On Behalf of Environmentalists I Apologize
Robert Sroufe
I feel an obligation to apologize for how badly we environmentalists have misled the public. Here are some facts few people know:
- Humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction”
- The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world”
- Climate change is not making natural disasters worse
- Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003
- The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska
- The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and more dangerous, fires in Australia and California
- Carbon emissions have been declining in rich nations for decades and peaked in Britain, Germany and France in the mid-seventies
- Adapting to life below sea level made the Netherlands rich not poor
- We produce 25% more food than we need and food surpluses will continue to rise as the world gets hotter
- Habitat loss and the direct killing of wild animals are bigger threats to species than climate change
- Wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels
- Preventing future pandemics requires more not less “industrial” agriculture
Ashley Colby
Ashley Colby Fitzgerald
PhD, Environmental Sociology
Co-founder Rizoma Field School
Colonia, Uruguay
As a follow up to the Plant of the Humans thread and earlier posts, this book has caught my attention and I wanted to see how you all would respond to something like this book and webpage link below being brought up in your classrooms?
--R. Sroue
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Robert Sroufe
On Wednesday, July 1, 2020 at 10:55:02 AM UTC-4, ashley wrote:
I hadn't heard of this book, but upon first reading the article it seems there are likely both some valuable insights and some incorrect conclusions (some of the claims he makes in the article have *very* inconclusive evidence, so his self-assuredness is a red flag). I think it's incredibly important, now more than ever, that we actually entertain heterodox assertions, welcome them into the debate, get into the details, and come to (potentially new, or reinforcing already-held) conclusions.If this were brought up in a classroom where I was teaching, I'd get into the text, the sources, and use it to teach critical thinking and interrogating scientific claims. We could go through points one by one and investigate them together as a class.Ashley Colby Fitzgerald
PhD, Environmental Sociology
Co-founder Rizoma Field School
Colonia, Uruguay
On Wed, Jul 1, 2020 at 11:05 AM Robert Sroufe <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:
As a follow up to the Plant of the Humans thread and earlier posts, this book has caught my attention and I wanted to see how you all would respond to something like this book and webpage link below being brought up in your classrooms?--
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JOHN DE GRAAF,* JOHN DE GRAAF
John de Graaf
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Tom Abeles
As a follow up to the Plant of the Humans thread and earlier posts, this book has caught my attention and I wanted to see how you all would respond to something like this book and webpage link below being brought up in your classrooms?
R. Sroue
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Tom Walker
Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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Rees, William
For what it's worth, here is how I described the Shellenberger article in a discussion with some other friends:
--------------------------------------------------------
Sent: Wednesday, July 1, 2020 9:27:57 AM
To: John de Graaf
Cc: robert...@gmail.com; SCORAI
Subject: Re: [SCORAI] On Behalf of Environmentalists I Apologize
JOHN DE GRAAF,* JOHN DE GRAAF
John de Graaf
On 07/01/2020 7:05 AM Robert Sroufe <robert...@gmail.com> wrote:
As a follow up to the Plant of the Humans thread and earlier posts, this book has caught my attention and I wanted to see how you all would respond to something like this book and webpage link below being brought up in your classrooms?
R. Sroue
--
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Rees, William
Thanks, John --
Right, much more in line with the evidence indeed! That said, when I read passages like
"...it turns out the main stumbling block is not technological limits or economics itself, but the economic imperative to grow the economy, spurred by overconsumption and the political power of the super-affluent."
my temper flares a little. These folks act as if they discovered the growth imperative and over-consumption as cause. Many of us have been arguing this for decades since at least 1972 with the publication of Limits to Growth. It has been confirmed as the major message of our ecological footprint analyses since the 1990s. Here's a 12-year old article from the Globe and Mail making the same point: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/rich-poor-who-leaves-the-biggest-eco-footprint/article25579800/ .
Oh well, any good teacher knows that constant urgent repetition is essential for rote learning. Perhaps a few dozen more papers like this and the mainstream will start to take seriously what should by now be obvious.
Bill
Sent: Thursday, July 2, 2020 9:37:26 AM
To: robert...@gmail.com; SCORAI
Subject: Re: [SCORAI] On Behalf of Environmentalists I Apologize
JOHN DE GRAAF,* JOHN DE GRAAF
John de Graaf
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Jorge Pinto
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JOHN DE GRAAF,* JOHN DE GRAAF
John de Graaf
Jean Boucher
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Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed
until it is faced. – James Baldwin
saleem
Colleagues
Colleagues
Much as we can lament and dismiss Shellenberger’s specious arguments (and there are many in the book), the points he makes about energy density issues with wind and solar come from revered energy scholars like Vaclav Smil and Jesse Ausubel.
Any thoughts on critiquing Smil and Ausubel ? forget about Shellenberger.
All best
Saleem
Benjamin Sovacool
Hello Saleem, all – as many of the more seasoned of us know, in the academy there is probably no such thing as a “revered” scholar any more, one can always find ways to critique or engage by looking at fundamental assumptions, ignored evidence, unconscious bias, etc. (deserved or not).
For Vaclav, my own experience has been he’s willing to engage constructively as long as you attack the arguments and not the person. We had a nice, civil debate in ERSS a few years ago where we argued in favour of fast transitions, he critiqued, we replied:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629615300827
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214629616302006
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214629616301967
Although I hope we “won” the debate, and I still think Vaclav is too pessimistic when it comes to assumptions about transition speeds, it was an enjoyable process that benefitted from the Socratic like exchange.
So for him, focus on the substance, and not ad hominum attacks, and you may both be able to refute him and also benefit from his earnest engagement.
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saleem
vikis
Thanks, John, for posting the link to this article, Affluence is Killing the Planet, which in turn links to the research paper - which I really, really liked.
I think it went beyond calling out over-consumption (old news) by linking it to inequality (also old news), but also offering some really useful framing. Among the many things to appreciate in this article:
- The effective use of the terms affluence and super-affluence as signifiers for over-consumption
- The recognition that multiple actors bear responsibility for over-consumption ("...shown that consumers have little control over environmentally-damaging impacts along supply chains, however they often do have control over making a consumption decision in the first place.")
- Exposition of growth imperative and its political function for super-affluent
- Analysis of commodification trends in relation to time scarcity and efficiency consumption
- Nice codification of degrowth/sustainable posterity approaches
In short, I think it ties a lot of analyses across multiple perspectives together nicely. I highly recommend it.
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Rees, William
Benjamin, Saleem, et al. --
Most discussion of "energy transitions" deal with historic shifts or assume that the next transition -- e.g., from fossil fuels to renewables (RE), particularly wind turbines and solar PV -- is only a matter of time.
However, given such limitations as:
- the much reduced energy density of wind and solar;
- the fact that many industrial processes require temperatures that cannot yet be generated easily with electricity;
- the irritant (to RE advocates) that wind turbines and solar cells are mined and manufactured literally from the ground up using fossil fuels;
- concerns about the availability of adequate economic supplies of rare earth minerals;
- the significant pollution costs associated with mining and manufacturing associated with RE technology;
- the fact that wind and solar are not renewable, merely replaceable (using fossil fuel?) after ~15 and 25 years respectively;
- a rapid build out of wind and solar plants to at a rate sufficient meet the IPCC target of <1.5 Celsius degree of mean global warming would almost certainly blow the carbon emissions budget (catch-22);
is it not just possible that the next transition, at least to a future with quantitatively equivalent energy availability per capita, is simply not possible?
Consider that meeting the IPCC maximum permissible warming target requires that the world reduce carbon emissions at the rate of 7.5% per year (this gets us to about half current emissions by 2030). I estimate, conservatively, that to replace fossil fuels with wind and solar electricity at an adequate pace to meet this target while maintaining current energy supplies, we would have to treble the existing 30+ years cumulative stock of wind and solar installations in just the first year, i.e., in 2020 (ignoring for now the CO2 generated by this process). And of course, we would have to repeat in 2021 for a further 7% reduction in remaining emissions, and the next and...
Clearly, is is not happening and, I submit, cannot happen. Assuming the climate science is correct, without major emissions reductions
by other means, humanity will trigger disastrous climate change.
Perhaps the next transition should be a carefully planned, equitable contraction of human enterprise in which people in industrial countries learn to live on much-reduced (truly renewable) energy supplies and material consumption. Does anyone else believe that this scenario merits serious consideration?
