is an experience of greater wealth of a different and sometimes intangible sort! The rewards include learning to live in the way that maintains and builds real wealth, like composted soil is created and spread for greater food production and erosion-prevention.

Petroleum-based products are pervasive planet-wide, and can be had by anyone regardless of race, class, gender or creed. Yet, the purchase of and reliance on petroleum actually costs a great deal, both financially and socially/ecologically. And, once the adoption of a petroleum oriented life-style is accomplished, going back to nature and social cooperation is difficult. According to the mass illusion, it is impossible.

After only a few generations of depending on cheap petroleum and witnessing the resultant growth of the population and the economy, we have lost our way. Modern people as well as "developing" populations have a very hard time picturing a way of life without plastic, for example. It is far easier to imagine living without petrochemicals for crops, because organic food is popular –- even though this loss will cull the major petroleum-consuming societies of hapless consumers who've been brainwashed into employment and enjoying the wonders of technology.

The rise of cancer, birth defects and degradation of our formerly beautiful landscapes has only partially awakened us to our folly. Today's huge gap between rich and poor, and the ongoing crime of pollution to satisfy greed and power, have only opened a few eyes widely thus far. It is all too easy for intelligent people to prefer complacency:

"I have to keep using these (toxic) products because I need them."
"We can't make a sudden change away from petroleum because it would be too disruptive and people will suffer."
"If we overtly oppose the government and the corporate state we will be crushed."
"Science and technology will figure out a way to solve our problems."

Such attitudes lack imagination and are ill-informed. I would wager that no one who has taken a Permaculture course or who has been part of a bicycle collective could hold such self-defeating views.

Today's wealth has been created or stolen at too great a cost to tolerate any longer. Even if we do not oppose it, it will crash soon. It's all dependent on volatile petroleum supplies and an infrastructure that will grind to a halt when peak oil's effects hit us. Even before the advent of petroleum for mass consumption and wealth-creation, the generation of material wealth at the expense of others (including the forests, for example) was becoming intolerable and unsustainable.

Western history is full of examples of exploitative societies collapsing, as they were based on "totalitarian agriculture" (Daniel Quinn, Ishmael). The history of the world (since civilization) has definitely not been "green" (Clive Ponting, A Green History of the World).

We have come to a point in humanity's experience that is like a crossroads. But roads are part of the problem, and must be abandoned if many of us are to attain a truly healthy relationship with nature. So, we might better conjure up the "fork in the trail" –- an apparent diversion off to the side that actually offers salvation, while the direction straight ahead assures we dig our own graves.

I've written this essay long-hand from a Mayan-country village. Here one encounters the invasion of plastics and the indiscriminate watching of DVDs. Such modern phenomena have invaded a still self-sufficient culture. Fortunately, the close and extended families, and their love of their ancient land, are still real and can keep the impressionable young people rooted. Besides, there aren't many opportunities to go off and be "gangstas" with cars, fast food and whatnot. For me, this Mayan environment and comforting social situation are vital relief -- that a thirsty, hungry man gets from a fresh coconut's nectar.

Having recently taken an excellent Permaculture Design Course nearby, I'm still enjoying my respite from San Francisco, California and my hectic, uptight nation I affectionately call The United Paved Precincts of America (UPPA). My present surroundings and experiences are the source of this overwhelming feeling: that the quest for material wealth is finally not worth it, even for the wealthy and those who refuse to see this time of change we find ourselves in. My sense is that the average person in the UPPA is unaware of the track we have been riding on. I believe the harried, debt-ridden consumer cannot yet see or feel how simple and beautiful is the "alternative" of sharing and caring in a respectful, revered, natural setting. I wish there was a shortcut to reasonable consciousness in the UPPA, but going down with the rotten ship will be our fate -- unless we stop now and open our minds, and act expansively for the common good.

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JL, March 25, 2008, Belize



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Culture Change - Plastic disaster breaks through to mainstream

Plastic disaster breaks through to mainstream: scandal over bisphenol-A
Written by Jan Lundberg  

Culture Change Letter 180, March 22, 2008

Our country is at a pivotal point in public health policy as it relates to our petroleum lifestyle. The implications cover consumerism's dead(ly) end and the demise of cheap energy from fossil fuels.

Bisphenol-A is the basic component of hard plastics that include baby bottles, linings of food cans, sealants for jars and bottles, and other well-known products that modern people have become dependent .. several years of news stories about scientific studies and a few legislative attempts to ban or regulate bisphenol-A and other poisonous plastics, a scandal has just emerged involving U.S. government favoritism for corporate perpetrators.

Plastics such as bisphenol-A cause breast cancer, testicular cancer, diabetes, obesity, and birth defects -- although the evidence is often argued to apply so far only to laboratory animals. Other common plastics posing great danger include phthalates (softeners) and PVC (for piping, flooring, containers, etc.).

Despite the obviously questionable use of synthetic materials pervasive in a society ruled by profit maximizers, and several warnings in the news, little has changed until perhaps now. Blind faith in scientific progress for daily convenience also delays full realization of the error of plastics-dependence. Overcoming this may be harder than punishing corporate wrongdoers and banning chemicals.

John Dingell, Democratic Congressman of Michigan, has successfully defended Detroit's automakers for decades. This has assured the optimum pollution and energy waste associated with millions of cars made each year. But when a powerful politician has seen fit to maintain a friendly relationship with a major industry, he or she can be free to compensate or seek redemption by pursuing justice and environmental protection in other areas. Now he finds himself in a major role as a Congressional committee chairman (Commerce and Energy) spearheading the investigation of the Food and Drug Administration's hiding the clear danger of bisphenol-A.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported on March 21:

    Ignoring hundreds of government and academic studies showing a chemical commonly found in plastic can be harmful to lab animals at low doses, the Food and Drug Administration determined the chemical was safe based on just two industry-funded studies that didn't find harm.

    In response to a congressional inquiry, Stephen Mason, the FDA's acting assistant commissioner for legislation, wrote in a letter that his agency's claim relied on two pivotal studies sponsored by the Society of the Plastics Industry, a subsidiary of the American Chemistry Council.

Such a revelation is not surprising to those who understand our corrupted way of governance and our unfounded faith in mass technology. Yet, when awareness is sparked by alarming news that hits home, and the bigger picture can be glimpsed, it's time to make the connections for all who are receptive.

Since the discovery of the northern Pacific Ocean's major garbage patches in the huge current-gyre, composed of plastic debris ingested by countless fish and birds, the campaign against the plastic plague has gathered momentum. With documentaries such as Our Synthetic Sea, and the historic banning of plastic bags by San Francisco and other cities and by entire nations, a movement against plastics has made significant progress. Some leaders, such as Ross Mirkarimi, member of San Francisco's Board of Supervisors, have made the connection between plastic waste and peak oil, climate change and war for oil. Culture Change has reported on these developments and connections since 2004, and has aided the anti-plastics movement in various ways from the local to national to global levels.

Following the European Union's example, the State of California and the City of San Francisco have passed legislation to limit babies' and children's exposure to bisphenol-A and phalates. Significantly, water bottles made of plastic have been banned by governments of certain cities for departmental use. Bans of plastic water bottles are on tap for San Francisco, Oakland, and elsewhere.

This is eminently reasonable when we realize that "More than 6 billion pounds of bisphenol-A are produced annually in the United States, for use in an array of products, including dental sealants and baby bottles. The chemical has been found in the urine of 93% of Americans tested." (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Despite the dispiriting news that industry and government have combined to "fool us again," this scandal is most useful for awakening the public. Our challenge is to make sure we don't repeat the pattern of trying to stamp out another brush fire or point blame, but rather to see the overall threat of plastics and petroleum dependence. All plastics should be assumed unsafe for food, water and our skin.

The assault on our oceans from plastic trash that does not biodegrade must end as soon as possible. The connection to petrochemicals and fossil fuels must be recognized and acknowledged daily. It is time to reject the filth and tragedy of plastics pollution and the related crimes -- climate change, war for oil, and species loss -- to the Earth and its people.

Plastic in the environment is like an oil spill that hit decades ago and will be with us for centuries, affecting humanity's survival. Will we now deal with this disaster and act with responsibility for our planet and our fellow life forms? The benefits include emancipating ourselves from oil companies and the downsides of globalization, materialism and dehumanization that we have allowed like sheep to the slaughter. A better way of life is at hand for those willing and able to change and begin cooperation with conscious neighbors.

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Further reading:

    Baby formula companies use bisphenol-A

    Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) information on Jan. 17 from seven manufacturers of infant formula: Did the companies sold liquid infant formula in cans lined with bisphenol A? If so, did the company test for its presence? How much did it detect? By Feb. 8, all of the companies replied. Companies using bisphenol-A in the linings of liquid infant formula cans:
    Abbott: maker of RCF, Isomil and Similac infant formulas
    PBM Products: maker of Bright Beginnings infant formulas
    Nestl Nutrition: maker of Good Start infant formulas
    Mead Johnson Nutritionals: maker of Enfamil and Nutramigen infant formulas

    These companies do not make liquid infant formulas or pack their formula in containers other than aluminum cans and are not required to respond: Hain Celestial Group and Solus Products LLC: maker of Earth's Best organic infant formula
    Wyeth Nutrition: maker of S-26, SMA and Bonna infant formula

    Source: House Committee on Energy and Commerce/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

    CHEMICAL FALLOUT: A JOURNAL SENTINEL WATCHDOG REPORT Warning: Chemicals in the packaging, surfaces or contents of many products may cause long-term health effects, including cancers of the breast, brain and testicles; lowered sperm counts, early puberty and other reproductive system defects; diabetes; attention deficit disorder, asthma and autism. A decade ago, the government promised to test these chemicals. It still hasn't. (Read the November-December 2007 Journal Sentinel report) Journal Sentinel Investigations


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"FDA Relied on Industry Studies to Judge Chemical Safety: Response comes in congressional inquiry on use of bisphenol A", March 21, 2008, by Susann Rust:
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=730965
Our Synthetic Sea: award-winning DVD on plastics in the oceans and humans, available from the Algalita Marine Research Foundation: algalita.org

"Plastics are on the run in San Francisco, the nation's anti-petroleum capital" by Jan Lundberg. Culture Change Letter 156 - March 29, 2007: http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=106&Itemid=1

Older Culture Change reports: "Plastics: Your Formidable Enemy: Questioning exposure, recycling, biodegradability, alternatives" (see links at bottom to more recent reports such as "War on Plastics"): http://culturechange.org/e-letter-plastics_enemy.html

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This report has been written and distributed with the kind cooperation of the Maya Mountain Research Farm, Belize. See their website mmrfbz.org


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Culture Change - What is the grassroots’ and environmental establishment’s main failure?

What is the grassroots' and environmental establishment's main failure?
Written by Jan Lundberg  

Culture Change Letter 179

A survey on skin color of environmental activists was reported in the daily Oregonian early this year, sparking commentary in the online Daily Grist. These articles had a reasonable social-justice perspective, with a Grist quote telling us that color-coordination will "perform miracles." One essay's sub-heading: "The movement's greatest challenge is its own lack of diversity". Really?

While it's crucial that people of color be better represented in environmental campaigns and organizations, there is a deeper issue that if not dealt with will make moot anyone's skin color on a dead planet. It's hard to imagine there's something worse than racism -- who would want to live in a color-cleansed world with oppression, even if comfortable and surrounded by biodiversity?

The articles expose the fact that people of color make up only 11 percent of the staff and 9 percent of the boards of member organizations, even though states such as California have a majority population of non-caucasian. And, the articles' argument that diversity-improvement would go a long way to improving environmental advocacy's success is well taken.

The synopsis, from Grist:

    When it comes to race, the actual color of the green movement is decidedly white. According to a survey conducted from 2004 to 2006, more than one-third of U.S. mainstream green groups and one-fifth of eco-related government agencies have no nonwhite staff members. Minorities tend to join up with grassroots environmental-justice groups, leaving mainstream groups open to the consistent criticism that they are elitist. And while environmentalism was undeniably elitist in its beginnings -- in the early 1900s, the movement was led by whites trying to protect wild land and animals from the masses -- at this point, surveys indicate that nonwhites care just as much about eco-issues as whites do, from climate change to deforestation to pesticide use to air pollution. Success in the ongoing effort to bring everyone together will get results, says activist Charles Jordan: "Once society sees this is really going to be color-coordinated, I think we're going to perform miracles."

What is the agenda of a diversity-oriented activist? That depends on the person. If the visionary agenda is to pass regulations and expand the job base, while only fining corporations for their ongoing pollution (aimed at poor minorities more than richer populations), then the movement is spinning its wheels and it props up the status quo until general collapse. So what is the most effective vision, and what needs to happen for it to take precedence?

What I call "funded environmentalism" is almost completely tied to promoting an unrealistic promise of extending status-quo economics, with little mention of upending the social structure or losing our consumer lifestyle. Such an approach sounds wrong, and would be vigorously denied by the struggling nonprofit groups. But in my 20 year career as a grassroots environmental activist and fundraiser, patterns have emerged clearly.

Whether an environmental group is grassroots with a representative mix of staffers and volunteers, or based in Washington, DC with good salaries for the white folks running it, a strong commonality in the message and mission is the overwhelming emphasis on the techno-fix for solving the crisis of pollution and climate chaos. If I'm accurate, and those groups' environmentalist approach is off-base, we are poorly served and betrayed in having faith that activists are doing battle for us and our descendants.

For at this juncture in society's development, it is clear that fundamental change in the way we treat the Earth -- and in how many people are involved -- is overdue. Reforming a system based on growth and material wealth, while trying not to upset the apple cart (laced with rotten and sprayed apples) is to throw a drowning person a Life-Saver -- the little candy kind.

Social justice has so dominated the discourse and policies of the environmental movement that the Earth is often put second in priorities, as in concerns about energy -- that it must be plentiful for poor people now and always. Or, that if women and people of color are well represented in meetings and organizations, the health of the planet automatically makes progress. But, as Earth First!ers used to say, there's no social justice on a dead planet. I know this is a divisive issue, and political correctness exists for excellent reasons. But we must all admit that there is eventually a collision between prioritizing the rights and needs of people, in our unequal and unjust society, and the rights and needs of the Earth, if the goals are not consistent with true sustainability and survival.

Ecologically, our failure is clear. How we can then conveniently ignore carrying capacity, and cling to unfounded hope that there will not be a major, historical disruption of business-as-usual, makes no sense. But that's where the money still speaks. Being "positive" and "hopeful" means offering "solutions" instead of sober analysis and looking at options for survival. Funders invariably have a stake in the stock market and they want to maintain their "privilege" and not become prematurely vulnerable to deprivation and social havoc. So, we keep right on going with hopes that things can change in an orderly fashion -- if we can just get a better president elected (a woman or a non-white would be perfect). But, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are less than actual ecologists able to give us the straight of it, whether by their inability to grasp the science or reluctance to step on the powerful toes of their backers.

We've seen the health of the Earth deteriorate steadily, despite the victories claimed by the big environmental groups, and despite heroic activism by community-oriented individuals and organizations. The seas are dying as they warm and acidify, laden with nonbiodedradable plastic particles that kill and taint fish. Carbon in the air increases beyond our level of fossil-fuels emissions and deforestation, thanks to positive feedback loops achieved to accelerate sea-level rise, melting of tundra, etc. In the clearest failure of environmental reformism, we saw the energy-efficiency advances from the 1970s onward enable more growth of the economy and energy use overall, and the canceling out of per-capita conservation improvements. Take a look around -- we still see most drivers alone in their cars, and land-use continuing to treat our Earth as the cash cows of aggressive individuals who can subvert well-intended government protection for the commons.

As long as oil and cash are available, and people do not have to drop their routines on their little treadmills, living within nature's wise limits for sustainability and sharing will be put off and resisted vociferously. Whether it is our cultural programming or the demands of our economic and political masters, we are caught in the gap we can call "Inaction for short term survival." Today's economics, that demand slavish performance to pay big bills and meet others' expectations, means we are building up the size of our debacle ahead: the house of cards is being fed gasoline that will combust in a big, unpleasant surprise. Energy and materials for our way of life will mostly vanish, and we will all be trying to fall back on local resources and ways of subsistence that we once had with the traditions we rejected in our march of "progress."

The environmental movement has to do more on a number of fronts, and peak-oil preparedness must be among the top priorities in an integrated, Earth-first approach.


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Further Reading

"How to diversify environmentalism?: The movement's greatest challenge is its own lack of diversity" by Marcelo Bonta, 02 Jan 2008
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/1/2/82747/54759

"The Skin We're In: U.S. green movement is decidedly white", 29 Jan 2008
http://www.grist.org/news/2008/01/29/race/index.html

"In Oregon and U.S., green groups are mostly white: Ethnicity - Environmental leadership across the nation has little diversity, which two Portlanders work to change" by Scott Learn, January 27, 2008
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1201325108143650.xml&coll=7

Jan Lundberg publishes Culturechange.org, and is involved in projects such as banning plastics and reviving sail transport. He formerly ran Lundberg Survey, an oil statistics firm that predicted the Second Oil Shock in 1979.

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Jan Lundberg's March 4 interview on Tomorrow Matters -- on peak oil and related topics -- can be heard on Culture Change at http://www.culturechange.org/audio/interview_2008_03_04.mp3 (13 megabyte MP3 file.) Host Deborah Lindsay's website is deborahlindsay.com


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Culture Change - How shipping containers shortened the life span of petro-civilization

How shipping containers shortened the life span of petro-civilization
Written by Alice Friedemann  

CC Editor's introduction: This analysis deftly reveals how our cities physically and culturally changed to accommodate commerce, technology and economies of scale to the detriment of communities' livelihoods. Alice Friedemann spent many years in the shipping business (ships), and since retirement has ratcheted up her critique of the corporate economy's distribution system as she explores peak oil. Her previous articles for Culture Change have focused on "Peak Soil" (cited by George Monbiot this month), and the "Financial Monsters" we face as economic reality catches up with endless growth. At bottom I give my additional thoughts on containerization and transport. - Jan Lundberg, Feb. 23, 2008

Book Review: Mark Levinson: The Box. How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger. Princeton University Press, 2006.

Mark Levinson has written a book that shows how containers made global trade possible. In the preface of the paperback edition, he notes other aspects of containerization he became aware of later, such as the potential for containers to harbor atomic weapons, how they've become homes, and so on.

To me, what Levinson leaves out is how this global distribution system will make it very difficult to go back to local production as energy declines. He doesn't mention that containerization was the fastest way yet for capitalism to loot the planet and strip Mother Earth down to her hard dry skin.

In 2005, roughly 18 million containers worldwide made over 200 million trips (wikipedia). Containers come in many sizes, an average one is 40 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 8 feet high, the size of three 10 by 10 foot bedrooms. There are 1,300 foot-long ships now that can carry 7,250 of them.

It's mind boggling to think about how different the world is now. My grandparents ate what was in season, an orange was a precious Christmas gift. Today, the Japanese are eating Wyoming beef and we're driving Japanese cars.

Before containers were used to move cargo, port cities had long piers where boxes and bales were moved by sweat and muscle onto ships. Longshoremen lived within two miles of the docks in cheap housing. Now the piers are gone and the only sweat comes from yuppies on treadmills in luxury apartments.

The cost of moving products by any means, whether truck, train, or ship, was often so high most goods were made locally. Factories were often located near ports to shorten the distance of getting products to ships.

The idea of containerization was around for a long time, and a few companies experimented with doing this and failed for various reasons. It took Malcolm McLean, the founder of Sea-Land, and standardization, to make containerization really take off.

The cost of shipping goods, whether the container was on land or water, dropped so drastically, that suddenly it made more economic sense for a factory to be located wherever land, labor, and electricity were inexpensive. Millions of high-paying factory jobs were lost as containerization made it possible for factories to move overseas.

Also very important was being able to get goods cheaply to a container port. The price of labor in Africa might even be less than China, but Africa has few container ports, so factories don't move there.

Containerization was a major revolution – instead of endless loading and unloading each box from trucks, to trains, to ships, moving cargo became so much simpler and cheaper that the cost to move cargo was no longer a major consideration. This made longer supply chains became possible. The example Levinson gives in his book is how Barbie dolls are manufactured. America ships China the cotton, molds, and pigments used to make Barbie, Japan the nylon hair, and Taiwan the plastic in her body. This allows Japan to get really, really good at nylon hair, and make it far cheaper.

