Oil is a social prob, you're right, and it's not personal, but it is individual [as well as social]. Individual and social are not mutually exclusive. There is no society without the individual and I don't see the problem. Surely none of this matter a shit unless I turn off my stand-by light on the tv? If there were no cows in the UK, and no electricity use and no economic activity, it wouldn't make a jot of difference to C or global warming or oil usage if we still all finished work at 5pm. How can the solution not lie with individuals to change their behaviour? [Are you suggesting the state force them to change their behaviour? If so, none of the problems you mention is difficult to solve].
I don't get this "solutions need to be found and shared from the local level". Why? What is local - Todmorton, Lancs, England? I wish you well, of course, in the Edible project, but are you seriously suggesting you are not having a negative impact on other 'locals'? What is your footprint like as a result of getting the 500k and your activities generally? Is East Lancs a more sustainable place in nett terms? Is England? When you sign up everyone in Tod, what will they do when the crops fail? Will the 'local' support you? What will they do when the land is lying fallow every third year. What will happen when it is exhausted of nutrients [I assume you are not importing fertiliser from Yorkshire, and that nobody has to increase their unsustainable activities so that you can have fewer]? What protocols have you to stop 'everyone' engaging in the most profitable / exciting / attractive / convenient activities? This is all economics; it's 100% economic theory, nothing else. It is your theory that a pre-industrial revolution / neo-luddite model will survive the oil running out?!
Brazil went 'sustainable' in terms of food production in the late 90s, or sought to. They chopped down the rain forest to grow grain [and rape seed as an alternative fuel] on arable land, and grazing on pasture [so that they wouldn't have to buy beef from Argentina]. It was considered very 'local' at the time - but they totally frigged up not only the planet but their biggest natural resource and have started to desert-ify the interior. It wasn't a sustainable economic model, and despite decades of violent ecological activism which made not a jot of difference, the crap was only stopped when Argentine beef became cheaper than Brazilian beef. The forest has now reseeded itself on the pasture land - or 70% of it anyway, according to my Brazilian PhD student. There was no solution to this ecological meltdown beyond the economic.
Now if you were suggesting flattening Todmorton and moving everyone to Manchester; or raising the cost of travel to/from Tod by 1000%; or allowing only odd / even reg'd cars on the roads in Tod every other day; or banning divorced couples with kids in Tod from owning more than one home; or getting the council to subsidise electric cars to the tune of £3000 each; or replacing all power stations that supply Tod with electricity with nuclear power; or banning economic migration to Tod; or refusing to trade with Chinese goods; or turning off the mains at midnight every day, then you might be on to something [as long as you could model it of course so that people didn't just get pissed off and move the problem somewhere else].
You do know that if everyone in Tod did nothing else but refuse to buy goods from China and India, the town would make 100 times more difference? Why is all this activity not just a bunch of middle-class, aging-hippy, Waitrose Beaujolais types engaged in comfort activity? [I'm not being altogether serious, but you get the point]. Why choose to do something comforting but trivial, when you could do something uncomfortable but solving of the problem [at least if copied elsewhere]. If everywhere replicated Tod's activities, would you solve the problem?
Finally, there is a danger of confusing 'economic' with 'consumerist'; and 'growth' with 'capitalism'. Your dislike of 'economics' is like blaming doctors for the existence of disease. Anyway, all your efforts have growth at their core - growth of sustainability. Why is 'growth' a problem? Of course you can have prosperity without growth because prosperity doesn't have to be measured in consumerist-growth terms - this is why i keep saying to you that new metrics are the key. [p.s. You can get used to zero growth for the next ten years because the world's economy is frigged for the rest of our working lives anyway, but there will be no decline in our relative prosperity after about 4 years. Japan has had zero growth since the mid-80s, but they are more prosperous now than they were in 1990 [because these things are measured that way].
The reason I don't like the Gaia nonsense is that it masks reality behind a system of new-age, quasi-religious beliefs. It gives the chattering classes something to believe in and offers a continuum with their already-failed hippy ideals of peace and love and mother earth. It's all bollocks to make the green-wellington brigade, who explain things like The da Vinci Code to one another, feel better, while Mummy drives little Tarquin to his prep school in her 4x4 on the way to a free-trade coffee morning. The reality is that she is served her coffee by someone earning minimum wage and her little brat is taught by a teacher getting 18k a year and three ulcers, which the local doctor doesn't diagnose because she has just finished a 110 hour shift that week. The doctor can't get tenure because competition is fierce from Korean medical interns who can afford to come to the UK because they make the 4x4 that Mummy drives. Tell the check-out girl in Tesco that economic sustainability doesn't matter and that she is better off now that she can grow her carrots and trade them for biodegradable posters of Razorlight. Tell the teacher and the doctor that economics don't matter.
The Ancient Greeks were here having these 'nature of the earth' discussions two thousand years ago. It was bollocks then and it's still bollocks. The hills are not alive [with the sound of music or anything else] and we are not set on any course that two volcanic eruptions in Indonesia wouldn't change and that some lucky geezer in Cambridge science park cannot solve simply because he went for a beer at 7pm instead of 8pm. The quicker the oil runs out the better.
Where people want to go, politicians will follow [not the other way round].
mmmm. This probably isn't the kind of thing that's on your blog!
Ye gods! What fuels such cynicism? Better to light a candle than curse the darkness surely and what was it that Gandhi said? - 'Be the change you want to see'. Starting local has to make a contribution, only through the creative collaboration of many like minded folk contributing in a coordinated manner will things change. If we wait for government we'll only ever get tweaking and minor shift. Now, unlike any other time in human history, we have the opportunity and the tools to generate a major shift. The government's main role might be in the reform of planning laws in a new agrarian economy.
ReplyDeleteKeep going.
Great site this. and yea, keep it going.
ReplyDeleteBetter to light a candle Chris but best of all to know what to do when the darkness lifts. I think the 'reality check' piece is very thought provoking - maybe that was paul's idea! only fools are not cynical today, facing 1m extra people in the uk being out of work because of what has happened politically and economically.
Actually, i think Chris that you are saying much the same thing as the 'reality' blogger - we can't wait for goverment and we need a major shiftment. i think what blogger was saying was that we need that shift to also happen in economics and the way we measure economic success.
Blogger - love the bit about the 4x4. people do not understand how the cycle works and you put it well. I was in Manchester airport last week. Millions of high voltage lights on 24-7 / 365, and all the streets and buildings and motorways lit up so you can see manchester from space, but i am buying low-ebergy bulbs to save the planet!! reality check is right, mate.
Local isn't gonna do it, on its own, you are right. but need to start local. we're all waiting for the revolution.
[don't understand the cambridge thing!]