tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88039082538398780602024-03-13T10:04:16.501-10:00Ea O Ka AinaJuan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.comBlogger7090125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-83974091234841694802023-08-05T14:41:00.003-10:002023-08-05T14:48:07.412-10:00Another Half a Year passes<p>SUBHEAD: Same old Wake-up time. If you can't smell the smoke yet... take another deep sniff. <br /> <br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> By Juan Wilson - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(INSERT_LINK_BETWEEN_PARENTHESES)
<br /> <br />
<img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2012Year/00/000000void.jpg" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: From ()</span><br /></p><p>We trust you have buckled down and are anticipating that time when the gas stations and supermarkets are empty. Trust me... that time has just over an upcoming horizon. </p><p>If you are not collecting rainwater, don't have a water well, are not growing much of your own veggies and don't have a chicken coop (for eggs & meat) then you could get into some serious trouble when the farmers who use "supply ships" to stock Hawaii and can sell their all their crops without paying for the long Trans-Pacific shipping.</p><p>Despite how many "climate change observers" are in denial, it is obvious to me that the whole system of climate stability the expected results, will fall by the wayside.</p><p>If you have not lately taken a look at climate warming, and the crucial environmental conditions necessary to allow the human population to quadruple in the last half century; then as Mr. T (born Laurence Tureaud, May 21, 1952) said:</p><p><i><span> </span><span> </span> "I pity the fool!" </i></p><p>Here in Hawaii we have not yet seen <span class="cl-b d-b fc-pewter fz-14 lh-16 mt-2 ml-22">catastrophically</span><span class="cl-b d-b fc-pewter fz-14 lh-16 mt-2 ml-22"> high temperatures or failures of rainfall in the crucial food growing areas that re experiencing environmental collapse... but it is a real possibility. Here on Kauai we have had an unusual low lying ring cumulus clouds 360 degrees around our horizon with otherwise sunny skies. </span></p><p><span class="cl-b d-b fc-pewter fz-14 lh-16 mt-2 ml-22">It rained less than normal last winter. And there is no reason to think it will be otherwise this coming winter. As the Pacific Ocean warms the clouds over Hawaii they will rise to higher altitude... meaning the rain clouds will be a little higher in altitude and miss supplying the water to all 5 of the of the only rivers in the state of Hawaii.</span></p><p><span class="cl-b d-b fc-pewter fz-14 lh-16 mt-2 ml-22">Much of Hawaii has been blessed for a long line with gentle climes. That is about to change, whether we like it or not... even if we are avid gardeners and living off the "grid" with our own water well powered by photovoltaic solar panels... the clouds will cease and the water table will drop.</span></p><p><span class="cl-b d-b fc-pewter fz-14 lh-16 mt-2 ml-22">When the shit hits the fan you will want to be in the greenest, wettest, sunniest place you can find inhabited by friendly like minded people. </span></p><p><span class="cl-b d-b fc-pewter fz-14 lh-16 mt-2 ml-22">I hope you are there now. It takes a while to get it right, and there is not a lot of time left for Costco Walmart and Home Depot.</span></p><p><i><span class="cl-b d-b fc-pewter fz-14 lh-16 mt-2 ml-22">I am going to try and get back on a regular </span>schedule of posting. The biggest hang-ups are difficulties getting <span class="cl-b d-b fc-pewter fz-14 lh-16 mt-2 ml-22">the illustrations the way I want them it is much harder than it used to be... I know... picky... but that's important to me...<br /></span></i></p><p><span class="cl-b d-b fc-pewter fz-14 lh-16 mt-2 ml-22"><br /></span></p><p><span class="cl-b d-b fc-pewter fz-14 lh-16 mt-2 ml-22"> </span><span class="cl-b d-b fc-pewter fz-14 lh-16 mt-2 ml-22"></span></p><br />Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-67831009353589517812023-02-16T10:03:00.005-10:002023-02-16T11:26:12.348-10:00Another Lap Around the Sun<p>SUBHEAD: This time we are going to try and sustain writing for this blog site.