The history of container ships contains a valuable lesson about why capitalism has hastened the collapse of petro-civilization. After the energy crises of the '70s, U. S. Lines built slow, energy efficient ships. Fuel had gone from 25% of operating costs in 1972 to 50% in 1975. If oil had gone to $50 per barrel as expected, U. S. Lines would have had the most profitable shipping line plying the ocean. But oil plunged to $14 a barrel, and the bankruptcy was the largest in history. Capitalism can only see profit this microsecond; it has no plans for the future.

Wham! Imagine what will happen when the energy crisis strikes forever, and only the military and politically connected have gasoline. It's great that container ships carry cargo efficiently, and perhaps can be towed by giant kites (experiments are underway). But what can be shipped with inland factories scattered across several continents? How will all the bits and pieces of Barbie find each other?

With limited energy, it will be hard to go back in time, to rebuild docks and local factories plus all the other sail-based infrastructure. Humpty Dumpty didn't just fall off the wall, where we could have glued him back, he's been blown up, his ashes scattered around the world, and there's not enough time or energy to put him back together again.

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Editor's further thoughts: Containers crossing the ocean are extremely hazardous to the ecosystem for centuries, when they fall off of freighters' decks in storms. The stuff that comes out of them are often plastics that add to the disaster befalling the North Pacific Gyre, for example. Thousands of basketballs can suddenly be loosed upon the waves, attracting pollutants as plastics do, and breaking down to smaller pieces to be ingested by sea life.

I've long thought that containerization and intermodal transport have had interesting and rather negative effects. Perhaps the worst one was to freeze railroads into perhaps permanent secondary status, or even hasten their ultimate demise. Although they move freight at one eighth the energy (and the pollution) of trucking, trucking dominates once the containers arrive across the seas. Because the railroads' signing onto containerization got them into bed with trucking, our Alliance for a Paving Moratorium and the Auto-Free Times magazine could make zero headway with the rail industry in fighting road construction such as NAFTA Superhighways.

One look at the port of Oakland and other modern ports shows huge cranes dealing with containers. Entirely out of human scale, these alien-looking contraptions were actually the inspiration for George Lucas's "Star Wars" films' evil robotic weaponry later mimicked in "The Matrix" sequels. - JL


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Alice Friedemann's previous articles on Culture Change include:

"Collapse: Walmart and Waiting for the Shoe to Drop":
http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=152

"Financial Monsters":
http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=126

"Peak Soil: Why cellulosic ethanol, biofuels are unsustainable and a threat to America":
http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=107

"The Hydrogen Economy – Energy and Economic Black Hole":
http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=105


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Alice is part of Culture Change Consulting. Read her bio and see her picture on the consulting team's page:
http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=135

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Culture Change - U.S. Presidential candidates’ staffs briefed on PO & the plastic plague

U.S. Presidential candidates' staffs briefed on peak oil and the plastic plague
Written by Jan Lundberg  

Culture Change Letter 178

Just to cover my bases, in case politics and laying groundwork can do wonders, I have just spent a week in Washington, D.C. talking with staffers of Senators Obama, McCain and Clinton. Their understanding of peak oil is rising at a critical time, perhaps in time for the election, but certainly afterwards for Presidential or Senatorial initiatives. The related issue of plastics and their threat to the oceans and public health was something I was able to link to peak oil with all of them -- without eyes glazing over, nor popping out. Ideally, our catching up to China and its ban on plastic bags could become a policy option or lively point of debate.

Last June the M King Hubbert Tribute organization asked some peak oil activists to brief U.S. presidential candidates on the subject. The process ensued and peaked in recent days on Capitol Hill. The organizer, Jason Brenno, guided us: "Some ideas we have had so far for candidates are just very basic steps probably to be done in order:

"Assemble a team of experts to assist you (the candidate) in understanding this problem to

    - Help you articulate this problem
    and begin to advise you on solutions
    - Sign you up for newsletters, get peak oil publications, etc.
    - Have your staff begin to read publications, books etc.
    - Recognize that Peak Oil is as serious a problem as Global Warming and that the that the more disruptive effects of peak oil will surface well before those of Global Warming, however, they need to be treated as very serious intertwined problems that need attention now
    - Begin to alert the public of this problem"

By the time I got involved the candidates had whittled down to three major ones. I made my appointments following excellent Capitol Hill presentations by Robert Hirsch and Roger Bezdek who are well-known for solid peak oil analyses.

An additional reason I had to meet the energy staffers of the candidates was to discuss plastics, in hopes of a ban on disposable bags as a start. In the process, I may have located the best bet for national legislative action on plastics: Peter Welch, Democratic Congressman from Vermont, who's a member of the Peak Oil Caucus. I left with his staff some materials which have moved many so far to take action. I believe legislators and other public officials can see that action on plastics allows one to link the issue to peak oil, climate change and war for oil (as has been done so effectively by San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi).

An unusual hand-out for the energy staffers had to be the award-winning documentary "Our Synthetic Sea." The film is now available in Spanish also, as is the brochure Plastics Are Forever (from Algalita Marine Research Foundation). For peak oil literature, I gave copies of the San Francisco Bay Guardian's recent feature on the city's Peak Oil Preparedness Task Force. I suggested that a national commission emulate San Francisco's.

I found that all three candidates' staffers were open to learning more about peak oil and what we might call "energy reality," after the openings made by Dr.s Bezdek and Hirsch. The Hubbert Tribute group and I have asked that Dr.s Bezdek's and Hirsch's slide show be on their website (link below), so many people can see this very informative presentation.

None of the staffers was aware of the plastics issue regarding the oceans or our bodies. The staffers were dismayed to learn the awful truth about plastics, yet they didn't seem eager to have their candidate jump on the issue. The best chance for adopting a stance on fighting the plastic plague (with the related issues of energy and climate), if there is one at all among the candidates, might be Hillary Clinton, judging by her impassioned female staffers' ability to relate their leader's concerns to the issue. The staffers' reactions to my presentation was most positive, even after a hard week of campaign developments. These staffers seemed eager to keep up the communication and come to San Francisco to see our town's progressive policies in action.

The oily nitty gritty of the crunch to come

Although the meeting with Obama's energy staffer was brief enough that he may not have been able to receive the full import of my message, he at least expressed the ideal personally that it would be nice if overnight we could be consuming only 1/10th the energy we use today. To support that sentiment I mentioned to him our new Culture Change reports on agriculture being unsustainable in the long term for a large population. As an aside, I dropped the names of famous civil rights attorneys I know, as Senator Obama was one himself, and I described the pepperspray torture case my daughter and our friends waged successfully. I later mentioned the case to Senator McCain's staffer in my praise of her boss's stand against U.S. government torture.

Politics are being played that I find regrettable, when Obama's economic policy is trotted out last Wednesday at an SUV plant. When I mentioned the setting to a car-free Hillary campaigner, it was pointed out that Hillary had just appeared at a GM plant in Wisconsin, but that Hillary's policy is about retooling such factories for green jobs (presumably trains or bicycles). Hillary was represented to be on top of the intertwined issues of public health, energy and climate since the early 1990s.

Prior to my visits, as I mentioned above, contacts and meetings were accomplished by Robert Hirsch and Roger Bezdek. I viewed their specially prepared PDF/PowerPoint on peak oil and was favorably impressed. I'm sure their presentations were persuasive, and I'm very glad they happened. A lot must have gotten across in a short time judging by this PDF.

I noticed some problems with the presentation's content that are peculiar to me and my perspective. Perhaps a significant omission, that of advocating life-style change and realizing that the entire economic/energy system will collapse soon, was made because the basic peak oil message was already mindblowing enough and contains grave implications. It was then that I came to visit these relatively insulated staffers/candidates to suggest culture change, which they got first through noting my current affiliation.

Except with McCain's energy staffer, who had not seen the slide show, I shared every one of my objections. One of my main points was that there is no technofix -- i.e., a viable substitute for petroleum on the qualitative or quantitative scale necessary to keep the consumer economy going. I implied this would be painfully apparent soon, but they did not probe much. They all made note of the word "petrocollapse" that I explained in the course of describing the role of the market and supply as opposed to solely the geological phenomenon of peak oil.

As I explained to Jason Brenno (and I sent the same email to Haley Stevens of the Clinton campaign), I tried to build on what was in the mind of the recipient of the Bezdek/Hirsch persentation, taking the message to the next level. My notes on the slide show were set down in email after my meeting with one of Sen. Obama's energy staffers, as such:

    "As a correction to one of the slides: the 1979 oil shock was precipitated by a 9 (nine) percent shortfall of gasoline deliveries in March of that year, rather than 5%, which we several weeks before predicted and warned the nation about. (However, a 5% figure might have been applicable to some other sector of the oil industry.)

    "I was intrigued by 'Viable mitigation options exist, but they're not what many people think.' I found there was little offered on this, but maybe the discussion covered a lot. I have been exploring this area for many years and am always willing to go into sensitive territory that many would like to hope doesn't exist.

    "I also gleaned from the presentation that Dr.s Bezdek and Hirsch assumed that society would, could or should keep using energy massively, and that -- perhaps implied or left as an unspoken question -- a large population of consumers would be somehow sustained. [I did not get time to mention this to McCain's staffer.]

    "It was clear that the message of their presentation was that the citizenry will all be relying on government and industry. I'm all for good programs and the need to cooperate for the common good, but if people have faith -- as individuals or as local communities -- that the experts and officials are going to solve the ravages of peaked oil, a negative surprise beyond words is in store across the board.

    "I raised the certainty that when or if a national Katrina hits, it cannot be coped with by government. [That would be true with a non-Bush government too, as I had to stress to a Clinton campaign staffer.]

    "I stressed to all the staffs that government and industry should not be assumed by individuals and communities to be able to step in and solve the problems; rather, it is up to us individually and as neighborhoods and communities to do whatever we have to do to weather the storm (or tsunami as Roscoe Bartlett calls it). Mitigation is best done through emancipating ourselves from petroleum and energy in general -- ideally now; this could harm the economy but it will collapse anyway. [The latter comment was implied over the course of my talks rather than stated so bluntly.]

Roger Bezdek reported to Jason Brenno that the briefings Roger and Robert Hirsch gave resulted in some good questions, but staffers are not really up-to-speed on the issues.

"The briefings discussed the issue of peak oil and its ramifications. The major topics covered included:

    What is peak oil?
    Why is it inevitable
    Why is it important?
    Why should a Presidential candidate be aware of the issue?
    When is it likely to occur?
    What are the likely economic consequences?
    Why will technology, economics, and business-as-usual not solve the problem?
    Why should we care now?
    What are the realistic options for dealing with it - renewables, energy efficiency, fossil fuels, nuclear, etc.?
    Why might it already be too late for successful mitigation?
    Why may government intervention be required?
    What policies may be required?

"In particular, we stressed the gravity and timing of the problem and that it was not going to be solved with windmills and ethanol."

The PowerPoint/PDF presentation was titled

"THE PEAKING OF WORLD OIL PRODUCTION: IMPLICATIONS, OPPORTUNITIES & PITFALLS"
- Dr. Roger H. Bezdek, Dr. Robert L. Hirsch, Management Information Services, Inc.
January 30, 2008
misi-net.com

See the MISI presentation at http://www.mkinghubbert.com/files/Candidate%20Briefing.pdf

* * * * *

The M King Hubbert Tribute website:
mkinghubbert.com
Principals of the group include David Room, Oakland, California consultant on peak oil.

A new association of peak oil/climate change activists and researchers is Culture Change Consulting. See the webpage for this new team at
http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=135&Itemid=1

http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=157

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Culture Change - Unsustainable soil mining: past, present and future (Part 2)

Unsustainable soil mining: past, present and future
Written by Peter Salonius   

CC Editor's note: I first heard about "mining the soil" in the 1970s from my father Dan Lundberg regarding ethanol, and we enjoyed injecting the term into the Lundberg Letter in our analyses of alcohol fuels. The article that follows is Part Two of Peter Salonius's two-part series, and goes far beyond alcohol fuels. The first part, "Intensive crop culture for high population is unsustainable", was released as our previous email to the Culture Change list and is accessible through the link at the bottom of this article. - JL

ABSTRACT

Human settlement has increased food production by progressively converting complex, self-managing natural ecosystems with tight nutrient cycles into simplified, intensively managed agricultural ecosystems that are subject to nutrient leaching. (Most agriculture is unsustainable in the long term.)

Conventional stem wood forest harvesting is now poised to be replaced by intensive harvesting of biomass to substitute for increasingly scarce non-renewable fossil fuels. Removal of nutrient-rich forest biomass (harvesting of slash) can not be sustained in the long term.

[Key Words: soil nutrient depletion, biomass harvesting, site productivity]

Introduction

A general discussion of the concept of sustainability was presented by Gatto (1995), who suggested that notions of sustainability "reflect different priorities and optimization criteria, which are notoriously subjective"; however, the goal of maintaining soil-productive capacity is not a subjective notion. In this paper I will show that long term sustainable terrestrial carrying capacity depends on the maintenance of self-managing, nutrient-conservative plant communities.

The dynamic cyclical stability of complex ecosystems has been shown, for most animal populations, to depend on the ability of predators to dampen overshoot and runaway consumption dynamics of prey species (Rooney et al, 2006).

Predators, parasites and diseases deplete very high herbivore populations, that have already encountered Malthusian constraints (Royama 1992), before they produce extreme devastation of the plant ecosystems upon which they depend. In the absence of top predators, very high animal populations can degrade the biological diversity, carrying capacity and biological productivity of their environments (Terborgh et al. 2001).

There have not been top predators able to keep humans from overshoot of carrying capacity. Before the advent of agriculture, human populations used culturally mediated behavior like extended infant suckling, abortifacients and infanticide to limit their fertility, to keep their numbers far below carrying capacity, and to avoid Malthusian constraints like starvation (Read and LeBlanc 2003). Warfare between groups competing for the same resources, before the evolution of states, also appears have been a significant constraint on the growth of human numbers (Keeley 1996).

After the advent of agriculture, mortality rates, caused by conflict, decreased somewhat as local raiding by chiefdoms evolved into long-distance territorial conquest by states that developed complex patterns of authority delegation (Spencer 2003). These cultural and conflict behaviors, that limited human population growth, served to maintain balance between humans and other species during most of the historical record. Read and Leblanc (2003) suggest that hunter-gatherers, in areas of low resource density, tend to maintain generally stable populations, while high resource density, such as that produced by agriculture, decreases the spacing of births more rapidly than the increase in resource density which results in repeating cycles of carrying capacity overshoot and population collapse. While Boserup (2005), maintained that agricultural production was necessitated by the pressure of population increase, others suggest that the advent of agriculture allowed human carrying capacity to increase by increasing the access to and consistency of food supplies (Younquist 1999, Hopfenberg and Pimentel 2001, Abernethy 2002). However, as most agriculture is a soil-nutrient-depleting practice, this carrying capacity increase is unsustainable in the absence of exogenous (imported) nutrient supplies.

Carrying capacity of terrestrial ecosystems is hinged, in the long term, on the supply of nutrients for plant growth. Only the hunter-gatherer culture appears to have been sustainable because human numbers were controlled by the productivity limits of self-managed, nutrient-conserving forest and grassland (prairie) ecosystems (Manning 2004).

Intensive forest clearing begins in Europe

Human numbers increased slowly until massive forest clearing and plowing for agriculture, in Western Europe 1,000 years ago, increased food production enough to fuel much more rapid population growth; this assault on forests spread as European empires colonized the rest of the globe (Williams 2006). The exponential increase of human numbers during the last millennium has been relentless, although the elimination of one third of the people between India and Iceland in the 1300s, as a result of Bubonic Plague, did produce a very small dip in the growth curve before its inexorable increase resumed within a century (Stanton 2003).

The scarcity of forest land for agricultural clearing and the nutrient depletion of farmed soils have produced brakes on local population growth at various times during the last 10,000 years. When soil productivity was seriously diminished by agriculture in a particular area and/or population numbers exceeded local carrying capacity, the propensity of humans to migrate came into play as new forest lands were cleared and cultivated (Manning 2004, Williams 2006). Agriculture has mined soil carbon and available soil nutrients (by export and leaching, as well as by physical soil mass by erosion) to produce increasing amounts of foodstuffs and the growing number of people who depend on them.

Recent population growth

Just at the time that most of the earth had been submitted to human patch disturbance, forest depletion and the unsustainable practice of farming, finite fossil fuels allowed geological energy to replace wood fuel, draft animal power and to facilitate the mining, chemical synthesis and long distance transport of fertilizer nutrients to replace those removed by soil depleting agriculture. Albert Bartlett (1978) has said that "modern agriculture is the use of land to convert petroleum into food."

The six-fold population growth, from 1750 to the present, was facilitated by augmenting limited solar energy with massive amounts of temporarily available, geologically stored non-renewable fossil and nuclear fuels. As these fuel sources are exhausted during the next century, we can anticipate the replacement of population growth with energy-depletion-orchestrated economic and population shrinkage (Campbell 2002, Salonius 2005). Humans have far outstripped any equilibrium levels as they have usurped the living space of almost all other species on earth, and completely eliminated many of them. Humans have degraded the productive capacity of most of the ecosystems on the planet and are now proceeding to make more alterations to the atmosphere than have been experienced naturally in the last 600,000 years (Brook 2005) by burning fossil fuels and clearing forests.

Unsustainable exploitation

Among natural resource exploitative industries, forest harvesting and ocean fisheries offered the best possibility for long-term sustainability. Currently, as the the marine food chain has been fished down and the ability of the oceans to absorb pollutants has been compromised, marine productivity of food that is useful to humans has been, at least temporarily, diminished.

There have been episodes of forest foliage and litter collection to augment depleted fertility levels on agricultural lands, in the period before non-renewable- energy dependent mining, chemical synthesis and long-distance transport of fertilizers made such collections unnecessary. However, most forest harvesting, not associated with land clearing for agriculture, has been confined to the removal of tree stems. Nutrient-rich braches and foliage (slash) were not removed from harvesting sites. This appears to have been sustainable, if harvest openings were sized to approximate natural disturbance dynamics, at least as concerns the maintenance of soil nutrients for plant growth, even though biodiversity and forest ecosystem stability appear to have been compromised in many cases by unnaturally large harvest openings (Perera et al. 2004, Salonius, 2007).

Impending energy scarcity, exacerbated by continuing human population growth, is influencing the forest industry to consider high-nutrient slash (foliage, and fine branches with large bark/wood ratios from forest-harvesting operations as a source of biomass energy. Removal of this material will deplete the nutrient capital of forest soils and degrade their productive capacity (Sterba 1988, Rolff and Agren 1999, Dzwonko and Gawronski 2002, Jandl et al. 2002, Merganicova et al. 2005).

Policy implications for forestry

Whole tree harvesting, with delimbing at roadside, has been found to lower harvesting costs in comparison to methods that remove only stem wood (Meek and Cormier 2004). Land managers have allowed this wasteful practice, which previously necessitated burning (disposal of) piled harvesting (slash) at roadside to reduce the fire hazard caused by it. The value of this (roadside) waste material is increasing in concert with developing markets for biomass energy. A return to harvesting methods that remove only stem wood will not occur without regulations designed to conserve plant nutrients and maintain long-term site productivity.

Crown land managers in several Canadian provinces are presently attempting to assess the proportion of harvesting slash that can be safely removed according to the nutrient status of individual forest sites. As the pressure to make very large harvest openings and remove smaller tree parts (nutrient rich branches and foliage) increases in response to the demand for forest biomass energy, even forest harvesting is becoming an unsustainable soil nutrient mining practice similar to agriculture because of the depletion of soil nutrients and the consequent erosion of long-term productivity.

Scarcity of conventional energy sources will develop during the next forest rotation (Salonius 2005), and pulp and paper production is shifting to countries with lower production costs. Decisions must be made as to what proportions of the stem wood harvest are to be used for pulp and paper, lumber or biomass energy and as a source of industrial chemicals. Wood is becoming the new petroleum and a source of carbon-carbon bonds previously obtained exclusively from fossil fuels. Wood can be a renewable resource if harvested responsibly, however each unit of wood can only be used once. Decisions are required as to whether to produce wealth by the sale of forest products to distant markets or whether some of the harvest, that historically has been directed to commodity markets, is to be used locally for the production of organic chemicals, liquid biofuels and cogeneration of heat and electricity.