Just askin'
Bill Rees
Sent: Sunday, July 5, 2020 12:58:04 AM
To: sal...@alum.mit.edu; SCORAI
Subject: RE: [SCORAI] Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists I Apologize
JOHN DE GRAAF,* JOHN DE GRAAF
John de Graaf
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Jean Boucher
I think most of us are part of SCORAI because, as Bill offers, we believe that turning down the production-consumption faucet is critical to a sustainable human-environmental future. I also appreciate Benjamin for re-focusing us on arguments, not people (though I find it challenging when I interpret a succession of flawed arguments), and thanks, Saleem, for focusing our attention on energy density. Regarding Shellenberger (I've ordered but not read his book), when he keeps calling us religious and we keep calling him religious, something has to give, no?
I think we need to fall in love with inefficiency. Years ago, when I was more religious, I thought the world's problems could be summed up as spiritual: lacking trust, faith, an inordinate attachment to things, the rat race, neuroticisms. Taking time to stop, meditate, or sleep, or nap, is probably one of the most inefficient things we could do: zero work and some degree of energy use, but also, small environmental impact.
What scares me about energy density is its raw capacity to do work, to produce. It's like we've attained the power of gods. I don't have to talk about Jevons, we know it, and Richard York and colleagues have done some great work in this area. The more energy density, the faster we consume, produce, process and transform our environment. Point being, energy density is awesome, but not in the hands of--I guess--children.
We've heard of sufficiency, the slow movement, degrowth, all sorts of simplicities, frugalities and minimalisms, but they generally don't market. To get somewhat Marxist, the cherished values of the modern age (as defined and guarded by our rulers--cultural or otherwise) are time and money, and it seems that we will cram and process as much power, energy, resources, and money in the shortest amount of time as possible, and the Earth groans.
My specific research is at the micro level on how income determines our lifestyles, how we consume, how much we consume, our environmental impacts and emissions, etc. Here, I see how the means justify the ends: money, generally, becomes the power to pollute, and this is what really scares me about energy density, not it's physical beauty, but it's awesomeness in the hands of babes. Who was it that said, "Once we replace GDP with a better measure of human well-being, we can keep it as a measure of environmental impact."
Jean
Benjamin Sovacool
Hi Saleem, understood, I was more talking about how to engage him rather than using the topical arguments in our exchange as help on this particular point.
There, power density, as you know, is probably an important but one of only many factors that should determine the desirability of an energy resource. A very dense energy fuel can still be carbon intensive (bad for the climate) and difficult to extract (bad for society).
Three things that I have seen that could help you here are: EROI and ELCC and LCOE. All are measures that support renewables.
EROI is energy return on investment or energy payback ratio. These are almost always very high for renewables, especially hydro and sometimes wind, and low for oil and gas:
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/2/3/490
https://mahb.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/EROI-of-Global-Energy-Resources_SUNYNGEI1.pdf
ELCC is effective load carrying capacity. Very high for solar because it’s generating electricity just when you need it, not so good for natural gas or nuclear:
https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy15osti/63038.pdf
LCOE, as most of us know, is the levelized cost of energy. Again bad for nuclear. Most people use Lazard’s:
https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019
Maybe this is more topically helpful?
I should note we have two studies under review that also are critical of nuclear, one on carbon emissions (a big-N statistical analysis) and one on externalities. But I can’t share those yet.
From: sco...@googlegroups.com <sco...@googlegroups.com>
On Behalf Of saleem
Sent: 05 July 2020 20:17
To: SCORAI <sco...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: [SCORAI] Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists I Apologize
Greetings again
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Noel Gerard Keough
On Jul 5, 2020, at 6:12 PM, Rees, William <wr...@mail.ubc.ca> wrote:
[△EXTERNAL]
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Joe Zammit-Lucia
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Richard Rosen
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Noel Gerard Keough
On Jul 6, 2020, at 6:59 AM, 'Joe Zammit-Lucia' via SCORAI <sco...@googlegroups.com> wrote:
[△EXTERNAL]
Dear Noel
Unfortunately the Covid contraction has been anything but equitable. And hardly welcomed by the vast majority of the population.
We need a different model.
Best
Joe
Dr Joe Zammit-Lucia
+31 646 86 21 76
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Ruben Nelson
I take the considerations and case Bill has set out very seriously.
The (inappropriate) stories so many in the sustainability field tell themselves about the situation we are in and how we might cope with it are, as Bill points out, not grounded in serious integral complex systems thinking. Yes, folks have some capacity to “think systems”. Mostly, this is “seeing and thinking sub-systems or sub-systems of sub-systems.” Worse, many (most?) stick with calculations of the hard technologies, with no considerations of the interplay between these hard technologies and the complex living wicked systems that we as persons/societies/cultures are.
For me the root source of our inability to understand, see clearly the situation we are in and come to terms with what it implies about our future is the fact that, for wholly understandable reasons, most of the folks doing the work accept as given the root presumptions of our Modern Techno-industrial (MTI) cultures and form of civilization, namely that we can use the MTI modes of knowing, imagining, thinking things through and acting to that have led us into trouble, to get us out of trouble.
At the scale of our whole MTI form of civilization, in effect, we are assuming that Einstein’s famous quip that “we cannot solve our problems with the same level of thinking that created them” does not apply to us who are MTI peoples and cultures. To the contrary, the basic bet we are making is that MTI science and technology will be the very things that “save” us. At least this much is the case, as yet: (1) We are focussed on technological sub-systems as if they are independent of both the rest of the Earth and its peoples. (2) We are giving little sustained thought to the insights that we are in a “double overshoot” – both ecological and civilizational. (3) Civilization overshoot is the root source of ecological overshoot. Therefore, we cannot deal with the latter without dealing with the former. (4) We face an unrecognized need; To transcend out MTI aspirations, identities and cultures because no version of MTI ways of knowing, imagining, thinking things through and acting can even understand the depths of the trouble we are in, much less cope with it.
Ruben
? Humans are not causing a “sixth mass extinction”
? The Amazon is not “the lungs of the world”
? Climate change is not making natural disasters worse
? Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003
? The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska
? The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and more dangerous, fires in Australia and California
? Carbon emissions have been declining in rich nations for decades and peaked in Britain, Germany and France in the mid-seventies
? Adapting to life below sea level made the Netherlands rich not poor
? We produce 25% more food than we need and food surpluses will continue to rise as the world gets hotter
? Habitat loss and the direct killing of wild animals are bigger threats to species than climate change
? Wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels
? Preventing future pandemics requires more not less “industrial” agriculture
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Ashwani Vasishth
To be bluntly clear...I agree completely with Bill's (AND Wiedmann et al's) arguments about affluence "killing the planet" (both attached for reference). I agree completely that we will not come out of this one without radically rethinking consumption and production--the root purpose of this listserv.
However, I have thought about this a lot, and am certain Bill is not correct in his analysis of renewable energy scenarios.
This is NOT to say, "renewables will save the day..." Not at
all. All technologies are mere pawns, in the board we play here.
This is all about choice-making, and we certainly have hard
choices to make here.
I thought I had answers to many of Bill's concerns, stated below. But I have learned--over the decades--to have a healthy respect for Bill's thinking...I use his work extensively to inform my own thinking..
So, I went looking for support. And chose to reach out to Mark
Z. Jacobson...who has written extensively on transitioning 100% to
Wind, Water and Sun.
I shared Bill's concerns with him, and here are his responses, as collated by me:
-----------------------------------------------
https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/WWS-50-USState-plans.html
Best regards,
Mark
-------------------------------------------------
--
Ashwani
Vasishth ashwani....@gmail.com (323) 206-1858 --------------------------------------------------------
Thank you, Mark. Yes, I am quite familiar with your work. But even so...
"However, given such limitations as:
- the much reduced energy density of wind and solar;
As stated, the world can be powered with 100% WWS using hardly any land.
