But we'll never know, because the cabal of morally bankrupt bankers and politicians running this country -- and also the industrialized world -- will keep playing the shell game as long as they are allowed by the impotent media. Or, more likely, until the reality of oil priced in excess of $200 per barrel interferes with their imperial ambitions.
The consequences of the shell game extend well beyond economic disaster and the likely extinction of our species. In the short term, they include hijacking the world's marketplace, complete with child labor, hunger, and pollution (especially abroad), continued decline of intellectual "capital" in our universities, ratcheting up the war machine by attacking yet more countries (perhaps bringing a rapid demise to American Empire), further extending imperial overreach, continued shrinking of our credit-based economy, continued enrichment of the financially wealthy (including $100 billion for eight of Warren Buffett's companies), continued profiteering by the insurance industry, and continued land grabs in poor countries by wealthy countries. All with a U.S. military on the verge of complete collapse and despite widespread acknowledgment that American-style capitalism is not working.
To reiterate the choices facing us: (1) The economically dire truth and potential for chaos, now, or (2) Certain chaos and probable extinction, later. The moral certainty of the former choice is absolute. Perhaps that alone explains why we're choosing door number two.
Will reality intervene in time to save the living planet, including our own species? Is 2012 soon enough? Stay tuned.
In the meantime, think about what you'd do. Let's play King For A Day. Would you trust industrial humans with the truth? Or would you commit us to chaos and probable extinction in the name of politics? In your response, please wear two hats: first your own, then, to make the game realistic, the hat of your favorite billionaire.
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This post is permalinked at Energy Bulletin and Counter Currents.
The Keynesian approach favored by the Obummer administration is working about as well as pissing in an inferno. Those 640,329 new jobs created by the stimulus package came at a cost of $323,739.83 per job. We'll never pay that tab, of course, because most of us aren't working any more. Hell, half the kids in the country are on food stamps. Furthermore, the latest insult is a drop in the bucket compared to the 2009 deficit, which exceeds $450,000 per U.S. citizen.
We've long used our homes as ATMs, but those days are behind us. Housing prices are expected to continue their decline, dropping a staggering 90%. Suddenly that $6,900 house in Detroit isn't looking so sweet, or so unusual. And commercial real estate is on the leading edge of a huge crash, as you've known for a while if you've been reading this blog. Or, for that matter, any other source of economic news beyond the mainstream media.
The housing mess isn't the only offal stinking up the industrial economy, either. The markets look like the big bubble you blew with an entire pack of Hubba Bubba. And here's a surprise: The recent rise in GDP is a mirage, just like Dow 10,000. As if the stock markets have any relation to reality, now or at any point in the past.
And just when you thought things couldn't get any more entertaining, the feds would like to make the big bank bailouts a permanent scar on your grandchild's checkbook. There's nothing new about this turn of events: It's a classic example of socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor (record-setting bonuses at the end of 2009 will add to the ever-growing list of examples). And if you think Obama is your friend, and will assuage your wounds, you're still drinking the "progressive" Kool-Aid of wishful thinking and ignoring his drive for unlimited power, here and abroad. When questioned, he undoubtedly will perform the infamous act of amnesia we've come to expect from our "leaders" in Washington. Alas, Edward Abbey was correct: "Government should be weak, amateurish and ridiculous. At present, it fulfills only a third of the role." At this juncture, the U.S. cannot even maintain hegemony in Afghanistan because the Taliban will not agree to a backroom power-sharing deal.
The current administration is hardly the first to lie, cheat, and steal from the citizens they claim to serve. Over time, the extent of the immorality has become unbearable. Consider this minor, personal example: I asked for a testimonial regarding my skill as a public speaker from a dear friend and former graduate student who currently works the National Parks Service (which is part of the executive branch, for those of you who missed school that day). After speaking with her supervisor in Washington, she declined. I'm reminded of a line from E.M. Forster: "If I were forced to choose between my country and my friend, I hope I would be brave enough to choose my friend." Here's another relevant line from Edward Abbey: "I would never betray a friend to serve a cause. Never reject a friend to help an institution. Great nations may fall in ruin before I would sell a friend to save them." Sadly, damned few among us are as principled as Forster and Abbey.
The "solutions" to our energy predicament are clogging the airwaves. As if algae will save our dreams of happy motoring. As if building nuclear power plants will provide free electricity. As if algae, plutonium, and uranium come problem-free. As if Transition Towns will allow an orderly, peaceful transition to a trouble-free future. As if maintaining industrial culture in smaller form will magically stop destroying the living planet.
Industrial civilization is hardly the first civilization to outstrip resources critical to human life, thereby committing cultural suicide. But it's the first to make a serious run at murdering the entire living planet, and American Empire is coming to a close far sooner than most people thought possible. Soon, the lights go out, which brings down every aspect of western civilization.
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]]>Among the many consequences of passing the world oil peak: the days of cheap inexpensive food are behind us. And, too, every time the inflation-adjusted price of oil tops $80/bbl, we head into a recession. Most commentators think Saudi Arabia will continue to bail us out, but the kingdom clearly has reached peak extraction. Thanks to renewed growth in the world's industrial economy, led by China's 9% annual growth, we're headed for triple-digit oil in the short term, and double that by 2012. If you thought $147 oil put the brakes on economic growth, it's not too tough to imagine a full-scale meltdown of the industrial economy with $200 oil. We can hope $150 oil next year will do the trick, rapidly crashing the stock markets and transforming globalization into relocalization.
When localization is back in style, and globalization is dead, we won't need to worry about politicians ignoring -- and even mandating -- torture in the name of greed. Not to mention a host of other nasties. That'll be a nice change.
Maybe, just maybe, completion of the imperial decline will lead us to real wealth instead of encouraging us to pursue the phantom wealth of money, as described by David Korten:
So what is real wealth? We might say it is anything that has a real intrinsic value: land, labor, knowledge, food, education.
Most valuable of all are those forms of wealth that are beyond price: Love, a healthy, happy child, a job that provides a sense of self-worth and contribution, membership in a strong caring community, a healthy vibrant natural environment, peace--none of which find any place on Wall Street balance sheets or in our calculations of GDP.Pull back the curtain, as the financial crash has done, and the truth is revealed that Wall Street acquires its power by destroying real living wealth to create phantom financial wealth. Wall Street is more than immoral, it is an institutional manifestation of evil.
I don't think we will overcome the ideology of evil (i.e., empire) by nibbling around the edges, as most people believe, or even by restructuring the economy in the ways Korten suggests. For one thing, the people who benefit from the current economy are the ones who would need to take leadership as we make the necessary changes, and I don't think they're interested.
In my mind, at least, and even in my dreams, that leaves one solution: the industrial economy has to run its course. As I've indicated before, that's the route we'll need to save what's left of the living planet, including our own species, as well as restoring our long-lost humanity.
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This entry is permalinked at Energy Bulletin and Counter Currents.
