Collapse pending? Put some money on it…

There are reasons to belive, as some do, that there are several factors that could lead to a collapse of western society. Jared Diamond, author of “Collapse: How societies choose to fail or succeed“, briefly outlines his theories, including the risks of poor resource management to sustaining our ways of life.

Part of his conclusion (in case you didn’t watch the video) is that while past societies have collapsed before peoples’ very eyes, they failed to do anything about it because the elite (generally, the leaders) saw it in their short term interests not to act. This, of course, is at the peril of the whole society. Personal gain is at the center of action for most…

So I question, what can our leadership and elite do for society, to prop it up, inject some sustainability, and still serve the personal interests of the elite? (i.e. the short-term desires of the voting and consuming population?)

Perhaps changing the markets to account for the externalities of resource depletion and pollution will make a difference. Of course, this would require algorithms that prompt us to pay more for less, and more for better quality, and more for what is bad for us… yet since when did western society ever include paying more for what it desires into the equation? All of our “progress” is predicated on  consuming more.

GDP is expected to go up as a signal of prosperity. Population growth is another factor we like to see healthily match the increased output of products meant for thickening the stock market margins. This cannot continue, and as all thresholds await their trigger, so to does the carrying capacity of the resource base underlying western society.

I partially suspect the smoke from that gun to be a stock market collapse.

I’ll preface my next line of thinking with: I am not an economist. And for any economists reading this, please poke holes in my theory. Please. Because I sincerely hope that I am wrong.

Investment in the stock market is greatly based upon speculation. Speculation from facts. Facts of our past indicated that we were doing well – industry booming, technology progressing, GDP increasing… and no real signs that any harm was coming of it. Today, the facts are not so rosey. Climate change… energy insecurity, water scarcity, disease prevalence, soil degradation…

As the cost of living goes up (i.e. the cost of supplying the basics such as food and water increases), we can expect that consumers will spend less on frivilous items such as expensive cars and technical gagets.

So, if Jared Diamons speculation is correct… that western society is headed for a collapse… move your investments to the agriculure sector, and for the sake of mitigating an even more drastic collapse, invest in organics!

From my sphere to yours, here’s to Earth on a Platter.

HB

Mmmmm. Meat Free Mondays.

Potatos… check. Green beans… check. Salad…. check. Big slab o beef…. check.

Growing up in a typical north american home with european ancestry, my parents aimed to provide us with “balanced” meals. However, if you were to evaluate each portion of the food types on the plate in terms of greenhouse gases… the meat tips the scale.

This is hard – I know – because food for many is about personal identity. It is often cultural, nostagic, and an assertion of our wealth and independance from our berry picking, buffalo chasing past.

Meat free Monday is not saying we should never eat meat… but that perhaps we should eat less, given that vegetables are better for us anyways, and meat production at current levels is unsustainable. Here are some stats:

• Estimates of world GHGs from livestock range from 20-50 per cent (yeah, estimates are shaky due to questionable reporting, but they are significant none the less)
• It takes about 8kg of grain to produce 1kg of beef. FYI: people can eat grain too.
• The demand for grain to feed livestock makes it less accessible to the poor as price goes up. In effect, the rich get fatter…
• Paul McCartney is pretty cool, and he doesn’t eat meat on Mondays.

From my sphere to yours, here’s to Earth on a Platter.

HB

From oil fields to potato fields – rich grab poor land

A recent article published on the Guardian.co.uk titled “Fears for the world’s poor countries as the rich grab land to grow food”  The signal of human population and development thresholds rings loud in clear in this article which notes:

New reports from the UN and analysts in India, Washington and London estimate that at least 30m hectares is being acquired to grow food for countries such as China and the Gulf states who cannot produce enough for their populations. According to the UN, the trend is accelerating and could severely impair the ability of poor countries to feed themselves.

Heatwave – bottled water, air conditioners and climate change

A week of plus 25 degree celcius weather is news on the west coast, which has been slow to see spring arrive this year. The morning news today reports that street vendors can’t keep bottled water in stock, air conditioner sales are up and forest fires are a concern. Slow news day.