See the second figure at
https://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/TimelineDetailed.pdf
- the fact that many industrial processes require temperatures that cannot yet be generated easily with electricity;
- concerns about the availability of adequate economic supplies of rare earth minerals;
These are not limits, as discussed in, for example,
http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/JDEnPolicyPt1.pdf
- the significant pollution costs associated with mining and manufacturing associated with RE technology;
- the fact that wind and solar are not renewable, merely replaceable (using fossil fuel?) after ~15 and 25 years respectively;
- a rapid build out of wind and solar plants to at a rate sufficient meet the IPCC target of <1.5 Celsius degree of mean global warming would almost certainly blow the carbon emissions budget (catch-22);
Not if we eliminate 80% of emissions by 2030 and 100% by 2050
http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/CountryGraphs/CO2ChangesWithWWS.pdf
and
http://web.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/Articles/I/CountriesWWS.pdf
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saleem
Tom Abeles
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Rees, William
Ashwani et al. -
This is turning out to be an interesting and informative discussion so, in that spirit, let me add a few more facts and speculations to ponder.
First, Ashwani, thank you for contacting Mark Jacobson and allowing him to respond directly. As it turns out, I am familiar with his group's (controversial) work as well as published countervail. Best known is the paper by Clack et al., which claims Jacobson et al. is error-prone. See https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1610381114 and decide for yourself whom to believe. (BTW. Jacobson doesn't directly address several of my bulleted points.)
You might also read this more recent (discouraging) 'extended' assessment of the energy returned
on energy invested (ERoEI) of various RE technologies: https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/13/12/3036/htm
If Clack et al. and the ERoEI paper do not provide enough reason to be cautious about a rapid transition to 100% renewables à la Jacobson et al. then consider the following. (Apologies if I have shared this analysis with some of you before).
A new report from the Goldman School of public Policy, UC Berkeley (2035 The Report) in the spirit of Jacobson, describes how the US can virtually liberate its electricity sector from fossil fuels by 2035. This report “…uses the latest renewable energy and battery cost data to demonstrate the technical and economic feasibility of achieving 90% clean (carbon-free) electricity in the United States by 2035.” See:
The goal according to this study:
“To achieve the 90% Clean case by 2035, 1,100 GW of new wind and solar generation must be built, averaging about 70 GW [70,000 MW] per year.”
Just for the hell of it, and out of concern for the problems associated with 'scaling up', I decided to look at what this would look like for wind power generation in terms of just the required number of turbines:
If we assume wind provides half the increase (35,000 MW) as implied in the report, this means adding the equivalent of 11,667 typical 3-MW bird-and bat-destroying wind turbines to the US landscape annually.
But wait—that number assumes the turbines run constantly at their maximum rated capacity. More likely we can expect that they perform, on average, at 25% of rated capacity across the country (‘coz the wind don’t blow all the time at optimal speed).
So, now we are up to the equivalent of 46,667 bird- and bat-destroying wind turbines every year (128 per day) for 15 years. (All this assumes that solar catches up to wind generation, a big stretch: in 2019, wind provided 300 million MWh and solar only 72 million MWh to the US grid.)
Now let’s put this in global context:
In 2019, a year of rapid growth (11%) in wind power, the world added 159.4 TWhr (159,400,000 MWhr) of wind generation capacity (data from BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2020). With a 25% capacity factor, our 3-MW turbine would produce: 3 MW × 365 days × 24 hours × 25% = 6570 MWh. Thus, the world installed the equivalent of 24,262 three MW turbines in 2019 or ~66 per day.
Bottom line? The US would have to increase its wind turbine capacity at almost twice the global installation rate (46,667 vs 24,262) to achieve the 70 GW annual wind+solar target (again, assuming that solar does the other half the heavy lifting).
The material implications are substantial. Consider just the tower: the tower for a 3MW wind turbine can weigh up to 628,000 pounds (285 tonnes), mostly steel. thus, if the US installs 46,667 turbines annually this would require up to 29,306,876,000 pounds (13,293,375 tonnes) of steel for the towers alone.
The US produced 88,000,000 tonnes of steel in 2019, so building towers for the wind turbines would require the equivalent of 15% of US steel production. Add in the rest of the steel requirements for the generator and other nacelle components, the re-bar in the base, etc., and I think you'd come to maybe 25%.
Obviously not all the steel need come from the US, but consider that there will be competition from all over the world (which should be trying to scale-up similarly) for the same steel and rare earth elements needed for all that wind and solar electricity. And remember, there are non-energy competing uses for steel.
And none of this accounts for the other 65% of global final energy consumption in hard-to-electrify applications that still require fossil fuel.
Ashwani, you assert that you are "certain [I] am not correct in [my] analysis of renewable energy scenarios." Fair enough--I do make errors and it would be nice, actually, if the above assessment and my estimate of the required global rate of wind and solar build-out were incorrect in the 'right' direction.
It is important not to let the real-world data be overridden by one's hopes, wishes and beliefs. On the other hand, one should not be deluded by poor data or analysis.
I'd be pleased to have anyone point out if and where I have erred in the above.
Bill
Sent: Monday, July 6, 2020 7:48:09 AM
To: sco...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [SCORAI] Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists I Apologize
Ashwani Vasishth
Thanks, Tom. My point was not that we can leave it to the engineers, modelers or scientists. Of course, it is a complex space.
My point was simply to object to Bill's assertion that (or so it seemed to me) there is no way to get to "there" from "here." We CAN get there, from here, and renewables are not a lost cause.
I am a social scientist, so to speak. And I am not devoid of systems thinking skill. I will maintain that it is necessary to both raise alarm, and show the pitfalls, but also to shine a light, and hold out hope.
Of course, we cannot talk carrying capacity
without talking about PAT. All three are loaded with
complexities, and there is no simple path forward. But, my
point is simply this...we need to pay attention to al three, and
to their interplay, before we can say we are honestly making
efforts to mitigate our impact upon the ecosphere.
--
Ashwani
Vasishth vasi...@ramapo.edu (201) 684-6616 (Jabber-enabled)
http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~vasishth
--------------------------------------------------------
Associate Professor of Sustainability
Convener, Sustainability Program (BA)
President, New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS)
Director, Center for Sustainability
http://ramapo.edu/sustainability
Ramapo College of New Jersey
505 Ramapo Valley Road, SSHS, Mahwah, NJ 07430
--------------------------------------------------------Ruben Nelson
I agree with Noel that the notion of an “equitable contraction” should be given greater prominence. It is not yet an idea in good currency. No political party, as yet, says, “Elect us because we understand the need for and nature of an equitable contraction better than the other folks.” Not surprising since the market for this notion is very small.
And, we must be open to the reality that “decline”, “contraction”, “degrowth”, “disintegration” are already baked into the future of MTI cultures and, for many folks, has already started. We are not talking about something that should occur, but is not yet occurring. We are on this path, although we have not yet recognized and owned up to it. We are missing are the “intentional and equitable” parts.
And, in addition, we need to get serious about the fact that the “equitable decline” must also be a “transition that moves us beyond our Modern Techno-industrial aspirations, identities and cultures.” It is not a strategy to “save” Modernity, but to transcend it. If this element is not present in a serious way, all we are doing is managing a descent into chaos and death.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/B2F0FEB0-46BC-4A63-9000-AAE2B2637E6A%40ucalgary.ca.
Noel Gerard Keough
On Jul 6, 2020, at 10:45 AM, Ruben Nelson <ruben...@shaw.ca> wrote:
[△EXTERNAL]
I agree with Noel that the notion of an “equitable contraction” should be given greater prominence. It is not yet an idea in good currency. No political party, as yet, says, “Elect us because we understand the need for and nature of an equitable contraction better than the other folks.” Not surprising since the market for this notion is very small.And, we must be open to the reality that “decline”, “contraction”, “degrowth”, “disintegration” are already baked into the future of MTI cultures and, for many folks, has already started. We are not talking about something that should occur, but is not yet occurring. We are on this path, although we have not yet recognized and owned up to it. We are missing are the “intentional and equitable” parts.And, in addition, we need to get serious about the fact that the “equitable decline” must also be a “transition that moves us beyond our Modern Techno-industrial aspirations, identities and cultures.” It is not a strategy to “save” Modernity, but to transcend it. If this element is not present in a serious way, all we are doing is managing a descent into chaos and death.Ruben
<image003.jpg>
Ashwani Vasishth
As always, Bill, you are on point, and
cogent. As I said in my original message--actually, two
things--business as usual will NOT get us there. We cannot
continue on the path we are currently on, AND get to a livable
world. Draconian adjustments to consumption and production are
absolutely and categorically needed.
