Re: Caordic change and Greens?
From: Caspar Davis [EMAIL PROTECTED] I believe that a much more satisfying life is possible by substituting friends, community, conversation and caring for stuff. I largely If we don't follow Caspar's advise, there may not be ANY life a hundred years from now -- let alone "satisfying life". This is the subject of my next newsletter. With respect to simulation, I am surprised that no one mentioned the most famous simulation of all: The Club of Rome 1972: LIMITS TO GROWTH In 1992, Meadows published an update to the original work. Here is a composite graph: http://dieoff.com/Yourhere.gif "Business as usual" scenario from BEYOND THE LIMITS: "In Scenario 1 the world society proceeds along its historical path as long as possible without major policy change. Technology advances in agriculture, industry, and social services according to established patterns. There is no extraordinary effort to abate pollution or conserve resources. The simulated world tries to bring all people through the demographic transition and into an industrial and then post-industrial economy. This world acquires widespread health care and birth control as the service sector grows; it applies more agricultural inputs and gets higher yields as the agricultural sector grows; it emits more pollutants and demands more nonrenewable resources as the industrial sector grows. "The global population in Scenario 1 rises from 1.6 billion in the simulated year 1900 to over 5 billion in the simulated year 1990 and over 6 billion in the year 2000. Total industrial output expands by a factor of 20 between 1900 and 1990. Between 1900 and 1990 only 20% of the earth's total stock of nonrenewable resources is used; 80% of these resources remain in 1990. Pollution in that simulated year has just begun to rise noticeably. Average consumer goods per capita in 1990 is at a value of 1968-$260 per person per year—a useful number to remember for comparison in future runs. Life expectancy is increasing, services and goods per capita are increasing, food production is increasing. But major changes are just ahead. "In this scenario the growth of the economy stops and reverses because of a combination of limits. Just after the simulated year 2000 pollution rises high enough to begin to affect seriously the fertility of the land. (This could happen in the 'real world' through contamination by heavy metals or persistent chemicals, through climate change, or through increased levels of ultraviolet radiation from a diminished ozone layer.) Land fertility has declined a total of only 5% between 1970 and 2000, but it is degrading at 4.5% per year in 2010 and 12% per year in 2040. At the same time land erosion increases. Total food production begins to fall after 2015. That causes the economy to shift more investment into the agriculture sector to maintain output. But agriculture has to compete for investment with a resource sector that is also beginning to sense some limits. "In 1990 the nonrenewable resources remaining in the ground would have lasted 110 years at the 1990 consumption rates. No serious resource limits were in evidence. But by 2020 the remaining resources constituted only a 30-year supply. Why did this shortage arise so fast? Because exponential growth increases consumption and lowers resources. Between 1990 and 2020 population increases by 50% and industrial output grows by 85%. The nonrenewable resource use rate doubles. During the first two decades of the simulated twenty-first century, the rising population and industrial plant in Scenario 1 use as many nonrenewable resources as the global economy used in the entire century before. So many resources are used that much more capital and energy are required to find, extract, and refine what remains. "As both food and nonrenewable resources become harder to obtain in this simulated world, capital is diverted to producing more of them. That leaves less output to be invested in basic capital growth. "Finally investment cannot keep up with depreciation (this is physical investment and depreciation, not monetary). The economy cannot stop putting its capital into the agriculture and resource sectors; if it did the scarcity of food, materials, and fuels would restrict production still more. So the industrial capital plant begins to decline, taking with it the service and agricultural sectors, which have become dependent upon industrial inputs. For a short time the situation is especially serious, because the population keeps rising, due to the lags inherent in the age structure and in the process of social adjustment. Finally population too begins to decrease, as the death rate is driven upward by lack of food and health services." [p.p.132-134, Meadows; See also http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC36/Gilman1.htm ] Jay - COMING SOON TO A LOCATION NEAR YOU! http://dieoff.com/page1.htm
Re: Caordic change and Greens?
