“A system that makes you pay to exist, compete to eat, and obey to survive is not civilization; it’s a prison with shopping privileges” Soto Archon.
We talk about the future, but seem oblivious about it. WE talk about the need for change but then hedge our beliefs that technology and a ‘good’ leader will find us a way out of the global conundrum. We’re too comfortable with technology the way it is, and have become complacent to acceptance of violence as an inevitable way of life. But here’s what I keep coming back to: the history of technology tells us that constraints produce innovation more reliably than comfort does, and in the developed world we are way too comfortable. It seems that as long as something isn’t unbearable, it is acceptable. Settling for less bad is still bad! And as for violence, I recently posted on Facebook a picture of a soccer fan in a stadium with excited fans, holding a placard that reads, “The World Cup is proof that if it weren’t for our leaders the vast majority of people around the world would get along just fine” Kathy Schaefer Babashan. WE are built for Love and Harmony, not Fear and Separation.
We have become so inured to violence in all its forms that we apply that acceptance of violence as a justification to ruin the natural world along with the human world. And it isn’t a flaw in our science per se, just our worldviews. “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds. Much of the damage inflicted on land is quite invisible to laymen. An ecologist must either harden his shell and make believe that the consequences of science are none of his business, or he must be the doctor who sees the marks of death in a community that believes itself well and does not want to be told otherwise” Aldo Leopold.
I’m really annoyed at the moment – no, I’m pissed off. I have been preaching about sustainability for so long and despite the growing numbers of people seeing a positive future (like you readers of this blog) the world overall continues on its rampage of destruction unabated. Despite all the positive stories of sustainability being done around the world, they are is usually isolated to smaller communities and incredible innovations being applied on a local level. The systemic problems and underlying conditions that perpetuate the global problems persist because we allow them to. Yes, I mean all of us, no matter how well intentioned we think we are. I get frustrated when I see our real lives mimicking the 2021 movie Don’t Look Up. We don’t have a planet-killing comet headed for Earth, but the ecological tipping points are now here. We follow the movie plot when we find the public, media, and government distracted, divided, or indifferent to our ecological and social problems.
“Whether it’s going faster, building higher, or living longer, modern society is built on the assumption that more is always better than less. For over two centuries, that belief has fed a culture of progress that has revolutionised living standards. Deadly diseases have been eradicated, and life has become much longer, safer, and more comfortable. But the culture of progress has a problem. It works too well.
We have long assumed that achieving social progress relies on the continuous expansion of production and consumption. That leads to increasing demands on the environment. So while we are all enjoying the benefits of ‘progress’, it has created an environmental debt that must be repaid. Progress has become so problematic that it’s an existential threat to humanity. To understand why, we need to understand the problem that progress aimed to solve” Paul Abela (Blogger).
As I have said many times, the problem with progress and its unquestioned assumptions and metrics is that continuing higher living standards come with an ever-higher environmental cost. As standards of living rise, incomes increase and people consume more. This way of thinking is more resource and energy-intensive to maintain, which is the core of the problem. It’s politically, socially, and economically impossible to reject the current idea of what constitutes progress unless we change. Unless we make the decision to adopt a different worldview, the failed ideas of ‘unrestrained progress,’ driven by a corrupt hierarchy, willbe maintained, celebrated, and accelerated until the natural world finally calls in all of its ecological debts. Making life better demands that we change our metrics and measure true quality of live and an improved environment. Even with the current economic conundrum supporting this idea of progress, the path to better living standards was always well-intentioned but blind in its assumptions, the least of which is that infinite growth on a finite planet could ever work.
“Before the Industrial Revolution, we didn’t have the technological or scientific understanding to sustain increases in food production. Defective science and technology would lead to famine and death. Fear of change was replaced by a belief that what was unknown was merely the undiscovered” The environmental cost. At the grass roots level, we have the knowledge to save ourselves and create a better world. BUT we have to do it. WE have to make the choices. WE need to act. The writing is on the wall.
I was reading blogger Ricky Lanusse, and he comes up with a fascinating account of how globally, societies have been controlled economically throughout the millennia by two simple chemical components; historically the use of salt, but most recently the creation of nitrogen via the Haber-Bosch process. Salt was historically valuable (e.g., Roman legionaries were often paid in salt). “Salt keeps showing up wherever people don’t really have a choice: eating, keeping food from spoiling, growing crops, fighting wars, running a country, surviving. The logic is always the same: if people have to come back for it, whoever controls the salt supply gets leverage. That is the thread running through the whole story. Salt was never just a mineral. It was the first small thing rulers learned to make unavoidable.” Ricky Lanusse.
When we look at today’s Straits of Hormuz, we see oil being restricted, but oil for transportation is only what most people know. One of oil’s greatest roles is in providing the energy to run intensive chemical reactions such as the industrial Haber-Bosch (HB) process – fixation of atmospheric nitrogen as Ammonia; possibly the single most important technological improvement of the twentieth century that allowed the ‘Green Revolution’ and created the modern corporate controlled global food system. Soil bacteria used to fix atmospheric nitrogen for us – for free. Industrial farming has killed off most soil organisms on farms so that now we need the HB process to produce food also laden with toxins from pesticides. Until we take control of our own organic food production locally, we stay slaves to the global inorganic food production system, which by the way creates most of our long-term global ill-health.
“I didn’t lose faith in our institutions because I thought they were deliberately lying. No. I lost faith because they believe their own story: that “growing the economy” (even in sustainable jargon) is the cure for everything, not the knife [of ecological limits] pressed to our collective throat. The problem is we’ve blurred the line until most people treat the made-up stuff (like eternal GDP growth) as sacred law, and treat the actual laws of physics like optional guidelines. Well, reality doesn’t care about your opinion. It’s still there when you stop believing in it” Martina H (Blogger).
We can’t survive predatory capitalism, but we can thrive with new kinds of economic systems that we build and control from the grass roots. “But no one wants to cut back unless everyone else does. So no one does. Not me. Not you. Not the petrostate next door. We all want Wi-Fi, avocados, antibiotics, and Bali sunsets. Growth keeps the lights on, pensions intact, and political revolts at bay. That’s why no one in charge talks about real collapse [and Real Change]” Martina H.
The alarm bells have been sounding since the 1960s, but our reaction was to cut the wires so the noise stopped annoying us. There isn’t a comet coming to kill most of life on this planet, although that would be a blessed way to go – quick and without the guilt. No, we are going to have to face the consequences of our ignoring the alarms. “Our entire “shared story” (industrial capitalism, consumer culture, ‘techno salvation’) is a fossil-fuel fever dream” Martina H. Solution? – WE collectively change the story. We collectively change our path from one of ignorance to one of salvation.
“There’s no pathway to salvation that doesn’t cut through the bones of predatory capitalism, through our addiction to convenience, through our myth of “endless growth.” You don’t get a livable planet by swapping engines. You get it by stopping the fire. Then you look around. People will still go to work. Pay the bills. Plan careers, weddings, kids and having [fun]” Martina H (Blogger). Just you are now empowered.
What will it take for you to empower yourself to do something that starts the ball rolling to a sustainable future? Who can you work with to do it together? Can you not hope that the old system somehow resets, but instead you reset the system yourself, where you are now? When will you stop putting up with things just because they are acceptably crappy and start to think of more quality, filled more with happiness, no matter what the situation. Where do you truly find joy? Can you hope that everything will only get better if we take the reins?
To Be continued ……………
Empowerment, SOL, QOL.
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