IntegralJournal

A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilisation: And How to Save It

Update November 11, 2010

I found the following to be a useful way of thinking about the crisis:

" All energy sources are fully committed to existing needs". Aw, come on, JMG! You know far better than that. "Needs" indeed. Most of our energy is spent on stuff we would be better off without,

So it is meaningless to state any costs out of context. “ X costs too much”, to have any meaning, must be followed by “compared to y”, y being something we are doing now.

I suggest someone less lazy and more competent than I fill in the following essential comparative cost table, as fractions of both GDP & oil usage, so we can get some sense of proportion, and quit this nonsense about "existing needs".

Costs (expenditures in barrels of oil, & fractions of GDP)

Essentials
food
water
education
electricity
etc

Desirables
beer
music
literature
TOD
etc

Frivolities
air travel
fast cars
fancy clothes
astrophysics
TOD
etc

Undesirables
Soft drinks
potato chips
outboard motors
excessively ostentatious female friends
etc

Evils
tobacco
too much beer
political conventions
TV
lawns
Trident submarines.
etc

So, when anyone says for example “wind power costs too much oil” they will be required to state that cost as a ratio of some equivalent evil/undesirable/frivolity. As in “costs 1/3 the oil we presently use on lawns”. By this means we may possibly be led somewhat closer to that high plane of sanity to which we all aspire.

I am also sure there are many here capable of constructing a series of easily recognized meaningful units that will give some zest to this process. I have already suggested one (to no effect, of course); one POP -- a unit of cost equal to that presently expended on soda pop. Etc.

Source: The Oil Drum

Based on my personal experience with downsizing voluntarily, less than 20% of the energy represented by the entire list is necessary for a quality life.

*******************

From a review of A User's Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How To Save It:

"Nafeez Ahmed argues that the unwillingness of experts to look outside their specialisations explains why there is so much disagreement and misunderstanding about particular crises."  I also believe this to be the key problem with understanding our predicament.  Hence the need for a new organization that encourages researchers to delve deep...and wide.

Hopefully I can get a copy from one of the local universities in the near future.

Mindful Capital Club Presentation

Presentation and Background Information

From the back cover:

Those who are mindful are beginning to realize that only an entirely new operating system can prevent the collapse of civilization. However, to date, no one has presented such a system. This presentation outlines a system that has the potential to serve as a viable replacement for the current paradigm.

I Can See Clearly Now...

We are at a stage where the next decade or two is fairly easy to project...

Stock market values will leak down in fits and starts to a fraction of their current "worth" as they have been propped up by manipulation rather than production.  Why slowly?  The system has been designed -- whether intentionally or not -- to make it difficult to do anything other than invest in Wall Street.  It is quite likely that the government will increase the early withdrawal penalty in order to discourage people from taking money out of the market.  The market will drop a bit -- say 2000 points -- in the next year or two and then stabilize after various laws are put in place and then collapse once it is clear there is no value.  The collapse may be 15 years out.  [Later note on 10/13/07: What can we count on?  Firstly, the government will change the rules so that getting out of the market is more difficult.  Big pension plans will stay in the market and by doing so, keep it propped up for a long period of time.  Public and private plans will not be able to meet their obligations and the general public will want to be let off the hook for funding retirement for that segment of the population who have defined benefit retirements.  Many lawsuits.]

We will transition from a wasteful society to a resourceful society.  By necessity, rather than design.

Our education system will shift from developing manipulators to developing producers.  Again, by necessity, rather than by design.

Almost all trees in urban areas -- at least on private property -- will be cut down for fuel.  Obviously, this will occur more intensely in colder climates.

Most people who work in offices will lose their jobs in the next few years.  One consequence will be a collapse of real estate values as current values are a consequence of two wage earners per household.

Many of the wealthy will leave the country for places like South America.  It has been reported that George the 1st has bought a ranch in either Uruguay or Paraguay.  Those who are perceived to be instrumental in this manipulation phase of empire will be about as popular as Nazis after WWII -- and they will flee to the same part of the world as the Nazis did.