Long-term constraints on growth are necessary

Malthus predicted that agricultural production increases would not be able to meet the requirements of a steadily growing human population. However he was not aware that the depletion of soils by the agriculture, that was feeding less than one billion humans in the 1700s, was already unsustainable in the long term. Malthus could not have conceived of the temporary increase of carrying capacity and food production that would be made possible by the use of non-renewable fossil and nuclear fuels during period after his death. The abandonment of the effective controls on human birth rates exercised by pre-agricultural societies and the decrease in mortality by warfare that followed the evolution of states have allowed the exponential expansion of human numbers to be fueled by increased availability of food. This expanded human population now sees nutrient-rich forest biomass as a partial substitute for declining supplies of geologically stored fossil fuels.

The long-term solution to the natural resource demand/supply mismatch requires a gradual, planned shrinkage of human numbers [Alpert 2007] as opposed to continually attempting to meet the nutritional and energy needs of an expanding population.

Summary and conclusions

Humanity must understand that, in the absence of effective natural or cultural controls on its numbers, population limits should be established by mutual social consent to avoid the overshoot of long-term carrying capacity. Homo sapiens, the species with the large brain, and the capacity to foresee future consequences, has not collectively understood the need for the control of its fecundity.

* * * * *

References

Alpert, J. 2007. Human viability is preceeded by rapid population decline. skil.org

Abernethy, V. D. 2002. Fertility decline: no mystery. Ethics in Science and Environmental Politics 2002: 1-11. int-res.com

Bartlett, A.A. 1978. Forgotten fundamentals of the energy crisis. American Journal of Physics 46: 876-888.

Boserup,E. 2005. The conditions of agricultural growth: The economics of agrarian change under population pressure. Aldine Transaction, Piscataway NJ. 124 pages.

Brook, E.J. 2005. Tiny bubbles tell all. Science 310: 1285-1287. Campbell, C.J. 2002. Petroleum and people. Population and Environment 24: 193-207.

Dzwonko,Z., and S. Gawronski. 2002. Effect of litter removal on species richness and acidification of a mixed oak-pine woodland. Biological Conservation 106: 389-398.

Gatto, M. 1995. Sustainability: Is it a well defined concept? Ecological Applications 5: 1181-1183.

Hopfenberg, R., and D. Pimentel. 2001. Human population numbers as a function of food supply. Environment, Development and Sustainability 3:1-15. Jandl, R., F. Starlinger, M. Englisch, E. Herzberger, and E. Johann. Long-term effects of a forest amelioration experiment. Canadian Journal of Forest Research 32: 120-128.

Keeley, L H. 1996. War before civilization. Oxford University Press, 245 pages.

Manning, R. 2004. The oil we eat: following the food chain back to Iraq. Harpers Magazine, February, 2004 [pages 37-45). harpers.org

Meek, P. and D. Cormier. 2004. Studies of the first entry phase in a shelterwood harvesting system. Forest Engineering Research Institute of Canada, Advantage, Vol. 5, No. 43 : 1-10.

Merganicova, K., S.A. Pietsch, and H. Hasenaurer. 2005. Testing mechanistic modeling to assess impacts of biomass removal. Forest Ecology and Management 207: 37-57.

Perera, A.H., L.J. Buse, and M.G. Webber. 2004. Emulating natural forest landscape disturbances: Concepts and applications. Columbia University Press, New York.

Read, D.W. and S. A. LeBlanc. 2003. Population growth, carrying capacity and conflict (with comments by G.L. Cowgill, M.D. Fischer, N. Ray, A. van Dokkum, J.P. Zicker, D.W. Read, and S.W. Leblanc). Current Anthropology 44: 59-85.

Rolff, C., and G.I. Agren. 1999. Predicting effects of different harvesting intensities with a model of nitrogen limited forest growth. Ecological Modeling 118: 193-211.

Royama, T. 1992 Analytical population dynamics. Chapman and Hall, London.

Salonius, P. 2005. Market prospects for Acadian forest products in the context of future energy availability. The Forestry Chronicle 81: 787-790.

Salonius,P. 2007. Silvicultural discipline to maintain Acadian forest resilience. Northern Journal of Applied Forestry (In Press).

Spencer, C.S. 2003. War and early state formation in Oaxaca, Mexico. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science 100: 11185-11187.

Stanton, W. 2003. The rapid growth of human populations 1750-2000: histories, consequences, issues – nation by nation. Multi-Science Publishing Company. Brentwood, Essex, UK.

Sterba, H. 1988. Increment losses by full-tree harvesting in Norway spruce (Picea abies). Forest Ecology and Management 24: 283-293.

Terborgh, J., L. Lopez, P. Nunez, M. Rao, G. Shahabuddin, G. Orihuela, M.

Riveros, R. Ascanio, G. H. Adler, T.D. Lambert, and L. Balbas. 2001.

Ecological meltdown in predator-free forest fragments. Science 294: 1923- 1925.

Williams, M. 2006. Deforesting the earth: From prehistory to global crisis – an abridgement. University of Chicago Press.

Youngquist, W. 1999. The post-petroleum paradigm – and population. Population and Environment 20: 297-315. * * * * *

Publishing date: February 15, 2008. A version was published in the May/June,2007 issue of The Forestry Chronicle. Peter Salonius is a soil scientist living in New Brunswick, Canada.

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Culture Change - Intensive crop culture for high population is unsustainable

Intensive crop culture for high population is unsustainable
Written by Peter Salonius  

CC Editor's note: The following essay by soil scientist Peter Salonius is Part One of his two-part series for Culture Change that bursts the delusion of agriculture's providing for a large human population long-term. If after reading it you have doubt, read the scientific basis for it: the second part in the series, "Unsustainable soil mining, past, present and future." (A version of the second part was published in the May/June,2007 issue of The Forestry Chronicle.) The author lives in New Brunswick, and he published in Culture Change in 2003 "Energy tax made easy: Modifying human excess with international non-renewable energy taxation" (see link at bottom). - JL

A growing number of media commentators, such as Allen Greer in The Australian, John Gray in the Guardian's Observer and Alan Weisman in his book "The World Without Us," have begun to suggest that a world with fewer people would be far better placed to deal with climate change and the exhaustion of the dirty fuels of the industrial past. Many of them appear to think that high technologies such as nuclear energy and Genetically Modified crops in combination with curbs on population would begin dampen the environmental disruption that is becoming increasingly obvious.

However, the problem, as I have come to understand it, is even more serious than that visualized by these thoughtful individuals who are convinced that the neoclassical economic model of open-ended expansion and "so-called sustainable growth" is a recipe for disaster.

As we run up against all of the renewable and non-renewable resource depletions (Peak Oil, Peak Soil, Peak Minerals, etc.) that will characterize the foreseeable future, we require an entire rethink as to how we do business, due to the fact that the human enterprise has been living on borrowed time for millennia.

After 44 years of research and thinking about agricultural cultivation and silviculture, I have reluctantly been forced (I am a passionate farmer/gardener) to conclude that:

INTENSIVE CROP CULTURE IS UNSUSTAINABLE

Humanity has been in overshoot of the Earth's carrying capacity since it abandoned hunting and gathering in favor of crop cultivation (~ 8,000 BC) and it has been running up its ecological debt since then.

William Rees and Mathis Wackernagel originated the idea of the Ecological Footprint and they appear to believe (lots of publications) that the global human family overshot global carrying capacity sometime in the 20th century. Trying to get a perfect measure of overshoot is tantamount to "fiddling as Rome burns." We know we are in serious overshoot and we know that the total human footprint (whatever enormity it is) must get smaller.

I am convinced that we begin unsustainable resource depletion (overshoot) as soon as we use (and become dependent upon) the first unit of any non-renewable resource or renewable resource used unsustainably whose further use becomes essential to the functioning of society, such as:

    THE FIRST TONNE OF COAL
    THE FIRST LITRE OF OIL
    THE FIRST KILOGRAM OF FISSIONABLE URANIUM
    THE FIRST BARREL OF FOSSIL WATER FOR IRRIGATION -- and
    THE FIRST HECTARE OF FORMERLY NUTRIENT CONSERVATIVE NATIVE FOREST or GRASSLAND/PRAIRIE PLOWED

This last category of unsustainable renewable resource depletion (excessive leaching/export of plant nutrients from arable soils associated with most agricultural practice, and more recently also with harvesting of nutrient-rich forest biomass) has been looming over us, unseen, for 10,000 years. We can expect that it will catch up with us shortly because most of us are dependent on foodstuffs produced by unsustainable farming, and fiber produced by unsustainable forestry.

Recent visions, such as that put forward by the Post Carbon Institute's Relocalization program, of a fabric of local food and biofuel systems, revitalization of local industry, and community cooperation are good first steps that recognize global trade will wane as fossil fuel depletion gains momentum. They are also an attempt to wean humanity off industrial food production that treats soil as a medium for fertilizer-dependent hydroponic agriculture, and simply a substrate to stand plants up in. These are people who are interested in popularizing organic agriculture, solar powered tractors etc. that will make local economies more self-sufficient.

HOWEVER, these alterations are still tied to AGRICULTURE as a food production system -- as they must be in the short term.

All agriculture depends on the replacement of complex, species diverse, self-managing, nutrient conservative, natural grassland/prairie and forest ecosystems with monocultures or "near monocultures" of food crop plants that rely on intensive management. The simple shallow rooting habit of food crops and the requirement for bare soil cultivation produces soil erosion and plant nutrient loss far above the levels that can be replaced by microbial nitrogen fixation, accumulation of volcanic dust, and the weathering of minerals (rocks and course fragments) into active soils and plant-available soluble nutrients such as potassium, phosphorus, calcium, and magnesium.

Under regimes dominated by complex, species-diverse, self-managing, nutrient-conservative, natural grassland/prairie and forest ecosystems, erosion rates of soil mass are minimal, and the diverse and deep structure of the below-ground rooting community, and its microbial associates, makes the escape of plant nutrients entrained in downward-moving drainage (leaching) water to the ocean very difficult.

Our ultimate goal, as we attempt to achieve a sustainable human culture on Earth, must be to move toward the sustainable exploitation of complex, species-diverse, self-managing, nutrient-conservative, natural grassland/prairie and forest ecosystems at rates that do not cause the loss of physical soil mass or plant nutrient capital any faster than they can be replaced by biological and weathering processes.

Obviously, as we move back toward a solar-energy dependent natural economy, we will no longer be able to run the massive ecological deficits that temporary fossil and nuclear fuel availability have allowed.

Just as obviously the "solar-energy dependent economy" will not support the human numbers that have been able to exponentially increase slowly as a result of agricultural mining of soil nutrient stores for the last 10,000 years, and rapidly because of the availability of non-renewable fossil and nuclear energy subsidies during the last 250 years.

In order to lower the human population to levels supportable by sustainable exploitation of complex, species-diverse, self-managing, nutrient-conservative, natural grassland/prairie and forest ecosystems we must begin to reestablish these natural ecosystems on lands that have historically been increasingly devoted to intensive cultivation during our agricultural past.

The best suggestion so far to produce Rapid population Decline (RPD) is for the collective global human family to adopt a One Child Per Family (OCPF) "modus operandi/philosophy." Even with general acceptance of RPD and OCPF, the human population decrease that is necessary to achieve a sustainable solar energy-dependent culture, will take several centuries.

As human numbers are contracting/shrinking under a OCPF/RPD scenario, the extant population will insist on being properly nourished -- and the only way we can produce enough food for them is by agricultural means that will further deplete the arable soils on the planet.

During the centuries of transition, as we move toward a solar-dependent culture that again sustainably exploits complex, species-diverse, self-managing, nutrient-conservative, natural grassland/prairie and forest ecosystems, we should be exercising as responsible an agriculture as possible on the shrinking arable land-base upon which it is still practiced. During this transition, the growing portion of the arable land base that is abandoned will rapidly revert toward natural grassland/prairie and forest ecosystems as soon as we cease cultivating it.

February 10, 2008

* * * * *

Part Two in this series by Peter Salonius: "Unsustainable soil mining, past, present and future" to follow

Read Peter Salonius's idea for cutting back on fossil energy consumption, using what he calls a market alternative to rationing Energy tax made easy: "Energy tax made easy: Modifying human excess with international non-renewable energy taxation"
culturechange.org/energy_tax.html


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Culture Change - Counting on Mother Nature - and on Frisco’s politicos

Counting on Mother Nature - and on Frisco's politicos    
Written by Jan Lundberg  
Culture Change Letter 177

by Jan Lundberg

Hi People,

I'm concluding my redwood-countryside vacation, and had a thought to share after contemplating the plentiful snow in these coastal redwoods. It was something I'd never seen in all my years here.

Realizing some of the significance of this rare event, I thought, "It would be nice to be able to count on Mother Earth to do her thing with rain, sun, and the rest, in a fashion that maintains a delicate, sometimes violent balance that's self-correcting and evolving."

But we cannot count on Mother Nature as easily anymore -- even in an appreciative fashion -- when we have thrown her off course. Now we helplessly ask of her a tall order: to restore balance, or at least, "Pretty please Mother Nature, Father Sky, whomever, don't let things get quite as bad as we seem to be making them." Instead of being fairly reliable, our true master or mistress is shaping up as a relentless avenger.

"Indeed it's sad, love can't be had, what we're livin' for is bad, when property and misery break our hearts in half. Natural living's old hat, watch your nature going fast, idolatry, technology tempts that wealth can last."

The previous paragraph was from an as yet obscure song, in case you wondered. I came up to my old redwood stomping ground to take in nature and make music, but I admit a heck of a lot of time has been spent on writing emails for the campaign to ban plastics. Trying to find the best thing to do day to day is sometimes hard, and I wish I did not have to worry about it. Here's a debate for you: can one's reading tons of text compare to the power of a single song? Well, where are those songs? Corporate media consolidation and censorship of radical music is at its height. Let's put that thought on hold and turn to what may be the story of the hour and of our lives: petrocollapse and climate chaos.

Counting on Frisco's politicos

If the U.S. does not keep sucking from the rest of the world the desired petroleum, metals, food, labor, lives, and blood -- okay, that's not all the country does; it has it's good points too -- the U.S. as we know it dies. M. King Hubbert indicated as much in his thinking and writings; the basis of his main realizations was the proof of peaking U.S. oil extraction in 1970 that he had accurately forecast.

The sucking will cease, and it could be really soon -- whether it is called peak oil or financial meltdown is immaterial. From "Running On Empty," the San Francisco Bay Guardian's top feature story this week, we can discern that the basic threat to the food supply is something we collectively pretend not to worry about.

    "'There is no way that San Francisco is going to feed itself in the short term... 'Food is going to be a gigantic issue.' (Jeanne Rosenmeier, chair of San Francisco's Peak Oil Preparedness Task Force)

    "In a larger sense, it already is. This past December the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations urged governments to take immediate steps to mitigate 'dramatic food price increases' worldwide. Meanwhile, a recent cover story in the New York Times ('A New, Global Quandary: Costly Fuel Means Costly Calories,' 1/19/08) cited 'food riots' in more than half a dozen countries and asserted, 'Soaring fuel prices have altered the equation for growing food and transporting it around the world.'"

Is not food shortage and uncertainty a matter of not being able to count on Mother Nature as well as we used to? We have seen how "advances" in technology backfired and aided, at best, rises in populations that are temporary. Prior to the white man, the peaceful northern California natives had to cultivate only one crop (by choice): tobacco.

The Bay Guardian's homepage asks, "Has peak oil arrived -- and how will SF survive a postpetroleum world?" Indeed, the latter is an open question that must assume major change in population size and daily living. How can the City of San Francisco -- the U.S.A.'s famous Peak Oil City, cope with "petro collapse" (as the article quotes me) by activating a Peak Oil Preparedness Task Force? The article is comprehensive and balanced. It ends with, "'The era of cheap oil is over,' Lundberg says. 'Period.'" What I recall actually saying is a bit different: cheap energy (rather than cheap oil) is over with.

One day oil may be hard to give away if (or when) humanity has successfully left the dominant culture behind and proceeds to a truly post-petroleum world supported by low-tech, local-based simple living. Oil still in the ground may be extracted and used by someone or some group well into the future in minor amounts, but the petroleum infrastructure will have ceased. Who will really care what the price of oil is, if it is only a specialty item? Another question is how a complex refinery can operate forever. Putting on my oil-industry analyst hat, I can question the assumption that a diminished oil industry can keep going in a world where economic growth is history.

As for San Francisco and its uncertain future facing petrocollapse, our Task Force is considering -- beyond holding public meetings and advising the Board of Supervisors -- just how to inform the City's departments that they must be sure to adhere to the peak oil resolution and avoid perpetuating petroleum dependence. So far, the City has taken the lead in the Western Hemisphere to take historic action to do something about peak oil and other aspects of petroleum: ban plastic bags. More action is pending to deal with the plastic disaster and petroleum in general. For those of you in other parts of the U.S. and the world, what can your own community do to face the future?

- JL, February 1, 2008

* * * * *

"Running on empty: The San Francisco Peak Oil Preparedness Task Force explores life after fossil fuels — an era that may be coming sooner than most people think" - BY CHARLES RUSSO, January 30, 2008 - http://www1.sfbg.com/entry.php?entry_id=5549&catid=4


http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=153

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Culture Change - The Global Coolers - a story (part 2)

http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=145

The Global Coolers - a story (part 2)

...

But still the global-heating life-style basically went .. some reductions in personal emissions, many people felt stuck and did not know what more to do. Stating in May, some people, typically youth, took the plunge and renounced school and jobs permanently, to start working the land in collectives to grow local food or to restore nature by daylighting creeks. The hope was that a radical shift in life-style, if widely adopted, could save the climate, in part by undermining the corporate paradigm of endless growth and consumerism.

Some who joined these informal collectives and budding communities were handy with skills such as gardening, bike repair and bike-cart assembly from scrap materials. For those without special skills, volunteering for child-care, cooking, mending clothes, or creating barter fairs, came easy. Skill-sharing workshops became popular, in part because people realized that almost all the shoes, for example, purchased today were from China. Cobblers in the U.S. were almost extinct.

Called by some critics "subversive of the economy and of public morality," these Global Cooling collectives were sometimes targeted as havens for the homeless and the "lazy" and "criminals." But the fledgling communities were able to strengthen and enjoy enough support to proliferate. Society's oft-used control mechanism of appealing to the fear others -- the divide-and-conquer ploy to keep people isolated as consumers and workers -- was having trouble. Conventional ways and the old status-quo itself were eroding. Also, the closeness around campfires, with music and spoken word performance -- not to mention discussion of more actions to take for protecting the Earth and her climate -- were keeping people together and attracting others.

Some parts of the country saw this phenomenon more than others. Sadly, some Global Cooler camps out in the open were raided, with resulting violence. Agents de provocateur and vigilantes contributed to some fights that brought the police, but these were the exception. Part of the government had the goal to try to round up the Global Cooler leaders, but this proved futile because there didn't seem to be any clear leaders -- or, the average participant was a leader. Plus, plenty of Global Cooler supporters were/are in civil service and even in police forces.

Acts of sabotage or ecotage became more than sporadic in many cities, and this had gotten some of the Feds trying to get some control over or affect the Global Cooler insurgency. Local municipalities and state governments that had major funding from the Department of Homeland Security naturally wanted to spend that money and perhaps build their bureaucratic empires.

Soon, however, other parts of the massive DHS as well as the military were hurriedly preparing to cope with what looked to be dangerous shortages of fuel and food, due to production strains on oil-exporting nations. It was good timing that demand for energy was starting to fall off like never before, due to our efforts and rising fear over global heating. We had softened the effect of a sudden oil-supply cut-off and oil-market insanity. However, the food supply was already in trouble, because of destructive weather and climate change as well as high energy prices. Hunger is rapidly getting more common. The trucks are still coming into the supermarkets, and no one is messing with those vehicles or many of those parking lots.

