It's not just for whack-jobs anymore.
Partial excerpt:
Duck and Cover: It’s the New Survivalism
By ALEX WILLIAMS
Published: April 6, 2008
THE traditional face of survivalism is that of a shaggy loner in camouflage, holed up in a cabin in the wilderness and surrounded by cases of canned goods and ammunition.
It is not that of Barton M. Biggs, the former chief global strategist at Morgan Stanley. Yet in Mr. Biggs’s new book, “Wealth, War and Wisdom,” he says people should “assume the possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure.”
“Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food,” Mr. Biggs writes. “It should be well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson. Even in America and Europe there could be moments of riot and rebellion when law and order temporarily completely breaks down.”
Survivalism, it seems, is not just for survivalists anymore.
Faced with a confluence of diverse threats — a tanking economy, a housing crisis, looming environmental disasters, and a sharp spike in oil prices — people who do not consider themselves extremists are starting to discuss doomsday measures once associated with the social fringes.
They stockpile or grow food in case of a supply breakdown, or buy precious metals in case of economic collapse. Some try to take their houses off the electricity grid, or plan safe houses far away. The point is not to drop out of society, but to be prepared in case the future turns out like something out of “An Inconvenient Truth,” if not “Mad Max.”
“I’m not a gun-nut, camo-wearing skinhead. I don’t even hunt or fish,” said Bill Marcom, 53, a construction executive in Dallas.
Still, motivated by a belief that the credit crunch and a bursting housing bubble might spark widespread economic chaos — “the Greater Depression,” as he put it — Mr. Marcom began to take measures to prepare for the unknown over the last few years: buying old silver coins to use as currency; buying G.P.S. units, a satellite telephone and a hydroponic kit; and building a simple cabin in a remote West Texas desert.
Showing posts with label Planning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Planning. Show all posts
08 April 2008
18 March 2008
Beyond Technofix
And it fits so nicely with yesterday's post. Richard Heinberg's column in the March issue of The Ecologist magazine:
Beyond Technofix
On January 12, The Guardian quoted departing chief scientific adviser Sir David King as saying, "any approach that does not focus on technological solutions to climate change—including nuclear power—is one of ‘utter hopelessness’. "
It is useful to have this view so succinctly stated, because it is nearly the reverse of the position I will be exploring in this column, which is that there is an overwhelming need for non-technological responses to our global environmental crisis. If I could debate the point with Dr. King, I would begin with a discussion of our differing understandings of the nature of the crisis itself. In his view, climate change is caused by technology and therefore must have a technical solution. But to me this is a blindingly superficial framing of the situation. It’s not just climate change that threatens us, but depletion of resources including oil, natural gas, coal, fresh water, fish, topsoil, and minerals (ranging from antimony to zinc, and including, significantly, uranium); as well as destruction of habitat and accelerating biodiversity loss—which is exacerbated by climate change, but is also happening for other anthropogenic reasons. In essence, there are just too ! many of us using too much too fast.
Thus the problem is not merely technological; it is cultural in the deepest sense. Starting a couple of centuries ago, our species embarked on a path of unprecedented growth, founded on a temporary subsidy of cheap hydrocarbon energy. Climate change is a side effect of fossil fuel consumption, and has emerged as the most critical symptom of our growth binge. But unless we address the core of the problem, other symptoms will soon overwhelm us even if we manage technically to resolve the dilemma of carbon emissions.
Addressing the core of the problem means letting go of growth; in fact, it means engaging in a period of controlled societal contraction characterized by a stable or declining population consuming at a per-capita level far lower than is currently taken for granted in the industrialized world.
For anyone who understands the basics of ecology—having to do with relationships between population, resources, and carrying capacity—nothing could be clearer. But for those who insist on seeing only technical problems with technical solutions, the forest remains lost from sight behind a single tree.
To be sure: minimally polluting technologies must be part of our response to climate change and all the other symptoms of global crisis—whether those technologies include wind turbines, better public transit systems, or more efficient electrical storage devices. But just as important are changes in individual attitudes, habits, and expectations; and more essential still is a fundamental reworking of economic institutions and policies, so that endless growth ceases to be seen as good or even possible.
Some (Sir David King among them) would say that climate change is so serious and pressing a crisis that we may have to put off grappling with other environmental problems and use any means at our disposal—including otherwise problematic technologies such as nuclear power—to address it. But there is no way we can substitute alternative sources of energy—including nuclear—for fossil fuels to reduce carbon emissions as much and as quickly as the science says we must, unless we also dramatically reduce overall energy consumption. No matter how you slice it, we’ve got to downsize and relocalize our economies, and so culture change is indispensable to the required response.