I think that it will be possible to find quality in the future, but it will take the creation of new institutions and the transformation of existing institutions.  Universities will have to re-tool from developing wasteful individuals to developing resourceful individuals.

I have characterized my concept in various forms through the years.  It may be easiest to envision a first-class university whose mission is to work on the human predicament.  Funding will come from patrons who provide capital in return for access to the physical infrastructure.

The Eleventh Hour

I watched The 11th Hour last night.  Just one of several environmental movies recently produced.  It is easy to watch the impassioned interviewees -- David Suzuki is an especially talented communicator -- and come away thinking that maybe the tide has turned.  However, once you vacate the theatre, take a look around.  We have some major work to do.

In the movie, James Woolsey speaks glowingly about automakers (during WWII) making the rapid shift from making cars to making tanks, planes, and all the trappings of war.  He believes that the government will play a major role in the shift that is necessary to prevent further deterioration of our environment.  Highly unlikely.  However, there is no doubt that a rapid shift must take place.

We have to ask ourselves why we didn't take action earlier.  What is it about our dominant institutions that did not permit them to take a leadership role?  The answer is quite straight forward.

Religion is mostly about faith and dogma and doctrine.  None of these are conducive to the change that is necessary to reverse our destructive ways.  Religion is also about hypocrisy.  Our local faith-based university has the CEO of one of the largest mortgage lenders on its board.  He has personally benefited -- to the tune of hundreds of millions -- by his company making loans to people who likely can't repay them.  Those who are least able to pay, pay the most.  The original policy manual for this faith-based entity did not even permit the charging of interest.

Corporations are mostly focused on profit and are generally hierarchical.  Both are mighty distractions when it comes to making the rapid changes that are necessary to reversing our course.  The so-called free market has shifted prodigious amounts of wealth from the bottom and middle of society to those at the top.

Universities might seem a likely source of wisdom.  However, they have been re-tooled since the start of the industrial age to train specialists, rather than to educate or enlighten.

And of course government is simply the hand maiden of these institutions -- regardless of which party is in power.

A system that is influenced by any of these institutions is literally and figuratively bankrupt.

At the movie's website, I was struck by the label of "Consume Less, Live More."  For years, I have been dwelling on this paradox of our current predicament.  With few exceptions, why would we want what we currently have?  I long for the days when people did not walk around in a daze talking on their cell phones -- and for the days when our horizons weren't marred with the tens of thousands of cell towers necessary for us to walk around in a daze.

So, how do we use technology wisely and create a world that is sustainable?  We have to dwell on the Live More side of the equation.

Over time, I have asked myself what it would take to Live More.  My answer is no debt, no insurance, no job, no commuting, no possessions other than a few clothes, no cell phones or other distractions, no noise other than the sound of productive building and the sound of nature, no lights to dim a starlit night, no streets, fresh vegetables, and an environment that is high quality.  And the company of those who share my concept of Living More.

We can make it happen.

Bio Will Not*

Many people these days seem to think that biodiesel is the answer to our energy problems.  It is not the answer and the best explanation that I have seen to date is in George Monbiot's Heat (not yet available at Amazon.com):

Road transport in the United Kingdom consumes 37.8 million tonnes of petroleum products a year.  The most productive oil crop which can be grown in this country is rape.  The average yield is between 3 and 3.5 tonnes per hectare.  One tonne of rapeseed produces 415 kilos of biodiesel.  So every hectare of arable land could provide 1.45 tonnes of transport fuel.  This means that running our cars, buses and lorries on biodiesel would require 25.9 million hectares.  You begin to understand the problem when you discover that there are only 5.7 million hectares of arable land in the United Kingdom.  Switching to green fuels requires four and half times that.  The European Union's target of 20 per cent by 2020 would consume almost all our cropland.