<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> By Juan Wilson on 16 February 2023 - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(<a href="http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2023/02/another-lap-around-sun.html">http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2023/02/another-lap-around-sun.html</a>) </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUXpXsY8qBuObsMZdFn8XxRo0dkaKnuQi6Hz9DxVuzaw5-dEfNSbCcWTjjwH8IKu8q2HnuPgkGLQ_daE2CI00dRAFoh6c7h1DYfCjuqpf64owP4VKCxBZ2KAhOURDAhbW6UknWHsJkeLgmYtram8KRloEXHXzrWV9VFEBhltQ9v3KvWbkXFSQOPSjvxQ/s602/230216solarlineup.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="391" data-original-width="602" height="335" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUXpXsY8qBuObsMZdFn8XxRo0dkaKnuQi6Hz9DxVuzaw5-dEfNSbCcWTjjwH8IKu8q2HnuPgkGLQ_daE2CI00dRAFoh6c7h1DYfCjuqpf64owP4VKCxBZ2KAhOURDAhbW6UknWHsJkeLgmYtram8KRloEXHXzrWV9VFEBhltQ9v3KvWbkXFSQOPSjvxQ/w516-h335/230216solarlineup.jpg" width="516" /></a><span style="font-size: small;"> Image above: From (<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/5j7u22/til_that_the_earth_does_not_actually_orbit_around/">https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/5j7u22/til_that_the_earth_does_not_actually_orbit_around/</a>).</span> </div><p></p><p>Like a year ago, I thought I'd be back on a daily, or at least "frequent" schedule of writing article for this website. This time there should be lass to distract me from getting more articles done.<br /></p><p> This will take a bit of effort not only to write, but more importantly, to properly post and make available online as it was in the past. This means getting familiar with different software and protocols that has changed since we were last posting articles regularly. </p><p>In the recent past we had to abandon the Apple platform and the software we used to generate content on this website. It was immediately much more difficult and time consuming to write, edit, upload and publish articles. </p><p>Recently we have abandoned the Apple computer platform (but not the iPod and iPhone). Most of my effort recently has been on landscaping, home maintenance and small scale farming. This week it took me two days to trim off four medium (6"x15') size branches on two haole koa trees.That entailed dropping the branches from atop a ladder using an 8' pole saw. Yes it is dangerous and a bit difficult for a guy 77 years old. In the past such <br /></p><p>We will see if it is possible for this old man to have a foot in both worlds (Windows, and Apple). So far it seems lumpy and uncomfortable... wish me luck.</p><p><br /></p>Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-35040648822486031142022-07-30T14:23:00.009-10:002023-02-16T10:20:40.191-10:00Radical Community AgricultureSUBHEAD: Reconnecting people to growing of
their own food may prove to be a radical means of healing.<br /> <br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> By Jared Spears on 22 July 2022 in Resilience - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(<a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-07-22/the-radical-roots-of-community-supported-agriculture/">https://www.resilience.org/stories/2022-07-22/the-radical-roots-of-community-supported-agriculture/</a>)
<br /> <br />
<img border="0" height="298" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2022Year/07/220730organicfarm.jpg" width="523" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: Photo promoting education in organic farming. (<a href="https://www.bestcolleges.com/blog/organic-farming-degrees-careers/">https://www.bestcolleges.com/blog/organic-farming-degrees-careers/</a>).</span><br /><p>Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) is one of those rare ideas
which combine transformative potential with an elegant simplicity. The
CSA model of funding and sustaining locally-rooted agriculture has grown
exponentially around the globe over the past four decades. Since the
first formal CSA at Robyn Van En’s Indian Line Farm in South Egremont,
Massachusetts in the early 1980s, CSAs have become a household fixture
across the US and elsewhere; the most recent estimate by the USDA
(2012) <a href="https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d113032e3126c4543ce&id=c8666feb8a&e=ef0e336a8d" rel="noopener" target="_blank">counted</a> approximately 13,000 CSA farms in the US alone.</p>
<p>The success of community-supported farming has coincided with rising
demand for organic food since the late 1970s. But the model’s
popularization has meant that, sometimes, CSAs can be misrepresented as
‘just another way’ for consumers to purchase fresh, seasonal food.
Important elements embedded into the CSA model, such as that of shared
risk among members, make the arrangement more than merely transactional.