It was not long before allegations of "green terrorism" were being circulated in whatever media or government office that could get on that bandwagon. Grand juries were convened, and subpoenas were being served. No one knew who the legendary Sub Assistant Gaia was, but she was probably of interest due to so many communiques attributed to her (some of which I did not make). Numerous arrests were made of people who were accused, informed on, or caught, based on destruction of pavement and harm to vehicles, but there was not one person or animal harmed that I know of by an attack involving any of the Global Cooling actions -- except some honest accidents involving sledgehammers hitting toes. Some motorists alleged brutality by Global Coolers and bicycle riders grouped in "Critical Mass," but there was no major violence.

I decided to leave my job and my home at the end of the semester and hit the road, or the rails –- hopping freights or AMTRAK -- to help meet the growing need for organizing and encouragement of people ready for action. However, pressure seemed to be on to find and apprehend Sub Assistant Gaia, so I created a cover story. I reminded people of my intention to go live in Japan for one year to teach English as a second language, to earn some needed money and to practice my painting.

I also had my eye on Buckeye. Soon I was hanging out with him in one of the tree-sits for a few days at U.C. Berkeley. Only he knew my name as Julia, and he reminisced about another tree-sitter he knew named Julia. I could not stay long, and getting arrested was always a threat at the tree-sit village -- one had to be quick in evading security guards and state police. The East Coast beckoned to me; Global Coolers there wanted me to visit.

When the "natural" disasters of May hit Florida and elsewhere (an island nation was abandoned after a tropical storm in the South Pacific), depression set upon the majority of anyone paying attention. It was made worse, with cynicism added, because the government and the United Nations were trying to downplay the real state of affairs. It was already known that the IPCC had omitted some significant factors in warming, which accounted for climate change outpacing the models.

The people's spirits were so down-hearted that some shopping addicts went nuts buying more than they could keep in their homes. Other consumers felt so lost that their absence from the stores was starting to hurt the Consumer Confidence Index. The White House was worried. The Federal Reserve was issuing warnings. Newscasters engaged in ever more "infotainment" to keep people in the mood for the lure of the commercials urging purchase of new cars. Talk shows on the radio, and blogs, were jammed with outraged or scared people, but almost all expressed support for the Global Coolers. Soon many of these scared people were part of the Global Coolers themselves.

Some of us did more than others about the crisis and threat to life posed by a hundred years of petroleum-induced "growth." We were growing in number, at least ten times what we had been just months before. Thank Goddess it was a peaceful protest movement, although some cars were damaged. Some cars just died on the spot from the exhaust pipe blockage, and other cars shot the potatoes out with a bang –- never failing to amuse the kids and call attention to polluting motorists. Car owners increasingly took the potato insertions and the less-frequent ignition key seizures as warnings, for the stakes were getting higher. The planetary threat of climate change was keeping pace with the mounting fears of the populace and the dire predictions from scientists.

So there was a multitude of creative expressions by people who wanted to do more, or do something different to tip the scales toward sustainability. One of the most imposing methods of raising awareness with an aspect of intimidation was the Community Counselor Posses. That's not what they called themselves; "Posse" was a nickname. The Community Counselors for the Planet (CCP) posses went door to door to ask householders what they were doing to cut energy usage and fight global heating.

No matter what the reply was, more recommendations were given. A promise (or threat, as some took it) was made that the posse would return in a few days to check on progress to slash energy use. The pitch included that a local survey was being done and the results would be reviewed by one of the new Neighborhood Councils, a new phenomenon. The last part of the CCP counseling session was to ask for one or more global-heating devices, to take out of circulation by recycling or salvaging scrap.

Some folks invited the posse on in, gave them refreshments, and pumped them for the latest information on depaving and fruit tree planting. But if a posse knocked on a door and the property owner was not cooperative, the meeting at the door was not easy to dismiss. "Ma'am, see our bike-trailers there? We'll take any of your global-heating electric power tools, CD players, computers, and plastic waste, off your hands right now and go recycle it. And we sure appreciate tips. Whadya say?" A good many people did not want to answer the door, because the wrong spirit was met with, "Can we come in and inspect? If you want us to come back later instead, we will. We're just your good neighbors."

The message to "Take action already!" was getting out there. Concern over haywire weather and crop failure was mounting. For some sensitive souls there was near hysteria about what was going to happen with sea level rise, droughts, storms, tropical diseases moving north, and more. Isn't everybody a sensitive soul?

My routine on this adventure was quite varied. At a huge concert in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, I helped Jordy and Francine get onstage to thrill the crowd, and many went off to an adjacent residential district to "play potatoes" -- the spuds were handed out at the concert. Similar actions happened at the Coliseum in Los Angeles, at SafeCo field in Seattle, at Wrigly Field in Chicago, and at Washington DC's Redskin Stadium. Someone representing the Global Coolers would take the stage between acts to briefly exhort the crowd. The response was instantaneously electric with passion from audiences. Awareness was also heightened by the generation of energy for the sound system via pedal power hook-ups, pioneered by Humboldt activists in the 1990s.

We didn't have to settle for free outdoor venues; philanthropy for Global Cooler activity was flowing freely, as global heating overtook issues such as competing fundable projects involving other social justice causes. Any nonprofit group could get funds for bulk purchase of potatoes (for immediate use or planting), bike carts and depaving tools. The arts were finally well subsidized, but mainly for climate-relevant works.

I was exhilarated to appear at some of these events. I had to get in and get out, especially when I was referred to as "Sub Assistant Gaia." Once I was spirited away in a bike cart with a tarp over me. I had to be hidden and taken to a safe spot to elude police and informers who were trying to storm the back-stage security area of the stadium. Crackdowns on potato players were sometimes bloody, with occasionally some harsh sentences or fines in court. So concert goers waited until they got home to go out and practice "Earth Night" (the new Earth Day), as the popular new eco-songs of the day rang in their ears.

New Age followers were ever more convinced that there would be a cosmic event right up ahead in 2012 to change everything. While this seemed intriguing and quite possible, most of us felt we could not wait for the Universe or the two-party system or god's will: we had to take matters into our own hands and not be so philosophical or patient about our fate. It was and is our world -- "and we want it now!" (The Doors)

Some felt the fight-or-flight adrenaline for action along the lines of "Let's destroy what destroys us." But there was so much peaceful work to do, including burning off our high physical energy by roaming the streets and applying our passions, and restoring suburban wastelands to useful, natural habitat -- that destroying anything was unnecessary. Confrontations with polluters were on the increase, but were so overblown in being publicized that it was obvious propaganda against the Global Coolers. Die-hard maxi-polluters were on the defensive and had to start appearing much more responsible toward our common air, land and water. They could not be seen with a lot of plastic bags without getting a nasty look from the average person.

Pressure to end the military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan became overwhelming, especially given the basis for the invasions and occupations: petroleum, so instrumental in jacking up the planet's fever. The tanks, planes and materials were known to more and more people to be guzzlers of petroleum and causes of global heating. So it was a happy result that the Iraq war was finally brought to an end, by massive demonstrations that brought business-as-usual to a standstill for days on end in Washington DC and Wall Street.

A countertrend was created by our success, as the economy started to become unstable from energy-curtailment and people dropping out of the rat race, either voluntarily or through losing jobs and home foreclosures. The job of the dedicated Global Coolers had to expand swiftly toward supporting the needs of more people suffering as casualties of what looked like the end of economic growth. Corporations seemed unable to cash in on the new trends of depaving and anti-car Earth medicine (as many called Global Cooling).

From "Japan" I learned I was wanted -- as Julia -- by the Grand Jury for questioning. I ignored this, but knew I had to keep a low profile or bide my time. Fortunately, the movement was too out of control for the "polluter rights" types in government and industry to stop us. So the arrests and the contempt citations did not dent the movement's progress.

The Black Bloc of the anarchistic protest crowd materialized here and there, laying waste to selected targets of pollution, but this was more of a sideshow compared to the more out-in-the open actions. Rage was apparent and understandable, but there was no sense in pushing so hard that one risked a violent backlash. So the potatoes and depaving continued, with more kinds of civil disobedience added all the time.

Windows of shops that sold global warming devices, such as electronics, or sold food brought from another continent, were defaced with stickers and spray-painted messages. The slogans included "Cool It!" and "Shut down the melting!" that made business-as-usual harder to maintain, because as soon as the stickers and spray-paint were removed, the slogans would be applied again the next day or night. Then the glass-shattering began. It did not, however, gain in popularity. In fact, it made people reflect and try to make some decisions calmly as a collective or community. The consensus was that there was no turning back, and that we could move in the right direction with deliberate, wise action that did not let up.

Meanwhile, the nation's growing financial crisis was already taking a big toll on the economy. Oil prices had broken way past $100 per barrel, and geopolitical pressures aggravated the threat of armed conflict in several spots around the world. Nuclear weapons' availability had begun to make people aware that their use would devastate the climate further, so disarmament activity was on the rise.

As long as a semblance of status-quo living (particularly in the U.S.) was still going on, and climate chaos was seen as the worst threat above all, climate-protection actions were escalated on a massive scale. Any pleas or resistance to the contrary were met with accusations of their being "ecocidal." There was no need for desperate measures such as shooting people or laying down in the road, so the campaign to unplug the global-heating machinery was ratcheted up and up and conducted in such a way to not heedlessly disrupt lives and risk all-out opposition.

The favored and officially sanctioned solution for global heating had been that of replacing light bulbs, appliances and cars with more efficient models. Great hope had been placed on installing expensive installations of solar panels on roofs and windmills in fields and on mountaintops. But this approach was not happening on a large enough scale, and it was obvious that the people who pursued this path were still polluting, especially with plastic and other kinds petroleum for "renewable" energy. So, getting by almost entirely without the machines, and not using the energy at all, was the Global Coolers' style and message. It seemed too late to change the whole infrastructure with technology, and the system still relied entirely on petroleum anyway. Maybe the biggest factor in the failure of the technofix was that people were not able to make the major purchases in great enough numbers due to the faltering economy.

As I mentioned, after the Florida loss, estimated at maybe 50 times the damage to New Orleans from Katrina and Rita, the support for direct action a la the Global Coolers shot way up. This seemed to occupy people's minds positively, as the cost and availability of food were starting to be intolerable to more and more people. We had to keep fighting with clear heads and with unity.

Some of us who felt some responsibility to the movement felt there was a certain maximum potential for the Global Cooler insurrection, a saturation point. Then, or soon after, we might find the process may not bring about the desired result. Or, we had to address the food crisis successfully and help more people transition out of commute-oriented jobs. We had to expand and deepen our vision, for Earth's climate system was the real boss. Resource scarcity could not be solved with fancy technology, the way things were going. Gaia had even bigger changes in mind than those we had started to notice, and we all had better look ahead.

Our polluting ways as a society could theoretically keep on going with some decrease in greenhouse-gas emissions. But it was not going to be enough of a change in the carbon composition of the atmosphere. Four hundred and fifty parts per million of carbon dioxide in the sky was a lost ceiling. And James Hansen in late 2007 showed us the unpleasant truth that 350 ppm is the real maximum level the world must adhere to. The warnings were clear: cut emissions 90%. However, by when? 2050 would be far too late. And because of positive feedback loops, whereby the carbon dioxide and methane were being released into the atmosphere due to heating itself, and not only from humans directly, we had to cut emissions by more than 100%. That meant taking carbon out of the sky -- reversing immediately if possible the Industrial Revolution's reversal of geological/atmospheric evolution.

Massive tree-planting, more than the symbolic and disruptive depaving actions, had to happen as soon as possible world-wide. Letters to the editor and city council meetings became crammed with demands and ideas for planting more and more trees. Schemes for seeding the seas with iron in order to create algae blooms, to sequester carbon from the sky and have the dead organisms sink to the ocean floor, were publicly debated, from Congress to living rooms.

I felt there needed to be an end to one of the lynchpins of the global-heating economy: the car. As long as any kind of new cars were being built and bought and driven, we would not change things with potatoes and depaving. So, the Boycott New Cars campaign was born. It was received poorly in the corporate press and by politicians, but opposition to strong action that made sense was futile.

During this period I was supposedly in Japan in a remote mountain village. I even sent evidence (had it sent via a friend already over there) in the way of postcards and email messages to a few folks who could confirm I was in Japan.

In reality I was traveling the circuit of active schools, church meetings and concerts. I was able to do this and watch, learn, advise and participate, largely because people in the movement took care of me. My reputation easily preceded me as Sub Assistant Gaia when I was on the move, so I usually used other names. I would even quote her (myself) in order to make a point and gain cooperation.

I said often, "Buy a used car if you must. But don't feed the automotive industry and create demand. If a million would-be car buyers decide not to buy a new car, this can bring down one of the worst industries in history in a matter of weeks." I repeated this everywhere I went, and the word was being passed along. There were benefits to not having a car, including saving money and keeping economic activity in the community instead of sending the dollars away to Detroit or some car-exporting nation. It wasn't hard to get this boycott going when the cost of gasoline was already putting a crimp in new-car sales. So it became a popular dictum: Boycott New Cars. The faltering economy and the credit crunch squeezed buyers anyway, so Global Coolers only made more and more sense.

What about India and China, the new global scapegoats (when attention on the U.S. can be deflected)? We heard that the Global Cooling movement had a foothold in those countries, but maybe their reliance on oil -– in shorter and shorter supply and more and more expensive -- was going to help our cause more than protesting and undermining polluting practices. Maybe the devastating impacts of climate change and overpopulation, that were increasingly felt in China and India, were sending those countries willy-nilly toward returning to rural-based cultures.

Global Coolers were getting people to not buy products from China and India because each purchase meant another measure of coal burned. Besides, Chinese coal dust was drifting east over the Pacific Ocean to harm our West Coast. The planetary nightmare was real -- here and now.

In the U.S. and other industrial countries, it was becoming socially unacceptable and unpopular not to be participating in Global Cooling. People wanted to do at least as much as the celebrated Middle Schoolers who started it, and many were outdoing them. The list of acts of resistance in defense of Mother Earth and her climate was getting longer every day. However, overall economic developments and deprivation were manifesting themselves quickly: developments with oil supply and food were threatening to take over all discussion and concern. Could we continue to right our ship ecologically and socially before the socioeconomic tsunami of "petrocollapse" hit?

By the end of the summer, with more hurricanes giving everyone a strong message, and the disappearance of all the ice in the Arctic, we had reached a certain point: society had put the brakes on, but we were over the cliff of death already. How far over? Would everyone die, save a few people in cooler and wetter microclimates, as James Lovelock predicted?

At this writing, the whole industrialized world may be entering into unavoidable, cataclysmic oil crash and social havoc, from which we have so far been mostly spared. If I live through it I'll narrate another history of that tumult -- part two of our fall from resource gluttony and overpopulation. It appears we're all going to be looking at a total absence of much of what were considered necessities. We're already starting to see the scaling back of what were conveniences through unlimited trade, mastery of nature, and the rest. But I must finish this story I have lived through and wanted to tell; I'll just hope to make it through the final transition.

It was time for me to disappear from the underground scene, or rather appear above ground. I "returned" from abroad and decided to keep a very low profile. I decided to rely on my successful anonymity and show up for the Grand Jury as Julia, and tough it out. I refused to answer certain questions, so I was jailed. I stayed locked up for weeks until some alleged perpetrator of some particular depaving was identified and prosecuted. I had the feeling he took the blame and punishment for me, perhaps knowing my full role. I'm not sure how much I was really suspected of, or by whom, but I was glad to get out of jail and "keep my nose clean." In other words, don't be on the leading edge -– and don't get caught.

Happily for our cause, I was not so needed anymore. And I get to enjoy participating openly in what were just a matter of months ago the most outlandish nonviolent protests and interventions. Now I can go door to door with the Community Counselor Posses, disable cars, depave, put stickers on shop windows, write letter to the editor. The street parties are fun and the daily vending right in the streets is uplifting. But I cannot yet disclose my full role or the names I used. There are too many frustrated citizens who wanted to continue to heat, and not heal, the planet in an unimpeded fashion. I was called (or rather, Sub Assistant Gaia), along with early leaders, "fascist' for denying private property owners the full and free use of their land and machines.

But we have hopefully entered a new age to experience. I'm not sure where things are going, but our whole world is changing on all levels quickly as I write this. We see famine ahead on an unprecedented scale. We may see the end of capitalistic, corporate models for organizing workers. Not only is there an active participation in changing habits, but a return to nature is being attempted on a massive scale. People are doing what they can to revere the trees near them, to plant and gather local food, use acoustic instruments and put on plays instead of use stereos and boom-boxes and DVDs. Is what we are seeing too late, as in shutting the barn door after the horse is gone?

I'm not certain, and few of us are. We're going back to Nature's Way. We're reaching safety if we can. We may not have any "jobs" tomorrow. Maybe we will crash completely, economically and ecologically, soon.

Buckeye and I wonder if having a baby is even thinkable in Earth's present condition and set of trends. We'll adopt anyway and strengthen our tribe.

No matter what happens, we all have this Earth and it has us. And most of us have been learning, suddenly, that the Earth is not oriented for us humans or for our individual purposes. That's part of what I teach my young friends the children, and they teach it to me. They are why I love my life's work -- that I hope to continue most freely and joyously.


* * * * *

December 25, 2007 - January 1, 2008, San Francisco, California.

* * * * *

"Depaving the World" by Richard Register, Auto-Free Times magazine, issue 10:
culturechange.org

The Pledge for Climate Protection:
culturechange.org/global_warming_pledge.html

"Pedal Power Produce: non-oil transport for organic food security!" by Jan Lundberg, 2001:
culturechange.org

"2007 a Year of Weather Records in US" by Seth Borenstein, Associated Press, 29 December 2007:
truthout.org

"Remember This: 350 Parts Per Million" by Bill McKibben, Dec. 28, 2007, Page A21, Washington Post:
washingtonpost.com

"U.S. Emits Half of Car-Caused Greenhouse Gas, Study Says" by Janet Wison, June 28, 2006, Los Angeles Times:
commondreams.org

"Greenhouse gas emissions up for cars, trucks in 2006" by Justin Hyde, Nov. 29, 2007, Detroit Free Press:
freep.com

"Greenhouse Gases and Where They Come From" by Tim Herzog, Oct. 30, 2006, World Resources Institute:
wri.org

"Planktos Restores Ecosystems and Slows Climate Change: Removing CO2 from our oceans and atmosphere by healing the seas, growing new climate forests, and erasing carbon footprints"
planktos.com

Berkeley tree-sit to save the oaks from the University of California:
saveoaks.com

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Culture Change - Collapse: Walmart and Waiting for the Shoe to Drop

Collapse: Walmart and Waiting for the Shoe to Drop
Written by Alice Friedemann  

As I screwed in yet another fluorescent light bulb that didn't work, I thought about what else I could do to put my finger in the dike of the "Limits to Growth." I can almost hear ecosystems groan as they nearly burst from the weight of heavy metals, pavement, and drought.

Jared Diamond, in "Collapse," believes ecology plays a major role in the breakdown of civilizations.

But Jonathan Friedman, at Lund University in Sweden (1), counters that Diamond has it backwards. The social logic of civilization makes limits opaque to its citizens, who can't even see there are limits imposed by natural resources, so they don't plan ahead. A good example is not preparing for peak oil thirty years ahead of time, as Robert Hirsch points out ought to be done, in the study he headed for the U.S. Dept. of Energy, "Peaking of World Oil Production." (2)

This blindness is evident in the Presidential campaign as well, where none of the candidates is running on a platform of the need to reform industrial agriculture, drastically reduce our consumption of goods and energy, or slow down development and population growth.

Friedman says this disconnect with reality is most powerfully expressed by Kafka, where the characters are trapped in ways of seeing the world they can't see beyond. At a time when most of the world's problems are due to the depletion and destruction of the ecosystems that keep us alive, politicians and people in general continue to see the world through political and economic filters.

Even those of us awake to the world being one big cockroach about to get smashed by energy limits, are trapped likes ants in the amber of the system.

What's ridiculous is that we, personally, are supposed to save the world, not collective action. We're on our own, without government and corporate help. PG&E, the northern California utility that serves five million customers, is encouraging us to buy long-lasting fluorescent light bulbs. It sounds like a bad joke -- how many Californians does it take to screw in a light bulb to prevent The Collapse of Civilization As We Know It?