Second, I am NOT asserting (and, honestly, I doubt Jacobson et al. are either) that renewables will singlehandedly pull us out of this morass in which we are mired. But, without cutting fossil fuels drastically, and hence without renewables, we certainly don't get off the batter's mound. Forget about first base.
Yes, we don't want to be blinded by the light,
nor carried astray by hope. But both light and hope are
necessary if we are to continue. My point is simply this--We
CAN pull ourselves out of the morass. It will take ALL of
us--teachers, thinkers, analysts, modelers, engineers, all of
us--pulling together, to get us on a path to proper action.
Cheers,
--
Ashwani
Vasishth vasi...@ramapo.edu (201) 684-6616 (Jabber-enabled)
http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~vasishth
--------------------------------------------------------
Associate Professor of Sustainability
Convener, Sustainability Program (BA)
President, New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS)
Director, Center for Sustainability
http://ramapo.edu/sustainability
Ramapo College of New Jersey
505 Ramapo Valley Road, SSHS, Mahwah, NJ 07430
--------------------------------------------------------
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/f8b636988e4f4a808ac771bfd8118acf%40mail.ubc.ca.
Gough,I
Sent: 06 July 2020 15:11
To: Rees, William <wr...@mail.ubc.ca>
Cc: sal...@alum.mit.edu <sal...@alum.mit.edu>; SCORAI <sco...@googlegroups.com>; b.sov...@sussex.ac.uk <b.sov...@sussex.ac.uk>; Megan Seibert <megan....@realgnd.org>
Subject: Re: [SCORAI] Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists I Apologize
Rees, William
Ashwani -
You object to my
assertion
(or so it seemed to you) that "there is no way to get to
'there'
from 'here.''"
To be clear, I cannot predict the future ('there') any better than you can. In fact, I'm not sure where the 'there' is to which we want to go. (Ask Ruben Nelson about that.)
On the other hand, I do know about 'here' and what others like Jacobson and the Goldman-Berkeley study think 'there' looks like. My numbers/analyses suggest strongly that, in fact, we cannot get to Jacobson's/Berkeley's 'there' from 'here' on anything like the required schedule. Consider this: If we reassembled a year from now, will the US have added 46,667 windmills to the electric grid plus an equivalent quantity from solar PV? I am pretty sure the answer is 'no' and would still be 'no' if this were a normal, non-pandemic, year.
Your stated (social science) position is " We CAN get there, from here, and renewables are not a lost cause"* and that we must "shine a light, and hold out hope".
Now, as a 'hard scientist', I see these as mere assertions--wishful thinking--or, as you put it, expressions of "hope". They do not constitute a valid argument. You may, of course, be correct about getting 'there'. (By the way, what does your 'there' look like?) As I said, neither of us can predict the future. However, there are no data or other substantial evidence to support your assertions.
This is not a trivial issue. There is good reason to fear that when people are told repeatedly that "wind and solar are now so cheap that they will displace fossil fuels from all applications by 2050 or even 2035", they tend to relax -- this kind of 'upbeat' assertion tells them that the climate problem is solved and the energy future is bright.
This isn't hope, it is hopeful delusion and hopeful delusion has an enervating effect on both individual action and public policy. The enormous effort going into The Green New Deal and similar RE based scenarios (instead of realistic planning and capacity-building for an energy poor less consumptive future) is evidence enough.
In short, delusional hope distracts people from the task of rethinking the fundamental beliefs, values and assumptions of modernist society and helping to script a new narrative by which humanity can live more equitably, with enhanced economic security in an ecologically productive/stable world. (By the way, scripting that new narrative is anything but a engineering and scientific enterprise though both will play an important role.)
Such a world might actually be possible -- so now I am being hopeful and vague. But what is clear is that we will not get to this kind of 'there' as long as society is bent on maintaining the business-as-usual status quo by alternative (RE) means.
Cheers,
Bill
* By
the way, I have never said renewable are a lost cause--even wind and solar have important niche applications -- and, in a few decades, renewables are all we will have. The question is: what kind of society will the available RE be able to support?
Sent: Monday, July 6, 2020 9:31:07 AM
To: Tom Abeles
Cc: SCORAI Group
Subject: Re: [SCORAI] Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists I Apologize
Michael Howard
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/3abd5e4ff7054a08b4ab618bd054270b%40mail.ubc.ca.
Ashley Colby
Ashley Colby Fitzgerald
PhD, Environmental Sociology
Co-founder Rizoma Field School
Colonia, Uruguay
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/CAMGx_rH4Dy%2BZngHKew-4MfXUZf02VReBvvZfMAbDE-f44itujw%40mail.gmail.com.
Thomas Love
With his compelling analysis of the severe difficulties facing an energy transition based on renewables, Bill points toward the need for academics in networks like SCORAI to more
radically examine the nature of blockages to change.
I’ve been trying to sort this out conceptually, though not yet empirically. I find myself standing on much smarter people’s shoulders. I keep coming back to the way culture (our shared, learned mental frameworks) is so profoundly sub- or unconscious. The taken-for-grantedness of the mental models within which we think and move and have our being…in which we make sense of the world, makes it hard for humans (even for academics trained to be conscious of these things) to consciously think about such aspects as the meaning of symbols (arbitrary as they may be), the nature of the undergirding beliefs (assumptions), or the classifications of reality (the categories within which we think) that inform people’s behavior. In this sense, I think it’s safe to assume (and the evidence would seem to confirm) that addressing climate change and energy transition in any systematic way that might lead to meaningful changes in people's consumption patterns is literally un-thinkable for most people. Or perhaps better put, it's thinkable only/primarily through the cultural frameworks people have.
This fact has huge political implications, and raises big doubts for me about the very possibility of coherently planning for energy transition or slowing GHG emissions – an apparently widespread assumption among most posters in these parts (and some of whose jobs seem to depend on this assumption).
I think it would be very helpful to more deeply examine perennial structure/agency debates in the social sciences to get a better grasp on how complex systems change and on the place of/limits to human agency. (I think of Gregory Bateson and Joseph Tainter, for example.) To the extent that generalizable trends can be discerned, we variously situated academics might more clearly envision/describe areas of change and find likely unanticipated spaces within which people and policy makers might take steps to nudge these systems in more sustainable directions. John’s bread and roses campaign takes some bold steps in this direction.
I certainly second Ashley's wise call (posted just as I finished writing the above) to doublecheck the assumptions of models with which we work.
Tom
Sent: Monday, July 6, 2020 13:36
To: SCORAI Group <sco...@googlegroups.com>
Tom Abeles
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/CACnimAnmOyPJfdntL_E-CKenLBHZZkQy-oyaaqBGjTTVRuU8Zg%40mail.gmail.com.
Ashley Colby
Ashley Colby Fitzgerald
PhD, Environmental Sociology
Co-founder Rizoma Field School
Colonia, Uruguay
Tom Abeles
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/MWHPR1301MB1983996AF895640C2C2C1AEBCD690%40MWHPR1301MB1983.namprd13.prod.outlook.com.
Tom Abeles
In other words, I don't think there's much point to the hand wringing, and the thought experiments and relying on (flawed) global models.
Tom Abeles
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/016d01d653b4%24ea930290%24bfb907b0%24%40shaw.ca.
Jean Boucher
Ashwani Vasishth
Hullo, Bill. The conversation has likely moved on, but I just had a sidebar with Mark Jacobson. (I did invite him to join us, but he declined on that count.)
But. He did say:
you can use this link to clarify
that the Clack paper contains false facts concerning the modeling
results, which they have admitted to in writing:
--
Ashwani
Vasishth vasi...@ramapo.edu (201) 684-6616 (Jabber-enabled)
http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~vasishth
--------------------------------------------------------
Associate Professor of Sustainability
Convener, Sustainability Program (BA)
President, New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS)
Director, Center for Sustainability
http://ramapo.edu/sustainability
Ramapo College of New Jersey
505 Ramapo Valley Road, SSHS, Mahwah, NJ 07430
--------------------------------------------------------
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/f8b636988e4f4a808ac771bfd8118acf%40mail.ubc.ca.