I just found it amusing because the news cast carelessly commented on climate change in relation to the weather. Something along the lines of “oh yeah, well, you know…climate change”. I’m not sure if dismissive aknowledgement is helping to promote public awareness and climate action… or if the careless nature of the comment degrades the importance of being aware.

Thoughts?

Next steps to avert Earth 2100

What the experts say:

1. The first and most important thing to do is address our current method of powering our actions: redesign the energy system using new tehnologies such as wind, solar and fusion.
2. It will take tremendous commitment and sacrifice to do what is right for long term gain.
3. World leaders need to agree and take action in a collaborative way.
4. Take on climate change seriously. It will help address:
   • Water shortage
   • Food shortage
   • Pestilence
   • Disease
   • War

On the ABC special Earth 2100, the experts say that if the “first world” countries get it right, they can pass on learnings, technology and aid to the third world next… but it may be prudent to wait much longer. Canwe devise a model now that will advance the sustainability of humanity across the whole globe? And by model, I mean, what economic barriers can we remove that prevent us from taking action on this?

I can’t help but imagine mass human migrations screwing up our plans to show the developing world how to participate in making their own future a success… thresholds or tipping points lurk around the corner (see a description of Panarchy), with us comfortably assuming “not yet”.

Granted, we cannot indulge in hypocracy, nor can we pass on early, untested learnings to those waiting for help. But I imagine we can plant seeds. We can send an innoculation of possiblity, potential, and capacity for people near the bottom of the Jenga pile… those whose lives lay more in the balance of our natural systems, opposed to those who assume “not yet” because technology creates that comfort. The bottom of the Jenga pile sits less disturbed by the falterings of “economic progress” but equally, if not more, at the mercy of our natural systems. I believe this to be a place of  possibility and a pre-emptive strike against an element that could destroy our carefully constructed “world sustainability plans”: the hungry, thirsty, desparate human element. We’ve seen what war has partially done to the American economy, afterall.

“A livable world for our children and future generations is our opportunity, that is our obligation”  Thomas Friedman expresses near the end of Earth 2100. And to re-paraphrase the experts: it will take tremendous commitment and sacrifice to do what is right for long term gain. Not only this, but we must commit and sacrifice for change on several fronts.

Where I live and work, the slogan is “The Best Place on Earth”. My vision is to live in “The Best Place for the Earth”; because as precious as my backyard is to me, it will not remain in tact  unless we expand our thinking to realize that all of Earth is precious.

From my sphere to yours, here’s to Earth on a Platter.

HB

Earth 2100 – A Reaction

Tonight I received a phone call from my parents alerting me to an ABC special: a futurist environmental documentary/drama called Earth 2100.

I’m sure they sat and watched and pondered. I bet they were shocked and amazed at some of the facts that have been a part of my reality for several years now (being an environmental scientist). Some of the more dramatic and fictitious illustrations of the futuristic storyline may have raised eyebrows and questions of probability… just as my visions of the future have done for me: visions struck from an understanding of our current reality, physical environmental systems, and of human social science.

 

The show was an effective combination of current facts and informed predictions by leading scientists (physical/ecological/human) and artistic renditions of the next 100 years. A mix of current footage and beautiful comic like illustrations of the future tell a serious story; one that, unfortuneately, did not reveal anything new to my mind. The timeline and story, from 2009 to 2100 goes something like:

• southwestern North America: dry
• Las Vegas gone
• World wide food shortages (already occuring 2009)
• Borders in chaos
• Mass migrations
• Lawlessness
• Pockets of hope
• Surges in technological progress
• Surges in methane release
• 9 billion people
• mass extinctions
• surges in climatic changes beyond our predictions
• pestilence across food crops
• technological capacity breached – systemic failure
• innundated coastlines
• pandemic
• massive population declines
• exodus from cities
• panic, civil wars
• nature takes over in a new climate regime
• humanity endures dark ages  

“Hell is defined by truth learned too late.” E.O. Wilson.

The show ended with a new way for me to vocalize my values and vision: ”What is precious? This Earth of ours. This garden we must tend. These people we love.” This is a truth that will send masses of ignorant, self-interest driven, over-consuming, corporation fed, first world citizens burn in the hell Wilson describes… and for those of you like me… we will, without bliss, fight to change this by spreading the truth before it’s too late.

