[Graeme]

Stabbing the beast

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') spent a while last night reading David Holmgren’s latest essay Crash on Demand (read the PDF here). Back in 2007 Holmgren, who is one of the initiators of the concept of Permaculture, wrote a series of possible future scenarios in which he posited a number of different scenarios that could play out with regard to civilisation and the environment. I won’t go into those scenarios here but suffice to say that this latest essay represents an additional one - and a new way of thinking.

The two civilisation destroying situations we face are peak oil and climate change. Holmgren goes into some detail about why his perception of these has changed, concluding that peak oil has not yet turned out to be as bad as expected (for various reasons, notably financial) and climate change is likely to now far exceed our worst expectations, with a 4-6C degree scenario now likely in a BAU scenario.

This change in thinking was the result of an observation of the way energy and economic issues are panning out, plus a deeper consideration of the role of finance courtesy of systems thinker Nicole Foss. The gist of it is this: we are rapidly losing the chance to persuade policy makers to take the risk of global warming seriously, and given that the course we are now on would likely wipe out nearly all of humanity and make life considerably worse for millions of other species over the coming millennia, then the only sensible option for us is to crash the system of global growth-based capitalism.

If that sounds radical that’s because it is. Holmgren points out that the last few decades of environmental protest have failed miserably. The dominant paradigm of ‘economic growth at any cost’ grinds ecocentrist concerns into the dust. A quick survey of the news headlines should convince anyone of the veracity of this. And although we are now living in an age of limits, where the quantity and quality of the fossil energy sources available to us begins to diminish, the system is perpetuated by the financial system which continues to magic credit out of thin air without any basis on a claim in the real world. Witness the shale oil boom in the US, a vastly inefficient and polluting operation that only makes economic sense due to the distorting wizardry of Wall Street financiers.

Furthermore, he rightly observes that the vast majority of people in the industrialised world could not care less about destroying the basis for life on planet Earth. As the global economic bubble deflates - something it has been doing since 2008 - most people in our overdeveloped economies are too busy trying to hold down a job or are too influenced by the growth-perpetuating mantra of politicians and the media to give much thought to the wider world. This is unfortunate, but at least it demonstrates the pointlessness of trying to gain political traction in a system that is rigged against anything other than limitless growth. Any concessions the system makes to preserving the biosphere tend to be largely symbolic, such as increasing bottle recycling rates, or charging a levy on plastic bags, while the real business of exploitation on a planetary scale continues apace.

Furthermore, the plateauing of oil production has not seen the rapid uptake of clean-tech that its proponents suggested would happen as soon as oil prices climbed. Instead it has seen a switch to dirtier and more dangerous to extract fuels, aided and abetted by the fossil fuel sector and its financial backers. So instead of moving into a ‘green tech’ future we are in practice moving into a ‘brown tech’ one. And although the financial instruments used to boost the production of shale oil and gas are by nature Ponzi schemes and cannot last, Holmgren argues that they may indeed last long enough to make a controlled powerdown situation impossible, as well as missing the window to wean ourselves off fossil fuels.

[AndyA]

It's a direction I'm heading in myself. The delicious irony is that it's expensive to be green, local costs more, you pay the premium price compared to a megastore, it's a bit hard to withdraw money from the bank when you owe them money for your land, building a house doesn't come cheap, neither does redoing an old one. Good luck doing anything with a rented property, let alone wasting all your hard earned cash on someone else's stuff.
I'm stepping outside consumer culture as a lifestyle choice, and because I can afford to. I doubt many people can, let alone 10%.
There is no peaceful way to crash the system, despite all the contrary claims, the complex adaptive system we call modern society, is incredibly resilient. Despite all the endless imminent predictions of doom things are still pretty much the same.

[Pops]

So what is the point of the article Greame?

"crash the system of global growth-based capitalism." ?

Who exactly is doing the crashing? Holmgren? I'm thinking he makes a pretty penny on "inventing" permaculture - which btw is a registered trademark that he owns, LOL

And what the heck does "global growth-based capitalism" mean anyway? Does crashing it remove human greed for collecting more and bigger and better and shinier things than the neighbors?