Ashwani Vasishth
Hullo, Bill. The conversation has likely moved on, but I just had a sidebar with Mark Jacobson. (I did invite him to join us, but he declined on that count.)
But. He did say:
you can use this link to clarify
that the Clack paper contains false facts concerning the modeling
results, which they have admitted to in writing:
--
Ashwani
Vasishth vasi...@ramapo.edu (201) 684-6616http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~vasishth -------------------------------------------------------- Associate Professor of Sustainability Convener, Sustainability Program (BA) President, New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS) Director, Center for Sustainability http://ramapo.edu/sustainability Ramapo College of New Jersey 505 Ramapo Valley Road, SSHS, Mahwah, NJ 07430 --------------------------------------------------------
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/f8b636988e4f4a808ac771bfd8118acf%40mail.ubc.ca.
Thomas Love
Sent: Monday, July 6, 2020 16:01
To: wr...@mail.ubc.ca <wr...@mail.ubc.ca>; sco...@googlegroups.com <sco...@googlegroups.com>; ashwani....@gmail.com <ashwani....@gmail.com>; Megan Seibert <megan....@realgnd.org>
Subject: Re: [SCORAI] Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists I Apologize - Clack's rebuttal of Jacobson et al.
Ruben Nelson
Tom,
I cheer you on…
It seems to me that you are on the path that we need to explore and take seriously.
What I hear you saying is that our relentless focus on and arguments about (a) what we are doing to the environment and (b) the science and technology that is required to save us from the consequences of our actions are only part of the mess we are in. Yes, ‘tis true that we are facing “ecological overshoot” which if not dealt with will lead to chaos and death. But that is not the end of the story.
We are not yet paying serious attention to the fact that our destruction of the natural systems on which we depend for life is unwitting because it is unconscious. (A point Bill makes clearly.) It is unconscious because it is shaped by our inherited Modern Techno-industrial (MTI) cultures. (A point you make.) We are “culture trapped.” The deepest patterns of our actions are a function of our Modern Techno-industrial (MTI) cultures. This is a point that our MTI cultures have yet to grasp. A major reason is that one of the messages of an MTI culture is that, as individual persons, we are free and independent of our culture. So we are slow to come to the realization that you have expressed: whether we like it or not, or know it or now, almost all of the major patterns of action in our MTI cultures are functions of our MTI cultures. In short, we are facing a second form of overshoot – civilizational overshoot.
It follows that if we are in what might be called “Double Overshoot” (ecological and civilizational) then we cannot (not merely “will not”) deal with ecological overshoot as long as we are using our familiar and dominant ways of knowing, imagining, thinking about and responding to reality. And, yes, this insight is unthinkable as long as we accept and are bound by our MTI identities and aspirations.
So, for the reasons you outline, the chances of surviving the experience of overshoot is not really nearly as good as most folks think.
This does not mean that there is no chance of a humane and sustainable future. But such a future will not be found on the road our MTI cultures, including much of the sustainability industry, now travel and take for granted. We need to transcend (build on, but move beyond) our MTI formation and form of civilization.
Double Overshoot/Civilizational Transcendence is the key to our future.
Wouldn’t it be good if this were on our minds, hearts and agendas.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/MWHPR1301MB1983996AF895640C2C2C1AEBCD690%40MWHPR1301MB1983.namprd13.prod.outlook.com.
Ashwani Vasishth
Honestly, Bill, I don't disagree with you, in the main. (I rely on, for instance, your Population, Technology and the Human Environment: A Thread Through Time for much of my teaching about ways out of the impasse we seem to face.)
You say: But what is clear is
that we will not get to this kind of 'there' as long as
society is bent on maintaining the business-as-usual
status quo ... by alternative (RE) means.
Actually, by any means...!
I can TRY to teach my
students how to aim for an alternative to the status quo,
but I have to show them that this is worth the effort.
That, if they put skin in the game, it will make sense,
AND be worth their while. That's what I mean by hope.
Not wishful thinking.
Bill, there is more than one way to disempower youth--you can lay the magnitude of the problem that faces them...that'll shut them down right off the bat.
You can lay a pipe dream on them...that will shut them down too...What? Me, Worry?
But how do you give them a battle worth fighting, and a means of doing it?
In my world, you and I are
irrelevant. That freshman coming into my First Year
Seminar class...that's the generation that is going to
either change the status quo or buy into it.
--
Ashwani
Vasishth vasi...@ramapo.edu (201) 684-6616http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~vasishth -------------------------------------------------------- Associate Professor of Sustainability Convener, Sustainability Program (BA) President, New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS) Director, Center for Sustainability http://ramapo.edu/sustainability Ramapo College of New Jersey 505 Ramapo Valley Road, SSHS, Mahwah, NJ 07430 --------------------------------------------------------
Richard Rosen
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/be95ba75-075b-6e81-bbd4-a0cf9320291f%40gmail.com.
Ashwani Vasishth
Yes, precisely so, Michael.
someone with the expertise to evaluate the assumptions the model builders have used. I can't speak to the validity of the assumptions, but at the very least, it allows up to simulate alternative futures.
Here, my point is, if you can['t imagine it, you can't aim for
it.
--
Ashwani
Vasishth vasi...@ramapo.edu (201) 684-6616 (Jabber-enabled)
http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~vasishth
--------------------------------------------------------
Associate Professor of Sustainability
Convener, Sustainability Program (BA)
President, New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS)
Director, Center for Sustainability
http://ramapo.edu/sustainability
Ramapo College of New Jersey
505 Ramapo Valley Road, SSHS, Mahwah, NJ 07430
--------------------------------------------------------
Rees, William
Hi, Tom et al. -
Jacobson et al. vs. Clack et al. is undoubtedly one of the most hard-fought, interesting and socially relevant scientific disputes in the recent literature.
Mark Jacobson’s (abandoned) lawsuit against Clack et al. is actually old news. You can find an LA Times account of the suit and its ultimate fate here: https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-jacobson-lawsuit-20180223-story.html
For an informative and seemingly unbiased history of the dispute between Jacobson and Clack up to the filing of the lawsuit, please consult: https://medium.com/@nathangonzalez95/jacobson-v-clack-ba8604396d14
If you choose to read Jacobson’s rejection of Clack et al.’s critique as provided through Ashwani, then don't leave the issue there. You owe it to yourself also to read: https://www.vibrantcleanenergy.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/ReplyResponse.pdf
I will leave it to you to decide whether Jacobson et al. or Clack et al. are more nearly correct (pausing only to add that the pace of change implicit in Jacobson and like analyses, even if the latter were technically sound, is impossible in practical terms as suggested by my analyses in previous posts).
Good cheer and stay healthy,
Bill
Sent: Monday, July 6, 2020 4:27:10 PM
To: Rees, William; sco...@googlegroups.com; ashwani....@gmail.com; Megan Seibert; vasi...@ramapo.edu
Ruben Nelson
Tom,
We both know that we cannot pre-state which set of actions may well lead a very different future of the complex living mess of mess of messes in which we now live. And complexity theory suggests that on a rugged landscape (which we do) try all of the options that you can afford. DO NOT put all your eggs in one basket. And, when crises emerge that take us off known territory, those who have explored adjacent spaces beyond today’s normal often have an opportunity to make significant differences.
Given these insights, I see the following as fruitful avenues to encourage (and I cheer folks who choose quite different avenues):
1. Developing a not too large jurisdiction into a living learning laboratory dedicated to probing this question: “Just what does it take, by every measure, for a population that is owned by its inherited MTI culture to become conscious enough to become committed to the utterly new project of transcending its inherited MTI culture as it seeks to nurture into robust being the next form of civilization?’ The reality today is that no such learning lab exists today. No one more than vague response to this question. I have my eye on such a place. Very early days as yet.
2. Nurturing any person or set of persons who appear to have the curiosity, depth and willingness to adventure beyond known horizons that our times require.
3. Developing my own understanding of the fact and importance of “Double Overshoot” and the need for and fact of “Civilizational Transcendence” -- the emergence of the next form of civilization.
All of these help me make somewhat reliable sense of our times and increase the chances that my own efforts are somewhat better than random.
So, yes, as of today, an “Equitable Contraction” is not happening or even on the agendas of any organization with serious power. And, yes, this implies that the next few decades will we far worse to live in/through than any population now anticipates. And, we agree that until death is certain, we must clean up, suit up and show up.