If the same thing is to happen throughout the rich world, the impact could be great enough to push hundreds of millions of people into starvation, as the price of food rises beyond their means.  If, as some environmentalists demand, it is to happen worldwide, then much of the arable surface of the planet will be deployed to produce food for cars, not people.  The market responds to money, not need.  People who own cars -- by definition -- have more money than people at risk of starvation: their demand is 'effective', while the groans of the starving are not.  In a contest between cars and people, the cars would win.  Something like this is happening already.  Though 800 million people are permanently malnourished, the global increase in livestock on earth has quintupled since 1950.  The reason is that those who buy meat and dairy products have more purchasing power than those who buy only subsistence crops.

The environmentalists who support the wider use of biofuels picture the crops they like best. They see the nodding heads of sunflowers, or the blue blossoms of the linseed plant.  They see towns and villages becoming self-sufficient in fuel, as they are supplied  by the farmers down the road.  But what they will not see -- in fact what they flatly and repeatedly refuse to understand -- is that a global commodity market selects not the most satisfying vision, but the cheapest commodity.  And at present and for the foreseeable future the cheapest commodity is palm oil .  What this means is that biofuel production is a formula not only for humanitarian disaster but also for environmental disaster. [p. 158&159]

Another Monbiot jewel:

Hydrogen contains 3 megajoules of energy energy per litre at 5000 psi.  Petrol contains 32 megajoules at atmospheric pressure. [footnote on p. 163]

Where he may be missing an opportunity:

But the growth of teleworking can't go on for ever.  It is hard to see how factory workers, shop assistants, nurses, drivers, builders or gardeners could take much of their work home. [p.168]

All of these can be moved "home" and indeed they may have to be more local.  Our quality of life can be improved dramatically in the process.

Monbiot believes that we need to reduce our carbon emissions by 90% by 2030.  He lays out a "roadmap" for doing so.  While his effort is commendable, it is unlikely to succeed.  We will not solve our carbon emission problem/global warming with the same type of thinking that got us the problem.

* Title explanation: Biowillie

Matt
 

Too Much B.S.?

B.S. in Nursing, B.S. in Public Admin, B.S. in Business, M.S. in Nursing, B.S. in Human Services, Master of Info Systems, Master of Counseling, M.A. in Education, B.S. in IT, B.S. in Management, Certificates, MBA, B.S. in Health Admin, B.S. in Criminal Justice.

So reads the advertisement for an on-line university at the head of a piece on our oil dependency.  Joseph Tainter's theory is that complexity was the cause of the collapse of past civilizations.  The complexity of our civilization -- as reflected by the specialized and bureaucratized careers that pay for our gas -- prevent us from nimbly reversing the death spiral so ably outlined in the article.  A Pulitzer Prize winner in my opinion.

What to do?  We need to provide a way for people to learn in a meaningful way.  To happen fast enough, it must be in a conventional fashion with unconventional results.  A Real Estate Investment Trust that directs capital to projects that combine unique, well-designed living spaces with a gourmet kitchen/restaurant.  As ecological as practical.  One-half open to the public.  One-half private.  Designed, built, and operated by independent contractors that teach and learn while on site.  Rather than sitting on our hands and predicting doom and gloom, let's put our hands to work.

A Wisdom Economy

As Herman Daly noted in one of his books, we need to move beyond a knowledge economy.  He suggests a wisdom economy.  Most system experts think that the world is overpopulated by at least 5 billion people.  The benchmark for attaining a wisdom economy would be a world in which we did not feed the fish and a world in which all food products are grown organically.  If you do not agree that this is a worthwhile goal then you may as well stop reading right now.  If this is our goal we are obviously overpopulated and have a lot of work to do. We have to dramatically reduce our consumption in order to have even a slim chance at avoiding the collapse that many already believe is inevitable.

Why have we got ourselves in this mess?  It appears that biologically and psychologically we are pre-disposed to be breeders and consumers -- both habits do not bode well for a quality future.  Much has been written on the topic and many of the books are listed in the left column of this page.  I personally think that boredom -- inactive minds -- is behind both activities.

How do we get ourselves out of this mess?  We have to get beyond the dogma of the right and left and to me this will require active minds, rather than the closed ones of the right and the wide open ones of the left.  Active-mind education -- let's call it a liberal education -- is a key component of reversing our destructive and unethical course.  Education is a key.