]]>We've seen 106 banks fail, so far, including some of the monsters. Others were perceived by the Obama adminstration as too big to fail, so we tacked on a series of taxes to future generations of Americans. A majority of those taxes will never be paid because the whole country is bankrupt (and not merely financially). Regional banks are suffering, too. We've seen house prices plummet under the weight of massive foreclosures and a bubble pumped up by the likes of Greenspan and Bernanke. We've seen entire airlines disappear, along with a plethora of other companies. The nation's largest car company was socialized when we the people took ownership. (Against our wishes, of course. Isn't faux democracy great?) Unemployment has risen, and continues to rise even as the Obummer administration throws massive fiat currency at every enterprise they deem worthy (expectedly excluding you and me). Suddenly, shopping at Wal-Mart is all the rage because, despite lies from the federal government, prices continue to rise for the average consumer.
]]> The financially wealthy have improved their lot by stealing from the middle class, then calling in the troops to protect the thieves. The property of rich folks has always been more important than the lives of the poor, a fact that will continue to create misery for the "other" 99% of us until the entire industrial economy fails. Personally, I can hardly wait.What's next is anybody's guess, but it's obvious the economic dominoes are clack, clack, clacking away. Losses from commercial real-estate lending pose a huge threat to U.S. banks. Citigroup is among the large banks in dire shape. JP Morgan has traded in the formerly profitable enterprise of commercial banking for the risk-free venture of taxpayer-funded investment bank. The United States is already bankrupt, although few have recognized how badly we've overshot the economy (I suspect even fewer recognize the far more dire case of ecologic overshoot). In short, the soul of capitalism has been sucked into the black hole created by the wizards on Wall Street, never to be revived again. The too-little, too-late response from oil companies and civilized governments: a fight to the death for the last drops of black gold.
We'll give up war as soon as the typical member of the National Rifle Association turns over his automatic assault rifle to the Make-a-Wish Foundation.
Virtually no neoclassical economists saw this coming, and with good reason: The dismal science is not a science. A stone-age shaman with a handful of chicken bones is a better forecaster than your typical economist. Even the Grey Lady has exposed neoclassical economists as latter-day hucksters, finally recognizing there are limits to growth: "all biophysical economists see only very bleak prospects for the future of modern civilization." I disagree only with the tone, which suggests civilization is redeemable.
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This post is permalinked at Energy Bulletin.
]]>We lost our way during the late 1970s when the last decent president in this country called conservation, "the moral equivalent of war." But Jimmy Carter also laid claim to oil in the Middle East, claiming it belonged to the U.S. We wanted to agree with him about both issues, as if they are not mutually exclusive. But, even more than we wanted environmental protection and peace, we wanted economic growth. So we threw away our dream, abandoned our principles, and snatched the brass ring. We threw Carter out of office after he asked us to slow down to 55 mph and put on our sweaters during the winter. We let a mediocre Hollywood actor convince us that it was, in his words, "morning in America." Like anybody who was paying attention during the gloomy days of the 1980s, I thought it was time for "mourning in America," and throughout the world.
The rest, as they say, is history. My generation consumed planetary resources faster than any generation in the history of this planet. Instead of living in close-knit neighborhoods, we ramped up the suburban nightmare initiated immediately after World War II. Instead of living close to the land that sustains us, we trashed the world in a half-hearted quest for the short-term happiness that comes from accumulating material possessions, and then we traveled the world in a misguided spiritual quest, our lame attempt to "find ourselves."
But all that consuming and traveling and trashing the planet is about to come to a rather abrupt stop because we've reached the point of "peak everything."
The extraction of finite materials tends to follow a bell-shaped curved, as M. King Hubbert described in 1956. The top of the curve is called "Hubbert's Peak," or "Peak Resource." Beyond the top of the curve, the human population continues to grow, thereby increasing demand, but the supply of the material declines. In this century, we have passed or will pass the peak of everything required to maintain civilization. For example, we passed the world oil peak in 2005. Peak silver is behind us, as is peak gold, peak copper, and peak uranium. Peak natural gas and peak coal lie on the horizon in full view.
If you haven't reached your 75th birthday, all you've ever known is economic growth. But that's rapidly changing. Passing the world oil peak led to oil priced at $147.27/bbl in July 2008, an event that nearly terminated western civilization. That event also brought Keynesian economics back from the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan used the Keynesian strategy -- and abundant, inexpensive oil -- to kick-start economic growth. This time's different, of course: There's no more cheap oil, and the Keynesian approach is a tiny band-aid on a spurting wound.
The financially wealthy burglar class runs the U.S. economy now, and they don't give a damn about your dreams. They're profiting, and profiteering, as the ship of industry goes the way of the Titanic. And, demonstrating as much optimism as the architects of the plagued ship, they're calling this Greatest Depression "just a downturn."
For those of you who have never known anything except next year's I-pod, and have enjoyed the omnicidal industrial culture kick-started by Reagan's "morning in America," I have bad news for you: The ongoing collapse of the world's industrial economy will be complete within a few years. Soon enough, American Idol on the television, high-fructose corn syrup at the grocery store, and water coming out the taps will be distant memories.
On the other hand, for those of us who actually care about non-human species and non-industrial cultures, I have good news: The ongoing collapse of the world's industrial economy will be complete within a few years. Soon enough, American Idol on television, high-fructose corn syrup at the grocery store, and water coming out the taps will be distant memories. We will stop driving populations to extirpation and species to extinction. We will stop polluting the waters that slake our thirst. We will stop destroying the landbase that feeds us, clothes us, and shelters us. Many industrial humans will die, but the survivors will once again be living the baby boomers' dream, close to their neighbors and close to the land that sustains them.
It appears the good times won't last long. Not only did the boomers destroy the living planet for other cultures and species, but we turned the dynamite on ourselves. Soon enough, the jig is up for Homo sapiens.
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]]>Naturally, you go straight from the clinic to the nearest store. You need liquor, and time to ponder whether the trade-off is worth it.
]]> About two years ago, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced we were committed to warming the planet by about 1 C by the end of this century. Never mind that we were almost there when they reached this profound conclusion. Simply for elucidating the obvious, the IPCC was granted a share of the Nobel Peace Prize (climate crusader Al Gore received the other half).About a year ago, the Hadley Centre for Meteorological Research provided an update, indicating that, in the absence of complete economic collapse, we're committed to a global average temperature increase of 2 C. Considering the associated feedbacks, such an increase likely spells extinction of the "wise" ape.
Last month, the United Nations Environment Programme concluded we're committed to an increase of 3.5 C by 2100, thus leaving little doubt about human extinction by then.
Last week, Chris West of the University of Oxford's UK Climate Impacts Programme indicated we can kiss goodbye 2 C as a target: four is the new two, and it's coming by mid-century. In a typical disconnect from reality, the latest scenarios do not include potential tipping points such as the release of carbon from northern permafrost or the melting of undersea methane hydrates. But even the mainstream media know a 4 C increase spells the end of the line for our species. Giving the response I've come to expect from politicians, the Obama administration calls any attempt to reduce emissions "not grounded in political reality."
Have you noticed a set of patterns? Each assessment is quickly eclipsed by another, fundamentally more dire set of scenarios. Every scenario is far too optimistic because each is based on conservative approaches to scenario development. And every bit of dire news is met by the same political response.
