[johnmarkos]

This thread is an outgrowth of my reading and review of Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update, by Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and Dennis Meadows, as well as the, "Do we agree that we are in overshoot?" thread here on peakoil.com. If you have not read LTG+30, please go to your local library, pick up a copy, and read it before posting here. I consider it the prerequisite reading for this thread.

I think that Meadows, Randers, and Meadows did an excellent job of explaining the problems that humanity faces. In short, we have exceeded the Earth's regenerative biocapacity and must change the way we live before we exhaust the sources and sinks that sustain us.

In this thread, I would like to avoid another discussion of our chances of success or failure. Instead, I would like to discuss humane actions we can take, on a governmental and corporate level, on a regional level, on a community level, and on a personal level to work towards sustainability. Meadows, Randers, and Meadows have given us the broad overview of a desireable future (their rosy scenario 9). What are the details?

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('FatherOfTwo', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('johnmarkos', '
')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ut, tell me, how on earth are you going to sell this to the ruling elite (essentially all of those with the most money and power) who must necessarily give up the most?

[Ludi]

This is a wonderful idea, to come up with a plan, but it may be too large a scope for a messageboard of this kind.

Many entire books have been written about sustainability and how to try to achieve it. Do you see trying to put all of the suggestions in one massive Plan?

[johnmarkos]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'T')his is a wonderful idea, to come up with a plan, but it may be too large a scope for a messageboard of this kind.

[JohnDenver]

The personal automobile is at the root of many of our sustainability problems, and should be a key focus. It's an extremely tricky, deep problem, however. Kind of like navigating an intellectual minefield through human psychology, urban planning, economics, sociology, industrial history, corporate imperatives etc. etc.

[bart]

Great idea, but as Ludi says, a lot of work has been done before.

A first step might be to identify some of the thinkers and movements who would be worth looking at and perhaps summarizing their points.

Some ideas:

permaculture
agroecology
Schumacher and "Small is Beautiful"
appropriate technology
religious traditions of simplicity
traditional values of prudence, thrift and self-sufficiency

and many more, I'm sure.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnDenver', 'T')he personal automobile is at the root of many of our sustainability problems,

[lorenzo]

I would quickly want to add that in order to achieve true "sustainability" on a local level, the states and nations of the world must cooperate in a multilateral way, through the UN.

All of our serious problems are global problems, which need global actions. There's no other way.

The UN is more relevant than ever.

[Jack]

Yes, but scenario 9 assumes a global average family size of 2 children along with an industrial output per capita level for everyone (their emphasis) that is 10% higher than the world average in 2000.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n practical terms this means a tremendous step ahead for the world's poor, and a significant shift in comsumption patterns for the world's rich.

[lorenzo]

JohnMarkos, shouldn't we agree first, more or less, on what "sustainability" means. The concept has become so vague, almost empty, with hundreds of definitions and perspectives on what sustainability really is.

Some merely think of it as an "economic" principle, others see it as a much broader concept which includes ecological, social and cultural criteria. Even others think it's a totally irrelevant notion precisely because the definitions themselves already imply a certain ideological agenda.

So what are we talking about? The critics of the Club of Rome have often dismissed its broad use of the notion, because the Club's predictions on specific points were wrong (they should never have pinned exact dates on issues like petroleum depletion), giving the critics reason to use a minimalistic concept of sustainability.

[johnmarkos]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('lorenzo', 'S')o what are we talking about? The critics of the Club of Rome have often dismissed its broad use of the notion, because the Club's predictions on specific points were wrong (they should never have pinned exact dates on issues like petroleum depletion), giving the critics reason to use a minimalistic concept of sustainability.

[johnmarkos]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnDenver', 'T')he personal automobile is at the root of many of our sustainability problems, and should be a key focus. It's an extremely tricky, deep problem, however. Kind of like navigating an intellectual minefield through human psychology, urban planning, economics, sociology, industrial history, corporate imperatives etc. etc.

[johnmarkos]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('bart', 'G')reat idea, but as Ludi says, a lot of work has been done before.

A first step might be to identify some of the thinkers and movements who would be worth looking at and perhaps summarizing their points.

Some ideas:

permaculture
agroecology
Schumacher and "Small is Beautiful"
appropriate technology
religious traditions of simplicity
traditional values of prudence, thrift and self-sufficiency

and many more, I'm sure.

