Bill McKibben Question?

[Mike Nickerson]

At a recent webinar featuring Bill McKibben I asked:

Is it possible to solve the carbon issue without shifting from the Growth-based economy to a Life-based one?

McKibben’s answer:

[We're] not going to change our consumerist orientation fast enough to make much of a dent on the climate crisis in the time that we have. 

This exchange and Bill’s extended answer starts at:  1:16:20 on the Webinar recording.

Following is an edited version of my response to Bill’s answer:

To be sure, I support shifting from fossil energy to renewable energy.

That said, there is more to society than the energy it depends on.

It is not necessary for the whole system to be changed for individual shifts in a life-based direction to have positive effects.  Such shifts need not distract from renewable energy efforts.  Indeed, by giving a lively aura to the overall vision of the post-carbon world, people’s resolve for advancing sustainable infrastructure would increase.

To an extent, people can be engaged investing in renewable energy, promoting its use, adopting electrical technology, and enjoying the good news about how fast renewables are being adopted.  There remains, however, considerable cultural “bandwidth” within which we can adapt how we live in preparation for a sustainable order.

Without a coincident shifting of social priorities, the necessary amount of renewable energy would still have to double and double again as society continues to chase the Growth illusion.  

To avoid such perpetual build-out, a shift from the growth paradigm to a life-based one is in order.

The shift suggested is for people to enliven their lives, while they’re investing in and lobbying for renewables, by seeking satisfaction from life-based activity rather than from material consumption.

“More Fun, Less Stuff” is a program aiming to subtly encourage a life-based society.  By seeking fulfillment through personal relations, learning, appreciation, and other life-based activities, one’s urge to consume industrial products fades, not by unpleasant belt-tightening, but by having better things to do.  In addition, as expenditures decrease, there is more to go around and equity is easier to approach.  In turn, a more equitable society would advance social cohesion and with that, society’s ability as a whole to take on the bold transformation.

As individuals expand their life-based fulfillment, the threshold at which renewable energy will reach sufficiency comes closer. 

Creation of the renewable energy infrastructure and developing a life-based culture are natural partners.  They take up different parts of human aspiration.  Rather than either one diminishing the other, they create a synergy.  Renewable energy provides a framework for a sustainable society, life-based activity gives such a society vibrancy.

A life-based orientation gives immediate feedback while society is retooling.  No need to sit on the sidelines waiting for governments and corporations to issue encouraging press releases.  We won’t have to tell our children that they have to wait for a future time to gain benefits from this historic transformation.  We can breathe life into the new world at the same time that we are building its physical infrastructure.

You need only understand these four words to enliven the spirit that will eventually grace the renewable order.

More Fun, Less Stuff. 

Give it expression.  It just takes a moment to add flair to our existential challenge.

For a sustainable order,

Yours, Mike Nickerson

Seventh Generation Initiative 

www.sustainwellbeing.net

Please support my writing, 

e-transfer to MoreFunL...@web.net 

or use this fundraising site.

=============================

If what we want from life is to live, attractive possibilities emerge.

To Be Alive and Well; It’s Easier Than You Think is an 8-minute video which demonstrates how all the substance of our physical bodies is abundantly available through natural cycles; and how these cycles enmesh our being with everything else that lives. 

"More Fun, Less Stuff" is key to the success of a life-based order.  There is much we can gain while correcting human impacts on Earth.

We are particularly keen on getting this to young people.  In the same way that young adults quickly master new computer challenges, they can grasp the nature of a life-based culture.  Fresh young minds have always been a source of significant innovation.  With a life-based future in mind, they will find ways to make it real.

To be removed from this list, ask sust...@web.ca