In fact, the origins of the CSA movement in America have radical roots,
drawn from the prominent environmental movement and a subculture
dissatisfied with the prevailing economic system.</p>
<p>A 1985 paper <a href="https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d113032e3126c4543ce&id=db06b1cae2&e=ef0e336a8d" rel="noopener" target="_blank">newly digitized</a> from
the Schumacher Center archive, “Community Supported Food
Systems”, clarifies the deeper motivations which brought CSAs to the US
in their present form. It is a timely reminder of the transformative
potential the broader concept of <a href="https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d113032e3126c4543ce&id=c2a50f7686&e=ef0e336a8d" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Community Supported Industry</a> still
holds today – especially in light of our urgent need to dramatically
reduce carbon emissions and foster resilience in our supply chains. </p><p>Given renewed interest in the concepts of local <a href="https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d113032e3126c4543ce&id=4560d77769&e=ef0e336a8d" rel="noopener" target="_blank">food security and food sovereignty</a> as
principles of climate action and economic justice, it is worth
revisiting the transformative potential of the CSA model as grasped by
those who first put the idea into action.</p>
<p><b>Importing the CSA model from Switzerland</b></p>
<p>The community-supported farming movement popularized in the 1980s had
multiple antecedents around the globe. With examples of localized
farming initiatives from Chile, to Japan, to <a href="https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d113032e3126c4543ce&id=a6cb750d0a&e=ef0e336a8d" rel="noopener" target="_blank">rural Black communities</a> in
the Southern US, this movement may be best thought of as a spontaneous,
distributed reaction to the conditions of globalized food markets. At
the same time, growing concern around the health impacts of chemical
pesticides, as well as the environmental costs of fossil fuel-based
fertilizers, added impetus to the organization of organic farming at a
more human scale.</p>
<p>That said, the formalized CSA model which subsequently spread across
the US and beyond was pioneered in the Southern Berkshires, in the state
of Massachusetts. And as the “Community Supported Food Systems” paper
shows, its character was highly informed by models developed earlier in
Switzerland. The ethos and organizing principles of these Swiss examples
were documented and brought to Massachusetts by one Jan Vander Tuin.</p>
<p>Vander Tuin, a champion of pedal-powered transport and car-sharing,
would later go on to make his mark advocating for appropriate technology
in transportation. But before all that, he was a disillusioned farm
laborer looking for alternatives. As Vander Tuin recalled in a 1992 <a href="https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d113032e3126c4543ce&id=f6cae6cac8&e=ef0e336a8d" rel="noopener" target="_blank">article</a> in
RAIN Magazine, he went to Switzerland in the early ‘80s from the US
having “felt burned economically… with an eye open for alternatives to
market agriculture.” As he described the attraction of Switzerland at
that time:</p>
<blockquote><p>The early 1980’s were inspiring years for Swiss
activists. The youth were rebellious, and citizens at large asked
questions of the nation that epitomizes capitalism. I saw many evolving
solutions to problems that I, coming from the States, had written off as
unsolvable.”</p></blockquote>
<p>After some time working first-hand on an organic farm outside Zürich,
Vander Tuin was directed to a successful producer-consumer food co-op
in Geneva, which had been inspired by the cooperative movement in Chile
during the Allende administration. Vander Tuin called the project the
most radical food co-op group he had ever encountered: it “addressed
almost every problem I’d encountered in modern farming.” This project’s
philosophy went beyond ecologically sustainable practices and
pesticide-free produce, addressing the steep economic challenges faced
by organic farming in an era of big, corporate agri-business. </p><p>The basic
notion that consumers personally cooperate with producers to fund
farming in advance, he wrote “makes for more efficient use of land… and
much less stress for farmers…” In short, Vander Tuin recognized that
this model made organic farming for local consumption not just
economical, but also more elegant and communitarian – in a word, more
beautiful.</p>
<p>What drove Vander Tuin, as expressed in the paper, is “the feeling
that existing food infrastructures are hopelessly entangled in the
societal/cultural systems, especially the ‘free’ market.” Rather than
wait for planners and experts, Vander Tuin noted how, in the Swiss
examples, “concerned consumers and frustrated food workers” decided to
provide responsibly-grown organic food for themselves. Shared values