Andrew Szasz, in his new book "Shopping Our Way to Safety," says that our government and regulatory agencies have been so weakened, we've lost hope in collective action. Szasz finds that chilling -- we can't shop our way out of our problems, no matter how many green goods we buy, and thinking that we can gives us less urgency to fight for meaningful reform.

Buying organic is only possible for people who can afford to pay extra, and doesn't do much to change the way food is grown. Agriculture should be at the top of the reform list, because it does the most damage. The way we grow food destroys topsoil, depletes aquifers and fossil fuels, eutrophies water, and poisons land and water with petrochemicals.

As we all know, shopping is what got us into this fix to begin with. Yet we continue to throw hungry devices that suck ever more electric power into the System, like primitives sacrificing goats to the Gods, unable to stop because the financial structure depends on endless growth. The Beast must not only be fed, but mended as it ages and falls apart, its sagging bridges, pitted roads, rusting fresh water pipelines, and aging dams perpetually patched.

Walmart executives must have realized they had to cut back on energy to make profits, and they're trying to turn this to their advantage by Greening their image, hoping to win back the millions of affluent customers who've been boycotting them for years.

On the one hand, it's great that WalMart has decided to green up their image. We need corporations and governments to take the lead in making a transition, since they're the institutions using most of the energy and natural resources.

But as many have pointed out, how can Walmart even be slightly green? They're the main corporation that turned China into a cesspool of coal fumes, sewage, and chemicals to produce throwaway goods, whipping the gyre of consumption into the global tornado that's devoured the flesh of the earth and poured our trees, fish, clean water, topsoil, oil, and metal into cheap goods. They're at the center of the vortex, keeping it spinning, the essence of the delusion we live in. How on earth can they become Green?

Those helping with the WalMart makeover point out that since Walmart is such a large part of the problem, Greening WalMart will have more impact than changing light bulbs. They want to do something, even if in the end, it doesn't do much to avert collapse.

As I see the giant foot overhead drawing nearer, and knowing that my own feeble attempts to hold it at bay are pointless, I can't disagree. We all do what we can, what we think will help, if only to forget we're cockroaches for a while.

* * * * *

Alice Friedemann, January 20, 2008

Alice has been part of the peak oil community since discussions began on energyresources listserve, and has attended many ASPO conferences. She's spoken at U. C. Berkeley on biofuels and published at culturechange, energybulletin, energypulse, theoildrum, etc. She was a senior-level systems architect and engineer for 25 years in health care, banking, and transportation. Her website is energyskeptic.com

* * * * *

(1) Robert Costanza, et. al. 2007. "Sustainability or Collapse? An Integrated History and Future of People on Earth". MIT Press.

(2) Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management, Robert L. Hirsch, SAIC:
projectcensored.org 


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Culture Change - Sail transport: where theory meets reality

Sail transport: where theory meets reality   
Written by Dmitry Orlov  

It's been about two years since I became seriously interested in sailboats. During that time, I learned a great deal about boats, sailed a variety of craft around Boston Harbor and the vicinity, bought a boat, fitted it out, moved aboard with my wife and cat, and sailed it all over the eastern seaboard -- from Maine to the Carolinas. As I write this, we are taking a break in Charleston, South Carolina, before heading further south into the Caribbean.

As a byproduct of my transition to a life afloat, in August of 2006 I wrote an article, The New Age of Sail, which some people have found quite inspiring. As happens so often, its inspirational qualities resulted to some extent from my ignorance at the time; had I known what I know now, the cold light of experience would have no doubt tempered the inspirational qualities of this text.

A bit later, in October of the same year, Jan Lundberg invited to give a short talk at the Bioneers by the Bay conference in Dartmouth, Massachusetts, with the idea of breathing some new life into the idea of the Sail Transport Network. I took this opportunity to put together a plan for sail-based passenger transport, which could be put into effect once fossil fuel-based forms of transportation start to fail due to fuel shortages.

Early next year, the editors of Orion Magazine came across my presentation, found it interesting, and a summary of it was printed in the March/April 2007 issue of Orion, under the heading "Making Other Arrangements." Here is an excerpt:

    The trends that will once again make sail a viable form of transportation are already in place but, for the sake of the argument, let us think a few years forward. Suppose it's 2010, and you want to travel up or down either coast. You might consider driving, but gas is now very expensive and often hard to find. Also, the price of asphalt has gone through the roof, so the roads are full of potholes. You might consider taking a train, but Amtrak has been largely shut down, because the country couldn't afford it. And you might consider flying, but ticket prices have been driven up by the cost of kerosene; plus there is a new terror scare due to intelligence reports of a plan involving elderly Al Qaeda members with exploding dentures, so they make you check everything including your false teeth.

    Then you find out about the Sail Transportation Network. You go to the STN website and find several boats planning the passage you intend to make. You go look at the boats, interview the skippers, and decide on one. You then go back to the website and submit payment for STN's finder's fee. On the day of departure, you simply show up at the dock. STN has already provisioned the boat for the passage. You come aboard and sail off. If you are so inclined, you can take part in various quintessential sailing activities, such as baking bread, cooking stew, mixing drinks, and keeping a lookout.

    The Sail Transportation Network is just a concept at the moment, but I remain reasonably assured that there are no legal or technical obstacles to making it work.

At the time, I thought that this was a perfectly reasonable plan. There followed some discussion about developing some web-based software that would make the system self-organizing. There was also some talk of organizing a trial run by signing up some skippers and some passengers. None of it came to fruition.

I thought that this plan was reasonable because it avoided several problems.

The first problem is that sailing vessels, of the sort that can be used for freight or passenger transport, no longer exist. There are some historical replicas, some navy training ships, and some fancy charter boats. But there are plenty of smaller yachts capable of carrying three or four passengers in addition to a skipper and one or two crew members, along with their baggage. At a time when other types of transportation run into problems with the fuel supply, such boats could be pressed into service on coastal passages, provided a way could be found to provision them.

The second problem is that skippers of such smaller craft are rarely licensed to carry passengers for hire, and the vessels are largely registered as pleasure craft, and so cannot be used for passenger or freight service. However, I discovered a loophole that neatly solves this problem as well. According to the Passenger Vessel Safety Act of 1993,

    Passenger for hire means a passenger for whom consideration is contributed as a condition of carriage on the vessel, whether directly or indirectly flowing to the owner, charterer, operator, agent, or any other person having an interest in the vessel. Consideration means an economic benefit, inducement, right or profit including pecuniary payment accruing to an individual, person or entity, but not including a voluntary sharing of the actual expenses of the voyage, by monetary contribution or donation of fuel, food, beverage or other supplies.

What this means is that passengers can volunteer to share the expenses of the trip without being considered passengers. Therefore, the skipper of the vessel need not be licensed, and the vessel need not be registered or documented as a commercial vessel, or carry commercial insurance. This dramatically increases the numbers of both craft and crew available to carry passengers by sail.

The third and final problem is that in a situation where transportation fuels are scarce, so is food. The retail chain breaks down as soon as the diesel trucks that supply it are out of diesel. Provisioning a sailboat requires large amounts of basic foodstuffs to be placed aboard: rice, beans, flour, cured meats such as salt tack, salted fish, and so forth. An organization that can directly procure such supplies in bulk, ferry such supplies between ports, and provision vessels for the task of doing so, is well positioned to survive the collapse of the retail chain.

The three problems are addressed by a single triangular arrangement: passengers pays provisioners, provisioners provision boats, skippers transport passengers. It is a good plan - to file away somewhere, ideally in your mind or on paper, because it might be hard to retrieve electronically once the electric grid collapses.

As far as making use of this plan prior to economic collapse, thinking about this may shed some light on the limits to what can be done to organize in preparation for collapse. The problem is far more general than the one we are considering, boiling down to this: in order to organize and prepare for collapse, people need to act as if collapse has already occurred, and this is something that rational individuals will quite reasonably refuse to do.

Why would anyone who is of sound mind be willing to go into the business of provisioning sailboats with rice, flour, cured meat, and pickled cabbage? Sailboat crews prefer fresh-frozen produce, which can be obtained at a supermarket. For bulk items, there are wholesale clubs. Our provisioners may have a viable post-collapse business plan, but pre-collapse it is sheer nonsense.

Why would passengers be willing to spend weeks at sea instead of jumping in a car or on a plane and getting to their destination in a few days or a few hours? Why would they be willing to tolerate sea sickness, confinement, meals hastily thrown together on a galley stove, and the company of strangers in close quarters?

Why would skippers want to take on passengers? Provisioning is one of the least significant costs of owning and operating a yacht, and is not enough to entice a skipper. Many owner-skippers of yachts are wealthy people with less time than money, and when they find time in their busy schedules to go sailing, they prefer to sail with family or with friends. Many other owner-skippers of yachts are retired individuals or couples. The couples are unlikely to want to welcome strangers aboard their home in exchange for food, while the individuals are usually in search of competent crew, to save them from the hard work of single-handing, and would hardly be interested in taking on passengers who cannot take turns at the helm.

Finally, why would anybody invest time and effort in developing a web-based software system for which there will be no need until after the economy collapses, at which time, due to frequent and widespread power outages, web-based software will not be of much use any more? It makes no sense to develop a high-tech solution in preparation for a low-tech age. After the economy collapses, life slows down, and efficient ways of organizing that web-based systems afford will be replaced by asking around, face to face negotiation, dockside bulletin boards, and a wide variety of informal arrangements that are impossible in the businesslike, money-driven atmosphere of today.

Clearly, until collapse occurs, this plan will be dead in the water. But what about post-collapse? Will it automatically become viable as soon as there is a critical mass of hungry skippers with boats, and a critical mass of desperate passengers willing to endure weeks at sea in order to get somewhere, or simply to get away? Will dockside provisioners suddenly rise to the occasion as soon as these two ingredients fall into place? When an economic collapse occurs, our horizon usually shrinks to what we can see for ourselves and the people we can talk to. Most of these people tend to be too busy thinking for themselves and trying to survive, and will have no spare time in which to work on grand schemes or organizational initiatives such as the Sail Transport Network.

Will the scheme I developed still have merit? The giant loophole in the Passenger Vessel Safety Act of 1993 might get closed by some executive order. The government may declare coastal waters a security zone, and the only boats allowed in the waters of the zone will be the ones that have a valid Coast Guard permit. The permits would then be rationed and their issuance tightly regulated. There is already a precedent for this: Bill Clinton declared a permanent state of emergency, and designated a security zone covering most of Florida. Any non-commercial vessel departing from the security zone that intends to sail within 12 nautical miles of the Cuban coast must have a US Coast Guard "Acknowledgement of Security Zone and Permit to Depart During a National Emergency." These permits are currently free, but failure to get one results in forfeiture of the vessel, a $10000 fine, and 10 years in jail. And so plans that abide by the laws of one era may come to naught in another.

But all of this seems irrelevant to me. With little other transportation available, sail-based transportation will spring to life spontaneously, whether anyone works at it or not. Local farmers will discover that they can sell their crop in bulk by delivering to the dockside and putting it on board a boat. Passengers will discover that they can actually get somewhere by showing up at the dock with some money, and asking around. Skippers will find out that taking on passengers once in a while is a good way to keep the lockers stocked with food and drink.

Does this mean that thinking along these lines is a futile, unnecessary exercise? If so, if Sail Transport Network is to take some physical form prior to the collapse, it would have to move in a different direction entirely.

Perhaps we should think ahead of time about the sorts of sailboats that would make the most sense after the collapse? These would probably have to be made quickly and cheaply, because resources will be scarce. It probably means taking a medium-size steel hull, fitting it with a keel and masts, ripping out the engine and diesel tanks, and putting in some solar panels and a wind generator to power the navigation equipment and cabin lights.

If the price of oil doubles three or four more times, such a boat might even become competitive as a way of carrying cargo on coastal passages. But even then it is unclear where it would fit into the existing transportation system. Such boats would lack the freezer facilities to carry refrigerated cargo, too small to serve as a bulk carrier, and too slow to fill retail orders. In a shipping world oriented to container ships, tankers and bulk carriers, roll-on roll-off ships, and other commodity forms of water transport, where would a small engineless hand-loaded craft fit in, if at all?

Then there is the matter of crew. Before the collapse, people interested in sailing would prefer to spend time aboard a beautiful schooner, with bronze fittings and teak and mahogany brightwork, wearing deck shoes and sipping a cold drink. Or they would want to take part in a regatta of racing boats, or sail beautiful old wooden boats lovingly restored by craftsmen who have nothing but time on their hands, or take a well-appointed cabin cruiser to a tropical destination, there to spend the winter months.

The hobbyist-sailors, who are in it for the lifestyle or the adventure, could not be more different from the professional sailors. If you look at the nationalities of the crews of commercial ships, it is a roll call of the most unfortunate, economically distressed or overpopulated countries in the world. There are the East Europeans: Romanians, Bulgarians, and Ukrainians. Then there are the Southeast Asians: Filipinos, Malaysians, Chinese and Indians. They save their meager wages by never going on shore, and inhabit a cramped and dreary world of bad food, satellite television, and copious pornography. Their wages, meager though they are, are heavily subsidized by the cheap bunker fuel that powers these commercial vessels. Even if these vessels could be repowered using sail, they would move more slowly, would be unable to go directly upwind, carry less cargo (no more containers stacked on deck!) and earn less money. The livelihoods of these sailors, already precarious, would disappear altogether. Ask any of them whether they would like to go sailing, and they would think that you are completely mad. To them, sailing is fit for their countrymen who subsist in abject poverty, not for them, who have managed to rise above it.

Clearly, if sail transport is to take off before economic collapse rules out most other forms of transport, a way must be found for it to pay a living wage. The noncompetitiveness of sail-based transport, even with oil prices at around $100 a barrel, could be overcome with some sort of ecologically motivated "green subsidy." Some of the existing ships could be retrofitted with masts and sails in order to collect carbon credits for the fuel they would save in sailing downwind and reach courses (to make the schedule, they would probably still motor upwind, and motorsail the rest of the time). A careful EROEI-based accounting would probably uncover some inconvenient facts: the carbon credit would be to some extent offset by the energy cost of the retrofit, and the energy wasted in carrying the keel, the masts, and the rigging. A bit of thinking outside the box would eventually hit on the idea that a much bigger carbon credit could be obtained much more quickly and efficiently by foregoing the shipping step altogether: by relocalizing production, cutting consumption, and other, similar measures. For example, it may be "green" to ship coffee beans by sailboat, but it may be even greener to process these coffee beans into coffee syrup, shedding much of the weight, then shipping it in a standard container.

So much for theory. As for reality, I have heard that some people who live aboard their boats on Caribbean islands make a bit of spending money by ferrying small loads of cargo back and forth between islands. As I sail around, I will look for these people, to see what I can learn. And some day, if I am not too old by then, I might myself skipper or serve as crew on a sailboat that carries a few passengers and a bit of cargo. I will probably be quite a seasoned mariner by then. Being called "Captain," both over VHF and on the dock, several times each day, seems to be rubbing off on me. Until then, sail transport for me will largely revolve around transporting me, my wife, my cat, and our stuff.


* * * * * *

CC Editor's note: Dmitry Orlov's new book Reinventing Collapse is completed and will be available from New Society Publishers. Culture Change will be reviewing it soon. Dmitry is a rare and talented writer, so we're lucky to have him take sail transport seriously for this website and beyond. I like what he said about Sail Transport Network recently: "by thinking through such ideas ahead of time, it may be possible to make the transition to a post-collapse system of transportation easier for some people."
- Jan Lundberg, January 14, 2008

Although implementing sustainable ways of living is hard while "cheap" energy is still available, many people are thinking about ushering in the future now. We got an inquiry over the weekend, apropos:

    Do you guys ever hire?... I'm a young merchant marine working on offshore supply vessels in the gulf of Mexico, and honestly, I would rather be sailing (yes, with sails). Does your organization have needs for qualified mariners?, because you folks are doing an incredible thing and it sounds like it would be very satisfying to be a part of it. please respond at your leisure, and thank you for your time. Sincerely, F.



A great interview with our sea-faring plastics guru, Capt. Charles Moore, very moving: listen to the podcast of his interview with the students of science and math at Vanderbilt University: blogs.vanderbilt.edu For more information see his website algalita.org and obtain the Algalita Marine Research Foundation's award winning documentary, "Our Synthetic Sea."

References

"The New Age of Sail" by Dmitry Orlov, Culture Change, Aug. 2006:
culturechange.org

Sail Transport Network's presentation at Bioneers By The Bay, slide show and commentary by Dmitry Orlov:
culturechange.org

For more writings on Sail Transport Network, see the links in the menu items on this website (sailtransportnetwork.org). To learn more about STN or share some information, and be kept informed, contact us via email: jan "at" culturechange.org

http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=151

Currently reading : Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects By Dmitry Orlov

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Culture Change - "Re-learning" what we’ve forgotten

"Re-learning" what we've forgotten      
Written by Chris Maser  

CC Editor's note: This is Chris Maser's Part Three of his series for Culture Change. I ate this one up, because ever since I read a 1987 article in Discover magazine by Jared Diamond, about hunter-gatherers' working only a few hours a day a few days a week, I've been aware that our modern way of life is not what it's cracked up to be. In Maser's article there is solid anthropological insight applicable to our current challenge as a dysfunctional society facing extinction. In his 18 maxims, he concludes with "Placing material wealth, as symbolized by the money chase, above spirituality, nature, and human well-being is the road to social impoverishment, environmental degradation, and the collapse of societies and their life-support systems." - Jan Lundberg


If we all treat one another with the best principles of human relationships, it is analogous to complying with Nature's biophysical principles by taking responsibility for our own behavior. In other words, if I want to become acquainted with you, it is incumbent on me to determine how I must treat you in order to allow, even encourage, you to reciprocate in kind. Thus, for me to receive the best service, it is my responsibility to initiate a good relationship with the person serving me. Likewise, to have an adequate supply of quality resources in the form of ecoogical services from Nature to run our cities, we must take care of the land in a way that perpetuates the natural capital we require for a quality life. Here, the bottom line is that, by treating one another—as well as the land—with respect, we are uniting the two disparate entities into a single, self-reinforcing feedback loop of complementary services that can be perpetuated through time.

To bring this about, however, we need to view one another and ourselves differently, which necessitates a brief, generalized visit to the hunter-gatherers of olden times. If you are wondering why we need to visit the hunter-gatherers, the answer is simple: to understand what we have forgotten—how to live in harmony with one another and the land.

What the hunter-gatherers knew
The hunting-gathering peoples of the world—Australian aborigines, African Bushman, and similar groups—represent not only the oldest but also perhaps the most successfully adapted human beings. Virtually all of humanity lived by hunting and gathering before about 12,000 years ago. Hunters and gatherers represent the opposite pole of the densely packed, harried urban life most people of today experience. Yet the life philosophy of those same hunter-gatherers may hold the answer to a central question plaguing humanity at it enters the 21st century: Can people live harmoniously with one another and Nature?

Until 1500 AD, hunter-gatherers occupied fully one-third of the world, including all of Australia, most of North America, and large tracts of land in South America, Africa, and northeast Asia, where they lived in small groups without the overarching disciplinary umbrella of a state or other centralized authority. They lived without standing armies or bureaucratic systems, and they exchanged goods and services without recourse to economic markets or taxation.

With relatively simple technology, such as wood, bone, stone, fibers, and fire, they were able to meet their material requirements with a modest expenditure of energy and had the time to enjoy that which they possessed materially, socially, and spiritually. Although their material wants may have been few and finite and their technical skills relatively simple and unchanging, their technology was, on the whole, adequate to fulfill their needs, a circumstance that says the hunting-gathering peoples were the original affluent societies. Clearly, they were free of the industrial shackles in which we find ourselves as prisoners at hard labor caught seeming forever between the perpetual disparity of unlimited wants and insufficient means.

Evidence indicates that these peoples lived surprisingly well together, despite the lack of a rigid social structure, solving their problems among themselves, largely without courts and without a particular propensity for violence. They also demonstrated a remarkable ability to thrive for long periods, sometimes thousands of years, in harmony with their environment. They were environmentally and socially harmonious and thus sustainable because they were egalitarian, and they were egalitarian because they were socially and environmentally harmonious. They intuitively understood the reciprocal, indissoluble connection between their social life and the sustainability of their environment.

