My writings - and those of others.
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.
Rights
I spent some of last week indoors to avoid air pollution and was reduced to watching a national joint conference of two large denominations live-streaming their sessions. Since I had been onsite at one event in the past it was interesting to see what was on the agenda.
One of the motions had to do with rights of all Canadians to clean water. No one would deny these in theory; we still have a long way to go in practice. Like many of the motions, this one had to do with social justice. It brings up a question for all of us as the last species to arrive. Is justice exclusively social justice? The eco-theologian Thomas Berry, who preferred to call himself an eco-geologian to avoid too much prying from the Roman Catholic church - especially since he was a remember of a religious order as well as a professor, asked the question. Does water itself have rights? We pretend that corporations are persons in terms of rights. Why not natural elements - soil, water, air? Berry looked at the importance of water for survival of all creatures, human and otherwise, in the Hudson Valley where he lived for many years. He also wondered about our ability to change the course of water by creating dams for our own convenience.
He would be pleased by one Canadian story.
“In February 2021, the world was introduced to Mutehekau Shipu — also known as the Magpie River — when the people of Ekuanitshit, Que. and the regional municipality made a joint declaration granting the river legal personhood and rights.”
Our first nations brothers and sisters have understood this instinctively until we took many away from the parents as children and placed them in residential schools. We act as though we have just awakened to something they have always known. It’s time for us to be their students and sit on the ground with humility.
Now we know
There is such a tendency to think we are free and independent. We are city dwellers or live in towns or in rural villages or farms. We have our own lives and we are unaffected by things going on in other places - until we are.
I’m indoors with air conditioner and air purifier running full blast. It’s better today with high moderate air pollution as opposed to two days ago when air quality in my city was the worst in the world. US neighboring cities are experiencing the same problems - caused by forest fires in several of our Canadian provinces. Air pollution doesn’t respect international boundaries. Fires take their own direction from the wind. We like to think we are in charge of the earth. We aren’t. We thought we had a master-slave relationship with nature. Nature is talking back.
Getting out of this will take more than modest remediation. Many are evacuated from their homes. Some have lost their homes entirely. My current discomfort is minor and I need to stop whining. Governments have work to do. Companies that burn fossils or like to log have work to do. Ordinary people have work to do - to protect themselves, yes, but to go much further. Now it is not only the dispossessed that can’t breathe. Now we know.
How we live
I’m looking at an article in the New York Times. “How countries can get richer without wrecking the planet”. Note the two parts here. We at least know now that we are wrecking the planet just by looking out the window at the smoke from fires many kilometers or miles away. But the article takes it for granted that somehow we can have it all anyway and being richer will make us happier. Neither need be questioned.
The article goes on to state that it’s a conflict between accumulating wealth and. preserving nature. It adds our need to lift people out of poverty - as though accumulating wealth is going to do that – and that the rich will always share with the poor. Researchers at the World Bank think they have found a way. Well good for them. Let’s see how it is to be done.
Farming more intensively and in appropriate places
Preserving more areas of forests that stash planet warming carbon
Supporting biodiversity
“Suppose you used all the resources that you have more efficiently” – says the lead economist. “How much could you produce?” Countries could sequester lots of carbon dioxide without denting economic growth. Or they could increase annual income from forestry and agriculture for food needs without damaging the environment. Preserving land and water helps the economy and nature at the same time.
Producing more food on smaller plots sounds good. Was Monsanto consulted on that one and will they be happy to give up their land? Small farmers, few as they are, will like that. It continues to sound good until others warn there might be unintended consequences. Perhaps they have studied those caused by the industrial revolution. The mention how one country increased agricultural productivity but contaminated the adjacent waterways. In another case, increasing land efficiency meant that there were more land grabs of protected ones. Reducing garbage or eating less beef were not among the efficiencies. We still want it all – and we have a master-slave relationship with nature. That’s not something noticed in the report - or by most of us most of the time.
Tragedy - and More
The news came last night. The submersible vessel in the news suffered a catastrophic implosion that killed all its occupants. We learned this new word that means the opposite of an explosion - which a violent event of pressure spreading outward. This one had a violent pressure spreading inward. It dominated all news media for four days until we knew its outcome and we will now stop thinking about it - but we shouldn’t. It tells us something about who we are. The source of this information is an article in the morning edition of the Washington Post.
What we now know is that the hull of this vessel was composed of a lighter carbon fibre than earlier ones of its type. Those who regulate the field of submersibles were concerned about the safety of this model. The owner did not have it inspected because such an inspection was not required by law. In fact there had been previous lawsuits related to the safety of such material.
In a global world, the company was not accountable to any country’s law. It was American made and launching in our waters and did not have to report to either. Submersibles, unlike ships are treated like cargo carried aboard a bigger vessel. It was in ours waters - but we didn’t regulate its activities or pay attention until there was a problem.
The company’s CEO - who perished in the event and was driving it - thought that innovation means trying new things that disrupt previous ones. Some of us can agree with that as a theory - but might have questions about its implications for its effect on others - both human and non-human. What didn’t happen this time was that it was a vessel diving deep in US waters or carrying its flag. Inspection in that case to ensure safety standards was mandatory. The CEO thought that law was well intended but “it put passenger safety over commercial innovation”. It’s worth pausing and reflecting on his statement. Innovation was important. But so was commerce - which is making money for profit. Making money for profit was more important to this company than protecting the life of its own leader - who said that was what he thought. It cost him his life and that of four other persons. It cost millions of dollars in the search for the vessel.
The company published an article in 2019 stating that marine accidents are caused more frequently by errors of the operator - the corporate firm - it thought it avoided this issue via its own efforts and corporate culture - not mechanical failure, which is usually seen as the error that regulations and inspections are designed to protect.. A former director of the company had disagreed with that statement and was terminated. There were other concerns and lawsuits going back several years.
While there is much in the press about this story, what is not named is the amount of hubris we all share - that we are right on our own, that we don’t need to listen to the concerns of others. It’s an important learning for all of us even if may never want to see the Titanic at the bottom the sea - a previous example of the same sort of hubris as this one.