 Earth 2100 – ABC website

From my sphere to yours, here’s to Earth on a Platter

HB

Obama’s Climate Plan

In a follow up to my post on the “Earth 2100″ ABC special about climate change and the future 100 years for our planet, a timely address from President Obama:

Obama’s Climate Plan

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Worldchanging: Bright Green: Recession and Innovation

Living simple is a paradigm shift… because our current paradigm involves living complex. And complex is resource intensive, difficult, and wasteful. Living simple contradicts the enlightenment notion that humankind is not successful unless it is making progress… and complexity seems to signal progress better than simplicity. I’d like to challenge this perspective… and I’m not alone.

Worldchanging: Bright Green: Recession and Innovation

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Living Large in a Tiny House

Okay, so I have thought of downsizing. And I’ve even reminisced about living in a one bedroom condo with my husband and 2 year old… we just had way less stuff then. It seems like now, my husband is on a perpetual mission to fill up every single ounce of space we have with something. It would be nice to say “that’s it, we don’t need any of this stuff. Let’s give it away, recycle it, whatever.” But a “need” always creeps in… of a “what if we need this” pops up.

Seriously. The more stuff you have the more work it is to maintain it or manage it’s disposal. And most of the time, the things we buy give us limited joy and/or are toxic to our health and planet.

The woman in this article found that there were more important things in life… and she made some drastic changes that reflect that realization. See: Living Large in a Tiny House

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From my sphere to yours, here’s to Earth on a Platter

HB

Our Global society… like a game of Jenga.

Ever played Jenga? It’s a game with blocks you stack, and then once you are out, you take blocks from somewhere in the stack to keep stacking higher and higher. Like the “flights in one day” illustration, It’s another visual representation I think about in relation to how sophisticated and orderly and built our globalized society is becoming. It speaks to the principle of sustainability

To win, we need to get higher, and higher. That’s the only goal. Do so at all costs. Whoever screws up looses. This analogy is so dead on, for two reasons:  one, our society is predicated on growing. I.e. Gross Domestic Product. We’re not doing well unless it is getting bigger. Secondly, we are so focused on competing with each other that we fail to realize that loosing the game means we all have to start from scratch again… and there is a mess to clean up (well, unless you play with a reward at the end, like looser cleans up… but that doesn’ fit the analogy, so forget I mentioned it).

Do you see the blocks at the top of the stack? They have a pretty long way to fall – there is a lot holding them in their state of ingnorant bliss. One piece of the stack puts the wack out of balance and… well, that is what we are worried will happen to our global capitalistic systems if we remove a peice like the auto or aviation industries which are foundational… pivotal peices of our history that have brought us lattes from another continent etc.

Notice the blocks under the one that caused the crash. These are virtually unaffected. They shake and shudder, but they are not reliant on the rest of the system. There are few places on our planet like that now… but they do exist. See: “Secluded Indonesian Tribe Unaffected By Global Crisis”

This to me, is the only way to avoid the even more serious challenges we face in addition to global financial crisis. How do we pull out of the system? How do we become more self reliant?

There are people and communities in North America that are trying to do this: 100 mile diet, cooperative ventures supported by people that live in the communities in which they operate, electric vehicles, waste recovery, barter system, sharing, recycling, having fun in the back yard or in a community space… there are unique and effective economies developing in pockets. A diversity of them that meet the needs of the people involved in the places where the people are. Economies that are in touch with real, everyday human values like health, leisure, nutrition, community… this is called the social economy. 

In addition to the economic game, we are also playing one with the environment. We build increasingly more technologies, infrastructure fixes (think dikes), pesticides/herbicides and regulations to construct an environmental “order” we can manipulate and control. At what scale can we manage this complexity? How are we to know where the limit is? It is this uncertainty that some researchers believe we are on the verge of truly testing. See the Sustainable Scale Levels Website for more on this (I might post on this specific topic later).

So what do you think? Is our global system engaged in a game of Jenga? And if so, how do we get out of a game that will end in a sudden and destructive way?

From my sphere to yours, here’s to Earth on a Platter.

HB