Eva Durant wrote: (1) Jay's predictions are probably pretty "right on", and it would make good sense to act as if we were *sure* they were true, since, at worst, such a strategy would maximize our chances for survival of the human species and for minimizing suffering for those of us currently alive. To *count* on "the human spirit and creativity" pulling a big enough rabbit out of the hat to meet all our growing(sic!) needs seems to me a foolish bet -- and highly irresponsible, since it's a bet on which those who make the bet are staking 5+ billion *others* lives and not just their own skins. How can it be done without counting on that "human spirit and creativity" which is also selfishness/ self-preservation once all those billions are aware of the problems? Even if we have all the brilliant solutions - forcing them on the rest of humanity against their will, won't work. I can see where I might have been misunderstood here. Yes, we need all the "human spirit and creativity" we can get. The distinction I was trying to make was between deploying the human spirit and creativity we have to working in a "conservative" (in the sense of trying to conserve ourselves from Jay's "dieoff") way, versus counting on human spirit and creativity to *work miracles* (e.g., somehow sustaining planetary wellbeing through continued accelerating growth). [snip] If our culture bestowed the highest honors on people who solved problems of preventive medicine, minimizing resources needed for production, etc., then that's what the brightest minds would eagerly work on, rather than searching for ever more elementary particles in physics, devising ever more complex organ transplant procedures, planning ever bigger corporate mergers, etc. I don't like the idea of utilitarian research; of not doing science for science's sake, you might as well say the same thing about art. Particle physics and organ transplant research cannot be rated with corporate mergers. Obviously, first people should be fed and resources concentrated on survival- science, but if there are enough resources, science should go on wherever it wants to go, as most major breakthroughs came from areas that looked most superfluous. Particle physics could still solve our energy problems etc. The directions in which science goes today certainly are not just "science for science's sake". We all see that where science goes depends on what can get funded, especially things like "particle physics" and the Internet. There is "steering" going on here, even if by "market forces", and certainly anybody who does "science for science's sake" into such areas as whether there are racial differences in intelligence finds social forces in their way. Surely it's not simple, but it seems to me that if the "dieoff" agenda really took root in our culture's imagination, it offers all sorts of opportunities for persons to do research that is both useful *and* intrinsically interesting, just like, in our current mindset, particle physics, organ transplants and corporate mergers offer themselves to persons as things that are intrinsically challenging as well as socially sanctioned (utilitarian). There is a phrase from medieval Christian monasticism: "peregrinatio in stabilitate", which was reiterated by one of the early Jesuit missionaries to China (a "space traveller" of his time): To go on an adventure, one does not need to leave one's native town. *That* seems to me to be the *hopeful* ideal for humanity. And it seems to me to be powerfully synergistic with Jay's and the greens' ideas. I don't understand this bit. If we have enough resources, we should go boldly everywhere... The point I was trying to make is that intelligent minds can find rich opportunity for boldly exploring without having to use up a lot of resources. Perhaps Freud's explorations of "inner space" were even more exciting than Werner von Braun's explorations of "outer space" (I have purposely picked two historically ambiguous figures here to emphasize that there are dnagers everywhere -- lots of people today think Freud's particular explorations of inner space were wrong, and von Braun worked for Hitler before he worked for "us"). My point was that there are rich resources in our cultural heritage (I mentioned the contemporary German philosopher Habermas, e.g.) which can inform Jay's and the greens' "utilitarian", "boring", etc. vision of a world in which instead of watching space ships go out beyond the moon, we focus on the dirty problems down here. But even this may be an "optimistic" vision vis-a-vis such problems as how to safely lay to rest Chernoble and all the other pollution nightmares from the former "Soviet bloc". These may require large quantities of persons to be wounded and die in a battle against radiation and toxic chemicals, and/or spread cancers (etc.) over the planet. To the extent
Re: Caordic change and Greens?