King says that wrongheaded environmentalists are keen to take society back to the 18th century or further. Yet there are few indeed who want to ditch the humanitarian and scientific advances of the past decades. This is a straw-man argument. A fairer formulation of many environmentalists’ views is this: unless we use technology within the context of a controlled, planned, sustained period of economic contraction, we will see a chaotic, depletion-led societal collapse that could make the 18th century look like paradise by comparison.
Once one accepts this larger framing of the problem and its solutions, a whole world of possibilities opens up—a world I intend to explore in future columns. Far from being a world of utter hopelessness, it is one that engages human responsibility, creativity, and community. It is one characterized by cultural maturity, rather than the advertising-fueled teenage—even infantile— attitude that assumes that the world exists only to supply an ever-expanding list of human wants. It is the world of post-carbon living toward which tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of citizens worldwide are beginning deliberately to transition.
Beyond Technofix
On January 12, The Guardian quoted departing chief scientific adviser Sir David King as saying, "any approach that does not focus on technological solutions to climate change—including nuclear power—is one of ‘utter hopelessness’. "
It is useful to have this view so succinctly stated, because it is nearly the reverse of the position I will be exploring in this column, which is that there is an overwhelming need for non-technological responses to our global environmental crisis. If I could debate the point with Dr. King, I would begin with a discussion of our differing understandings of the nature of the crisis itself. In his view, climate change is caused by technology and therefore must have a technical solution. But to me this is a blindingly superficial framing of the situation. It’s not just climate change that threatens us, but depletion of resources including oil, natural gas, coal, fresh water, fish, topsoil, and minerals (ranging from antimony to zinc, and including, significantly, uranium); as well as destruction of habitat and accelerating biodiversity loss—which is exacerbated by climate change, but is also happening for other anthropogenic reasons. In essence, there are just too ! many of us using too much too fast.
Thus the problem is not merely technological; it is cultural in the deepest sense. Starting a couple of centuries ago, our species embarked on a path of unprecedented growth, founded on a temporary subsidy of cheap hydrocarbon energy. Climate change is a side effect of fossil fuel consumption, and has emerged as the most critical symptom of our growth binge. But unless we address the core of the problem, other symptoms will soon overwhelm us even if we manage technically to resolve the dilemma of carbon emissions.
Addressing the core of the problem means letting go of growth; in fact, it means engaging in a period of controlled societal contraction characterized by a stable or declining population consuming at a per-capita level far lower than is currently taken for granted in the industrialized world.
For anyone who understands the basics of ecology—having to do with relationships between population, resources, and carrying capacity—nothing could be clearer. But for those who insist on seeing only technical problems with technical solutions, the forest remains lost from sight behind a single tree.
To be sure: minimally polluting technologies must be part of our response to climate change and all the other symptoms of global crisis—whether those technologies include wind turbines, better public transit systems, or more efficient electrical storage devices. But just as important are changes in individual attitudes, habits, and expectations; and more essential still is a fundamental reworking of economic institutions and policies, so that endless growth ceases to be seen as good or even possible.
Some (Sir David King among them) would say that climate change is so serious and pressing a crisis that we may have to put off grappling with other environmental problems and use any means at our disposal—including otherwise problematic technologies such as nuclear power—to address it. But there is no way we can substitute alternative sources of energy—including nuclear—for fossil fuels to reduce carbon emissions as much and as quickly as the science says we must, unless we also dramatically reduce overall energy consumption. No matter how you slice it, we’ve got to downsize and relocalize our economies, and so culture change is indispensable to the required response.
King says that wrongheaded environmentalists are keen to take society back to the 18th century or further. Yet there are few indeed who want to ditch the humanitarian and scientific advances of the past decades. This is a straw-man argument. A fairer formulation of many environmentalists’ views is this: unless we use technology within the context of a controlled, planned, sustained period of economic contraction, we will see a chaotic, depletion-led societal collapse that could make the 18th century look like paradise by comparison.
Once one accepts this larger framing of the problem and its solutions, a whole world of possibilities opens up—a world I intend to explore in future columns. Far from being a world of utter hopelessness, it is one that engages human responsibility, creativity, and community. It is one characterized by cultural maturity, rather than the advertising-fueled teenage—even infantile— attitude that assumes that the world exists only to supply an ever-expanding list of human wants. It is the world of post-carbon living toward which tens of thousands, perhaps millions, of citizens worldwide are beginning deliberately to transition.
11 March 2008
Oh, yeah, I guess that is today...
Historically (on a previous blog) I’ve done a St. Patty’s Day rant, but this year, I just can't get myself worked up enough to bother with it. With all the other shit that's going down in the world these days, a few more drunk Irish (real or honorary) frat boys (real or honorary) doesn't seem to matter. Very little that people take seriously seems to really matter these days, it’s all silly little petty bullshit. Oil prices are skyrocketing. Food prices are skyrocketing too, because of the increased cost of oil to transport it, because mock-petroleum usage is sucking supply away, and because the demand for (and therefore cost of) fertilizer (which is also petroleum-derived) is going up too. The economy is tanking, and people have less money to spend on the increasingly expensive food. Water is getting scarcer, further exacerbating food shortage problems, and fueling stress and contributing to border disputes.