Is there any doubt we will try to kill every species on the planet, including our own, by the middle of this century? At this point, it is absolutely necessary, but probably not sufficient, to bring down the industrial economy. It's no longer merely the lives of your grandchildren we're talking about. Depending on your age, it's the lives of your children or you. If you're 60 or younger, it's you.
In 2002, as I edited a book about global climate change, I concluded we had set events in motion that would cause our own extinction, probably by 2030. I mourned for months, to the bewilderment of the three people who noticed. About five years ago, I was elated to learn about a hail-Mary pass that just might allow our persistence for a few more generations: Peak oil and its economic consequences might bring the industrial economy to an overdue close, just in time.
If we abandon the industrial culture of death, we might persist until your children are old enough to die a "normal" death. But the odds are long and the time short. Barack Obama epitomizes the actions of every politician in the world by ensuring, with every political act, a miserable future and insufferable death for his wife and children.
Now I mourn because the solution is right in front of us, yet we run from it. We fail to recognize our salvation for what it is, believing it to be dystopia instead of utopia. Are we waiting for the last human on the planet to start the crusade?
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]]>All these definitions imply an anthropogenic basis for resources, and c is particularly transparent on this point. Digging a little further, the etymology of "resource" brings us directly to lifelong bedfellows anthropocentrism and Christianity. "Resource" is derived from the Old French "resourdre" (literally, to rise again), which has its roots in the Latin "resurgere" (to rise from the dead; also see "resurrection").
From this etymology, it's a simple step back in time to Aristotle's "final cause" (which followed his material cause, efficient cause, and formal cause). Aristotle posited that, ultimately, events occurred to serve life, particularly the life of humans. This anthropocentric take on causality grew directly from the philosophy of Aristotle's teacher Plato, who focused his philosophy on separating humans from nature while popularizing the feel-good notion that humans have immortal souls. The idea that humans have souls, which was subsequently discredited by the (western) science that grew from humble Grecian roots, became the basis for Christianity, one of three Abrahamic religions that developed in the Mediterranean a few centuries after Plato learned from Socrates and then taught Aristotle.
Considering the history of western thought, it's no surprise we view every element on Earth as feedstock for industrialization. The only question is when we exploit Earth's bounty, not if. The logical progression, then, is to exploitation of humans to further feed the industrial machine.
Within the last few years, personnel departments at major institutions became departments of human resources. Thus, whereas these departments formerly dealt with persons, they now deal with resources. There's a reason you feel like a cog in a grand imperial scheme: Not only are you are viewed as a cog by the machine, and also by those who run the machine, but any non-cog-like behavior on your part leads to rejection of you and your actions. Seems you're either a tool of empire or you're a saboteur (i.e., terrorist).
It's time to invest in wooden shoes.
As if fifteen people are even willing to poke a stick in the eye of the corporations that run and ruin our lives. Why is that? Probably because we think we depend upon them, when in fact they depend upon us. And, to a certain extent -- to the extent we allow -- we do depend upon industrial culture for our lives. But only in the short term, and only as self-absorbed, comfortable individuals unwilling to make changes in our lives (even ones that are necessary to our own survival). Taking the longer, broader view, it is evident industrial culture is killing the living planet, and our own species. The cultural problem we face is not that we're fish out of water. Rather, it's that we're fish in a river. We don't even know there's an ocean, much less a landbase.
Aye, there's the rub. Evolution demands short-term thinking focused on individual survival. Most attempts to overcome our evolutionarily hardwired absorption with self are selected against. The Overman is dead, killed by a high-fat diet and unwillingness to exercise. Reflexively, we follow him into the grave.
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]]>But of course there would be no political reason to hand me a Nobel Prize. The Nobel committee is nothing if not political, and there is no more political act than awarding the Nobel Peace Prize.
]]> On the other hand, it's politically astute to award Barack Obama the prize. And he has promise and little else on his side, according to the official statement from this year's Nobel committee, unless you believe his "extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples" have yet borne fruit. The committee had better be looking at his promise and his efforts, and not the outcome. If they were giving the Nobel for results instead of empty hope, Obama would have been awarded the Prize for War, not Peace. Consider the following accomplishments, which represent a partial list of the best-known examples.Obama has ratcheted up the war in Iraq, despite campaign promises to the contrary. Can we kill more civilians? Yes, we can.
Obama has expanded the war in Afghanistan, despite campaign promises to the contrary. The war has spilled into Pakistan and now includes political conversations with the Taliban, our allies during the Reagan administration and mortal enemies during the last decade or so. Can we enlist our former foes to help us kill more civilians? Yes, we can.
Obama is seriously considering bombing Iran, a strategy he believed wise long before he was president, or coming to the aid of Israel when they attempt to drive Muslim enemies from the Promised Land of Christianity. Can we contribute to further fraying of a delicate situation in the tinderbox known as the Middle East? Yes, we can.
Obama has postponed his promise of closing the torture camp at Guantanamo Bay, despite many promises to the contrary. At the current rate, Gitmo will never be closed. Can we continue imprisoning and torturing people without cause? Yes, we can.
Obama has maintained Bush-era programs of extraordinary rendition and legalized torture. Can we spread our culture of torture throughout the civilized world under the false flag of quashing terrorism? Yes, we can.
The political left has been silent throughout this entire onslaught, thus giving Obama a free pass on every one of these issues. Each of these issues was considered vitally important when a smirking half-wit occupied the Oval Office. Now, as then, any of them should be sufficient to begin impeachment hearings in Congress. Where's the left? Oh, that's right: There is no left left in this country. They abandoned ship in the dead of night, back when it was Morning in America.
Perhaps most importantly, Obama has instilled confidence in the world's industrial economy, thereby preventing the economic collapse toward which the Shrub administration had us headed. By keeping alive the omnicidal culture of death, Obama ensures the birth of more people into the world. When collapse comes, we're therefore assured that human suffering and consequent death will be even greater than it would have been with an earlier collapse. And, along the way, we have to live with the burden of knowing we have killed more non-human species, slayed more non-industrial humans, and contributed even more quickly to our own inevitable extinction. Can we extend the omnicide beyond other cultures and other species, so that it includes our own species? Yes, we can.
War is peace. Life is death. Left is right. And this Orwellian world grows more Orwellian with each passing day.
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This post is permalinked at Counter Currents.
]]>Although insults by Homo sapiens since the Industrial Revolution are well documented and widely acknowledged, abundant archaeological evidence indicates similar actions in the more distant past have led to the rise and fall of 23 major civilizations. Humans clearly have impacted their environments since initially appearing on the evolutionary stage, and human impacts have grown profoundly since the development of agriculture and subsequent technologies (as reviewed by Charles Redman's 1999 text, Human Impact on Ancient Environments and, in more accessible prose, by Jared Diamond's 2005 book, Collapse). Concomitantly, the environment has influenced the development of humans and their societies. The interaction between humans and their environments and the relative roles of culture and resources on human societies have received considerable attention from archaeological scholars. (The word "resources" is problematic because it implies materials are placed on this planet for the use of humans. We see finite substances and the living planet as materials to be exploited for our comfort. For efficiency and familiarity, I reluctantly use the word throughout this essay. I'll save the full rant for another post while pointing out that my perspective is less imperial, and less Christian, than the traditional view.) The expansive literatures on resources, culture, and human-environment interactions indicate the important role of resources in constraining the development of several societies in the North American Southwest (as described particularly well by Timothy A. Kohler and colleagues). Exploitation of ecosystems, even to the point of destroying fertility of soils, has constrained subsequent food production (as described most notably by J.A. Sandor and colleagues). Although I recognize the importance of these topics, I leave the continued study and discussion of culture, resources, and human-environment interactions in the distant past to scholars with more interest and expertise than me, and instead turn my attention to recent and ongoing assaults by humans on the living planet.