tom abeles wrote: [snip] the "green utopia" doesn't seem to be worth the price to get their- it is not a resort destination but a destination of last resort- we get there if we conserve and we get there if we don't- Is that true? Isn't the question *what "we"* gets there? Will that "we" include me, you, my children, your children, etc. I am reminded that that century after the Black Death in Europe was a great time to be alive (due to labor shortages which raised wages, etc.) -- great for those who *survived the plague*. it may be somewhat more pleasant if we go their volunatrily, but is it worth the price? that is what the Greens have not addressed- Gucchi's yes, Birkenstocks No Other than an apocolypse or a serendpitous epiphany strking the world, what is the alternative? thoughts? I will only one more time belabor the point: The immediate space of "speech and action" which we inhabit in face-to-face community offers infinite opportunities for interest and satisfaction. The philosophical heritage from Kant (Plato? etc.), Husserl, etc. (and other traditions, like Gregory Bateson, etc.) gives us the solid theory to base ourselves on without religious preconditions, etc. Even for space exploration, the Internet, etc., there is another "horizon" which awaits exploration and the application of human intelligence and creativity: the social relations in which those activities are inescapably embedded (why not start with the treatment of graduate students, adjunct faculty, etc.?). The starry heavens above are just more lumps of the kind of stuff we see at our feet -- the great miracle is that we see *anything* and share our vision with one another. \brad mccormick -- Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world. Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA --- ![%THINK;[SGML]] Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
Re: Caordic change and Greens?
At 9:30 AM -0500 11/27/98, Brad McCormick, Ed.D. wrote: snip ... If our culture bestowed the highest honors on people who solved problems of preventive medicine, minimizing resources needed for production, etc., then that's what the brightest minds would eagerly work on, rather than searching for ever more elementary particles in physics, devising ever more complex organ transplant procedures, planning ever bigger corporate mergers, etc. I could not agree more. Our society has forgotten what a powerful motivator recognition is. There is a phrase from medieval Christian monasticism: "peregrinatio in stabilitate", which was reiterated by one of the early Jesuit missionaries to China (a "space traveller" of his time): To go on an adventure, one does not need to leave one's native town. In my relative youth, I dreamed of sailing the seas, and once set out on such a trip. But fairly early on, I realized that the physical journey was less satisfying than intellectual and spiritual journeying, and went back home. I travelled a fair amount in my youth but feel little urge to do so any more, partly because there is very little "ther" there any more. It seems ythat wherever you go there are McDonalds, gas stations and hotels just like they are at home. I hear that even many of the ancient villages of Italy and England have become weekend retreats for affluent urbanites. On many days my email brings me more treasures than I could find in a month of jet lagged travel, and it costs very little and has little environmental impact. Caspar Davis
Re: Caordic change and Greens?
tom abeles wrote: [snip] What the "green" visions hold is not such a possibility but the idea that if we all get behind the movement the human race and the planet can survive- humans get to live another day. yes, the air will be clean and the fields will be green and the waters blue. But what of the human spirit? And there is the rub. Don says that it is time to stop the metaphysics and get with the program. But, what the greens offer is not hope but a plan to get us off a "sinking ship" and onto some island, an idyllic one, perhaps, but a New Age munchkin land, never-the-less. It's that or destruction [snip] One can't argue with Jay's predictions on energy. One can make more energy efficient "things" and find alternative paths. But to do that one has to see the benefit beyond survival in some world which seems one step above that of a Penatante. Philosophy and Visons are what make us human. If we stop hoping and aspiring, then capitulation maybe the path. thoughts? My thoughts: (1) Jay's predictions are probably pretty "right on", and it would make good sense to act as if we were *sure* they were true, since, at worst, such a strategy would maximize our chances for survival of the human species and for minimizing suffering for those of us currently alive. To *count* on "the human spirit and creativity" pulling a big enough rabbit out of the hat to meet all our growing(sic!) needs seems to me a foolish bet -- and highly irresponsible, since it's a bet on which those who make the bet are staking 5+ billion *others* lives and not just their own skins. But: (2) I think that the greens' "island" can, per se, become our new hope and aspiration. I base myself here on all the philosophy (etc.) -- e.g., the German "Discourse Ethics" people like Habermas and Honneth --, who argue that our humanness finds its fullest realization in a peer community of mutual respect which shapes itself in dialog. The dialogical process (including childrearing, being-with those who are suffering and dying, etc., as well as what Marx called "the administration of things" which maintains ordinary daily life) is itself "the goal" -- as, for the classical Greeks, each citizen strove to achieve recognition in the eyes of their peers for words and deeds. The *recognition* -- the being-in richly affirming dialog -- is the main thing; the particular words and deeds are situationally conditioned *means*. Human creativity and intelligence, as Sophocles said in The Ode to Man in Antigone, is indifferently applicable to any problem. If our culture bestowed the highest honors on people who solved problems of preventive medicine, minimizing resources needed for production, etc., then that's what the brightest minds would eagerly work on, rather than searching for ever more elementary particles in physics, devising ever more complex organ transplant procedures, planning ever bigger corporate mergers, etc. There is a phrase from medieval Christian monasticism: "peregrinatio in stabilitate", which was reiterated by one of the early Jesuit missionaries to China (a "space traveller" of his time): To go on an adventure, one does not need to leave one's native town. *That* seems to me to be the *hopeful* ideal for humanity. And it seems to me to be powerfully synergistic with Jay's and the greens' ideas. thoughts? "yours in discourse" \brad mccormick -- Mankind is not the master of all the stuff that exists, but Everyman (woman, child) is a judge of the world. Brad McCormick, Ed.D. / [EMAIL PROTECTED] 914.238.0788 / 27 Poillon Rd, Chappaqua, NY 10514-3403 USA --- ![%THINK;[SGML]] Visit my website: http://www.cloud9.net/~bradmcc/
Re: Caordic change and Greens?
