Jeffvail at The Oil Drum attacks our enshrinement of “growth” from a novel direction.

“My approach to the problem of growth is to stop trying to address its symptoms—overpopulation, pollution, global warming, peak oil—and attempt instead to identify and address the underlying source of the problem.”

And what is that “underlying source”?

“[T]he hierarchal structure of human civilization. Hierarchy demands growth. Growth is a result of dependency. The solution to the problem of growth, then, is the elimination of dependency.”

He points out that the notion of perpetual growth is predicated on perpetual increase in resource consumption. This growth in resource consumption causes problems: it brings civilization into direct conflict with our environmental support system. Growth isn’t a problem that can be solved through a new technology – all that does is postpone the inevitable reckoning with the limits of a finite world.

The fact that surplus production equates to power, across all scales, is the single greatest driver of growth in hierarchy. And the structure of human society selects for growth – any group that did not create surplus – and therefore grow – would be out-competed by groups that did. As political entities became more sophisticated, they began to consciously build institutions to enhance their ability to grow. Hierarchies must grow, and human dependency is what sustains these hierarchies. Dependency, then, is the root cause of the problem of growth.

His solution? The “rhizome”: Read the rest of this entry »

The old adage “it’s better to give than to receive” is correct: spending money on others or giving to charity gives more satisfaction than buying things for yourself.

A new study published in the journal Science reports that buying stuff doesn’t make people happy. Regardless of income level, those people who spent money on others reported greater happiness, while those who spent more on themselves did not.

This result is consistent with those of other researchers around the world who have reported that reported “happiness” levels have stayed flat even though real income has surged.

The researchers found that happiness didn’t correlate with personal spending – but happiness did correlate with how much they gave away.

Professor Ruut Veenhoven, of Erasmus University in Rotterdam, said the study showed that the economic view of human motivation was incorrect.

“This may come as a surprise for economists who have learned that humans are essentially egoists.”

So why don’t people give more money away to make themselves even happier?

“Often people don’t know what really makes them happy. Doing nice things to other people isn’t so bad after all.”

Carolyn Baker at Speaking Truth to Power has posted a deeply provocative review of Mike Byron’s The Path Through Infinity’s Rainbow: Your Guide To Personal Survival and Spiritual Transformation In A World Gone Mad.

It’s pretty lengthy, so I’m just going to quote a bit. I urge you to visit her site and read the whole thing.

“It is now far too late,” he says, “to prevent our looming petro-collapse and all of its environmental consequences. Like the Titanic approaching the iceberg, collision with our attractor is now both inevitable and imminent. The difference is that, unlike the Titanic, we are actually speeding up as we approach our ‘iceberg’.” (34)

“This paragraph is so momentous, so poignant that the reader must ponder it carefully. Please let it sink in: We cannot prevent catastrophe, the pace with which we are plummeting toward it is accelerating. When the impact of these two statements sinks in, how can anyone reading these words assume that his/her own or the planet’s “business as usual” can continue?

“But the author does not leave us there because he quickly adds:

“However, it is possible for many of us to survive the catastrophe and to sow the seeds for civilization to be renewed with all of the learning of past ages relatively intact. This is because at the very center of it all are the ordered patterns of memes from which our minds emerge and interact with the minds of others. We can ensure that the lessons learned from this impending collapse are firmly incorporated into the minds and culture of our successor civilization’s citizens and into their institutions and laws.”

HB 3610 would authorize DEQ to adopt rules requiring the registration and reporting of anyone importing, selling, or distributing greenhouse gas generating fossil fuels or electricity. While the bill was passed out of the Committee on Energy and the Environment with a “do pass” recommendation, it was directed to Ways and Means where it is expected to die.

Why? Opposition from utilities and industry interests, who are concerned that any reporting scheme would surely be followed by regulation. And of course that’s the purpose of the bill – to set the stage and gather the information necessary to implement the Western Climate Initiative and adopt a cap-and-trade scheme.

This lack of recognition that we’re in a crisis that requires drastic and immediate action is evidence that we’re still in the “denial” stage of our response to climate change. And here in Oregon, peak oil – outside of Portland and its Peak Oil Task Force – isn’t even on our radar.

John Michael Greer in an article at the Energy Bulletin (and his own Archdruid Report) comparing our response to peak oil with the five stages of grief outlined by Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross.

We can’t expect to arrive at acceptance – of either global warming or climate change – all at once. Individually and as a society, we’ve got to work our way through, step by step, all the way to acceptance.

We still fantasize that we can figure out a way to continue living our lives in something like the way we do now. This refusal to let go is the single largest obstacle in the path of a reasoned response to the predicament of peak oil and global warming. The hard reality we have to face is the fact that the extravagant, energy-wasting lifestyles of the recent past have led us to the brink of climate catastrophe. And the realities of peak oil, soon to be followed by peak gas and peak coal, combined with the EROEI and scaling realities of alternatives, dictate that our profligacy cannot be sustained by any amount of bargaining or any number of grand projects.