Sorry, I'm growing tired of revolutionaries in $100 pre-washed jeans.

[Graeme]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'S')o what is the point of the article Greame?

"crash the system of global growth-based capitalism." ?

Who exactly is doing the crashing? Holmgren? I'm thinking he makes a pretty penny on "inventing" permaculture - which btw is a registered trademark that he owns, LOL

And what the heck does "global growth-based capitalism" mean anyway? Does crashing it remove human greed for collecting more and bigger and better and shinier things than the neighbors?

Sorry, I'm growing tired of revolutionaries in $100 pre-washed jeans.

[rollin]

Having more people convert to a low consumption lifestyle and become more independent will have a minor effect on the economy. It will definitely be helpful to the people doing it, at least for a while.

The economy is dramatically resilient against effects from diminishing consumerism. The US now has a huge number of poor/under-employed and yet is still churning out a large GDP. Money just moves to money and the reduced consumerism here is replaced with growing consumerism elsewhere and more spending by the rich.
Look at China, it has a huge number of people who are minimal consumers, yet it is the number one manufacturing country in the world now (US slipped to number two position recently).
India is filled with poor that don't consume much material or energy, yet they have a thriving economy.

Look at Mexico, it used to be considered a poor nation. Now it has a large industrial base and is the 13th largest economy in the world. Their imports equal their exports, but look closely at their imports. They import materials to promote their industries, they export finished products, much to the US.
I am not saying that this has filtered down well to the Mexican citizen, in fact they have a very large under-employed sector. Having all those poor people does not strangle their economy, in fact it may promote it by having a large population of willing employees.

So creating a larger sector of low consumption people does not correspond to a dwindling economy.
Dwindling resources, political changes and legal changes, that can swing an economy.

[Ibon]

When you have to frame and justify a frugal low consumption lifestyle as a "David" to bring down "Goliath" than you are basically still all so very much in relationship with the Beast. The very act of harvesting a pecan off a tree becomes a noble and revolutionary act. My question is, why does one require the framing of a frugal lifestyle in such a grandiose manner?

A real revolutionary position is to have a low consumption frugal lifestyle stand on its own feet and merit out of context in any way in its relationship with the greater economic system.

[Pops]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', 'I') know you don't like the idea but perhaps revolution of some sort IS required.

[AndyA]

After reading the PDF, Holmgren concludes correctly that we are headed for a "brown tech" future. This is unacceptable to him, as it is akin to shitting in your own nest re. climate change. His solution is to get activists to disengage from the current system (which I thought would be a pre-requisite of being an activist) in the hopes this will lead to a USSR type collapse and subsequent reduction in energy consumption, thereby giving a better chance of a better future.

I doubt it would work, getting us away from our personal energy slaves is going to take something more like the American civil war, which ostensibly was about getting a wealthy minority away from their actual slaves. It's going to take the majority of the population to achieve such an outcome, and given the mindlessness of the masses I think a mass marketing (propaganda) campaign would be far more effective. Actually I think there is no hope, after all we are the beast. Stab yourself. Then go and stab the billions that are chomping at the bit to get a taste of the good life you have had for all of yours.

[Graeme]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', 'I') know you don't like the idea but perhaps revolution of some sort IS required.

[Pops]

I'm pretty pessimistic wrt GW but you never know, somebody might appear on the political scene like a Nixon (Clean Air/Water act, EPA) that accidentally makes a difference while pursuing their own political self interest. Or perhaps a "stealth" move like Obama's ban on coal fired generation that he didn't really highlight in the campaign but implements after (although it looks like he whimped out in the end?).

I guess the most radical thing that might happen is a coalition might appear that is agnostic to the unsolvable social issues like abortion, guns, drugs (which was the initial position of the TEAs and OWS and even O to some extent) but strong on other issues, say; structural inequality, civil liberties, and accidentally (because they aren't foaming at the mouth over people's sex habits) reducing GHG.