At 11:00 AM 11/26/98 -0600, Tom Abeles [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Don Chisholm presents a cogent and clear picture of the green movement. What is more to the point is the reaction which he has seen from the general public and from the parishes where the church leaders with whom he met tried to explain the situation. I can not argue with the assessment of the earth, today. Where I have a problem is with the "future". Whenever we have gone to "war" be it with guns or with science to cure a problem, there has been an "end"- A hill we could reach and watch the sun come up on a new day-some hope for the future- an opportunity to strech and breath and move forward to. What the "green" visions hold is not such a possibility but the idea that if we all get behind the movement the human race and the planet can survive- humans get to live another day. yes, the air will be clean and the fields will be green and the waters blue. But what of the human spirit? And there is the rub. DC Tom, without human spirit, nothing positive will happen. It cannot be left behind. It must be the driving passion enabling the story of chaordic change. They say it can move mountains. How about moving public opinion and freeing hijacked governance? A couple of years ago I sketched a some scenarios about the how the future might unfold. The story needed a moment, so it was called, 'TEAMSpirit; (The EArth Movement). In Reverend Thomas Berry's Dream Of The Earth, he speaks of the need for a story which fits both the human spirit and the natural world. Now he should be a pretty spiritual guy! TA Don says that it is time to stop the metaphysics and get with the program. But, what the greens offer is not hope but a plan to get us off a "sinking ship" and onto some island, an idyllic one, perhaps, but a New Age munchkin land, never-the-less. It's that or destruction DC I'm sure that a variety of metaphysical beliefs could be integrated into to the effort. After all, it could be God's will that we get the show on the road. Can't afford to leave out any potential allies, eh? I remember an interview with a worker in the former East Germany where there was discussion about closing a factory because it was so polluted. And the worker replied that he would choose a potentially slow death from cancer rather than a quick death from starvation. And there is the old story about the African standing with the Peace Corps worker looking at mining spoils. The African turns to the Peace Corps worker and says, "let me, first, get my TV and phone and... then we can talk about the environment." That is the problem with the "green" movement. It offers only a possible vision of some stasis in a "village" if we are "lucky" and megadeath if we follow the path we are on. The possibility of a "village" as a "problem"??, in view of tha alternate? . I think I would rather put my faith in human ingenuity- take the chance on humans rather than be caught in some reconstructed vision of the past. George Land has a seminal book called "Grow or Die". I think that is what the worker in Germany is saying and what many citizens of the world are saying. The human spirit and creativity has made many mistakes in the past and will continue to make more in the future. But humans learn from their mistakes quickly because intellegence is Lamarkian and doens't require many generations of Darwinian evolution to change. DC It seems to me that it is exactly those features, human spirit and human ingenuity, which might enable us to begin the change process. One can't argue with Jay's predictions on energy. One can make more energy efficient "things" and find alternative paths. But to do that one has to see the benefit beyond survival in some world which seems one step above that of a Penatante. Philosophy and Visons are what make us human. If we stop hoping and aspiring, then capitulation maybe the path. thoughts? tom abeles DC The last paragraph of my post of yesterday's was: "If all Green political groups were all as progressive as the Ontario Greens now seem to be, and since they have global presence now, with a little help from very many places, perhaps they could grow into a challenging force leading to STAGE ONE of a social contract shift which gives due respect for Gaia, in the human/Gaia relationship." I believe that if a movement for change could achieve a critical mass of synergy and support, scaling back the current economic growth madness would only be STAGE ONE. How governance would the change after ten or twenty years, who knows. But IF there were a well informed pubic who understand physical limits, or who believed credible leaders (perhaps spiritual leaders?) who did understand, I expect the future could be much more pleasant than today. Don Chisholm