Sharing was the core value of social interaction among hunter-gatherers, with a strong emphasis on the importance of generalized reciprocity, which means the unconditional giving of something without any expectation of immediate return. The combination of generalized reciprocity and an absence of private ownership of land has led many anthropologists to consider the hunter-gatherer way of life as a "primitive communism," in the true sense of "communism," wherein property is owned in common by all members of a classless community.

Even today, there are no possessive pronouns in aboriginal languages. The people's personal identity is defined by what they give to the community: "I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am" is a good example of the "self-in-community" foundation that gives rise to the saying in Zulu, umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu: "It is through others that one attains selfhood." (1)

Hunter-gatherer peoples lived with few material possessions for hundreds of thousands of years and enjoyed lives that were in many ways richer, freer, and more fulfilling than ours. These nomadic peoples were (and are) economical in every aspect of their lives, except in telling stories. Stories passed the time during travel, archived the people's history, and passed it forward as the children's cultural inheritance. (2)

These peoples so structured their lives that they wanted little, required little, and found what they needed at their disposal in their immediate surroundings. They were comfortable precisely because they achieved a balance between what they needed and/or wanted by being satisfied with little. There are, after all, two ways to wealth—working harder or wanting less.

The !Kung Bushmen of southern Africa, for example, spent only twelve to nineteen hours a week getting food because their work was social and cooperative, which means they obtained their particular food items with the least possible expenditure of energy. Thus, they had abundant time for eating, drinking, playing, and general socializing. In addition to which, young people were not expected to work until well into their twenties and no one was expected to work after age forty or so. (3)

Like the hunter-gatherers of old, the sense of place for the self-sufficient, nomadic Bedouins ("desert dwellers" in Arabic) is a seasonal journey. With respect to socializing, however, Bedouins have long had specific meeting places. In the desert of Sinai, an acacia tree still serves as a landmark and meeting place that offers shelter and social contact to travelers. The "makhad" (which means "the meeting place around the acacia tree") is a traditional Bedouin meeting place, where, according to their customs of friendship and hospitality, all who pass through the desert are welcomed. In fact, there is a particular acacia tree in the Sinai desert at the oasis garden of Ein-Khudra (an oasis mentioned in the Bible) that has been cultivated continuously by the same Bedouin family for over a thousand years.

These "oasis gardens" are remarkably fertile and filled with abundance, which reflects the Bedouin's love of and respect for their desert home. The makhads are a socially recognized commons in that they help to sustain the nomadic lifestyle—acting as a fixed point around which the nomadic journey revolves. (4)

Hunter-gatherers also had much personal freedom. There were, among the !Kung Bushmen and the Hadza of Tanzania, for instance, either no leaders or only temporary leaders with severely limited authority. These societies had personal equality in that everyone belonged to the same social class and had gender equality. Their technologies and social systems, including their economies of having enough or a sense of "enoughness," allowed them to live sustainably for tens of thousands of years. One of the reasons they were sustainable was their lack of connection between what an individual produced and that person's economic security, so acquisition of things to ensure personal survival and material comfort was not an issue.

In the beginning, nomadic hunters and gatherers, who have represented humanity for most of its existence, probably saw the world simply as "habitat" that fulfilled all of their life's requirements, a view that allowed the people to understand themselves as part of a seamless community. For example, the Apache word "Shi-Ni," is used for "land" and "mind," an indication of how closely the people were united to the land. With the advent of herding, agriculture, and progressive settlement, however, humanity created the concept of "wilderness," and so the distinctions between "tame" (equals "controlled") and "wild" (equals "uncontrolled") plants and animals began to emerge in the human psyche. Along with the notion of tame and wild plants and animals came the perceived need to not only "control" space but also to "own" it through boundaries in the form of corrals, pastures, fields, and villages. In this way, the uncontrolled land or "wilderness" of the hunter-gatherers came to be viewed in the minds of settled folk as "unproductive," "free" for the taking, and/or as a threat to their existence.

Agriculture, therefore, brought with it both a sedentary way of life and a permanent change in the flow of living. Whereas the daily life of a hunter-gatherer was a seamless whole, a farmer's life became divided into "home" and "work." While a hunter-gatherer had intrinsic value as a human being with respect to the community, a farmer's sense of self-worth became extrinsic, both personally and with respect to the community as symbolized by, and permanently attached to "productivity"—a measure based primarily on how hard a person worked and thus produced in good or services.

In addition, the sedentary life of a farmer changed the notion of "property." To the hunter-gatherers, mobile property, that which one could carry with them (such as one's hunting knife or gathering basket) could be owned, but fixed property (such as land) was to be shared equally through rights of use, but could not be personally owned to the exclusion of others and the detriment of future generations. This was such an important concept, that it eventually had a word of special coinage, "usufruct." According to the 1999 Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary, "usufruct," is a noun in Roman and Civil Law. Usufruct means that one has the right to enjoy all the advantages derivable from the use of something that belongs to another person provided the substance of the thing being used is neither destroyed nor injured.

So the dawn of agriculture, which ultimately gave birth to civilizations, created powerful, albeit unconscious, biases in the human psyche. For the first time, humans clearly saw themselves as distinct from and—in their reasoning at least—superior to the rest of Nature. They therefore began to consider themselves as masters of, but not as members of, Nature's biophysical community of life.

To people who lived a sedentary life, like farmers, land was a commodity to be bought, owned, and sold. Thus, when hunter-gatherer cultures, such as the American Indians, "sold" their land to the invaders (in this case Europeans), they were really selling the right to "use" their land, not to "own" it outright as fixed property, something the Europeans did not understand. The European's difficulty in comprehending the difference probably arose because, once a sedentary and settled life style is embraced, it is almost impossible to return to a nomadic way of life, especially the thinking that accompanies it.

We, as individuals, may therefore despair when we contemplate the failure of so many earlier human societies to recognize their pending environmental problems, as well as their failure to resolve them—especially when we see our local, national, and global society committing the same kinds of mistakes on an even larger scale and faster time track. But the current environmental crisis is much more complex than earlier ones because modern society is qualitatively different than previous kinds of human communities. Old problems are occurring in new contexts and new problems are being created, both as short-term solutions to old problems and as fundamentally new concepts. Pollution of the world's oceans, depletion of the ozone layer, production of enormous numbers and amounts of untested chemical compounds that find their way into the environment, and the potential human exacerbation of global climate change were simply not issues in olden times. But they are the issues of today.

There are lessons we, as a society today, can re-learn from the people who once lived—and the few who still live—a hunter-gatherer way of life. I say, "relearn" because, as writer Carlo Levi once said, "the future has an ancient heart."

What we must "re-learn"

    1. Life's experiences are personal and intimate.
    2. Sharing life's experiences by working together and taking care of one another along the way is the price of sustainability.
    3. Cooperation and coordination, when coupled with sharing and caring, precludes the perceived need to compete, except in play—and perhaps in story telling.
    4. The art of living lies in how we practice relationship—beginning with ourselves—because practicing relationship is all we humans ever do in life.
    5. Leisure is affording the necessary amount of time to fully engage each thought we have, each decision we make, each task we perform, and each person with whom we converse in order to fulfill a relationship's total capacity for a quality experience.
    6. Simplicity in living and dying depends on and seeks things small, sublime, and sustainable.
    7. There is more beauty and peace in the world than ugliness and cruelty. 8. Any fool can complicate life, but it requires a certain genius to make and keep things simple.
    9. For a group of people to be socially functional, they must be equally informed about what is going on within the group; in other words, there must be no secrets that are actually or potentially detrimental to any member of the group.
    10. Separating work from social life is not necessary for economic production—and may even be a serious social mistake.
    11. By consciously limiting our "wants," we can have enough to comfortably fulfill our necessities as well as some of our most ardent desires—and leave more for other people to do the same.
    12. Simplicity is the key to contentment, adaptability, and survival as a culture; beyond some point, complexity becomes a decided disadvantage with respect to cultural longevity, just as it is to the evolutionary longevity of a species.
    13. The notion of scarcity is largely an economic construct to foster competitive consumerism and thereby increase profits, but is not necessarily an inherent part of human nature. (We need to overcome our fear of economically contrived scarcity and marvel instead at the incredible abundance and resilience of the Earth.)
    14. Linking individual well-being strictly to individual production is the road to competition, which in turn leads inevitably to social inequality, poverty, and environmental degradation.
    15. Self-centeredness and acquisitiveness are not inherent traits of our species, but rather acquired traits based on a sense of fear and insecurity within our social setting that fosters the perceived need of individual and collective competition, expressed as the need to impress others.
    16. Inequality based on gender and/or social class is a behavior based on fear disguised as "social privilege."
    17. Mobile property, that which one can carry with them, can be owned, whereas fixed property—such as land, which may be borrowed—is to be shared equally through rights of generational use, but can not be personally owned to the detriment of future generations.
    18. Placing material wealth, as symbolized by the money chase, above spirituality, nature, and human well-being is the road to social impoverishment, environmental degradation, and the collapse of societies and their life-support systems. (3)

So, where are we today? We are the exact antithesis of the hunter-gatherers in many respects: (1) who we are, (2) how we obtain resources, (3) what we own, (4) our connection with Nature, and (5) who benefits and who pays. I am, however, going to focus on our connection with Nature, because, in a sense, the others are embodied in the characteristics of that relationship.

The hunter-gatherers knew themselves to be an inseparable part of Nature and therefore did their best to honor Nature by blending in with the seasonal cycles of birth and death, of hunter, gatherer, and hunted. Through their spirituality and myths, they sought to understand the "Nature Gods," appease them, and serve them so they might continue to be generous in the future.

We city folks, on the other hand, have all but lost our conscious connection with Nature, in part because a number of modern religions, such as Christianity and Judaism, consider humanity to be separate from and above all other life on Planet Earth. In addition, we live in protective "boxes" of one sort or another wherein our daily necessities are transported—including our experience of the outer world via television. Consequently, we rarely experience the night sky, the seasonal flights of migrating geese, or the wide-open spaces that are as yet uncluttered by the trappings of humanity. And those city folks who do hunt, normally do so with high-powered rifles that make their game into the abstractions of sport and trophies — not lives taken with reverence for the necessity of food.

The hunter-gatherers lived lightly upon the land, honoring its cycles, being patience with Nature's pace, taking only what they needed, and thereby allowing the land to renew itself before they took from it again. In this way, generations passed through the millennia, each tending to be at least as well off as the preceding one.

Because we have a propensity to see Nature as a commodity to be competitively exploited for our immediate benefit, we are, at best, short-changing the generations of the future by passing forward unpaid environmental bills and, at worst, blatantly stealing their inheritance and thus setting all generations on a course toward environmental bankruptcy. The first is irresponsible, the latter unconscionable. While the hunter-gatherers lived an effective life, we are focused almost totally on efficiency. And they are not the same thing!

Endnotes

1. Barbara Nussbaum. 2003. Ubuntu. Resurgence 221:13.

2. Sally Pomme Clayton. 2003. Thread of Life. Resurgences 221:29.

3. The foregoing discussion of hunter-gatherers is taken from: (1) the Foreword, Introduction, and first eight chapters of the 1998 book "Limited wants, unlimited means" edited by John Gowdy and published by Island Press, Washington, D.C. The authors are as follows: Foreword by Richard B. Lee, Introduction by John Gowdy, Chapter 1 by Marshall Sahlins, Chapter 2 by Richard B. Lee, Chapter 3 by Lorna Marshall, Chapter 4 by James Woodburn, Chapter 5 by Nurit Bird-David, Chapter 6 by Eleanor Leacock, Chapter 7 by Richard B. Lee, and Chapter 8 by Ernest S. Burch, Jr.; (2) Rebecca Adamson. People who are Indigenous to the Earth. 1997. YES! A Journal of Positive Futures, Winter:26-27; (3) Gus diZerega. 1997. Re-thinking the Obvious: Modernity and Living Respectfully with Nature. Trumpeter 14:184-193; (4) Richard K. Nelson. 1983. Make Prayers to the Raven: A Koyukon View of the Northern Forest. University of Chicago Press, Chicago, IL. pp. 214-215; (5) Stephanie Mills. 2001. Words for the Wild. Resurgence 208:38-40; and (6) Roderick Frazier Nash. 2003. Wild World. Resurgence 216:36-38.

4. The foregoing discussion about the nomadic Bedouins is based on: Will Cretney. 2000. A Nomadic Journey. Resurgence 203:24-25.

* * * * *

This essay is condensed from Chris Maser's 2004 book The Perpetual Consequences of Fear and Violence: Rethinking the Future. Maisonneuve Press, Washington, D.C. 373 pp.

Chris has written several books that are showcased on his website, chrismaser.com. Chris lives in Corvallis, Oregon. He is a consultant on environmental land-use development, sustainable communities and forestry.


Further Reading:

"Ancient innovations for present conventions toward extinction" by Jan Lundberg, Culture Change Letter 161, June 10, 2007: http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=114&Itemid=33


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Culture Change - The Global Coolers - a story (part 1)

The Global Coolers - a story       
Written by Jan Lundberg  

part 1

It was another day of helplessness at our Middle School when more children than usual came into the office having asthma attacks. Diesel-soot tinged breezes had again invaded the school yard and classrooms.

We were being hit from an additional direction, and it was related to the air-quality situation: the newspapers and even Fox News had another depressing story on the disappearance of entire glaciers. Climate change was out of control, while efforts to deal with it were so much talk. The emotions rising in many of us included fear, rage and disgust.

But this day onward was to mark a clear response and see constructive emotions come into play, by more people than anyone would have supposed. One child was to spark a sea change in the mood and aspirations of millions of people who had been complacent and lacking in hope.

Before I go on with my story, let me explain that because I'm still employed by the school district as a teacher's aid, this narrative is being held back for a short time. I can't give my name, or the place I work, even though few would suspect me of helping to guide a very disobedient campaign of civil disobedience -- when I appear to be such a strait-laced little woman. As soon as this background can be released, you will be reading about how we turned society on its ear back in 2008 and gave the U.S. a better name before the family of nations.

This piece of recent history is what more children need to hear, but I expect a lot of folks will welcome this report with great interest when it's by the well-known but mysterious Sub Assistant Gaia. I wore a fairly good disguise for my rare public appearances, and that will continue for a little while. I need to avoid any hassles by some resentful person or party, so I'll guard my privacy until things cool off (as the saying goes). But when I write this I feel I am speaking to you, you who dithered on climate protection until the children upset you and shamed you into giving serious attention to the world's faltering ecosystem.

The tide has been turning steadily, politically as well as sea-level wise, so I doubt anyone would try to make trouble for me. Even if I were ever convicted of something, a governor or the future President would pardon me. But to play it safe, and to avoid our movement becoming too focused on personalities, I'm going to remain in the shadows a little longer. It can help foster the empowerment of the grassroots and youth who must keep taking action to keep up with the challenge of our day. Besides, I want to travel without the spotlight of fame on me (that can attract fans and foes, worshippers and torturers).

What pushed me over the tipping point to help get the big ball rolling was seeing one of my favorite students, little Kaitlin, after our school-day ended, show a new painting to her mother as she pulled up in their new SUV. "Look Mom, this is the last polar bear standing on the last iceberg!" Her mother said, "Very nice. Now get in, we're late!"

"But Mom," Kaitlin said with her arms folded and standing away from the SUV, "I know this car is one of the reasons for the end of the polar bears and Arctic Ice. And what are we doing about it? Nothing!" Kaitlin began to cry, and screamed "Nothing! I'm going to walk!" She was about to turn on her heel, but seemed to want some company.

This little scene attracted the attention of other children and parents. Kaitlin's mother, who must have thought of herself as a progressive person who did what she could by recycling and having a "Peace" decal on her car, felt embarrassed. She came up to Kaitlin, who was 12 years old and sort of wiry strong, to take her forcefully by the hand and put her in the car.

But Kaitlin resisted and would not unlock her arms. Several children standing around gathered and chimed in, "Yeah! I'm gonna walk too!" and "Forget these global warmer machines!" "Let's walk, Kaitlin!"

The children began to close ranks into a tight circle and began jabbering about where to go first, Kaitlin's house or Susie's or Bobby's. Kaitlin's mother came up to me and said, "You. What have you been telling the children? My child has had nightmares over global warming!" I started to say, "Look, Ms. ..."

"You look. My name is Ashley Greenwood. My husband owns Greenwood Motors, and our vehicles are so good for the environment we've gotten the City's Green Living Award. So lay off Kaitlin. I'll have your job!" (I've changed these names.)

I brushed past Ashley and told the animated children, who were about a dozen, "Kids, let's have a little pow-wow over here by our depaved garden. Your parents should come over too."

With that, our favorite spot in the whole school quickly became crowded and lively. There was an air of excitement that felt like a growing wave, as I look back, of inevitability. I'd never quite seen kids band together in defiance, nor had I known any to take their concerns for the environment past the limits imposed by their elders.

I immediately realized that if I were to take charge, I would defuse the almost magical coalescing of these kids. I felt so sad for them, as their world is destroyed by the older generation, finally having to rebel physically against pollution in their lives. And, I would probably get fired if I appeared to be some manipulative activist. So I just winked at Kaitlin and smiled, waiting patiently off to the side. I bowed out, and watched the kids begin to talk and plan their own afternoon.

Kaitlin's mother, beside herself, xpoke in Kaitlin's diection, "Kaitlin! You know I care about the polar bears! I gave you that DVD! Now we're going to be late for…" But the kids drowned her out with chanting, "Polar bears Yay! SUVs No! Polar bears Yay! SUVs No!" They formed a circle with hands held, just as we had done numerous times when we shared stories about "Mother Earth and her amazing creatures," and ignored their parents. Some of the school's officials were starting to circle the garden.

The Principal came over to me and said, "What's going on here?" I replied with wide eyes, sweetly and innocently, "Mr. Barker! (not his real name) This is interesting, I think little Kaitlin here blew her top over her mother's hypocrisy."

With a scowl he rarely let anyone see, he said to me under his breath, "Hey Miss… you're Julia, right? It isn't our place to judge or interfere." More authoritatively, and loudly, he said, "School is over. Dismiss this circle and leave. Report to my office in the morning."

"Mr. Barker, I am leaving. But I'm not the one organizing anything here. I'm just watching. This is my last day here anyway, so please don't get upset. These children need some calming encouragement. The asthma cases have been depressing for them and they know it's about the pollution of the environment."

The Principal looked at me and seemed to buy it. He started asking other adults around the garden what had happened, and he looked like he was about to break up the children's circle. He's the kind that believes tension is to be avoided at all costs, even if there's education to be gained. He put on his frozen smile that I'd seen before, and took a deep breath. Just then the children, who had been talking excitedly but not loud enough for anyone else to hear, began to wildly dig up the veggie garden.

"Children, children!" Barker yelped. "You're out of school for the day now! You'll be back tomorrow." He called out with a musical but condescending voice, "It's time to go home." Some of the mothers began pulling at the arms of the children, but there was resistance and yelling. "No! No!" "Let me be!" The children were digging up potatoes, and each student was clutching a few.

At a signal from one of the children, they all raced off toward the parking lot. On the way was Ashley Green's SUV that was still idling at the curb. Just then one of my students went up to the tailpipe and pounded a big potato into it. Rather than wait around, the kids went off to the next car, and the next, and did the same thing. The kids were running through the parking lot, cheering as they went, stuffing potatoes up exhaust pipes.

They had run out of potatoes when they regrouped, and were whispering, just as Barker and some parents approached very huffily. The students relaxed and faced the adults with calm looks on their faces. They spoke to their respective parents, asking "Can I please walk home?"

As you should be aware, by this date in our illustrious society almost nobody walked or biked to and from school anymore (with exceptions some places), compared to the days when these parents and their parents went to school. So this request was received with consternation. "It's not safe," said one father to his daughter. "Maybe tomorrow," said a mother to her son. One irate dad was clamoring for punishment. Several moms turned on him and went "Shush. It's over now." "No harm was done."