We also have to switch from an economy that is remarkably inefficient in delivering a quality life to one that is efficient.  As one example, let's think about the process of getting food to our tables.  The downside of fast food is so obvious that we'll skip the discussion and focus on the supermarket.  Most of us drive to the supermarket.  If we look around the supermarket these days we notice all the vendors who are roaming the aisles stocking their products.  We notice all of the packaging.  And the fact that there are actually people who do nothing all day but scan items over a scanner.  (No wonder that they just want to go home to breed and consume!)  Why not deliver meals through a series of neighborhood dining clubs who grow their own produce to the extent possible?

To be ethical, we have to start to occupy less and less square footage.  In order to house the entire world in a quality way, we will eventually have to exclusively occupy less than 200 to 300 square feet per family.  Keep in mind that this will be the wisdom economy.  An economy that will not even remotely resemble the one we have now.  Indeed, it will grant us the leisure time to develop personally and intellectually.  One finds that the more one develops personally and intellectually, the less material things one needs.

Timing is of the essence.  How do we launch the wisdom economy before much more destruction of our minds, bodies, spirits, and the environment occurs?  It will likely involve the greatest marketing mechanism created to date: Wall Street.  We create a company that grants access to its assets -- 200 to 300 square foot suites with a restaurant/club nearby -- based on the number of shares that are held by respective shareholders.  Everything is at cost and all shares issued will be priced at $1.00 per share.  The company is non-profit, ethical, and operated by fellows (not the kind who work for the think tanks dedicated to defending the status quo) who are interested in learning and serving in exchange for room, board, and incidentals.  This will give investors the opportunity to put their wealth in a system that recognizes that resources are finite.

Questions? Comments?    

Ethics and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

In a comment to an earlier post, I linked to an essay that I believe provides some good counsel for our times.  The abstract of that essay follows:

An Abstract of "A General Statement of Hardin's Tragedy of the Commons"

Although "The Tragedy of the Commons" is widely acclaimed, activists in environmental causes as well as professionals in ethics continue to act as if the essay had never been written. They ignore the central thesis that traditional, a priori thinking in ethics is mistaken and must be discarded. Hence the need remains to give the tragedy of the commons a more general statement--one which can convince a wide public of the correctness of its method and principles. In essence Hardin's essay is a thought experiment. Its purpose is not to make a historical statement but rather to demonstrate that tragic consequences can follow from practicing mistaken moral theories. Then it proposes a system-sensitive ethics that can prevent tragedy. The general statement of the tragedy of the commons demonstrates that an a priori ethics constructed on human-centered, moral principles and a definition of equal justice cannot prevent and indeed always supports growth in population and consumption. Such growth, though not inevitable, is a constant threat. If continual growth should ever occur, it eventually causes the breakdown of the ecosystems which support civilization. Henceforth, any viable ethics must satisfy these related requirements:
(1) An acceptable system of ethics is contingent on its ability to preserve the ecosystems which sustain it.
(2) Biological necessity has a veto over the behavior which any set of moral beliefs can allow or require.
(3) Biological success is a necessary (though not a sufficient) condition for any acceptable ethical theory. In summary, no ethics can be grounded in biological impossibility; no ethics can be incoherent in that it requires ethical behavior that ends all further ethical behavior. Clearly any ethics which tries to do so is mistaken; it is wrong.

February 26, 1997
Herschel Elliott
Emeritus Philosophy
University of Florida
Gainesville, FL 32611

Intuitively, many people know this to be true.  Most have not thought about how to live their lives under this new system of ethics.  Over the years, I have given it a great deal of thought and the result is the "club" that has been described at this blog.