If we accept that humans played a pivotal role in loss of species and degradation of ecosystems -- and both patterns seem impossible to deny at this point -- we face a daunting moral question: How do we reverse these trends?
Maintenance of biological diversity is important to our own species because present and future generations of humans depend on a rich diversity of life to maintain survival of individuals and, ultimately, persistence of our species. In addition, as architects of the extinction crisis currently facing plant Earth, we have a responsibility to future Homo sapiens and to non-human species to retain the maximum possible biological diversity. We must embrace our capacity and capability to sustain and enhance the diversity and complexity of our landscapes. The substantial economic cost of maintaining high levels of biological diversity will pale in comparison to the costs of failing to do so, which potentially include the extinction of humans from Earth.
Reintroducing ecological processes with which species evolved, and eliminating processes detrimental to native species, underlie the ability to maintain and perhaps even restore species diversity. Specifically, the management of wildland ecosystems should be based on maintenance and restoration of ecological processes, rather than on structural components such as species composition or maintenance of habitat for high-profile rare species. In fact, a focus on the latter goals -- a fine-filter approach -- may clog the coarse filter necessary for landscape-scale management of many species and ecosystems.
Drivers of Change
The proximate drivers underlying changes in land cover during the first few decades after European contact were mineral extraction, agricultural expansion, timber removal, and introduction of nonnative species (most importantly, livestock). The quest for silver and gold drove the Conquistadors to dismember, rape, and murder native peoples throughout the New World. The effects of mining on natural ecosystems were no less dramatic. Even before fossil fuels were employed to ease the extraction of metals from the ground, waterways were diverted and steam-powered water cannons were used to blast soil from mountains. Every tree within several dozen miles of a mining operation was cut down or pulled from the ground to power steam-powered stamp mills. Trees that escaped the eye of mine operators rarely got away for long. The western expansion of the human population across North America drove great demand for construction lumber, railroad ties, paper products, and heat from the hearth. These changes and their consequences have been well documented in a wide variety of publications (see, for example, People's History of the United States by Howard Zinn, One with Ninevah by Paul Ehrlich and Anne Ehrlich, and The Diversity of Life by Edward O. Wilson).
Farmers and ranchers followed frontiersmen, trappers, and miners into western North America. Whereas frontiersmen left a relatively small ecological footprint and the operations of trappers and miners tended to be limited in spatial scale, agriculture dominated virtually every acre of the North American West. Row-crop agriculture covered areas with fertile soil that could be fed by irrigation systems, including nearly all rivers. The massive, arid expanses unable to sustain row crops supported the dominant form of agriculture: livestock. By the early twentieth century, cattle and sheep had trampled nearly every wildland acre in search of forage. Stockmen (and, rarely, stockwomen) led the charge to exterminate perceived predators and potential competitors for forage: wolves, bears, coyotes, eagles, and prairie dogs were among the species slaughtered in the pursuit of safe environs for livestock and those who grew them. Perhaps more important than direct mortality from shooting and trapping were pronounced changes in site conditions that resulted from the collective action of millions of mouths and hooves.
Livestock have had pronounced negative impacts throughout North America. Livestock still loom large, and other biological invasions have transformed western landscapes. Some, like livestock, are politically "untouchable" despite adverse impacts on native species and ecosystems (e.g., "sport" fishes and various species of turf grasses critical to the golf-course industry). Others are universally undesirable but seemingly intractable because of ecological, rather than political, reasons.
It is not surprising that we are largely unable to manage, much less eradicate, nonnative species. After all, there are more than 50,000 nonnative species in the United States alone, invading terrestrial ecosystems at the rate of 700,000 hectares each year at an annual cost of $120 billion; they threaten 400 species with extinction (these figures come from the excellent scholarship of David Pimentel and colleagues, most notably including their 2005 paper in the journal Ecological Economics titled, "Update on the environmental and economic costs associated with alien-invasive species in the United States"). To make matters even more challenging, every species on Earth is capable of invading other sites (as assured by biotic potential), and every site is subject to invasion by at least one, and potentially many, nonnative species. Because biological invasions depend exclusively on the "match" between characteristics of biological invaders and characteristics of sites, and because there are an infinite number of potential "matches" between species and sites, solutions to the problem of biological invasions are specific to species and sites.
Given the disinterest in environmental issues displayed by citizens and their elected representatives, I doubt we will seriously address the problem of biological invasions before we cause the extinction of own species. As such, this disinterest in environmental issues reflects ignorance or disdain for the living planet that sustains our own species. It represents, in other words, omnicide that will almost certainly prove fatal.
The transition to modernity brought infrastructure, notably cities and the ever-widening, increasingly well maintained roads between them. Thus, within the last few decades, early drivers of change such as mining and agricultural expansion have been supplanted in importance by alteration of fire regimes, urbanization, and global climate change. Herein, I focus on the relatively simple impacts of each of these factors in isolation. As with historical drivers of change, interactions between these factors are complex, under-studied, and undoubtedly critically important.
A large and growing body of knowledge and empirical evidence indicates that fire was historically prevalent in North America, except in the driest deserts and the coldest tundra. It is clear that native species on the continent have evolved adaptations to periodic fires. Historical prevalence of fire ensures that even those species that seem most intolerant of fire have evolved in the presence of recurrent fires, as described in abundant ecological literature. Adaptations to fire are many and diverse, and include escape (e.g., distributions limited to rocky areas where fire rarely occurred), tolerance (e.g., thick bark), and rapid recruitment in post-fire environments (e.g., widely dispersed seeds and ability to establish in open environments).
Recognition that virtually all native species in North America evolved in concert with periodic fires leads to two general conclusions: (1) Native species have developed adaptations to fires that occur at a particular frequency, season, and extent; and (2) maintenance or reintroduction of the fire regimes with which these species evolved should assume high priority for those interested in maintaining high levels of biological diversity. A corollary to the first conclusion is that classification of native species along a gradient of adaptation to fire is simplistic and potentially misleading. Native species are "adapted" to recurrent fires, and classifying some as more tolerant than others suggests that fire is "good" for some species and "bad" for others. A more appropriate view is that recurrent fires, at the appropriate frequency, season, and extent (i.e., components of the historical fire regime), are part and parcel of these ecosystems. A corollary of the second conclusion is that reintroduction of ecological processes should be a relatively efficient and comprehensive strategy for retaining native species in extant ecosystems. Indeed, the historical prevalence of fire in these ecosystems suggests that fire is a necessary component of any comprehensive strategy focused on retention of biological diversity. Because fire was -- and is -- a dominant process in these systems, restoration of fire regimes would seem to be an important first step toward maintenance of high levels of biological diversity.