Before he could rave on, I announced "I'll be happy to walk some of the kids home. I have time." I was almost mobbed by some of the students who began to yell their appreciation. I have to admit I was loved and popular with many students. Just then a couple of my fellow staff members spoke up: "I can walk some of you home." A couple of parents muttered, "Okay." Some children asked if their parents would walk as well, but the replies were along the lines of, "I have the car here."

Down the street I walked, with four kids ranging from eleven to thirteen years of age. They were giddy with mischievous pleasure over putting the potatoes up the exhaust pipes. Kim said to me melodiously and joyously, "Aren't you glad you don't have a car, Julia?" But I spoke with a sad note, "You know by now they've finished taking out those potatoes. Then what?" Mikey said, "So? We'll get more. Whole Foods has them right outside the entrance and we can run off with lots. Stole Foods! Haw haw!" I began to shake my head in disapproval, but was jabbed in the arm with a sharp object. It was Maria, holding some car keys.

"Where did you get those," I asked. She said, "Back at school. You didn't see these." And in the blink of an eye she dropped them into the storm drain next to us. I was shocked, but was soon trying to hide my smile. The other three children whooped with approval.

I stopped and said, "Listen my friends. I don't have a problem with what you're doing at all! But play it cool. You'll end up in Juvenile Hall and I'll go to jail. I still have a job with the school district even though it's my last day with you today. Please don't tell your parents that I'm your leader or anything like that. In fact, you don't need a leader. Just communicate to your fellow students, in other schools too, and keep your action groups small. And I never said any of this!"

"Okay." "Sure." "Thank you!"

_ _ _ _ _

I reported to my next job, another Middle School in the City, the next day. As an environmental educator helping science teachers and doing miscellaneous assistance, I found myself in the usual mix of concerned students, those on Ritalin or Prozac, and the majority distracted with puberty. After a few days I struck up a conversation with a girl who was rather interested in nature.

"Did you hear about what happened on Friday at the (blank) Middle School? The kids would not get into their parents' cars, because they pollute and warm the globe. The kids ran around putting potatoes in exhaust pipes. One of them took ignition keys and tossed them down a storm drain." She said. "Yes. How did it happen? How much trouble did they get in?"

I replied that I did not know, but then I let fly with, "Does it matter? I think the kids got off because the parents and the Principal were just glad to see the insurrection end. No one was hurt. I was proud of them, but felt not so proud to be an adult compared to these brave children." Oh my, I thought, maybe I've gone too far with this child.

The girl, whom I'll call Francine, said "We've been talking about doing something like that here. But I didn't hear about the ignition keys! That's great."

After several more days on the new job site I got to know some fellow staffers and a few special kids. I was pointing out to Francine some spots on a big globe on a stand. I was lamenting that the cities were so numerous and important on the globe that the really important areas, such as rainforests, wetlands and glaciers, were depicted as if they were just secondary. She thought for a moment and seemed about to break into tears.

"Francine, we've entered a strange new era, but it's not all bad today. We've all been educated to believe we are trying to do the right thing as a society, and that we're a great nation. But none of this seems to make sense anymore. So Al Gore and James Hansen, the famous climate scientist with NASA, recently said that they'd like to see today's students blockading coal-fired power plants. Those are fairly conservative guys, and their comment is like something out of the Sixties. Do you know what happened in the Sixties?"

"Sure, the hippies. They had polluting cars and vinyl record players that warmed the globe. But yeah, they protested the war and other stuff. I'd go block the coal too, but how do I get there? My parents won't take me. All they do is talk, and they never change their ways." Her friends Jordy and Jess ambled up next to her.

Acknowledging them but continuing, I nudged Francine along with, "There are some things we can do right here in our neighborhoods. Soon global heating and weird weather might be felt to be a critical enough situation that kids are too busy to even be in school, as they take care of the climate crisis with all they've got."

Jordy piped up and showed he was a little more cynical and wise than I would have guessed. "I'm not sure why we're in school. Learning's cool, but without a decent climate what are we learning some of these subjects for? This student body is helping with the potato campaign for global cooling, but only a few cars a week are taken care of. Nobody's cutting class."

To keep on the positive, I said, "Did you hear about the people fasting, on hunger strikes, to try to push Congress into acting for climate protection?" The kids said they hadn't. Jess said with an evil smile, "Some of these piggy kids here ought to do it, for sure!"

It was time to go, but I told them not to give up, and that we'd talk tomorrow.

The next day I brought into the science class some pictures of tree-sitters in huge redwoods. I also had some seedlings for redwoods and oaks that I wanted to give away with a purpose. After the class was dismissed, I motioned Francine and Jordy over to me and said, "Look at these pictures. You know that despite the need for more trees, the corporations and government are chopping them down? We can't even have fruit trees on the streets or parks because of City policies. I brought you these seedlings."

"I don't have time," they said in unison. They looked at each other and I could see their attention dissipating and being replaced by despair and sullenness. "Well," Francine said, "If you meet us after school and plant some trees with us, can we get some extra credit maybe?"

I said, "Probably. But did you know that this whole area, hundreds of square miles, was not too long ago ancient redwood forests, and that they helped create fog and rain? And in the drier area, oaks grew so well that the Indians harvested acorns as a staple food. Between acorns and salmon, and other collectible wild foods, there was no need for agriculture or supermarkets around here for thousands of years."

They heard me, but I needed to inspire them to take the path of action. So over the weekend I took a trip to visit the tree-sit protest at University of California in Berkeley. At the huge police fence around the threatened Memorial Oak Grove I found a few young people who didn't seem all wrapped up in college courses. I met some real doers and got their support for "an action for tomorrow's tree-sitters." We hashed out a plan for galvanizing Jordy, Francine and many of their friends.

The next day I told Francine and Jordy both to get to school a little early the next day, and to bring their friends. "You'll see something exciting being done for the Earth. Get ready for student action that will shake things up. I'm just your messenger today. You'll be the ones the news reporters will talk to."

This is what I understand happened about twelve hours later: Just before dawn at the school entrance, a one-way driveway -- paved blacktop accessing the large parking lot -- was set upon by some young people wielding sledge hammers. With bandanas over the lower part of their faces, and wearing goggles or glasses, they pounded the asphalt and used crowbars and picks to undo the pavement. An area about eight feet long and two feet wide was quickly depaved. Some saplings were planted in the exposed soil, and watered. A woman with dreadlocks said to the green beings in the ground, "Survive and thrive. Please do your sacred stuff for the children of the future who will play on your branches and eat your acorns. Ho." Then, as dawn's rosy fingers spread across the eastern sky, the team sat on the ground around their handiwork, locked themselves together, and waited.

The first arrivals were school employees who were confused and didn't know what to do. They talked with the protesters about the need for jobs and not alienating workers or teachers who care so much about the environment. "Also," said one teacher, "we must teach the children to respect the law."

Buckeye, a seasoned protester with a long arrest record for this kind of trespass, said good-naturedly, "The laws protect pollution. The polluters own the legislators. Do you teach your students this?" The conversation continued, although the police were about to be called. The depavers needed to stall a while longer until students started showing up. Where were the early birds that "Julia said" would be there? (I myself would not be showing up early, and would stay out of the controversy so as to not blow my cover.) One of the protesters began taking the tools off to a nearby bike cart that had a cover to conceal the sledges, etc.

Just before the first school bus showed up, Jordy, Francine, Jess and several other kids gathered round the young trees and joined the group of protesters and staffers. A police car was coming down the street. The group of protesters handed some steel tubing and locks to the young students, who became part of the circle and locked themselves to it, and the group became larger and stronger. No one could break through the circle easily to get at the new "grove."

As a police officer was approaching, the earlier protesters were unlocking themselves and were replaced by students who all attend this Middle School. I later learned that Jordy said to Buckeye, "Are you going to help us further? Ever?" Buckeye said with a smile, "Just ask your sub assistant Gaia." That would be me, and that became my nom de guerre -- like "Subcomandante" Marcos of Chiapas.

By this time the protesters had to appear as mere bystanders, and began to wander off or pedal away as the crowd grew. The school buses were emptying curbside and the students were yelling, some in support and some in derision. The defenders of the young trees began chants that were picked up by many others: "Trees not asphalt!" "We need trees! Let us breathe!"

More police were showing up, but the school officials preferred mediating. There was too much going on for the officials to have the presence of mind to sick the officers on any bike-riding outside agitators -- quickly enough, anyway, so the Berkeley hippies were able to disperse as they headed toward subway stations -- with breakfast runs at any grocery store dumpsters that weren't locked.

In the tense negotiations around the little saplings it was agreed that the trees would be allowed to stand for one day at least, until a meeting on the subject of the school's response to global warming would be planned -- if the protesters would just be good and go off to class like responsible students. This was acceptable, but Jordy and Francine demanded to stay to guard the trees. They displayed whistles that they said would be used to call out the students if the trees were threatened. When the Principal threatened suspension, Jordy and Francine just ignored her.

A few media outlets were called (on my break), and some print and TV reporters showed up at the depaving site. By the end of the day much of the city had learned about the action. One reporter intoned for her cameraman and TV-land, "What we have here, Warren, is the children doing what we adults are not quite doing, when we shop for a better planet. This is Allison Brentwood for Live News; back to you, Warren." Fortunately, no one pursued the idea of investigating how the kids might have hefted the missing sledgehammers well enough to loosen pavement for removal, although some of the kids looked pretty big and strong.

I was told Kaitlin and Maria came over from her school to the depaving site, which now had a sign proclaiming the spot to be "Global Cooling Grove." As soon as they met Francine, Jordy and Jess, Kaitlin said "We'll have to do this at our school right away! And we'll email the other schools doing the potato stuffing about what has happened here. You guys are great! If you get suspended there's more time for action. Say, are you friends of Julia who works here?"

"Who?" came the reply.

Kaitlin looked at Maria, who just smiled.

- - - - -

If it weren't for an early and intense Category 5 hurricane in May 2008 that devastated Miami and flooded much of Florida, combined with wrenching news of massive loss of Antarctica's ice shelf, the student rebellion coming out of the Middle Schools would not have taken off so spectacularly. As it was, we'd already managed to spread our modus operandi to other states via word of mouth, with help from tools like FaceBook, MySpace, radical websites, and whatever mainstream-news media noise could be generated. Some called the phenomenon the Earth Children's Revolution. Most people used the kids' own name, the Global Coolers.

Whereas Kaitlin and I had really touched off the movement, my next school was seen as a main originator of the trend. My low profile helped keep me anonymous. Other Global Cooler actions that immediately followed elsewhere, with their publicity, surpassed the original actions, further obscuring the start of it all, so my role was thankfully hidden. There were references to a guiding character named Sub Assistant Gaia, but she was more legend than tangible.

Targeting cars was a touchy business, not only because people needed them to get to work or depend on them for their businesses, but because some drivers identified their self-worth with their cars. To reward car users who car-pooled, such vehicles were usually not targeted by Global Coolers. New cars were especially targeted over older ones and any less fuelish models. Sometimes advisories were left on windshields about the desirable alternatives of walking, biking, and mass transit. These obvious options became more and more popular and unavoidable over the months due to very high gasoline prices, but also because of the way Global Coolers kept after single-occupant car usage like demons.

"American cars and pickup trucks are responsible for nearly half of the greenhouse gases emitted by automobiles globally, even though the nation's vehicles make up just 30% of the nearly 700 million cars in use," a statement rammed home repeated in our underground communiques to egg on the Global Coolers. And, "Why should this country's motorists be doing the equivalent of driving back and forth to Pluto more than 470 times?" The greenhouse-gas contribution of cars worldwide was about one-sixth of fossil-fuels' greenhouse gas emissions, but U.S. cars were the main factor inflating this sector's contribution globally.

The big environmental groups had said that Americans were going to be living down the SUV boom for a long time, and that "it takes a generation." But our communique had a problem with this, so we pounded home that "We don't have a generation to fiddle while Earth burns."

If it hadn't been for cars in the U.S. increasing their CO2 output in 2006, the United States could have done much better than cutting its overall emissions by 1.5%, which it did. On a local basis the car was identified as the worst culprit too, when the city of Seattle announced last year that it was soon to fail making its Kyoto Protocol targets because of the driving factor.

Ross Gelbspan, a major author on global warming, said last year that it is "...too late to avert major climate disruptions. No national energy infrastructure can be transformed within a decade." But Sub Assistant Gaia's widely circulated retort was, "Pulling the plug on the global warming machinery, as intelligently and gently as possible, does not take a decade. Not even ten days."

In April I was still in my second Middle School job, advising in secret Francine and Jordy, who had a wide network by now. They were backed up by their parents, so when suspension came for these and several other kids, it was a chance to visit other schools and stage more actions around town. It seemed that several of my students' parents and other kids' parents were indeed changing their ways finally, now that they saw some outlet for their own concerns, even if the expression was primarily through their children.

About one month after the creation of our Global Cooling Grove, at least two dozen depaving operations had hit various schools, including High Schools. Often Middle School kids got some physical help from unnamed adults, whether older siblings, parents, or school staffers. These adults were also taking discussion on global heating, and the need to take strong action, into their work places, other schools and churches.

It was to be a couple more months before college campuses caught fire, regaining the spirit of the 1960s –- even though it was summer and most students were not on campuses. It was ironic that mid-teen pre-college students were visiting universities to spur the aspiring Yuppies to get with the program.

We had to know the facts on how the energy and ecological picture fit together, to pull in the fence-sitters. We admitted that while energy consumption is the major contributor of greenhouse gases, it's less than two-thirds, about 60% worldwide, of the global-heating source. (Within energy consumption, 40% is electricity and heat generation, another 20% is transportation and the remainder is building heat and industry.) This is why we were not focused only on eliminating the car and its carpet of oil (asphalt and concrete). Our widely circulated position was, "Deforestation is the second largest factor in heating our planet, after energy. So when we cut down on car use, we can take back the car's spaces for trees. And we close roads in forests to prevent clear cuts. We have been steering many young people to join restoration projects in forests to close roads and re-contour the land for the sake of our streams and the salmon."

Our depaving had more logic to it than denying space to cars. But pavement (a.k.a. tarmac or concrete) as a problem in itself was not something many people had thought about. Same for the idea of there being too many roads. But weather people have told us about the "urban heat island effect" for decades. Due to so much blacktop and lack of greenery, cities are hotter than surrounding areas. Rooftops (often with asphalt on them) also raise the temperature, especially when they're dark-colored to soak in the sun's heat. Cities are not cool.

The public everywhere was aware of what was happening in the cities and suburbs, in terms of anti-car sentiment and the depaving for urban gardens and orchards. Various kinds of sites were depaved in darkness and even broad daylight: city parking lots, shopping centers, and even portions of some airports. (Flying had become socially frowned upon -- my plans to go to Japan were met with rude orders to sail there instead of fly.) And, people were depaving their own driveways. Vegetables were being planted as well as trees.

Guerilla tree planting was in vogue in several cities, whether through depaving or just planting the trees in any spot of soil. Anyone trying to cut down trees met much resistance, even in the countryside and in several forests. Earth First! recruitment hit an a time high, enabling the activists to mount many times the usual number of tree-sits and lockdowns as before.

Vehicles were being plugged with potatoes in several states in the nation and in other countries, according to what we could tell. The corporate news media could not be trusted, so people had to obtain the real news -– in many cases, after making the news happen. Motorists had taken to securing their car keys to their wrists or the steering wheels. Such a motorist who thwarted the Global Coolers might find his or her tires deflated –- a practice that was big a few years ago in Europe against SUVs as a sport or fad.

The news media were letting a little coverage come though on sit-ins and road blockades against coal mining and fossil-fuel power generation. But the big breakthrough was when Al Gore and most of his family decided to take a photo-op for Mother Earth and get arrested in civil disobedience. "The tipping point for me and Tipper is our missing seasons back in Tennessee as we knew them. To get them back, and have a healthy society, we're taking a stand in the tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr." NASA scientist James Hansen was there too, increasing the likelihood of major press. As he and the Gores were cuffed and led away, there were tears in the eyes of the cops. Was it from the teargas?

John Edwards' presidential candidacy shot ahead of the pack when he came out for a five-year plan to slash greenhouse gases while saving 100,000 lives a year from car crashes and morbidity due to exhaust. This was through his advocating "The emancipation from the car." His son Wade had been killed in a car wreck, because of that "outmoded American habit: driving a personal car." John Edwards' position got a huge boost from Al Gore, who said, "I support John's approach partly because when my son was a little boy he was almost killed by a car outside a stadium. It is time we connect the senseless carnage of driving with global heating." Thanks to such boosts of moral authority and the tireless activity of the Global Coolers, a values-shift seemed to be happening regarding cars, much as had happened with cigarette smoking. Driving was becoming out of favor, aided by a few other factors, the largest of which was economic.

[part 2 to follow]

http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=144 

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Culture Change - Now we are human commodities

Now we are human commodities    
Written by Chris Maser  

Editor's note: Chris Maser's observations and insights are as sharp as a laser. He truly sees the big picture through the millennia of human experience. Such as: "…people themselves are increasingly seen as economic commodities. How can a commodity find security from another commodity? In this sense, the marketplace satisfies only temporarily our collective neuroses, while hiding the values that give true meaning to human life." This article is Part Two in Maser's series for Culture Change. This one starts out with a run-down of the origin of the corporation and its rise to dominant power today; this section is vital for those uninformed about corporate personhood. – Jan Lundberg

* * *

The corporation, it turns out, is an invention of the British Crown through the creation of the East India Company by Queen Elizabeth I in 1600, which, being the original, transnational corporation, set today's precedence for big businesses. The East India Company, "found India rich and left it poor," says author Nick Robin. The corporate structure of the East India Company was deemed necessary to allow the British to exploit their colonies in such a way that the owner of the enterprise was, for the first time, separated from responsibility for how the enterprise behaved.

This conscious separation of personal responsibility from the act of looting is not surprising because "looting" is, theoretically as least, considered immoral in Christian circles. The corporation is thus a "legal fiction," that lets the investors who own the business avoid personal responsibility whenever the business dealings are unethical or even blatantly illegal, despite the fact that such unscrupulous behavior profits them enormously.

A corporation, after all, has but one purpose—to make money for the owners. Economist Milton Friedman gave voice to this pinhole vision when he answered his own rhetorical question: "So the question is, do corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, have responsibilities in their business activities other than to make as much money for their stockholders as possible? And my answer to that is, no they do not." In fact, the "corporate system," say analysts, "has no room for beneficence toward employees, communities, or the environment," a notion endlessly demonstrated on a daily global scale.

Founders of the United States, such as Thomas Jefferson, recognized the dangers of corporate greed, which accounts for why the founding fathers believed corporate charters should be granted only to those entities willing to serve the greater public interest. Throughout most of the 19th century, therefore, states typically restricted a corporation they chartered to the ownership of one kind of business and strictly limited the amount of capital it could amass. In addition, states required stockholders to be local residents, detailed specific benefits that were due the community, and placed a 20- to 50-year limit on the life of a corporation's charter. Legislatures would withdraw a corporation's charter if it strayed from its stated mission or acted in an irresponsible manner.

Although the power of modern corporations dates back to this era, it has been greatly augmented by two major legal dodges aimed at giving them unencumbered authority to serve only the self-interest of a few people. This was accomplished first by the piecemeal removal of those restrictions imposed to protect the welfare of the public from the self-serving interests of the few.

The second change came in 1886, when the U.S. Supreme Court made the corporation all but invulnerable by decreeing, in a case brought by the Southern Pacific Railroad against Santa Clara County, California, that a corporation has the right of "personhood" under the 14th Amendment (originally intended to protect the rights of freed slaves) and, as such, enjoys the same constitutional protections that you or I do as individuals. This second change was reaffirmed in 1906, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that, "The Corporation is a creature of the state. It is presumed to be incorporated for the benefit of the public." Within a century, the corporation had been transfigured into a "superhuman creature of the law," that is legally superior to any American citizen because the corporation has civil rights without civil responsibilities.1

When People become Commodities
We, as a society, are losing sight of one another as human beings—witness the Wall-Street money chase in which numerous, large corporations discount human value as they increasingly convert people into faceless commodities that are bought and sold on a whim to improve the corporate standing in the competitive marketplace. After all, market share translates into political power, which translates into higher profit margins, both of which exacerbate the corporate disregard for people, the rampant destruction of Nature, and the squandering of natural resources.