My best,
Ashwani Vasishth
Somehow the link below got cut off.
--
Ashwani
Vasishth vasi...@ramapo.edu (201) 684-6616
http://phobos.ramapo.edu/~vasishth
--------------------------------------------------------
Associate Professor of Sustainability
Convener, Sustainability Program (BA)
President, New Jersey Higher Education Partnership for Sustainability (NJHEPS)
Director, Center for Sustainability
http://ramapo.edu/sustainability
Ramapo College of New Jersey
505 Ramapo Valley Road, SSHS, Mahwah, NJ 07430
--------------------------------------------------------
Jean Boucher
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/011901d653f4%2492214d70%24b663e850%24%40shaw.ca.
Rees, William
Thanks, Ashwani -
But please see my response to Tom's query regarding the Jacobson-Clack dispute and lawsuit before you form an opinion about what/who is false.
Best,
Bill
Sent: Monday, July 6, 2020 5:24:55 PM
To: Ashwani Vasishth; Rees, William; sco...@googlegroups.com; Megan Seibert
Subject: Re: [SCORAI] Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists I Apologize - Clack's rebuttal of Jacobson et al.
Somehow the link below got cut off.
Rees, William
Michael --
Let me be clear at the outset that I have not assessed the EN-ROADS tool. However, I am intrigued (and immediately suspicious) when I read that "The model appears to show that it is technically possible to keep global temperature from rising above 1.5C by 2100."
First, many things are 'technically possible' that have absolutely no chance of occurring for social, economic or political reasons hence the technically possible is often practically irrelevant.
Second, all models are only as good as their internal structure and assumptions, so I have to ask, does this particular tool reflect lag and threshold effects?
The world's atmosphere near the surface has already warmed by one degree Celsius above the baseline (basically pre-industrial) mean global temperature. However, atmospheric temperature lags significantly behind the forcing effect of existing concentrations of greenhouse gases because the oceans are actually absorbing most (93% or thereabouts) of the excess heat caused by global warming. In other words, there is enormous inertia in the system -- it would take decades for the oceans and atmosphere to equilibrate with no further GHG accumulations.
Bottom line: Even if atmospheric GHGs levels remain constant (in fact, they are rising at an accelerating rate despite CoViD-19) we are apparently committed an additional 0.5+ Celsius degree of warming. For a technical account see:
Hansen, J. (2018), ‘Climate Change in a Nutshell: The Gathering Storm’, accessed 7 December 2018 at http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2018/20181206_Nutshell.pdf.
For a more readable assessment try:
Marshall, A. (2010), ‘Climate Change: The 40 Year Delay between Cause and Effect’, accessed 15 November 2018 at https://www.skepticalscience.com/Climate-Change-The-40-Year-Delay-Between-Cause-and-Effect.html.
To: Michael Howard; Rees, William
Cc: Tom Abeles; SCORAI Group
Subject: Re: [SCORAI] Re: On Behalf of Environmentalists I Apologize - En-Roads
Jean Boucher
Jean Boucher
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/scorai/be95ba75-075b-6e81-bbd4-a0cf9320291f%40gmail.com.
Noel Gerard Keough
On Jul 6, 2020, at 5:45 PM, Ruben Nelson <ruben...@shaw.ca> wrote:
[△EXTERNAL]
Tom,I cheer you on…It seems to me that you are on the path that we need to explore and take seriously.What I hear you saying is that our relentless focus on and arguments about (a) what we are doing to the environment and (b) the science and technology that is required to save us from the consequences of our actions are only part of the mess we are in. Yes, ‘tis true that we are facing “ecological overshoot” which if not dealt with will lead to chaos and death. But that is not the end of the story.We are not yet paying serious attention to the fact that our destruction of the natural systems on which we depend for life is unwitting because it is unconscious. (A point Bill makes clearly.) It is unconscious because it is shaped by our inherited Modern Techno-industrial (MTI) cultures. (A point you make.) We are “culture trapped.” The deepest patterns of our actions are a function of our Modern Techno-industrial (MTI) cultures. This is a point that our MTI cultures have yet to grasp. A major reason is that one of the messages of an MTI culture is that, as individual persons, we are free and independent of our culture. So we are slow to come to the realization that you have expressed: whether we like it or not, or know it or now, almost all of the major patterns of action in our MTI cultures are functions of our MTI cultures. In short, we are facing a second form of overshoot – civilizational overshoot.It follows that if we are in what might be called “Double Overshoot” (ecological and civilizational) then we cannot (not merely “will not”) deal with ecological overshoot as long as we are using our familiar and dominant ways of knowing, imagining, thinking about and responding to reality. And, yes, this insight is unthinkable as long as we accept and are bound by our MTI identities and aspirations.So, for the reasons you outline, the chances of surviving the experience of overshoot is not really nearly as good as most folks think.This does not mean that there is no chance of a humane and sustainable future. But such a future will not be found on the road our MTI cultures, including much of the sustainability industry, now travel and take for granted. We need to transcend (build on, but move beyond) our MTI formation and form of civilization.Double Overshoot/Civilizational Transcendence is the key to our future.Wouldn’t it be good if this were on our minds, hearts and agendas.Ruben
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Richard Rosen
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Benyamin Lichtenstein
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Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Management
Tom Abeles
Ruben Nelson
Noel,
I agree fully that at some point a new cultural imagination of our past, present and possible futures has to show up in our politics.
I also agree that, as of today, our politics is inhospitable to any such voices. They are neither spoken nor heard.
I also agree that in 2020 we (7.7 billion of us) are in an appalling mess of messes that forebodes a darkening future.
Further, I suggest that, as yet, none of the many efforts that are now being made to make reliable sense of where we are, how we got here and how we might “lead ourselves out of the fly-bottle” (to paraphrase Wittgenstein) are making the headway we need to avoid what for most today are unimagined and unimaginable disasters.
Conclusion, the main drama on this planet to 2050 will not be watching us miss the goal of becoming “carbon neutral.” Rather, we will be mesmerized by the horrifying sceptical of watching our form of civilization crumble – a form of civilization we talked ourselves into believing would be forever. After all, in 1989 Fukyama blurted out one of our deepest beliefs, “We are the end of history.” From now on, all else will become like us. Liberal democratic capitalism has won!
Oh, my!
Ruben
Jean Boucher
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Noel Gerard Keough
On Jul 7, 2020, at 3:35 PM, Ruben Nelson <ruben...@shaw.ca> wrote:
[△EXTERNAL]
Noel,I agree fully that at some point a new cultural imagination of our past, present and possible futures has to show up in our politics.I also agree that, as of today, our politics is inhospitable to any such voices. They are neither spoken nor heard.I also agree that in 2020 we (7.7 billion of us) are in an appalling mess of messes that forebodes a darkening future.Further, I suggest that, as yet, none of the many efforts that are now being made to make reliable sense of where we are, how we got here and how we might “lead ourselves out of the fly-bottle” (to paraphrase Wittgenstein) are making the headway we need to avoid what for most today are unimagined and unimaginable disasters.Conclusion, the main drama on this planet to 2050 will not be watching us miss the goal of becoming “carbon neutral.” Rather, we will be mesmerized by the horrifying sceptical of watching our form of civilization crumble – a form of civilization we talked ourselves into believing would be forever. After all, in 1989 Fukyama blurted out one of our deepest beliefs, “We are the end of history.” From now on, all else will become like us. Liberal democratic capitalism has won!Oh, my!Ruben
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Tom Abeles
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Ruben Nelson
Noel,
Yes, nurture her capacity to have transcendent experiences – exper4inces that are so profound that she feels that she is in touch with the deep nature of this universe. Do it in any way that suits your own grasp on reality and how you allow reality to grasp you. She will need such grounding to survive.
Northrop Frye used to remind us that there is every bit as much drama, tension, horror and mayhem in a Comedy as there is in a Tragedy. The difference, he would say with a twinkle in his eye is that in a Comedy you have to be able to survive to the end of the story.
Teach your daughter that life on this planet is a Comedy. It only looks like a tragedy if you do not know how to look, explore, know and respond more deeply.