Urbanization and the associated transportation infrastructure have divided formerly large, contiguous landscapes into fragmented pieces. Fires that formerly covered large areas are constrained by fragmentation, and animals that necessarily range over large areas, such as mountain lions, bison, and grizzly bears, have suffered expectedly. These changes have been particularly pronounced since Oil War II, largely as a result of government subsidies that have promoted growth of the human population and suburban development. These trends will be reversed within the next few years because the Oil Age is drawing to a close. Unfortunately, our near-term inability to burn fossil fuels on a large scale probably will come too late to save many of the planet's species from the effects of runaway greenhouse.
Ultimately, the story of western civilization is the story of fossil fuels. Profound changes in land use and land cover have been enabled by access to inexpensive oil and its derivatives (e.g., coal, uranium, ethanol, photovoltaic solar panels, wind turbines). Dramatic fluctuations in the price of oil within the next few years, coupled with steadily declining global supplies of this finite substance, likely will cause a complete collapse of the world's industrial economy, which might usher in a new era with respect to species assemblages and land cover. Given the dependence of humans on fossil fuels for power, water, and food (including production and delivery), it seems inevitable that many people will die and the industrialized world's vaunted infrastructure will collapse, thereby giving other species a slim and dwindling chance to make a comeback. Although the pattern of dwindling access to resources and subsequent collapse of civilizations has been thoroughly described in the archaeological record, the ongoing collapse obviously exceeds previous others with respect to geographic scale, as well as the number of species and the number of humans impacted.
Peak Oil and the Collapse of Industrial Civilization
Oil discovery and extraction tend to follow bell-shaped curves, as described by M. King Hubbert more than 50 years ago. The easily reached, light oil is extracted first. Heavier oil, often characterized by high sulfur content, is found at greater depths on land and also offshore. This heavier oil requires more money and more energy to extract and to refine than light oil. Eventually, all fields and regions become unviable economically and energetically. When extracting a barrel of oil requires more energy than contained in the barrel of oil, extraction is pointless.
The top of the bell-shaped curve for oil extraction is called "Peak Oil" or "Hubbert's Peak." We passed Hubbert's Peak for world oil supply in 2005 and began easing down the other side, with an annual decline rate of 0.5% between 2005 and 2008 leading to a record-setting price of $147.27/barrel in July 2008. The International Energy Agency, which had never previously acknowledged the existence of a peak in oil availability, predicted an annual decline rate in crude oil in excess of 9% after 2008. The current economic recession resulting from the high price of oil led to a collapse in demand for oil and numerous other finite commodities, hence leading to reduced prices and the rapid abandonment of energy-production projects. Many geologists and scientists predict a permanent economic depression will result from declining availability of oil and the associated dramatic swings in the price of oil. It seems clear the permanent depression is already here. The absence of a politically viable solution to energy decline explains, at least in part, the absence of a governmental response to the issue even though the United States government recognizes peak oil as a serious problem (along, no doubt, with many other governments of the world).
Without energy, societies collapse. In contemporary, industrialized societies, virtually all energy sources are derived from oil. Even "renewable" energy sources such as hydropower, wind turbines, and solar panels require an enormous amount of oil for construction, maintenance, and repair. Extraction and delivery of coal, natural gas, and uranium similarly are oil-intensive endeavors. Thus, the decline of inexpensive oil spells economic disaster for industrialized countries. Demand destruction caused by high energy prices is affecting the entire industrialized world.
Viewed from a broader perspective than energy, economic collapses result from an imbalance between demand and supply of one or more resources (as explained in considerable depth by Jared Diamond in Collapse). When supply of vital resources is outstripped by demand, governments often print currency, which leads to hyperinflation. In recent history, the price of oil and its refined products have been primary to rates of inflation and have played central roles in the maintenance of civilized societies.
Addressing the issue of peak oil while also controlling emissions of carbon dioxide, and therefore reducing the prospect of "runaway greenhouse" on planet Earth, represents a daunting and potentially overwhelming challenge. Peak oil and the effects of runaway greenhouse are the greatest challenges humanity has ever faced. Tackling either challenge, without the loss of a huge number of human lives, will require tremendous courage, compassion, and creativity.
There is little question that the decades ahead will differ markedly from the recent past. From this point forward, Homo sapiens will lack the supply of inexpensive energy necessary to create and maintain a large, durable civilization. The fate of western civilization is in serious question, given our inability to sustain high levels of energy extraction. The population of humans in industrialized countries probably will fall precipitously if oil extraction turns sharply downward, as predicted by the International Energy Agency. The benefit of a massive human die-off is the potential for other species, and even other cultures, to expand into the vacuum we leave in our wake.
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This post is extracted and modified from a forthcoming book chapter celebrating 20 years of archaeological research in the North American Southwest. To improve accessibility for this audience, I have removed references to the primary literature (if you'd like a copy of the academic version, please send me an email message). The book will be published by the Colorado University Press. Thanks to Carla Van West for inviting my participation in the Southwestern Symposium held in Tempe, Arizona, January 2008, and for soliciting my chapter for the book. Thoughtful comments on earlier drafts were provided by Dana Backer and Paul Taylor.
This essay is permalinked at Energy Bulletin, Speaking Truth to Power, Island Breath, mostly water, StumbleUpon, and (sans links) the website of the Western Watersheds Project.
]]>When American Empire completes its fall, political parties will be unable to carry out desperate, ugly, and dangerous attacks on American voters. Instead, we'll focus on helping our neighbors and building our communities.
As American Empire is completing its fall, the American government might find itself at war with its own people. As long as we have American Idol and high fructose corn syrup, I doubt the people are willing to rebel. But if they are, perhaps this time the people will win.
When American Empire completes its fall, we will leave behind arcane philosophers and their irrelevant, unworldly philosophy. Instead, we will return to a philosophy as rooted in the Earth as we are.
When American Empire completes its fall, we will not have agents of the federal government planning to invade and divide countries and sacrificing the lives of "we the people" for a few bucks (in this case, neocon leaders Feith, Wolfowitz, and Perle were discussing with the Turkish ambassador how to divide Iraq in the summer of 2001, four months before 9/11). Instead, we'll honor the lives of humans and other animals in the region we occupy.
When American Empire completes its fall, humans will be unable to cause erosion comparable to the world's largest rivers and glaciers. They -- we -- will be unable to cause destruction so severe it threatens our very existence. Instead, we'll revere the ecosystems that provide us with water, food, clothing, protection from the elements, and all the philosophy we'll ever need.
When American Empire completes its fall, the federal government will be unable to control what you eat, much less encourage you to eat materials that are toxic, or that make us fat, stupid, and lazy. We will not rely on two percent of our population, bound to cheap fossil fuels and corporate indenture, to feed the rest of us. Instead, we will harvest what we sow and eat what we harvest, paying careful attention to what we feed our children.
When American Empire completes its fall, the federal government will not trot out lies about medical care (while in truly Orwellian fashion, calling it "health care"). Instead, we will learn to care for the planet that sustains us all, and we will accept death as we celebrate life.