such as organic growing and energy-conscious distribution were
identified from the outset. Everything down to how shares were
calculated – based on the amount of produce the average non-vegetarian
consumes per year – underscores the ambition for local self-reliance in
food production.</p>
<p>The document also highlights a strong desire for economic fairness at
every step in CSA practices. The costs of start-up investment and land
would “ideally…be divided up equally (or by sliding scale).” </p><p> In the
Swiss example, wages for farm labor were to be estimated at “the average
wage of worker in region – not banker unfortunately” Vander Tuin added
with a dose of humor. “The emphasis in all economic thinking,” it
concludes, “was not to work the maximum profit principle but on the
need/cost coverage principle. This meant more trust and more
participation.”</p>
<p><b>Finding like minds in the Southern Berkshires</b></p>
<p>Vander Tuin documented these practices, eager to bring them back to
the US for implementation. He caught wind of a group in the Southern
Berkshires who had set up a sort of buying club for locally-grown
produce, including a handful of local growers meeting the demand. The
Self-Help Association for a Regional Economy (<a href="https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d113032e3126c4543ce&id=102d2cf865&e=ef0e336a8d" rel="noopener" target="_blank">S.H.A.R.E.</a>)
was a community micro-loan program which grew out of the activities of
the E.F. Schumacher Society (precursor to the Schumacher Center) in
South Egremont. </p><p>Vander Tuin became aware of the group, according to
Schumacher Center co-founder Susan Witt, after reading a news article
about their novel SHAREcropper initiative. Community-members would pool
to list requests for locally grown produce in the SHARE newsletter,
enabling them to identify farmers to grow the food locally. Those
growers, in turn, secured demand for their crops in advance.</p>
<p>In other words, SHAREcroppers was managing, in an ad-hoc way, what
Vander Tuin envisaged as a systematic alternative to corporate,
mono-crop agriculture.</p>
<p>When Vander Tuin presented his proposal to members of S.H.A.R.E.,
they promptly sent him down to the road to meet one of their growers:
Robyn Van En, who ran Indian Line Farm. Robyn not only held equally
radical ambitions, but possessed the roll-up-her-sleeves attitude needed
to make them a reality. With a community around them dedicated to the
cause and willing to help see through the implementation, they could set
to work.</p>
<p>Having moved to the Southern Berkshires several years earlier from
California, Van En was pursuing her own alternative vision for growing
at Indian Line. She brought deep ethical convictions about humanity’s
relationship with nature to inform the early CSA movement. She later
articulated the ‘Ideals of Community Supported Agriculture’ for a CSA
manual in such terms:</p>
<blockquote><p>Agriculture… is the mother of all our culture and the
foundation of our well-being. Modern farming…driven by purely economic
considerations, has driven the culture out and replaced it with
business: agriculture has become agribusiness… Our ideals for
agriculture come to expression in the biodynamic method of farming which
seeks to create a self-sustaining and improving ecological system in
which…everything has its place in the cycle of the seasons… The
community involvement in the rhythms of the seasons and the celebrations
connected with them will also enable us to find our proper spiritual
connection to nature again.”</p></blockquote>
<p>With a new agricultural ethic clear from the start, Van En also
recognized early on a need for a new economic approach as well. As she
later described: “I knew there had to be a better way…something
cooperative, that allowed people to combine their abilities, expertise,
and resources for the mutual benefit of all concerned.” </p><p> When S.H.A.R.E.
members introduced her to Vander Tuin in 1985, they “only had to talk
for a few minutes,” according to Van En, to know that what he’d brought
back from Switzerland articulated just the sort of community framework
she’d been looking for. As she later summarized:</p>
<blockquote><p>The prices we pay for food may be cheaper than ever, but
the hidden costs… are being paid [in other ways]. Unlike agribusiness,
which has the motto: ‘The end (profits) justifies the means
(exploitation)’, CSA’s motto is: ‘The means (community) assures the end
(quality food).’”</p></blockquote>
<p><b>Planting the seeds of the CSA movement</b></p>
<p>The group’s first venture in 1985 involved shares for apples and
cider from the orchard adjacent to the present-day Schumacher Center.
After the growing season, shareholders were invited to the autumn
harvest in a spirit of celebration. (Vander Tuin reportedly even
designed and built a pedal-powered cider press for the occasion).