I was characterized by a Catholic Sister (not my background) as a “hopeful pessimist.” She nailed me. I am pessimistic about how hard the human journey is becoming and will become. But as with Oliver Wendell Holmes who sought the “simplicity the other side of complexity”, I seek hope that lies the other side of despair. For there is now and will be despair.
Ruben
Ruben Nelson
Jean,
Of course my language is puzzling. It is newish and not yet in the literature. I shall define the key terms and show how they interrelate to answer your very good question: (I acknowledge that given how ‘civilization’ is usually used in Modern cultures, my usage does not readily make sense. This is a clue that I am using the language in a new way. For example, you speak of “a civilization” as if there is such a thing as “a civilization.” I reject that notion and the common usages of “Western/Eastern/Chinese/Greek/ civilization. Rather, as you will see, I speak of human cultures, which by definition will exemplify a “form of civilization.” The difference is substantial.)
“Overshoot,” in human terms, occurs when we continue to behave in ways that that have been successful for us in the past when the situation we are in has changed enough so that our once successful behaviors are no longer successful; to the contrary, they are now somewhat (mildly to totally) destructive. (The “we” in the prior sentence can occur at any scale from a single person to a whole culture or even to all of the cultures that exemplify a given “form of civilization.”) By this definition, overshoot is a function of “context insensitivity.” We get into overshoot when simply do not notice, pay attention to, digest and act on the signals that the situation we were in is changing enough in fundamental ways that it requires us to learn new behaviours, and possibly even new ways of thinking, imagining and knowing. I assume you will recognize that being in overshoot is a fairly common human experience. Happily, most of the time it is only mildly painful and can be seen as “just another learning experience.” But, of course, it can be very painful, even lethal at any scale.
“Civilizational overshoot” occurs when the behaviours that are consistent with the “core paradigm” that defines a given “form of civilization,” behaviours that in the past were seen to be successful, now lead to the disintegration and collapse of all cultures that exemplify the “core paradigm” of that “form of civilization.” (Note that this is a strong statement. It implies that any culture that exemplifies a “form of civilization” that is in civilizational overshoot cannot avoid disintegration and collapse as long as it maintains its identity on the basis of its established “core paradigm”. In such cases, the only possibilities are (1) eventual collapse and (2) “civilizational transcendence”, i.e. the culture intentionally and successfully develops/evolves ways of knowing, imagining, thinking things through and acting that exemplify a new and more reliable form of civilization. Such a new “form of civilization” will necessarily exemplify a new and more reliable “core paradigm”.) By this definition, both “cultural overshoot” and “civilizational overshoot,” are logical possibilities in human history. “Cultural overshoot” occurs when the behaviours of a given culture lead it to collapse, and when other cultures which exemplify the same form of civilization do not collapse. That is, the fault lies with the culture that collapses, not with the core paradigm of its form of civilization. “Civilizational overshoot” occurs when all cultures which exemplify a given form of civilization go into overshoot and collapse. That is, the fault lies with the core paradigm of the form of civilization.
I have come to the conclusion, in order to make reliable sense of human history, our present and our futures, that we need to distinguish a “culture” from the “form of civilization” it exemplifies at a given time and place. This distinction is somewhat akin to the genus/species distinction with which we are all familiar. Just as a grape is one example of fruit, so the Stoney-Nakoda, my neighbours, are one example of the Indigenous form of civilization. This bi-level distinction allows me to read human history as involving both (1) the evolution of given cultures within a given “form of civilization,” and (2) the occasional emergence in history of a new “form of civilization.” This way I can distinguish between (1) changes/evolutions that may disturb or enhance a given culture but do not affect or disturb the core paradigm of the “form of civilization” the culture exemplifies, and (2) changes/evolutions that affect not only the culture, but the core paradigm of its form of civilization. The latter, of course, are far more significant. The “forms of civilization that have been exemplified to date in history are: (1) Indigenous. (2) Settled agriculture-based. (3) Modern Techno-industrial. Since you have seen the presentation I did last week you know that I have models that allow me to define these three forms of civilization and distinguish among them. You also know that a Post-Modern way of knowing does not result in a fourth form of civilization since that way of knowing cannot be exemplified in an ongoing culture. (I note again that when I speak of a “form of civilization” I am not using the concept of either ‘civilization’ or ‘a civilization’ in the common ways these concepts are now used.)
The “Core Paradigm” of a form of civilization is found in the way the following are known, imagined, thought through and responded to: (a) the nature of reality, (b) the nature and power of persons and (c) the relationship of persons to reality. A new form of civilization begins to emerge when a critical mass of a people openly embrace new ways to know and be known by reality and respond to it as persons. (note: If this be at all the case, then the search for a humane and sustainable form of civilization that is focussed on the primacy of the ecology on which supports our life is understandable, but wrongheaded.) If you want more see: Civilizational Paradigm Change: The Modern-Industrial Case.
“Civilizational Transcendence” is the process by which a new form of civilization emerges from/within the cultures that exemplify an existing form of civilization. So the Settled Agricultural form first emerged from the Indigenous form some 13,000 years ago as the Earth warmed with the Holocene. And, the Modern Techno-industrial (MTI) form has emerged over the last one thousand years. Up to now, the emergence of a new form of civilization in history has been optional, local/regional in scale, unconscious and over a very long period of time – centuries. (Note: we now face the challenge of nurturing a new form of civilization into being as a requirement for the survival of our species and as a conscious and meta-reflexive endeavour. What is more, it must be done rapidly by any historical standard and in a manner that is scalable at a meta-level. This is a wholly new challenge in human history.)
“Double Overshoot” is the view that today we in MTI cultures face two forms of overshoot, rather than only one. Double overshoot refers to both ecological and civilizational overshoot. My observation is that, by and large, as MTI cultures it has not yet dawned on us that we are in Double Overshoot. Yes, we know about ecological overshoot. This is where almost all of the time, energy and money of the sustainability industry is focussed. To the extent that we also focus on things human and personal, our attention is derived from our major concern with ecological overshoot. Things social are attended to in order to lessen our impacts on the ecology. However, all of this activity is well within the framing (core paradigm) of our MTI cultures. It is virtually unthinkable to us that we can, let alone must, transcend the MTI ways of knowing about which we have been, and still are, so proud since the 1st Enlightenment. However, the Double Overshoot/Civilizational Transcendence hypothesis takes the view that we in MTI cultures are in ecological overshoot because we are in civilizational overshoot, i.e. the latter is the root cause of the former. Should this be at all the case, then we will have to learn to come to terms with the reasons why the MTI form of civilization has become both unstable and lethal. What is more, we have to embrace either disorder and death or civilizational transcendence. Given this choice, civilizational transcendence appears to me to be preferable.
Given the above, it is reasonable to suggest that a whole “form of civilization” can go into overshoot (become lethal to life). The question then becomes, which forms of civilization, if any, have become lethal? The answer to this question appears to be that it is clearly not the case that either Indigenous or Settled Agricultural forms of civilization have become lethal. This leaves us with only one possibility – that in the 20th and 21st Centuries our MTI form of civilization has become lethal.
I acknowledge that I have not yet made the case that this is so; that all I have done to date is open, what is to me, the interesting possibility – that there is a case to be made and that if it amounts to anything at all, then it is a case we need to learn to explore, understand and live into. Our future may hang on the outcome.
Thank you for being patient.
From: Jean Boucher [mailto:jlb...@gmail.com]
Sent: July 6, 2020 6:30 PM
To: Ruben Nelson <ruben...@shaw.ca>
Ashley Colby
“Civilizational Transcendence” is the process by which a new form of civilization emerges from/within the cultures that exemplify an existing form of civilization. So the Settled Agricultural form first emerged from the Indigenous form some 13,000 years ago as the Earth warmed with the Holocene. And, the Modern Techno-industrial (MTI) form has emerged over the last one thousand years. Up to now, the emergence of a new form of civilization in history has been optional, local/regional in scale, unconscious and over a very long period of time – centuries. (Note: we now face the challenge of nurturing a new form of civilization into being as a requirement for the survival of our species and as a conscious and meta-reflexive endeavour. What is more, it must be done rapidly by any historical standard and in a manner that is scalable at a meta-level. This is a wholly new challenge in human history.)