And people really think things will go back to the way they've been, that everything will work itself out, and nothing will have to change. Or at least, that's the way they act. A lot of individuals don't really believe that the system can continue, but they don’t talk about it; they just keep their heads down and stay in their safe ruts, unable to get the perspective to convince themselves that their world is going to end, and they bloody well need to do something about it, or they're going to get caught in the crash.
The crisis is upon us. We just haven’t realized it yet. I’m not interested in “saving” the planet, as I don’t even really believe that’s possible anymore. Despite the recent swings toward eco-friendly living, electric cars, renewable energy sources, it’s too little too late. Those movements are just now getting started, and will take many years to swing into gear. And that’s just in the “developed” nations. In the rest of the world (call it what you will, “third world”, “undeveloped”, “developing”, “unindustrialized”, whatever), these changes will be much longer in coming, because they’re so far behind the technology curve.
I’m more interested in salvaging the planet. We need to take what we can and start over, as there’s not going to be enough left intact to be able to carry on with anything resembling the past. So let’s start gathering it up now and get out while the getting’s good. Rats off the bloody ship.
“But what about working to patch the ship, rather than abandoning it and letting it go down?” First question, is it even possible to fix it? Not by any recognizable definition of the word “fix”. Civilization as we’ve made it is fundamentally unsustainable. It’s built (literally) on cheap, readily available resources, and cheap transportation of those resources from source to sink. Both of those conditions are becoming less and less true, and there’s not a bloody thing we can do about it. We’re running out of resources quicker than alternatives are being figured out. And thus far none of the alternatives have been able to match fossil fuels in terms of abundance, portability, or ease of use.
To make things worse, most of the other alternatives inherently use fossil fuels as part of their preparation, manufacturing, or execution processes. Solar panels need rare elements to be mined, a process that requires petroleum. Windmills need lots of metals to generate electricity, as well as for structure, meaning more oil used for mining, transportation, and smelting. These may be short-term solutions, but they’re still fundamentally unsustainable, and won’t be replaceable long-term.
If anything that we recognize as civilization is going to survive, it’s going to need a major overhaul. Which leads us to the second question, is the system as it is really worth saving? It’s got some good ideas, some good foundations, but it’s got a huge mountain of useless junk piled on top of it, with occasional gems scattered throughout. It’s not only much simpler, but it will also be necessary to rebuild from the ground up, to start fresh, rather than to try and extricate the valuable bits from the tarry, cohesive matrix of social assumptions they’re embedded in, and leave the counterproductive bits behind.
And there’s where this analogy falls apart. In starting over, we don’t need to subtract anything from the existing system. We pick up ghosts, impressions, ideas, and transport them outside the system, where they become real in their own right. Transmission of a meme does not count against the “parent”. Nothing has been removed from the original, and only the parts that are relevant and worthwhile are adopted and integrated into the new system.
The vertebrate kidney works similarly. As blood flows into the kidney, just about everything in the bloodstream smaller than a protein (which includes individual amino acids, sugar molecules, urea, electrolytes, just about any other random chemicals that might be floating around, and most of the water) is dumped out of the bloodstream and into the kidney. The only things left in the bloodstream at that point are the blood cells, platelets, large protein molecules, and just enough water to keep the sludge flowing. Once everything is out, the kidney picks certain things to reabsorb back into the bloodstream. Like amino acids, sugars, most of the water, and many electrolytes. Urea is left behind in the kidney because it has no receptor to bind it, which would then signal the body to absorb it back into the bloodstream. This is how the body gets rid of nitrogen-containing waste. Any other random junk that doesn’t have a specific receptor, which is the body saying, “That’s useful, hang onto that”, also gets overlooked and does not get reabsorbed. Excess electrolytes are also left behind, above our normal reserve concentration. And then all that stuff eventually gets flushed out of the kidney with the excess water that’s not reabsorbed, down to the bladder, and eventually out of the body as urine.
In building our new culture, we need to get rid of everything, start with nothing, and only take the bits that are actually useful with us. Buckminster Fuller's Law says, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” At this point, we can’t even hope to fight the existing reality, the runaway train has too much momentum and we’re too close to the end of the tracks. All we can do is position ourselves on the outside, such that we’re thrown free when the crash occurs, rather than being torn apart by the components grinding and tearing at each other as they get shredded by their own bulk and misdirected energy.
It’s going to take a new model to have any chance at success. Living green, living sustainably is not just a way to postpone the crash a little longer, and maybe even make it a little softer, but it’s also the only way anyone is going to survive afterwards. I’m developing my plans. Start working on yours. The sooner the better. Before it’s too late. What are you waiting for?
