Sustainability

1. Class 40: Eaarth CofC Fall 2010 Sustainability

2. Wapner & Willoughby “Irony of Environmentalism” • Main Pt: “Personal lifestyle changes that emphasize greater efficiency, less consumption, and genuine personal sacrifice may feel good and make for good press, but they rarely help the earth.” • Why? The money saved, less consumed, is fungible and gets spent by others and often toward less environmentally friendly ends. • Conclusion: By accurately understanding the political influence of our actions, there is greater hope for environmental protection. • Structure of economy works as direct impediment to enviro action (i.e. fungibility of money toward “productivity”) • So, still must consume less, but must address world economic structure as well as individual practices.

3. McKibben’sEaarth • “The planet on which our civilization evolved no longer exists. The stability that produced that civilization has vanished; epic changes have begun…We may, with commitment and luck, yet be able to maintain a planet that will sustain some kind of civilization, but it won’t be the same planet, and hence it can’t be the same civilization. The earth we knew—the only earth that we ever knew—is gone.” (p27)

4. McKibben’sEaarth, Ch 2 • Limits to growth not wrong, just “ahead of the curve.” • In 2008, a study found that, after tracing all variables in Limits to Growth that “for the first 30yrs of the model, the world has been tracking along the unsustainable trajectory of the book’s bus as usual scenario.” • “The curves matched the stnd model, the one that ended in economic collapse sometime before 2050.” (McKibben, p96) • Contemporary issues like peak oil, GCC, food and water security resonate with model • Rips Tom Friedman’s more growth, but green growth approach—lives in 11k sq ft home and owns a company called “General Growth Properties”

5. McKibben’s Suggestions • Instead of this doomsday scenario, and running with blinders on toward it, we could choose to manage our descent. • His 2 main Needs to accommodate this change: • 1. Need to Mature: focus on perpetual growth and “progress” has kept us as “adolescents” (see p99-100) • 2. We need to figure out what to jettison—many habits like consumeristic lifestyle. Simplicity is a way forward

6. Eaarth, 2nd half of book • Different approach to CC than Al Gore, Jeff Sachs, and Tom Friedman • They all underestimate the impact of climate change and the effects to governance and people (and systems) • less faith than they that a growing new green economy and innovative technologies will get us out of this mess too much damage has already been done, rendering  these solutions too slow and too expensive to be feasible.   • agrees that we need a dramatic ramping up of energy conservation as a first step. Like others, he recommend government support for more sustainable, local farming methods and locally generated energy.  • McKibben argues (beyond many others) that our very assumption about “growing the economy” must change; that is, to cope with shrinking resources and the pressure that economic development is placing on our environment. • Challenges the idea and framing of America around “big”, esp when ironically so much of past America was built on “small”

7. Idea of “Big” • This idea of “big” and (“too big to fail” mentality) has created significant disconnects that extends to big business AND big government. • "Our National Projects weren't only about paving highways.  They were also about guaranteeing civil rights and setting aside wilderness areas, protecting free speech and endangered species.  Such advances would fare less well, at least in places, if we broke the country down into tiny slivers.  One imagines the Alaska Independence Party, for example, would drill for oil in every square inch of the tundra, caribou be damned." 

8. Eaarth, Ch 3 • New language framing the discussion of climate change (away from wimpy words like “sustainability”) • devotes a considerable portion of the book to a history of American roots in decentralized self reliance and opposition to a national bank and strong centralized government.  • But tries to cut across political ideologies • Reinvigorates the discussion around “community” and what it means • Decentralized solutions are less susceptible to the hazards of tightly interconnected global systems.  • recommends a selective (not wholesale) return to localism.  • The Internet will continue to provide an important and relatively low-energy resource of worldwide information and global connection. • However,  the essential activities of food and energy production, and the economic activity they support, should be returned largely to local communities.