When American Empire completes its fall, governments around the world will not encourage their citizens to produce more consumers (i.e., babies) in the name of economic growth. Instead, we will cherish our (human) communities while relying on them for care, just as we will care for others. Instead of being slaves to the economy and its government, we will be partners with our neighbors and the landbase.
I used to think it took a child to raze a village, but now I know any effective politician can do it. When American Empire completes its fall, the federal government will be unable to bail out companies while ignoring the individuals who work for those companies. The governmental arsonists who started and stoked the fire will be unable to show up in fire trucks claiming they can extinguish the blaze. And then they'll be unable to lie about it. When the empire completes its fall, neighbors will bail out each other, and expect the same in return.
When American Empire completes its fall, the myriad crises we have created will no longer outpace our ability to deal with them. The situation has become so dire, even mainstream scientists have noticed. And although these scientists admit nations and corporations cannot effectively deal with the messes we've generated, the solutions they propose all involve institutional reforms (i.e., government). When the empire completes its fall, communication between neighbors will account for all the reforms we need.
When American Empire completes its fall, globalization falls with it (perhaps it already has). Globalization has tricked us into ignoring matters important to our health, and to the health of other species, in the name of enriching a few wealthy (mostly) white men who serve corporations. We have abandoned work on extinction, child labor, working conditions, taxation, child labor, health, and pollution, while allowing a billion people to starve. We've done all this damage while allowing -- and even encouraging -- the few to loot the coffers of the many, even while the many are starving in numbers unimaginably large. When the empire completes its fall, localization comes back in style. We'll know all the non-human neighbors by name, and we will nurture them as they take care of us.
When American Empire completes its fall, we will not focus on the politically lost cause of global climate change at the expense of the thousands of other insults we are visiting on the planet. We won't need to focus on politically hopeless causes such as saving the planet and our non-human brethren. Instead, we will conduct the difficult and meaningful work associated with stewardship of the lands, waters, and communities that support us.
When American Empire completes its fall, the majority will not capitulate to the noisy minority in the echo chamber who claim that helping others is socialism, and therefore un-American. The notion that "all politics is local" will ring loudly as we all work toward governance that serves the people.
When American Empire completes its fall, we will not be forced to listen to the "patriotic" tune of the mainstream media as they continue to deny the roles of the governments of Israel and the United States in the events of September 11, 2001. And we won't be praying for more oil from Iraq. Or Mexico. Or Canada. Or, for that matter, thinking natural gas will save western civilization. When the empire completes its fall, we'll be concerned about legitimate wealth: food and water supplied by healthy landbases and the company of friends supplied by healthy communities.
When American Empire completes its fall, Congress will not spend your money propping up the world's most powerful military force (although by simultaneously losing two wars, the U.S. military is rapidly exposing its declining influence). We will not continue to torture people without charging them. We will not use the world's most lethal organization and weapons to continue killing citizens of Afghanistan in the name of our freedom. As a side effect, we'll need not hide the pictures and bury the stories when our own children die in the process of killing Afghans. When the empire completes its fall, we will know the faces of those who threaten us and we will face reality regardless how tragic it is.
When American Empire completes its fall, we can thank our investment in military supremacy, at least in part.
When American Empire completes its fall, we'll finally give up on the renewable-energy "savior" and, more importantly, we'll witness the end of the seemingly endless wars for energy. We'll live as part of the Earth, rather than apart from it.
When American Empire completes its fall, a few people will recall the warnings -- dating as far back as Marcus Aurelius, and probably further -- launched by a very few thoughtful voices and ignored by those in power. With respect to energy decline, they'll recall M. King Hubbert and a few of the people listed here.
When American Empire completes its fall, people will once again wrest control of their individual and collective destinies and live in the world, thus causing superstition to fade.
If American Empire completes its fall soon enough, perhaps James Lovelock will be proven wrong: maybe, just maybe, we haven't reached a global-climate-change tipping point. One thing is clear: There are no politically viable solutions to global climate change. But when the empire completes its fall, we will ignore the gods of economic growth who demand we destroy the planet in their name.
Why are we trying to sustain this empire?
]]>Back to the point, then: It's too late for half measures. Perhaps it always was. Half measures will not save the industrial economy, as Barack Obama is discovering with each gargantuan new bailout. The bailouts, perceived as necessary to keep the industrial economy lurching along, barely manage to keep the trucks running and the water flowing out the taps, and only by passing to future generations the bill that will never be paid. Half measures certainly won't save the living planet, despite the pleas, petitions, and calls to arms issued by mainstream conservationists for the last several decades. These conservationists are making a decent living in the industrial economy, fiddling while the planet burns. But they are patently ineffective at saving anything except their way of life. And they're the good guys.
If the middle way is no way at all, what's left? I propose getting rid of the omnicidal monster called western civilization, and sooner rather than later (thanks to Derrick Jensen for coining the perfect word). We've already had enough globalization, enough just-in-time delivery of meaningless baubles, enough sight-seeing and food-tasting and basking in the "good life" at the expense of every life form on the globe. We really do not need every American high-school student making the obligatory trip to Rome and Florence to see another culture [sic].
Instead of extracting an easy life from fossil fuels and human slaves, while taking our life-support system down into the bowels of hell with us, let's try living as our predecessors did on this land. Never mind abandoning our beloved cars: In North and South America, we'll need to give up the wheel.
I'm willing to give up every single piece of industrial civilization to see it all come down. An electromagnetic pulse (an "e-bomb") would be a fine start. Yesterday would be the perfect time, but tomorrow will suffice. Indeed, I'll gladly die if that's one result of civilization's fall. Personally, I suspect both will happen within the next few years. But I look upon this exciting, once-in-a-lifetime event as a chance to substantively experience the world around me, perhaps for the first time. It's also a personal challenge and a superb opportunity for personal growth, all without purchasing a round-trip ticket to Rome.
By way of a thought experiment, what elements of industrial culture would you choose to save? I'm not suggesting you have a choice, mind you. Rather, I think the ongoing collapse of industrial culture will remove most of the choices for all of us, hopefully before 2012 as the price of oil approaches $225 per barrel. And, as infamous war criminal Henry Kissinger fondly pointed out, "the absence of alternatives clears the mind marvelously." But let's beat Henry to the post-industrial party, shall we? Let's imagine what we can get along without, even before it's gone.
I'll get us started by assuming we want to save electricity (i.e., continue killing every part of the living planet so we can comfortably read our Harlequin Romance novels). The following back-of-the-envelope calculation illustrates part of the costs needed to build solar panels to run the U.S. electrical grid:
The total energy requirement to produce a PV panel is about 1,000 kWh per square meter, and there's about 1,700 kWh in each barrel of oil (alternative source here). My math skills aren't what they used to be, so please point out all errors in the following calculations.