Young people in particular have a strong incentive to see society move towards this new system.  The old one screws them big time.  The following excerpt from Beyond Growth is relevant:

In standard economics ["mainstream" economics that does not acknowledge the Second Law of Thermodynamics] the balancing of future against present costs and benefits is done by discounting.  A time discount rate is a numerical way of expressing the value judgment that beyond a certain point the future is not worth anything to presently living people.  The higher the discount rate, the sooner that point is reached.  The value of the future to future people does not count in the standard approach. [p.36]

This is in some ways related to the immorality of usury that I have discussed in earlier posts.  Although I think that most people will find it difficult to move away from the current, materialistic paradigm, interestingly enough, unmanageable levels of debt may force people to another paradigm -- one in which there is not any monetary income for the creditors to come after.  Although debt is an individual responsibility, it is also a societal problem.  Debt is embedded in almost all costs of goods and services.

It is possible to see ones life neither as self-made nor as the product of human society alone but as a gift of the total evolutionary process.  If I view myself primarily in this way, then it is appropriate for my response to be one of gratitude.  The fitting ethical action then is service of that to which I find myself so comprehensively indebted.  To serve the evolutionary process can be understood to mean furthering its inclusive work.  One would then strive in general to contribute to the progress or growth of life in all its diversity of forms, beginning with human life but by no means limiting oneself to it. [From an essay titled Ecology, Ethics, and Theology by John Cobb, Included in Toward A Steady-State Economy]

There are so many reasons to live differently.  Over the past few days I have come to realize that what I am proposing is a liberal arts club -- something that we can get involved with at an early age and have throughout our lives.  Most people never get a liberal arts education and most of those that do inevitably enter the world of materialism.

I'll end with one excerpt from A General Statement of the Tragedy of the Commons:

In fact some people, who reason correctly, reason from different premises.  They may choose to live simply so as to meet the needs of life with the least effort and with the least damaging impact on the environment.  For such persons, simplicity and frugality can afford a better life because they allow more opportunity for leisure, for cultural and social activity, and for intellectual development.

Matt

A Way of Thinking About Life and Living

Please note that I start with "A" in the Title of this post.  I often think about how Christopher Alexander got his book at the head of the list on the left of this page by using "A" rather than "The".  This distinction between "a" and "the" happens to be critical to my philosophy on life and living.

..."Thinking, reading, and art require a cultural space," writes Russell Jacoby in Dogmatic Wisdom, "a zone free from the angst of moneymaking and practicality.  Without a certain repose or leisure, a liberal education shrivels." [p.122 of The Twilight of American Culture]

The university may look like an institution for the advancement of higher culture, in other words, but its content and organization are corporate, and the result is that the coinage of education is severely debased.  ("Another bad effect of commerce," wrote Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations, "is that the minds of men are contracted, and rendered incapable of elevation.  Education is despised, or at least neglected....") [p.123 of The Twilight of American Culture]

The key to life and living is to have the time to learn in a liberal arts -- and sciences -- sort of way.  However, this learning must continue throughout our lives and indeed this learning -- in my opinion -- is the meaning of our lives.  Any time we think we know "the" way, we stop learning and transition from an active mind to a closed mind.  As indicated in the excerpt above, the corporate nature of our learning -- and living -- contracts our minds.  The expectation is for us to be clever rather than wise.

The Jesuits were [are?] fond of saying, "Give us the child for the first seven years; after that, nothing much matters." [p.241 of Dark Ages America]

This is true of our culture in general.  We indoctrinate our young through required pledges in our public schools.  The result is a nationalistic and close-minded perspective that thoroughly inhibits our ability to be humble.  The mind closes down early and stays shut down for the remainder of most people's lives.  Most end up believing in a Supreme Being rather than experiencing the joy of being -- and the joy of not setting any boundaries to our learning.

A Related Note on the movie An Inconvenient Truth:

The suggestions for reducing your carbon footprint at the end of the movie are not enough to make a difference.  Our only hope for getting closer to a sustainable world is to dramatically change the way we live.  Rather than buying a hybrid car, for example, we must do without a car or share one with dozens of other people.  I've found that one of the consequences of the on-going learning that is described above is that the more you learn the less you need.  In other words, there is a practical reason to initiate a philosophy of expanding your learning boundaries.

Learn and Live. Matt

A Must Read Post

See this post for a better understanding of energy and power.  The main blog page has a link to the author's book in the upper right side of the page.  Recommended by Chomsky and Quinn.

Matt