Eventually we’ll have to face up to the reality that our way of life is over – and that the alternative will be okay. As Greer points out, if we redefine the situation in terms of managing a controlled descent from the giddy heights of the late industrial age, the range of technological options widens out dramatically.

There are still many (like CERA) who are in denial of peak oil. Anger is seen in our invasion and occupation of the remaining vulnerable oil producing provinces. How dare terrorists and Muslim fanatics deny us of our oil?

We see anger in the climate change context as soon as anybody actually proposes to do anything meaningful. Why do you suppose a carbon tax, the preferred tool of global warming activists and economists, isn’t even on the table? Because it could actually be implemented quickly and comprehensively, without offering the opportunity for entrenched interests to game the system. A carbon tax would actually force us to do something meaningful, now – it would actually accomplish something. We’re not quite ready for that, yet. Bargaining? We can begin to talk about that.

In the energy context, Greer sees bargaining in our rush to futile and destructive projects, like biofuels and nuclear. I would add tar sands and the chimerical “clean coal” to that list.

Given the political impasse, we cannot stand by helplessly.

We can make immediate changes in our own lives to minimize energy usage. Change our light bulbs. Insulate and seal our homes. Drive less. The list is endless. Tiny actions, multiplied many times, add up to something that matters. while saving money.

Even more importantly, the actions of individuals send critical messages to others and help to establish new social norms that tell everyone around us (our neighbors and our children) what “good” or “ethical” environmental behavior is. Social norms are powerful.

It’s critical that we push from the bottom up to get something happen at the state and federal levels. Governments set regulations and policies that affect what we all do in our individual lives. Doing something about global warming requires not just a rational, cognitive response. It needs an emotional response, even a spiritual response, certainly a deep shift in our values. The deeper the social change, the harder, and the longer it will take to bring about. Values and social and cultural norms take generations to change.

And herein lies our dilemma: we don’t have generations, or even decades. If we are to avoid climate catastrophe, if we are to transition to a low-carbon economy, we have to act now. Even tomorrow is too late.

John Michael Greer, after a month-long hiatus, has a new posting on his blog The Archdruid Report. Citing Toynbee, he points out that our notion of “progress” isn’t a fact, but rather an imaginative secular mythology.

The concept of history implicit in our mythology of progress is a straight line without branches or swerves, much less dead ends. But since the 80s our political leadership has made a series of disastrous choices, enabled by a temporary and one-off plunge in energy costs. For the last quarter century, people throughout the industrial world have become accustomed to economic, social, and personal arrangements that only work if energy is basically free. Delusional economics led to millions of Americans buying poorly insulated, shoddily built new houses a three-hour drive from jobs and shopping. Globalization and the throwaway economy – both made possible by cheap energy, represented “progress” which was both inevitable and irreversible.

Greer concludes the end of the era of cheap energy makes the path we chose a dead end – but that we’re still in denial:

“In hindsight, I suspect, the entire period from 1980 to 2005 will be seen as one of history’s supreme blind alleys. A great many of the economic arrangements, infrastructure, and personal and collective habits that grew up in response to that age of distorted priorities will have to be reworked in a hurry, no matter what the cost, as energy prices rise to more realistic levels. At the same time, the grip of the myth of progress on the industrial world’s imagination remains unshaken.

“The possibility that the only way forward out of the present blind alley may require going back to less convenient and more costly ways of doing things is nowhere on our collective radar screens just now.”

Bruce Levine in his new book Surviving America’s Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy reminds us that the world’s great religions – along with moral thinkers and psychological science – teach that the greed and the pursuit of wealth that drives our politics and our economy will not lead to happiness. Quite the opposite:

“Buddha, Spinoza, and Jesus all came to a similar conclusion about despair — quite a different one than that reached by the modern mental health establishment. Although each described it differently, Buddha, Spinoza, and Jesus concluded that the source of our misery is avarice, material attachment, and self-absorption. While each used different language, they all provided a path away from torment and toward wellbeing. Buddha taught how to release oneself from narrow self-interest and craving. Spinoza taught how to liberate oneself from greed and other irrational passions. And Jesus taught, very simply, about love.”

He points to Eric Fromm’s contrast between the “having mode” (greed, acquisition, possession, aggressiveness, control, deception, and alienation from one’s authentic self, others, and the natural world) versus the “joyful being mode” (the act of loving, sharing, and discovering, and being authentic and connected to one’s self, others, and the natural world).

The United States has become a nation of consumers rather than citizens. But as Levine reminds us,

“when we accept the whole of our humanity, we are often rewarded with greater joy — and almost always receive increased wisdom about life.”

In an interview in the National Catholic Reporter, environmentalist and author Bill McKibben says we’re in dire straits and have probably only 10 years in which to begin serious efforts at putting less carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into our atmosphere.

“That means gearing up now to make the most ambitious changes we’ve ever had to make in our economy, and in our personal habits. It’s going to be difficult; much of the world is using more fossil fuel all the time. It’s a test for human beings, and hopefully not a final exam.