[Liamj]

As Ludi & others pointed out, there have been MANY books and other attempts to describe the galaxy of alternatives out there. If we're right about impending crumbling of growth economics etc, then there will 'soon' be many more ppl with renewed interest in other ways of living, but with little time to reflect upon best ways and means. More discursive debates on random points i don't think they'll need, but a systematic library of situation-strategies could be invaluable.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('johnmarkos', '.').. to discuss humane actions we can take, on a governmental and corporate level, on a regional level, on a community level, and on a personal level to work towards sustainability.

[lorenzo]

Has anyone of you read "The Lugano Report. On Preserving Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century"?

It has basically all the answers to the questions raised here.

[julianj]

I posted this on the Planning for the Future forum, and I think it is appropriate that I cross-post as it seems relevant:

Co-operatives, local currencies, as recession proofing
http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic8366.html

[bart]

Since you like "The Limits to Growth," johnmarkos, you might like an essay that Donella Meadows wrote in 1999:

Leverage Points: Places to Interview in a System (PDF)

"Folks who do system analysis have a great belief in "leverage points." These are places within a complex system (a corporation, an economy, a living body, a city, an ecosystem) where a small change in one thing can cause big changes in everything."

http://www.sustainer.org/pubs/Leverage_Points.pdf

===========

As an old guy, when I think about solutions to world problems, I tend to value things like persistence and pacing. One needs to find an area or a role that one can happily live with over the years, since PO is not going to be solved in one intense effort.

[Ludi]

If interested in sustainable life, please read some of the works of Daniel Quinn.

Please don't write him off after reading just a little bit or one or two essays.

[Dezakin]

Collapse of what exactly?

[holmes]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', 'C')ollapse of what exactly?

[holmes]

My 1995 calculations showed a 1000 cal/person/day for 6 billion in
2050--average. That is sedentiary starvation level average, and I
showed 8.2 billion people. There's 6.5 B now, so death rate increases and
birth rate declines until a short plateau then near vertical drop to .6
billion.

[Macsporan]

Hi from Australia,

It is a pleasure to be amongst such well-informed and together people.

My two bob's worth on all this: if nothing changes then we'll all die horribly. Nothing can save this depraved, obese mass-consumption society.

If we can overthrow the Corporate-Feudal Oligarchy without provoking complete disorder, collapse and war and work like hell for an entire generation we just might be able to create a society that can exist at a much lower level of energy use and population for millenia to come.

By "work like hell" I mean "Soviet Five Year Plan work like hell". I will probably have to be organised by some form of collectivist tyranny, possibly complete with Labour Camps and all that evil stuff, because a lot of people will be very unhappy about all this.

Wind and solar power and anything else we think will work will have to be installed in a real hurry. Cities will have to be emptied and people resettled in small rural communities. Thousands of square miles or suburbs, roads, highways, shopping-malls and parking-lots will have to be dug up to grow potatoes. Cars and trucks will be largely replaced by horse and cart. The rail network will have to be rebuilt and converted to coal power and electricty. Surviving fossil fuels are going to have to be hoarded and doled out with miserly sparingness for the most necessary purposes only.

Everything is going to have to be rationed, including freedom.

There's no way that the false god of the free market is going to achieve a turn-around of this magnitude. They'll just try to prop up their corrupt, bankrupt system for as long as possible and screw the future generations.

A lot of people seem to think that the present society will be replaced by some sort of hobbit-like existance where we will all till our permaculture gardens and watch our solar windmills go round and round.

While attractive I don't see this happening. Such a system would be unlikely to sustain much by way of manufacturing of windmills and PVCs without which it could not survive very long. Knowledge would be lost and large scale civilisation, peace and social order disappear for a long time.

Nor would such a system be a happy place. Every little village would be at war with every other until some brutish strongman eventually stepped in to restore order. Feudal anarchy is a great way to lower the population but a miserable and hopless way to live.

Indeed I have read that what began the present world population hike was not capitalism or oil or even sewers or antibotics but gunpowder. Once Kings had siege-trains and created gunpowder empires they were able to very largely put and end to all the petty feudal bloodshed and oppression that had exacted such a huge cumulative price on the human race for so many centuries.

We should think hard before imagining that a return to small-scale feudalism is going to be anything other than hell.

If we take the collectivist road it's going to be blood, sweat, toil and tears, no one's going to have any fun for a very long time, but the reward is that our children will have a future that preserves what deserves to be preserved out of our present civilisation by way of renewable energy, sanitation, health, toolmaking, and long-range transport.

The alternative is to perish anyway, knowing that as we die, no new age shall be.