Although one of the most effective actions taken to forestall both PO and GW must be the new CAFE standards - yeah I know, it was Obama's deal and the radio says if he did it it must be bad. But they will do more to reduce GHG that PO will through higher prices and [url]=http://www.newgeography.com/content/003061-obama-fuel-economy-rules-trump-smart-growthother pressures to reduce driving[/url]:



The beast is our instinct to find an easier way, it's why we decided to plant seeds and store the grain instead of wandering around looking for it and to domesticate animals instead of chasing after them all over the place. Left to our own individual instincts we aren't going to do squat to reduce because a) we have to think about it first and B) to do so means things get harder and that is just not our way. Americans especially have gotten the idea that the individual is paramount, primarily because we are born on third base (a virgin continent just a few hundred years ago where old timber and oil and gold nuggets were just lying around for the taking) and consequently we think we hit a triple - "we built that" really is our national delusion.

We've co-opted the third world as a sweatshop because there is no protection there for labor or the environment and we don't make the connection and say "tsk, tsk" when we read on our iPhones that some little girl jumped off the roof of an Apple factory/internment camp in China.

So I don't know, I guess my opinion is the only way is going to be the socialist/representative democracy path (rather than the direct democracy idea put forth in the OP) because sufficient numbers won't directly vote for a harder way and for curtailing comfort in any fashion. An unpopular and/or self-serving decision made by the executive that his own party hates and rails against but that either serves that politicians' own personal goals like Nixon's EPA, or a stealth move like O's failed EPA action against coal which I don't remember him campaigning on to a large extent (although Romney and all the conservatives did and still do, LOL).

[phaster]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', '
')
10 years ago I was making $100k+ in advertising, last year I made <$30, about a third from raising grass fed beef. We raise lots of other food, have no debt and no money - certainly none in any bank and we get along fine - that was the plan.

[lasseter]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', '[')b]Stabbing the beast
The two civilisation destroying situations we face are peak oil and climate change. the only sensible option for us is to crash the system of global growth-based capitalism.

[Newfie]

Somehow I get the idea that this thread and Ibon's Overshoot Predator thread are discussing the same issue. Here we are examining one, intentional, vision of what the predator could look like.

I kinda like the idea of crashing the system but I don't know if it possible. I'm pretty sure it will crash of its own accord, so we are merely discussing timing. Sooner the better.

No?

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '
')A real revolutionary position is to have a low consumption frugal lifestyle stand on its own feet and merit out of context in any way in its relationship with the greater economic system.

[sparky]

.
There is a bit of a misunderstanding ,
if one go the self sufficiency way disengaging , to some degree ,from the modern "consumer" society
that's a personal choice , and I totally respect and agree with that .
if one believe it will affect the said society , keep dreaming ...
with more than half the population in large cities , fed with industrial aggro-business
there is no stable alternative .
Global warming is not really a problem , neither is Peak Oil
the problem is 7 billions mouths to feed , have you checked international news recently
there is a fast increasing list of countries with deep problems

[Quinny]

Many in my village live a low consumption lifestyle. They always have. Not for any stabbing of the beast, they're just poor and they live from week to week. Having said that they will probably survive while they can garden.

[Newfie]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Quinny', 'M')any in my village live a low consumption lifestyle. They always have. Not for any stabbing of the beast, they're just poor and they live from week to week. Having said that they will probably survive while they can garden.

[Quinny]

Mainly elderly, but younger family seem to be drifting back. Rural unemployment took them away, Urban unemployment drives them back. There's a certain pleasure from cutting your own wood and growing your own food.

If you analyse it from a purely economic POV it still makes more sense to work and buy, but it's nowhere near as rewarding. Physically I feel better than I have for a long while!

I do not disagree with Holgrem's ideas but feel they lack directness.

[ralfy]

I'm not sure, but I think a "low consumption lifestyle" involves earning only around $3 a day on half-a-hectare of commonly owned land. I got the first point from news that most human beings live on only a few dollars a day, and that many of those who farm can't afford to own land.