There was a time when people were valued for what they were as individuals. Although American workers have long had an enforced workweek of 40 hours, there currently is an insidious infringement into personal life due to pagers and cell phones, which allow corporations to "own" employees 24 hours a day. Businesses seem to have no moral compunctions about calling employees whenever they choose—"for the good of the company." For those who would choose to live by the corporate proverb, "for the good of the company," the Families and Work Institute said that in 2001 employees are more likely to:

    • lose sleep
    • have physical and emotional health problems
    • make mistakes on the job
    • feel and express anger at employers
    • resent co-workers who they perceive are not pulling their weight
    • look for different jobs

In the workplace, these feelings translate into more injuries and thus more claims for workers' compensation, increased absenteeism, higher health insurance and health-care costs, impaired job performance, and greater employee turnover—all of which are counterproductive and costly not only for employees but also for employers.2

At home, these feelings are often converted into a sense of not enough time to care for once-loved pets. About four million pets were brought each year to 1,000 shelters surveyed during 1994, 1995, and 1996, the vast majority of which were dogs. Of those, about 64 percent were killed. Only 24 percent were adopted; others were primarily lost pets that were ultimately reunited with their families. Most of the owners who gave up pets were under 30 years of age. When asked why they were giving up their pet, many said that the hours they were being required to work disallow time to adequately care for their animal.3

Moreover, if American workers want more time with and for their families, the corporate response is: "If you aren't willing to do the job the way we want, we'll find someone who will." This attitude raises the question of what comes first today in our land of opportunity, where supposedly one is free to seek liberty and the pursuit of happiness—love or money? This question seems all the more relevant in light of the Enron debacle.

The collapse of Enron highlights how some corporations are using people simply as commodities to boost company earnings. While Enron's employees were both forced to purchase and simultaneously prohibited from selling company stock in their Enron-heavy 401(k) retirement accounts, Enron executives cashed out more than $1 billion in stocks when it was near its peak in value. Regular employees, however, had to watch helplessly as their Enron stock plummeted in value and their life savings disappeared.4

Clearly, the punishing free-for-all of globalization and open markets has not invited love into its house and thus is as much about the fear of lost opportunity as it is about maximizing profit. And now, as fear enters into the monetary counting houses, one must realize that any rosy face painted on the economy is done so with far too many temporary and dead-end jobs in the service sector.

The growing use of long-term, temporary workers by American businesses has created a new kind of employment discrimination, but not across the board because some people actively choose such an arrangement. Employers typically hire contingent workers, such as independent contractors and temporary workers, to fill gaps in personnel, especially to meet high seasonal demands in business. Because, technically, they are not "company employees," long-term, temporary employees or "permatemps" can work at a job for years without being entitled to paid vacations, health insurance, pensions, and other benefits (such as rights and protections under federal labor statutes) enjoyed by permanent employees who do the same work.5 Although not all corporations operate this way, the arrangement is, nevertheless, desirable from the employer's point of view because it holds down the cost of labor, which means higher profits.

The result is millions of employed people in the United States who cannot afford the basic necessities of food, housing, clothing, and medical care. This problem is well depicted in the movie "Hidden in America," which shows that below the image of shining prosperity is a hidden layer of poverty with its desperate but proud parents and hungry children.

There is also a kind of sweatshop alive and well in the United States—faster and faster with no time to slow down. A Gallup Poll in the summer or 1999 found that 44 percent of working Americans referred to themselves as "workaholics." Yet, 77 percent said they enjoyed their time away from work more than they did their time while working. In fact, our American quest for material wealth—the money chase—leads to profound unhappiness, emotional isolation, and higher divorce rates because we are so busy striving for income there is no time for normal, human relationships.6

Our American ration of irony, however, is that the more connected we become electronically, the more detached and isolated we become emotionally because we are losing the human elements of life: the sight of a human face, the sound of a human voice, a smile, a handshake, a touch on the shoulder, a kind word. In essence, we're losing the human dimension of scale in terms of time, space, touch, sound, and size; we are physically and emotionally losing one another and ourselves. Nothing makes this clearer than such things as home fax machines, laptop computers, cell phones, beepers, Palms, BlackBerrys, and iPods.

People are now "on-line" at home; in transit to work; at work; in transit to home via cars, planes, trains, and on foot. In other words, people are virtually tethered to work. Such workaholism is not only expected by employers, it's often demanded if one wants to keep their job, which has added "24/7" to our lexicon.

This kind of workaholism is especially hard on women because they are increasingly expected to work outside the home, juggle childcare, school activities for their children, and also maintain the home as though they had to nothing else to do. In addition, the 24/7 phenomenon hit the American work scene shortly after woman became a major part of the workforce.

As things pile endlessly upon one another, the whole of life seems to melt down into a gigantic obligation that becomes increasingly difficult to meet because there simply is not enough time to get everything done, let alone done well. A standard greeting today is: "I'm so busy."

This greeting is worn like the "red badge of courage" was in the past, as though our exhaustion is proof of our worth and our ability to withstand stress, which, in turn, is a mark of our maturity. In fact, we seem to measure our importance by how busy we are. The busier we are, the more important we feel to ourselves and, we imagine, to others, which is reminiscent of the underlying theme of the British television program "Keeping up Appearances."

If we do not rest, however, we will lose our way because action without time for reflection is seldom wise. Rest nourishes our minds, bodies, and souls, which are poisoned by the hypnotic trance of perpetual motion as accomplishment and social "success." Therefore, we never truly rest, especially many who are self-employed.

In the quarter century following World War II, giant corporations like Ma Bell, General Motors, General Electric, and Westinghouse were the place to be, representing, as they did, the pinnacle of what capitalism had to offer workers: extraordinary job security and a cornucopia of benefits. In fact, college graduates tripped over one another seeking life-time careers with these bedrock corporations because they could expect a comfortable house, a generously financed retirement package, lifelong health insurance, and, more often than not, a 9 to 5 job that allowed an organized man to form a healthy balance between work and family.

That was the era when job security formed the underpinnings of the corporate operating principle. In 1962, Earl S. Willis, manager of employee benefits at General Electric, wrote, "Maximizing employee security is a prime company goal." Later, he wrote, "The employee who can plan his economic future with reasonable certainty is an employer's most productive asset." In recent times, however, General Electric's John F. Welch, Jr., was known as "Neutron Jack" for shedding 100,000 jobs at the company.

Job security has vanished at numerous companies. Today, chief executives dump thousands of workers in the blink of an eye, hoping such moves will please securities analysts and thus investors, so their stocks will inch up 5 percent on the stock exchange. In addition, corporate managers slash away at employee benefits as though employees have suddenly ceased to be humans and have become commodities that can be forced into a more efficient mode of production with less cost to the corporation. They also phase out "defined benefit" retirement plans in favor of the far-less expensive 401(K) "do it yourself plans."

Many employees of the post World War II era, until the latter part of the 1960s, were true believers in their companies. They were also exemplary employees who worked 12 and 14 hours days, six and even seven days a week, whatever it took to ensure their company's success. They did this enthusiastically because their company's success was the foundation of their job security, and hence their success as family providers.

Then things changed. The corporate mind-set closed and corporate attitudes hardened. Now, despite their dedication, despite all the birthdays, bedtimes, and school events they have missed as their children grew up, many have been chopped from their company's payroll in a "merger," "re-engineering," "rightsizing," "downsizing," and "re-deployment." Bitter at the callous way they have been treated, many workers regret having been so dedicated, only to be treated like commodities that are discarded at will.7

"In a personal sense, it hurts, but in a macro sense, it is the action we've got to take to remain competitive," says Joel Naroff of Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania. "Ultimately the adjustments that the economy is making is going to set us up for the next strong period of growth." What Naroff seems to be saying between the lines is: While it hurts to be fired, it's not personal; it's business.

Others contend, however, that companies may well harm themselves by firing the people who purchase their products, potentially damaging the economy in ways that cannot be rectified with quick fixes, such as tax cuts or lowering the interest rate. In other words, layoffs (especially large, continuous ones) can only hurt the economy.

An economist, on the other hand, would counter with the notion that what really matters is how consumers view the situation. Some would even suggest that workers have become relatively used to being fired for the market convenience of their employer, as though that makes it "acceptable," even "okay." One could also rationalize that many of the job cuts will be less painful than they sound, in part because companies in a tight labor market have scores of unfilled jobs that are easy to eliminate. And then there is the argument that many other cuts would be spread over years, and some might not even occur.8

While this all sounds very "rational," workers and consumers act on emotions, not what passes for economic "logic," and announced layoffs can lead them to panic, because uncertainty and fear of the unknown are powerful allies when it comes to irrational thinking and the often-unwise actions it spawns. Thus, even if nothing in a person's own job changes, the fact that their company has fired people to increase the economic bottom line can, and often does, drastically change an employee's attitude about the wisdom of loyalty to the company and thus cripples the company's real wealth—the allegiance and imagination of its employees.

No wonder it 's called "downsizing." The end result is that a worker's dignity levels out near zero! And what does the corporation lose when employees are fired—especially older, long-term employees? The corporation loses its collective memory and its history, both accrued through years of loyal service.

All of this revolves around consumption and consumerism. Consumption to the economist is the "end-all and be-all" of production. It means economic growth. Consumption is the heart and soul of capitalism itself. The rate of consumption by a populace is also the standard economic measure of human welfare.

Consumption as an end it itself arose with the conceptualization of "the economy" as a macro-social entity and "economics" as a macro-social science—rather than as household management, which is the true meaning of the word economy. To this end, Adam Smith wrote: "Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production."

Because consumption and consumerism dominate social discourse and political agendas of all parties, consumerism hogs the limelight at center stage as the prime objective of Western industrialized societies, which, in the collective, are known as "consumer societies." Within these consumer societies, the purpose of consumption is: variety, distraction from daily stresses, pleasure, power, and the status that one hopes will bring with them a measure of happiness and social security. None of this comes to pass, however, because people themselves are increasingly seen as economic commodities. How can a commodity find security from another commodity? In this sense, the marketplace satisfies only temporarily our collective neuroses, while hiding the values that give true meaning to human life.9

Author James B. Twitchell puts it nicely: "Once we are fed and sheltered, our needs are and have always been cultural, not natural. Until there is some other system to codify and satisfy those needs and yearnings, commercialism [consumerism]—and the culture it carries with it—will continue not just to thrive but to triumph."10

In the final analysis, it is doubtful many people really subscribe to the economist's notion that human happiness and contentment derives solely from, or even primarily from, the consumption of goods and services. It's therefore surprising that such a notion has come to hold nearly dictatorial power over public policy and the way industrialized societies are governed.

We are today so ensnared in the process of selling and buying things in the market place, that we cannot imagine human life being otherwise. Even our notion of well-being and of despair are wedded to the flow and ebb of the markets. Why is this so much a part of our lives? It is largely because people have yet to understand the notion of conscious simplicity, which is based on the realization that there are two ways to wealth: want less or work more. Put differently, true wealth lies in the scarcity of one's wants—as opposed to the abundance of one's possessions.

Endnotes

1. The discussion of corporate beginnings is based on: (1) Jim Hightower. 1998. Chomp! Utne Reader. March-April: 57-61, 104, (2) Nick Robins. 2001. Loot. Resurgence 210:12-16, and (3) David C. Korten. 2001. What to Do When Corporations Rule the World. Yes! A Journal of Positive Futures. Summer:48-51.

2. Diane Stafford. 2001. Workers feeling overwhelmed. Knight Ridder Newspapers. In: Corvallis Gazette-Times, Corvallis, OR. May 21.

3. Dru Sefton. 1998. Busy owners are abandoning pets. Knight-Ridder Tribune News Service. In: Corvallis Gazette-Times, Corvallis, OR. June 7.

4. The Associated Press. 2001. Enron retirees: Collapse wiped out life savings. Corvallis Gazette-Times, Corvallis, OR. December 19.

5. Tony Pugh. 1999. Sad Ballad of the Long-Term Temp. Knight Ridder Newspapers. In: Corvallis Gazette-Times, Corvallis, OR. December 7.

6. The Editors. 2000. No time to slow down. U.S. News & World Report. June 26:14.

7. The preceding four paragraphs are based on: Steven Greenhouse. 2001. After the Downsizing, a Downward Spiral. The New York Times. April 8.

8. The preceding three paragraphs are based on: Adam Geller. 2001. Economists fear cuts will affect consumer spending. The Associated Press. In: Corvallis Gazette-Times, Corvallis, OR. February 1.

9. The preceding three paragraphs are based on: Paul Ekins. 1998. From Consumption to Satisfaction. Resurgence 191:16-19.

10. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt. 2001. Sales Pitches That Put the M (for Mega) in Madison Ave. The New York Times. January 3

* * * * *

This essay is condensed from Chris Maser's 2004 book The Perpetual Consequences of Fear and Violence: Rethinking the Future. Maisonneuve Press, Washington, D.C. 373 pp.

Chris has written several books that are showcased on his website, chrismaser.com. Chris lives in Corvallis, Oregon. He is a consultant on environmental land-use development, sustainable communities and forestry.

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Currently reading : The Perpetual Consequences of Fear and Violence: Rethinking the Future By Chris Maser

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Culture Change - Why Al Gore’s Nobel speech rates just a "B"

Why Al Gore's Nobel speech rates just a "B"
Written by Jan Lundberg   
Culture Change Letter 176

With the U.S. government's willful, Earth-h(e)ating position befitting a rogue state -- as 190 countries meet to cut greenhouse gas emissions -- Al Gore is already the moral leader of the U.S. in the eyes of the world. He hits the Bali United Nations meeting full of momentum, fresh from receiving the world's top honor in Oslo. On Monday he gave an historic speech on the state of the global climate and what is to be done about it, when he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize along with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Nevertheless, I'd give Al Gore's speech no better than a "B" grade, to encourage a better rating very soon. He has come a long way, even since "An Inconvenient Truth," by calling for a 90% cut in greenhouse gases -- but, by the time he wants to see it phased in, 2050, it would be too late. At root, his message is compromised by his imperative to push for acceptable notions of environmental economic reforms. If you believe he is your savior of the planet, examine his assumptions and priorities, and be prepared to be your own leader as soon as you finish reading this (and use our tools in the first link).

The strengths of Al Gore's Nobel Prize acceptance speech were worthy of the highest grade for his revealing what our world's environmental crisis is about, and how serious it is. Also, he scored points for not calling for economic growth as the solution, although he still cheer-leads for global economic opportunity. His improvement over the years is heartening, but is it quick enough? Is he still trying to be both a corporate-state player and tree-hugger?

Gore's failure to turn in an A+ performance in his speech rests mainly on his omissions (e.g., reduce the birth rate big-time, deal with peak oil). Another error was his implying that mainly we have available to us a technological approach to reverse drastically our greenhouse gas emissions. Although changing our technological capabilities to make across-the-board replacements of machines and other items of manufacture -- principally petroleum-derived/enabled -- is partially underway, it is too limited and not nearly so effective as slashing consumption and restructuring our way of life. Gore implies that we can have it both ways: ongoing energy use and consumerism, and save the planet along with all manner of ills such as AIDS. He stated,

"This new consciousness requires expanding the possibilities inherent in all humanity. The innovators who will devise a new way to harness the sun's energy for pennies or invent an engine that's carbon negative may live in Lagos or Mumbai or Montevideo. We must ensure that entrepreneurs and inventors everywhere on the globe have the chance to change the world."

Just as disturbing may be Gore's endorsement of carbon credits. Although the system worked "well" for cutting back on acid-rain pollutants, we are no longer in those innocent days where we can afford to accommodate powerful corporate polluters and their corrupting, financial clout. Now that we are facing extinction of ourselves and perhaps most species, it is time to turn off the power -- while a minimum is produced for basic subsistence. If that sounds outrageous and barbaric, what would you prefer: subsistence or extinction?

Would you rather be an obedient tax-payer, and wait for "leaders" to do the right thing for the climate? News item: "Washington rejected stiff 2020 targets for greenhouse gas cuts by rich nations at U.N. talks in Bali on Monday..." (Reuters, Dec. 10). Who is your friend and who is your enemy now, in our changing, precarious world? Should your government be rewarded with taxes and maximum consumption to keep the economy going? Ask Al Gore about this, as he believes the crisis is such that we have a seven-year window to start reversing CO2 emissions, as reiterated by his co-awardee of the Nobel Peace Prize, IPCC's chairman Rajendra Pachauri, with Gore in Oslo on Dec. 9.

Let's give a hearty "Bravo!" for Al Gore's advocating a carbon tax. But wait a minute, what if we didn't buy stuff? Then the products would tend not to be made or transported with all that petroleum.

An inconvenient truth is that people will keep doing what is convenient, such as running the hot water tap freely, or hopping in that car for whatever anthropocentric purpose. Does this hard reality about human nature (or is it our culture?) spell the end of the world as we know it? Maybe, but it definitely means energy-shortage-related collapse just ahead, given that global peak oil extraction has hit. As long as there is petroleum and money available, there will be little change. What Al Gore is not yet grokking is that a culture change is what he should really want. (Give him time; he may call for it soon.) But in his acceptance speech, he sees losing our civilization as the biggest risk:

"We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency -- a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here." [Editor's note: this statement can be read two ways: the civilization is gathering ominous and destructive potential, or the threat to our survival is. It is both, but let's ask Al Gore if he knows.]

The day before, he told the world press, ""CO2 increases anywhere are a threat to the future of civilization everywhere," as he drew a parallel with Martin Luther King Jr.'s statement that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Gore also quoted Gandhi in the Nobel acceptance speech. But Gore needs to personally "walk a talk of simplicity and sufficiency, rather than opulence and excess... What if Gore were to sail to Bali, having planned and traveled for months to get there? Then he would be making a leap and his words would be much more powerful, and he would get an "A-Plus" (peace activist Brian Willson, Arcata, California).

The change from our culture to a sustainable one -- however that can be accomplished, as fairly as possible -- won't happen without bringing down the old one. Will Al Gore ever advocate that? The Al Gore we knew would not allow it, and would use his establishment clout -- just as he used it to make sure the present occupant of the White House was not challenged over taking office, when in the U.S. Senate where Gore presided, he opted to ratify the election-selection. As much as Gore is a hero today on the climate issue, we must never forget that it's relative to the bumbling planet killers who are part of the same political system and dominant culture as Al Gore. The begs the question, what would we really like to see happen, if we didn't settle for compromising the climate and Mother Nature?

So, brothers and sisters, while a friend of the earth can revel in Gore's eloquence and well-crafted speech for his deserved Peace Prize, and one can applaud his life purpose, what happens when Gore has distracted us from making radical change? Is that not the role of politicians ensconced in the status quo? Oops, we got fooled again. What are you going to do now? Try taking the Pledge for Climate Protection (link below) and pass along your results. Get an A+ in the eyes of your Mother Earth.

* * * * *

Pledge for Climate Protection
culturechange.org/global_warming_pledge.html

Al Gore's Nobel acceptance speech
thinkprogress.org

"The inconvenient truth about 'An Inconvenient Truth': Why Al Gore is part dangerous politician", by Jan Lundberg, Culture Change Letter 138
culturechange.org

Al Gore's ten-point climate plan: scroll down in "Al Gore and the Wedges Game" by Kelpie Wilson: truthout.org

Al Gore sees hope in "people power" Sun Dec 9, 2007 6:40pm GMT By John Acher and Wojciech Moskwa
uk.reuters.com

"U.S Rejects Stiff 2020 Greenhouse Goals in Bali - Washington Wants Two More Years of Negotiations" by Emma Graham-Harrison, Reuters, Dec 10, 2007
abcnews.go.com

"Where the '08 Contenders Stand on Global Warming" by Brad Knickerbocker, Christian Science Monitor and Truthout.org:
truthout.org

Join the Global Warming Crisis Council listserve, a comprehensive series of postings on cllimate and energy news and opinion. To receive from and post to gwcc "at" lists.riseup.net, email Wanda B. The Raging Grannie: wsb70 "at" comcast.net

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Currently reading : An Inconvenient Truth: The Planetary Emergency of Global Warming and What We Can Do About It By Al Gore Release date: 2006-05-26

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