In the U.S. alone, we use about 4 trillion kWh for electricity annually. I'll generously assume 30% efficiency of solar panels. The solar constant is 1.4 kW per square meter, so we need slightly more than 2 billion square meters of solar panels to satisfy current U.S. electrical demand (i.e., the 4 trillion kWh): 1.4 kW per square meter * 12 hr/day sunlight, every day * 0.3 {the efficiency conversion} * 365 days/yr = 1,840 kWh/yr, and 4 trillion Kwh divided by 1,840 kWh/yr = 2,174,385,736 square meters.
It takes about 1,000 kWh of energy to manufacture a single square meter of PV panel. So we need a tad more than 2 trillion kWh of energy to manufacture the solar panels needed to keep the grid going.
Because each barrel of oil contains about 1,700 kWh of energy, we need about 1.3 billion barrels of oil to manufacture the solar panels needed to keep us supplied with electrical power in this country. We use a little less than 20 million barrels of oil each day in this country, so we could forgo oil for about two months to stockpile the oil we "need" to keep the grid running (except, of course, that we haven't accounted for shipping, installation, storage of electricity, or maintenance of the panels or the grid). Draining the strategic petroleum reserves (SPR), which currently contain 727 million barrels of crude oil, would provide a little more than half the 1.3 billion barrels needed to make the panels.
Skipping oil for a month or two, much less draining the SPR, would destroy the industrial economy almost overnight because traders on the world's stock markets would hit the panic button. Needless to say, I'm completely in favor of the idea.
If you foolishly prefer the nuclear option for electricity, consider these points: (1) Nuclear is more expensive than fossil fuels, so I have a hard time believing Americans will willingly pursue this route; (2) We have no idea how to deal with the waste, despite decades of talking around (vs. about) this issue; (3) Nuclear power plants do not become carbon neutral for at least two decades because cement production (and use) is so carbon-intensive (and after 20 years or so, we start shutting the plants down because of safety concerns); (4) Energy too cheap to meter, if it ever comes, will reduce the living planet to a lifeless pile of rubble within a generation; (5) I seriously doubt the industrial economy has time to build many, if any, nuclear power plants; (6) The economic impact will be minimal, regardless -- the industrial economy runs on oil, which is required to maintain the electrical grid (and nuclear power plants); and (7) we're past peak for nuclear sources.
I'm sure I'm missing several salient points and I haven't addressed many, many other issues. What elements of industrial culture will we lose when the industrial economy completes its collapse? Which of these elements do you value more than life itself (the lives of others, of course, not Americans)?
Think of the benefits associated with all of us giving up every aspect of western civilization. Goldman Sachs unable to manipulate the market, as they've done since the Great Depression. More importantly, the Milky Way shimmering in the night sky. The absence of suffering (Schopenhauer's version of happiness) as we realize we are no longer witnessing the only mass extinction our species has ever seen (and the only mass extinction caused by a single species). No more bad news about our destruction of the living planet. No more good news about economic collapse. No news at all, except the kind delivered by a smiling neighbor on foot.
But that's my dream. What's yours?
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]]>I've no doubt we'll be squarely in the midst of the post-industrial stone age within a decade or two as we fritter away the planetary endowment of fossil fuels. Similarly, I've no doubt we'll be extinct within a century or two. However, both narratives are well-accepted by the community at large, in part because they are so far beyond the attention span of industrial humans. Rather than beat the pummeled equine yet again, I'll focus this post on what happens as we proceed down the bumpy trajectory of Hubbert's back side.
Just as there are an infinite number of potential futures, there are an infinite number of doors that are closed to us. We are not bringing back long-term growth of the industrial economy, for example. We closed that door when we burned up the cheap and easy oil and didn't develop anything resembling a comprehensive substitute. Just as we've seen the last blast of long-term economic growth, we've also seen the end of the party for the suburban housing market and a handful of no-interest credit cards for every schlub who graduated in the top half of his junior-high class. More importantly, but of considerably less interest to most people, we've seen the last individuals of the many hundreds of species we drive to extinction each week.
Oil priced at $600 per barrel accounts for the entire GDP of the industrial world. The consequences of oil at only one-quarter that price nearly brought down the industrial economy, destroying pension programs, wiping out banks, jacking up unemployment, and causing the federal government to socialize the banking sector and the country's large automobile manufacturer (to an even greater extent, that is, than they were already subsidized). Just as appearances of the first peak-oil recession give way to the "good news" of green shoots on the nightly news, let's project what the next shock wave looks like, and the one after that, bearing in mind that, at this point, collapse could be completed by any number of factors seemingly unrelated to the spot price of oil (e.g., ARM resets, unemployment benefits drying up, food shortages, water shortages, shareholders actually paying attention to what companies are doing, corporations paying attention to state and federal laws, the Securities and Exchange Commission enforcing the law, any of a long list of natural disasters).
As an example of the type of dumbassery that could bring down the industrial economy, check out Well Fargo's latest trick to avoid telling their shareholders the number of mortgages in default, bearing in mind that Wells Fargo is using the same stupid tricks in the commercial sector that killed Washington Mutual last year. Thus, Wells Fargo is lying to their shareholders about home loans even as their commercial portfolio is a ticking time bomb.
As I've indicated previously, I think our next trip to triple-digit pricing in the oil market brings dire news to a badly battered American consumer (cf. citizen), and perhaps even another ride on the oil roller coaster will not be needed to bring it all down. Regardless of the triggering event(s), the ongoing collapse likely will continue to occur at different rates in different locations, with California leading the way and places like Detroit, Philadelphia, and the epicenters of the housing boom trailing close behind. Goodbye Nevada, Arizona, and Florida. Hello states and countries with conservative banking institutions, at least in the short term.
But, enough dithering. Caveats aside, where are we headed within the next few years? I present the barest of sketches here because (1) Every prediction about the mid-term prospects of civility is certain to be wrong, and (2) We get to create our own future, and I'd rather not disrupt the creative process of the dozen or so readers who might want to help their communities prosper during the post-carbon era.
There is little question that saving the industrial economy represents item one for every government in the world. These governments are run, after all, by the most civilized of humans. So we expect them to pursue economic growth by any means possible, including continued destruction of the living planet. If they have to "socialize" (for the rich) every single large entity, they will.
Where does it end? With consummate obedience at home. With ultimate oppression abroad. With a lifeless pile of rubble formerly called Earth. And with the people, if they still warrant such a noble label, quaking in fear that they might be next to draw the attention of the government.
So, what does that mean if you're living in a city? Or a town? Or in the boonies?
In general, cities suck. That is, they suck life from the planet. They represent all that is wrong with imperialism. They extract precious clean air, water, and food from adjacent wildlands (i.e., the landbase) while returning foul air, filthy water, and garbage. Cities are incapable of supporting human life without massive subsidies from nature. These subsidies formerly came from nearby, but the advent of cheap fossil fuels allowed nature's abundance to come from further and further away, to the point that we now use our stunningly powerful military to extract materials from every corner of the globe (I know, I know ... globes don't have corners). The inaccessibility of fossil fuels as we slide, bump, slip, and fall down Hubbert's curve suggests increasingly frequent disruptions in sanitation services, power, water, and food. I strongly suspect disruptions in these services in cities, where they are most badly needed, will lead to increasingly brutal disruptions in civility. At some point in the not-so-distant future, every city becomes uninhabitable for ninety percent or so of the occupants. The scavengers who stay will be surrounded by all the shiny furniture and shoes they could possible want, but also by a shocking absence of culture, food, sanitary water, and aesthetic beauty.
