Faster

“A report published in Nature on the last day of May concluded that we have already exceeded seven of eight “safe and just Earth system boundaries” that it studied—from groundwater supplies and fertilizer overuse to temperature. “We are moving in the wrong direction on basically all of these,” Johan Rockström, the paper’s lead author and the director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, told reporters.”

The date was 1972 and the report was published by the Club of Rome with the title, “Limits to Growth”. A year ago there was a 50th year anniversary gathering called “Beyond Growth” with very low attendance - but for one this year, thousands packed the EU meeting rooms. We are starting to accept the reality that that we have already exceeded seven of eight “safe and just Earth system boundaries” and we are moving in the wrong direction without knowing how to stop.

We hear often that the solution is Green Energy - forgetting that the creation of new systems takes energy to produce the required minerals. Hello Mining. Bill McKibbon suggests that maybe we have to slow down, returning to the lifestyle of the 60s “consume less, travel less, build less, eat less wastefully.” He has also been a fan of Green Energy, realizing that its growth creates local problems. Clean energy does not mean clean production, and those who produce it usually live closest to the environmental degradation it causes. Those of us who live well are the ones that are going to have to learn to live more simply - and that means a different ethic than the one of More - Now.

To stabilize the earth’s temperature:

• Reduce passenger car transport by 81%.

• Limit per-person air travel to one trip per year.

• Decrease living space per person by 25%.

• Decrease meat consumption in rich countries by 60%.

Sounds rather like my life in the 60’s - and a happy one it was. Slowing down might be more attractive if it would lessen the world from heating up - which it is.