“For the first time in human history “more” is no longer synonymous with “better.”

“A recent sampling of Forbes magazine’s “richest Americans” showed they have identical happiness scores with Pennsylvania Amish, and are only a whisker above Swedes taken as a whole, not to mention the Masai hunters in Africa.

“As we got more affluent, we lost a lot of our social connections and communities. We moved to the suburbs, built big houses and filled them with screens to stare into. It’s no wonder the average American has half as many close friends as 50 years ago.”

McKibben says we have to move beyond “growth” as the paramount economic ideal and begin pursuing prosperity in a more local direction, with cities, suburbs and regions producing more of their own food, generating more of their own energy, and even creating more of their own culture and entertainment.

There’s been lots of discussion recently about an article Nature by Steve Rayner and Gwyn Prins arguing that while emissions abatement is a global priority, the Kyoto Protocol and its “silver bullet” – a top-down creation of a global carbon market – isn’t actually delivering reductions. Unfortunately, they argue, this sub-optimal approach has developed an iconic status of its own – to be against Kyoto is to be against any  action on climate.

They argue that a more effective successor to Kyoto (which expires in 2012) will require a much more radical rethink – and that a solution requires a “silver buckshot” rather than Kyoto’s “silver bullet.” They make a few suggestions: concentrating on the economies that are big emitters rather than treating all nations as equal partners in negotiation, a massive “wartime footing” increase in R&D, “bottom-up” emissions markets, increased spending on adaptation, and an experimental, multi-level governmental approach to the problem.

As I see it, there are two obvious objections to the approach outlined.  First, they simply dismiss the possibility of a carbon tax as having “severe political obstacles.”

More importantly, their solutions assume the continued existence of the system that has resulted in the problem.  They recognize that global warming is best understood

as a symptom of a particular development path and its globally interlaced supply-system of fossil energy. Together they form a complex nexus of mutually reinforcing, intertwined patterns of human behaviour, physical materials and the resulting technology.”

It follows that any solution requires choosing a path other than the “particular development path” we are on.  But that’s off the table: rather, their “solutions” assume we can continue down this path but reach a different destination, through negotiation, new technology and markets, and our inherent cleverness.  I suggest that a solution requires a really radical approach – one that, as long as we’re still in the bargaining stage of grief and loss, we’re not yet ready to contemplate.

Bill McKibben in his book Deep Economy argues that the “growth economy” we idolize and worship is unequal, unsustainable, and – perhaps most importantly – depressing.

It is unequal because, though our economy has been growing, most of us have relatively little to show for it. The median wage in the United States is the same as it was thirty years ago and the real income of the bottom 90 percent of Americans has declined steadily.

Even if we found the political to spread wealth around more evenly, that would not solve the problem of sustainability. We are using up all of the fossil fuels, especially oil, that power our current growth economy while imperiling our lives on this planet through the build up of carbon in the atmosphere – which is produced, of course, by burning all those fossil fuels in the first place. Even if we liked the economy we have now, we have little chance of keeping it.

And the growth economy and its avalanche of stuff has not made us any happier – instead, it has made us decidedly unhappier. Up to a certain point – for those living in poverty, for example – “more” increases aggregate and individual levels of happiness. After that point, though, happiness becomes subject to the laws of diminishing returns, until the returns become losses and “more” actually correlates with unhappiness. We work longer hours to buy more things to make ourselves more miserable instead of doing what does make us happy: spending time with our families and in our communities.

McKibben argues that the solution to all these economic ills – inequality, sustainability, and happiness – lies in revitalizing local economies and local communities.

Prof. Goose has posted at The Oil Drum social psychologist Robert Cialdini‘s testimony before the Subcommittee on Research and Science Education, House Committee on Science and Technology, on the topic of “The Contribution of the Social Sciences to the Energy Challenge,” September 25, 2007.

Dr. Cialdini talks about the remarkably powerful role social norms play in directing human action and producing socially desirable conduct. In the context of energy and the environment, studies show that (1) energy users severely underestimate the role of social norms in guiding their energy usage, (2) communications that employ social norm-based appeals for pro-environmental behavior are superior to those that employ traditional persuasive appeals, and (3) even though these highly effective social norm-based appeals are nearly costless—requiring no large technological fixes, tax incentives, or regulatory changes—they are rarely (and sometimes mistakenly) delivered.

What’s this got to do with the property rights debate? Measure 37 succeeded in getting 61% of Oregon’s population to endorse a new social norm – that any reduction in property values due to regulation for the benefit of all was unfair. Now the proponents of Measure 49 is asking those who opposed Measure 37 to join in and affirm that it’s perfectly alright to demand compensation from the government when regulations deprive a property owner of windfall profits – and that, when that happens, it’s perfectly alright to ignore a law that applies to everyone else. How can reaffirming a social norm that is logically and legally nonsensical, historically inaccurate, and socially dangerous be “pragmatic” if it destroys the most powerful tool we have to encourage socially desirable conduct? Read the rest of this entry »