Rural areas, which currently are economically wounded almost beyond belief, lie at the other end of the post-carbon spectrum from cities. Rural areas are home to clean air and, in a few remaining places, clean water and food. These areas are economically disadvantaged (that's what empire does) and they are continually contaminated by city dwellers -- after all, we have to put our garbage somewhere! The ability of rural areas to shrug off the long-term impacts of serving as the nation's garbage dumps is by no means guaranteed. But the people in these areas know each other in ways city-dwellers do not. Once you've seen your neighbor cut the rug at the latest dance party, it's difficult to put a bullet in his brain just because he's stealing food from your garden. The city folk I know don't have gardens, but most of them would plant a few carrots if it gave him an excuse to fire a round at one of the neighbors.
Because cities and rural areas lie at the extremes of population density and therefore imperialism, the real issue is what happens between those extremes. What about towns with a few thousand people? Will Willits, California muddle through? Will it thrive? This town of five thousand people, with an additional five thousand in the zip code, has been transitioning to a post-carbon future before Transition Towns appeared in the rose-colored glasses of civilized folks. But can Willits maintain its industrial water supply when the power goes out? Can the citizens grow enough food for residents when the trucks stop coming? Assuming they can support five or ten thousand people, what about the additional five million or so likely to show up from the heavily populated surrounding area?
Willits might be fine. They've had leadership in the community for years, and many people in the area are aware and ready to contribute. I'm not terribly optimistic about many other places though, including the many towns and small cities filled with ignorant or ambivalent politicians. And I'm quite concerned about the post-Boomer generations who've never known physical labor but who will nonetheless be asked to put their shoulders to the collective wheel in the name of creating a livable community for themselves and their children. I don't doubt they are capable of hard work, physically and intellectually. But will a sense of community suddenly overcome the sense of entitlement currently afflicting these generations?
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This post was inspired by a comment from Stan Moore, and informed by his many cogent comments and the links he uses to support his views.
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On April 6, 2008, the Arizona Republic ran a column with this line: "If you're alive in a decade, it will be because you've figured out how to forage locally." The writer thought -- and still thinks, for that matter -- that we were headed to the post-industrial stone age by 2018. At the time, the price of oil was about $100/bbl, but within two months it had spiked to $147.27/bbl. That event triggered the current recession and nearly brought the world's industrial economy grinding to a halt when Lehman Brothers collapsed a year ago this week.
That writer was me, of course. And although you might think I'm insane -- and trust me, you wouldn't be the first -- I will argue that the transition from egalitarian hunter-gatherer to commercial agriculture explains the complete misadventures of our species, beginning with the Fall as described in the biblical book of Genesis and going right through the current recession. Furthermore, although it seems unlikely we will voluntarily return to an existence based on knowledge of the landbase where we live, I strongly suspect reality will impose this existence on us.
But let's start at the beginning, or at least the beginning of our species:
Evolution of the genus Homo occurred about 2 million years ago (i.e., there have been about 100,000 generations of "humans"). For about 2 million years, essentially all food was acquired via hunting and gathering, which required individuals to work a few hours each week. Every member of every group had knowledge of, and respect for, the landbase. Life was "sustainable" (i.e., durable) for the relatively small populations of people in each tribe Local sources of food met all nutritional requirements throughout the seasons, as indicated by persistence of groups for 100,000 generations
Fast-forward 1.7 million years: Homo sapiens sapiens arose about 300,000 years ago (i.e., there have been about15,000 generations of our species) (sapiens = wise). During this time, essentially all food was acquired via hunting and gathering, which required individuals to work a few hours each week. Every member of every group had knowledge of, and respect for, the landbase. Life was "sustainable" for the relatively small populations of people in each tribe Local sources of food met all nutritional requirements throughout the seasons, as indicated by persistence of groups for 15,000 generations (stop me if you'd heard this one).
Fast-forward again, this time only about 300,000 years, to the development of agriculture a mere 10,000 years ago (i.e., 0.5% of the time humans have occupied the planet, or 3% of the span of the "wise" humans). This event is documented in the biblical book of Genesis. The Fall was a transition to farming, from hunting and gathering (and to a lesser extent, gardening). This event led to specialization, perhaps most importantly including separation of work by gender. It also led to the storing of grains, and therefore large cities and empires (Cain founded the first real city). As such, agriculture led us away from an egalitarian existence to societies characterized by huge disparities in wealth. Much later, and quite briefly, it led to a middle class.
At this point, we have four disparate models from which to choose (although I strongly suspect the political and financial elite will not actually allow us to choose):
1. Status quo, which is neither desirable nor sustainable. But this is the option we seem to be choosing with every politician we elect and every purchase we make. I suspect this approach is not viable beyond a very few years because of the ongoing collapse of the industrial economy. In the wake of economic collapse, we will access to too few fossil fuels to sustain this model, which has never been sustainable.
2. Agrarian society in which we voluntarily return to a finely textured, life-affirming set of living arrangements characterized by self-sufficient family farms intermixed with small towns that provide opportunities for commerce, services, and culture. This approach will require us to immediately abandon large cities en masse, train 50 million additional farmers to support the 300 million mouths we currently need to feed, and return to a hard-working, close-to-the-Earth model. It also will require us to immediately cease almost all travel, for "business" or pleasure, therefore conserving precious fossil fuels for the business of feeding our children. I can imagine about 50 people in this country would vote for this model.
3. Voluntarily return to an egalitarian hunter-gatherer existence. I don't think 12 people in this country would join me in voting for this model.
4. Let reality send us to the egalitarian hunter-gatherer existence. I'm guessing we'll let reality do the trick because our hubris won't allow a willing transition back to anarcho-primitivism. This is likely to occur far sooner than most people believe, because the ongoing collapse of the world's industrial economy will be complete quite soon.
The collapse of the industrial economy will pose significant challenges because we have lost almost all the knowledge needed to forage locally. In addition, that knowledge is a moving target: Ongoing global climate change already is changing the distribution and abundance of plants and animals, and this trend is accelerating with every tank of gas we burn into the atmosphere.
I'll finish with a paragraph from a recent post on my blog: "Any sentient animal should be able to understand the sheer lunacy of the living arrangements we've built for ourselves. Within the span of a couple generations, we abandoned a durable, finely textured, life-affirming set of living arrangements characterized by self-sufficient family farms intermixed with small towns that provided commerce, services, and culture. Worse yet, we traded that model for a coarse-scaled arrangement wholly dependent on ready access to cheap fossil fuels. Then we ratcheted up the madness to rely on businesses that use, almost exclusively, a warehouse-on-wheels approach to just-in-time delivery of unnecessary devices designed for rapid obsolescence and disposal."
]]>On the anniversary of the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the near-collapse of the industrial economy, the stock markets are likely to take a huge hit this week. Not only are insiders selling like there's no tomorrow, but abundant economic news is likely to disappoint economists. I don't foresee Obama's speech pumping much confidence into the ultimate con game. His message is wearing thin.