And people really think things will go back to the way they've been, that everything will work itself out, and nothing will have to change. Or at least, that's the way they act. A lot of individuals don't really believe that the system can continue, but they don’t talk about it; they just keep their heads down and stay in their safe ruts, unable to get the perspective to convince themselves that their world is going to end, and they bloody well need to do something about it, or they're going to get caught in the crash.
The crisis is upon us. We just haven’t realized it yet. I’m not interested in “saving” the planet, as I don’t even really believe that’s possible anymore. Despite the recent swings toward eco-friendly living, electric cars, renewable energy sources, it’s too little too late. Those movements are just now getting started, and will take many years to swing into gear. And that’s just in the “developed” nations. In the rest of the world (call it what you will, “third world”, “undeveloped”, “developing”, “unindustrialized”, whatever), these changes will be much longer in coming, because they’re so far behind the technology curve.
I’m more interested in salvaging the planet. We need to take what we can and start over, as there’s not going to be enough left intact to be able to carry on with anything resembling the past. So let’s start gathering it up now and get out while the getting’s good. Rats off the bloody ship.
“But what about working to patch the ship, rather than abandoning it and letting it go down?” First question, is it even possible to fix it? Not by any recognizable definition of the word “fix”. Civilization as we’ve made it is fundamentally unsustainable. It’s built (literally) on cheap, readily available resources, and cheap transportation of those resources from source to sink. Both of those conditions are becoming less and less true, and there’s not a bloody thing we can do about it. We’re running out of resources quicker than alternatives are being figured out. And thus far none of the alternatives have been able to match fossil fuels in terms of abundance, portability, or ease of use.
To make things worse, most of the other alternatives inherently use fossil fuels as part of their preparation, manufacturing, or execution processes. Solar panels need rare elements to be mined, a process that requires petroleum. Windmills need lots of metals to generate electricity, as well as for structure, meaning more oil used for mining, transportation, and smelting. These may be short-term solutions, but they’re still fundamentally unsustainable, and won’t be replaceable long-term.
If anything that we recognize as civilization is going to survive, it’s going to need a major overhaul. Which leads us to the second question, is the system as it is really worth saving? It’s got some good ideas, some good foundations, but it’s got a huge mountain of useless junk piled on top of it, with occasional gems scattered throughout. It’s not only much simpler, but it will also be necessary to rebuild from the ground up, to start fresh, rather than to try and extricate the valuable bits from the tarry, cohesive matrix of social assumptions they’re embedded in, and leave the counterproductive bits behind.
And there’s where this analogy falls apart. In starting over, we don’t need to subtract anything from the existing system. We pick up ghosts, impressions, ideas, and transport them outside the system, where they become real in their own right. Transmission of a meme does not count against the “parent”. Nothing has been removed from the original, and only the parts that are relevant and worthwhile are adopted and integrated into the new system.
The vertebrate kidney works similarly. As blood flows into the kidney, just about everything in the bloodstream smaller than a protein (which includes individual amino acids, sugar molecules, urea, electrolytes, just about any other random chemicals that might be floating around, and most of the water) is dumped out of the bloodstream and into the kidney. The only things left in the bloodstream at that point are the blood cells, platelets, large protein molecules, and just enough water to keep the sludge flowing. Once everything is out, the kidney picks certain things to reabsorb back into the bloodstream. Like amino acids, sugars, most of the water, and many electrolytes. Urea is left behind in the kidney because it has no receptor to bind it, which would then signal the body to absorb it back into the bloodstream. This is how the body gets rid of nitrogen-containing waste. Any other random junk that doesn’t have a specific receptor, which is the body saying, “That’s useful, hang onto that”, also gets overlooked and does not get reabsorbed. Excess electrolytes are also left behind, above our normal reserve concentration. And then all that stuff eventually gets flushed out of the kidney with the excess water that’s not reabsorbed, down to the bladder, and eventually out of the body as urine.
In building our new culture, we need to get rid of everything, start with nothing, and only take the bits that are actually useful with us. Buckminster Fuller's Law says, “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” At this point, we can’t even hope to fight the existing reality, the runaway train has too much momentum and we’re too close to the end of the tracks. All we can do is position ourselves on the outside, such that we’re thrown free when the crash occurs, rather than being torn apart by the components grinding and tearing at each other as they get shredded by their own bulk and misdirected energy.
It’s going to take a new model to have any chance at success. Living green, living sustainably is not just a way to postpone the crash a little longer, and maybe even make it a little softer, but it’s also the only way anyone is going to survive afterwards. I’m developing my plans. Start working on yours. The sooner the better. Before it’s too late. What are you waiting for?
03 December 2007
Greens vs. Garrisons
Probably the best summary of this article is one line near the end, "solving real problems is hard, but turning a profit from those problems is easy."
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