(underline, bold added by me)
For me, this is the main point with which I have ever disagreed with anything you've written, and I think it's at the core of a problem I see with a lot of solutions thinking put forth by the educated class. There is no evidence that any civilization has ever made a conscious, meta-reflexive effort to develop a new form of civilization. Up until this point it has always happened unconsciously, as a result of myriad social/environmental/climate/geographic/whatever factors. Not to be deterministic, but I suggest that the thinking that we can just consciously, reflectively imagine the civilization we want to become is extremely hubristic and a result of the (in my opinion) worst part of enlightenment thinking that basically goes: the human brain is the best, most complex thing in the universe and can solve any problem, including the control of and dominion over nature.
I bring up this point because I think the assumption that we can use our brains to imagine/think our way into a new civilization pervades many of our conversations, to very little avail. The idea that we can invent new words or use science to convince people to optionally change their material reality I think has no basis in the evidence. We continue commissioning reports and then collectively rage and scratch our heads as to why people aren't following our Very Good Advice. If someone has some evidence to the contrary (that shows a civilization actively planning their next iteration and then implementing that plan) I'd love to see it. But my sense is that after all the years spent on this project trying to think our way out, we are in a worse place now than we've ever been.
Recently I saw a talk on youtube of Indian Activist Dr. Vandana Shiva who claimed we need to get out of our heads, out of the imaginary space, because the models we create about what could be don't end up playing out in the messy world that already is. Instead, she suggests, we actually get out there and start making the material world as we'd like to see it. She works on fighting for the rights of peasant farmers to stay on their land, and she teaches others about the ecological knowledge of this population so they can take those principles to their farms. This also reminds me of a paper I read in grad school about scientists engaged in studying salmon populations. One group of scientists made a complex computer model inside an office. Another group went out and counted the salmon. The second group was much, much more accurate.
I do not denounce the importance of science as a tool for better understanding, but it needs to be part of a larger toolkit that makes actual material changes in the world. In other words, it is not "imagine the future -> enact that imaginary" but instead "enact changes -> note successes and failures in the real world -> adapt." This second way is the way it has always been done in civilizational transitions. My sense is that our collective goal should be to have these on-the-ground, material projects in process so that when our current civilization fully collapses we don't say "here's my scientifically-proven computer model about how to move forward" instead we can say "here's our ground-tested infrastructure that we know works in x, y, and z circumstances. See if it works for you."
Warmly,
Ashley
Ashley Colby Fitzgerald
PhD, Environmental Sociology
Co-founder Rizoma Field School
Colonia, Uruguay
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Ruben Nelson
Ashley,
The issue you raise is one dear to my head and heart. Thank you.
Allow me to try to sharpen the issue:
(I think that broadly we agree on the following, but please set me straight where you would differ. I affirm what you have written, other than the sense that you appear to feel/think that I am arguing for what you are arguing against. I do not. I agree with you. I do not wish to be heard as suggesting what you are arguing against.)
1. Today, we (7.7 billion of us) share a common need. We need those who live by and within an MTI frame of reference to learn to live into new ways of being and living that are beyond (transcend) the MTI ways of being and living that they now unconsciously take for granted. In my language, we need a new form of civilization to emerge within and among MTI persons and cultures.
2. Up to now the emergence of new forms of civilization have been very slow, local/regional, unconscious and optional processes.
3. Even if I am right that it the case that the next form of human civilization is already coming to life within and among us, it is unlikely that there is enough time to allow normal historical processes to work their way out. I think we both agree that such a strategy is too high risk to seriously consider. (In saying this, I acknowledge that as I read human history the “normal” unconscious processes of the emergence of a new form of civilization have taken one or more millennia. And, as I read our present situation, it dynamics and its major trends, even if the roots of the next form of civilization can be found in the early 19th Century, it is unreasonable to assume that MTI cultures will remain tolerably stable and the Earth will remain tolerably inhabitable for another 500 years under the domination of MTI peoples and cultures.)
4. Therefore, something must be done. Something that has not been done before in human history. The question is, what?
5. You have pointed out that any attempt to imagine and think our way into a new future will almost certainly fail. You imply that the reason this is the likely outcome is that up to now such “imagining of a new future” has been undertaken well within the MTI framework. On this point you and I entirely agree. Every attempt to utilize MTI ways of knowing, imagining, thinking through and responding to reality, including our own as persons, will fail. As Einstein noted, we cannot use the level of thinking that caused our messes to get us out of the messes.
6. What, then, is left for us to do?
7. My short answer is this. First, develop and fine tune a radar-like capacity to sense, see, name, explore and render harmless every move of every kind that reflects and reinforces our MTI aspirations, identities and habits of body, heart, mind and spirit. (This implies that, among other things, we need to take to new levels some of the skills developed by those who have engaged in liberation struggles.) Second, develop into persons, groups and cultures that are wise, integral and meta-reflexive. (Wise = no important dimension has been left out. Integral = we experience, work with and nurture a relational sense of reality. Meta-reflexive = we are as focussed on our own presuppositions and presumption as we are on those of others.) Third, work with ourselves and others as if the first two actually matter. (Pun intended.) For example, develop a second form of radar that sniffs out, names and nurtures the presence of the next form of civilization, even if only in embryonic form. For example, tread gently and hesitantly since none of us have any experience in the work of nurturing a new form of civilization into life, in ourselves, let alone in whole cultures.
Respectfully and with deep gratitude,
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Ashley Colby
Ashley Colby Fitzgerald
PhD, Environmental Sociology
Co-founder Rizoma Field School
Colonia, Uruguay
Brian Valbjørn Sørensen
Subject: En-ROADS confidence-building, testing, and technical details webinar tomorrow
Hi -
If you are interested in the rigor and technicalities behind the En-ROADS Climate Solutions Simulator, please join us tomorrow.
This Thursday July 9, at 7am and 2pm EDT (GMT-5) Climate Interactive will hold a webinar on En-ROADS confidence-building, testing, and technical details.
Climate Interactive Co-Director Andrew Jones will lead participants through the extensive testing and model comparisons our team has conducted in order to build confidence in the En-ROADS simulator. The session will include an exploration of the Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) as modeled by various Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs) as well as other scenarios created by Shell, the IEA, and DNV-GL.
Register for 7am EDT (GMT-5) https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/942116944568879118
Register for 2pm EDT (GMT-5) https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/register/7184471065964840974
This is the last webinar in our current En-ROADS Training Series. If you register for one of the times above, recordings of previous sessions will also be sent in the follow-up email.
Thanks!
Ellie
Ellie JohnstonClimate Interactive - Climate and Energy Lead
Den 7. jul. 2020 kl. 03.13 skrev Rees, William <wr...@mail.ubc.ca>:
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JOHN DE GRAAF,* JOHN DE GRAAF
John de Graaf
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Ruben Nelson
Ashley,
Once again, I agree with your assertions, except for your assertion about what I am saying. You see differences between us that only appear if I am actually saying what you say I am saying. But I am not.
To get it out of the way, I agree with you on embodied (experiential) learning and living. No quarrel there. And I am not wedded to “thinking” in the way you suggest. Among other things, such a disembodied view of thinking is a very MTI understanding. As I suspect you know, its roots are in the 1st Enlightenment. (Aristotle would be appalled by such a fragmented sense of human experience.) I have invested much of my life wiggling my way out from under my formation as a brighter than average successful MTI male as I stumble towards a 2nd Enlightenment. I have come to see the need of the latter not only for me, but for all MTI persons and cultures.
And, I did not say, “we should tend to work with those who are wise, integral, and meta-reflexive in that struggle.”
Rather, my strategy has long been to find, connect with and nurture those who are willing to become “Wise, integral and meta-reflexive.” This transformative quest is a very different proposition. Ultimately, it leads us out of the mess of messes we who are MTI are in.
Tom Abeles
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JOHN DE GRAAF,* JOHN DE GRAAF
John de Graaf
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Jean Boucher
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Ruben Nelson
John,
Thank you for giving voice to your frustration. It is a gift.
I, too, find that it is difficult to get on board with ideas, especially when they break with rather than extend commonly accepted ideas.
I am working on clearer presentations, especially in print. I find that visual presentations are easier for me and for those who are encountering these ideas for the first time. If you are interested you will find a 30 min. video exploration of “Civilizational Overshoot” here. It was made to the Canadian Committee of the Club of Rome.
Jean Boucher
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