Caordic change and the Story
At 04:03 PM 11/22/98 -0500, "Ed Weick" [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: DC As the viability of the current paradigm faded, human survival became a topic of conversation - even more important than the President's sex life! Eventually a new recognition. Human population was recognized as one of the few controllable variable available to humans NOW. The aggregate lifetime consumption and pollution of a new individual human shifted from a personal issue to a community issue. Procreation license became regulated by the community to meet carrying capacity guidelines, so that the long term goal of "renewable resources only" could be met in several decades. EW I do hate to sound cynical, but it is hard to hear the background music. It is beautiful, melodic dream-like stuff with birds twittering through it. I went bowling yesterday, for the first time in forty five years. The music I heard there was quite different, much like the throb of a freeway during rush hour. My score was very low, but that doesn't matter. What does is the hundreds of people there all trying to outdo each other in knocking down those pins. Those who weren't bowling were puffing away on cigarettes and discussing the President's sex life or their own. Are these the people to whom you are going to issue licences to procreate? Or are you assuming that they will all die off and only the pure-in-mind-and-heart will remain? Well, good luck! Don't forget -- those bowlers have billions of equally vigorous brothers and sisters living in the slums of Sao Paulo, Jakarta, Delhi, Moscow and Mexico City. These people would love to bowl too, but they probably can't afford it. Ed Weick Ed, regarding your comment: It is beautiful, melodic dream-like stuff with birds twittering through it You seem to loose sight of the fact that about 80+% of the bowlers and factory workers, both in your home town and in Sao Paulo, believe in some story of another. Mystical stories, stories about supreme beings, life after death, reincarnation, angels providing the background music, 70 virgins for a suicide bomber, or maybe, "We can get out of this with more economic growth", or "elect my party and there will be jobs for all!" These are the real people of Earth. They are controlled/programmed by handed down stories. Logic is nowhere in sight. But sometimes people can believe two or three stories, even if they are in conflict. The logic, facts, figures, projections and weight of history which you and Jay, and, (normally) I espouse, is meaningless on these people - "If it's that bad, I donna wana kno!!". If humans responded to logic, we'd have changed course after 'Silent Spring', or 'Limits to Growth' or long before that. It's time for something new. I'm suggesting it's time to create a story of success. Just because the story might be technically feasible, which I still think it might be, should be no reason for its rejection - a good story does not have to have angels. But it's tough getting wise elders to abandon their rigid view of how history has unfolded in the past, and to participate in creating a new kind of story to help create conditions where historical processes may shift - perhaps as in a bifurcation branching from deepening chaos. The Story does not have to be followed by, "Halaloolia", but by, "Hell, we can do it!" There is a growing chorus of people suggesting we need change, such as Theobald, Raven, Moore, McMurtry, Rifkin, etc. who all tell of why the existing must go. I'm suggesting it's time we create a story of HOW success could emerge out of a dark time in human history. If we cannot imagine how and then express it, then, who can? And if it's unimaginable, then we may as well give up and continue bowling or golfing until the energy runs out. solidarity in Gaia (I like Gaia as a base theme. It's a good story) Don Chisholm 416 484 6225fax 484 0841 email [EMAIL PROTECTED] The Gaia Preservation Coalition (GPC) http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/gaia-pc personal page: http://home.ican.net/~donchism/dchome.html "There is an almost gravitational pull toward putting out of mind unpleasant facts. And our collective ability to face painful facts is no greater than our personal one. We tune out, we turn away, we avoid. Finally we forget, and forget we have forgotten. A lacuna hides the harsh truth." - psychologist Daniel Goleman \/