Producers and consumers were brought together in relationship with the
land and its produce, creating space for community while proving the
viability of the CSA model.</p>
<p>The following season, Indian Line Farm became the first fully-fledged
CSA in the US. Credit for the success of the model in the Southern
Berkshires goes to the many members of the community who supported
Indian Line in various ways. </p><p>But it was only the beginning for Van En:
an educator by training, she would go on to become a tireless advocate
of the CSA model and biodynamic farming and a vocal critic of
industrialized agribusiness. The propagation of the CSA model across
North America in the following decades owes much to Robyn’s conviction
and endurance.</p>
<p>A final aspect of the CSA concept, originally outlined by Vander
Tuin, remained only a theory until Indian Line Farm came on the market
in 1998, one year after Van En’s untimely passing. At that time the
Community Land Trust in the Southern Berkshires and two area farmers <a href="https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d113032e3126c4543ce&id=0200eb58cd&e=ef0e336a8d" rel="noopener" target="_blank">formed a partnership</a> with a local Nature Conservancy chapter to purchase the farm. Placing the land into the <a href="https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d113032e3126c4543ce&id=2eb106b7d2&e=ef0e336a8d" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Community Land Trust</a> in
perpetuity was yet another innovation. </p><p>Effectively decommodifying the
land on which community food was grown while permitting the leaseholder
to own the value of improvements, the move made good on an idea which,
in Vander Tuin’s original proposal, appeared speculative: “community
influenced land stewardship in the form of a ‘Community Land Trust’,” he
wrote, seemed “applicable and desirable” compared to “normal ‘property’
arrangements.”</p>
<p>Today, the CSA model articulated by Van En and Vander Tuin remains a
vital, community-based alternative to the host of health, environmental,
and economic issues posed by industrial agribusiness. No wonder that
the growth of CSAs has reportedly <a href="https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d113032e3126c4543ce&id=88887d31ec&e=ef0e336a8d" rel="noopener" target="_blank">surged</a> since
2020. Growing healthy, ecologically-sound food locally is, for a
multitude of reasons, the most economical way for a community to provide
for this most elemental of needs. </p><p>Cutting out intermediaries and import
dependency is a cornerstone of community food security and food
sovereignty, as marginalized communities around the country and the
world increasingly recognize. Combined with agro-ecological farming
methods, relocalized agriculture holds great <a href="https://centerforneweconomics.us5.list-manage.com/track/click?u=69d509d113032e3126c4543ce&id=13ce60424d&e=ef0e336a8d" rel="noopener" target="_blank">potential</a> in
our efforts to address climate change: reducing carbon emissions and
helping to sequester carbon already in our atmosphere. And by layering
on the innovative Community Land Trust model, affordable access to
farmland can be secured for future generations of growers as well.</p>
<p>At the most human level, reconnecting people around the growing of
their own food may prove to be among our most effective means of healing
our widespread sense of disconnection from nature and community. It
offers the promise for any community to rediscover how working in
harmony with nature, rather than merely seeking to exploit it, can be as
economical as it is beautiful.</p><br />
<span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span></span>Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-59493343206196356882022-07-22T10:17:00.007-10:002022-07-22T10:43:26.974-10:00Past the Limits to Growth<p>SUBHEAD: A half century since "The Limits of Growth" was published we long for regeneration.<span> </span></p><p><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> By Jeffery D. Sachs on 26 May 2022 in the Seneca Effect - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(<a href="https://thesenecaeffect.blogspot.com/2022/07/from-limits-to-growth-to-regeneration.html">https://thesenecaeffect.blogspot.com/2022/07/from-limits-to-growth-to-regeneration.html</a>)
<br /> <br />
<img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2022Year/07/220722skiff.jpg" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: Aerial view of a banana boat in Brazil. From original article in Italian. (<a href="https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/finalmente-abbiamo-capito-che-crescita-e-sviluppo-non-sono-stessa-cosa-AEJH2obB?refresh_ce=1">https://www.ilsole24ore.com/art/finalmente-abbiamo-capito-che-crescita-e-sviluppo-non-sono-stessa-cosa-AEJH2obB?refresh_ce=1</a>) .</span><br />
<br />
Fifty years ago, Italian business leaders in the Club of Rome gave a jolt to the world in their path-breaking report
<i>Limits to Growth</i>. That thought leadership continues today as
Italian business leaders launch Regeneration 2030, a powerful call for
more holistic, ethical, and sustainable business practices to help the
world achieve the Sustainable Development Goals
(SDGs) and the Paris Climate Agreement. </p><p>The 50-year journey from <i>Limits of Growth</i>
to Regeneration 2030 shows how far we have come in understanding the
critical challenges facing humanity, but also how far we still have to
go to meet those challenges.<br />
<br />
The half-century since <i>Limits to Growth</i> also defines my own
intellectual journey, since I began university studies at Harvard
University exactly 50 years ago as well. One of the first books that I
was assigned in my introductory economics course was
<i>Limits to Growth</i>. The book made a deep and lasting impression
on me. Here for the first time was a mathematical simulation of the
world economy and nature viewed holistically, and using new systems
dynamics modeling then underway at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT). <br />
<br />
<i>Limits to Growth</i> warned that compound economic growth was on a
path to overshoot the Earth’s finite resources, leading to a potential
catastrophe in the 21<sup>st</sup> century. My professor huffily
dismissed the book and its dire warning. The book,
the professor told us, had three marks against it. First, it was
written by engineers rather than economists. Second, it did understand
the wonders of a self-correcting market system. Third, it was written
at MIT, not at Harvard! Even at the time, I was
not so sure about this easy dismissal of the book’s crucial warning. <br />
<br />Fifty years later, and after countless international meetings,
conferences, treaties, thousands of weighty research studies, and most
importantly, after another half-century of our actual experience on the
planet, we can say the following. First, the growing
world economy is indeed overshooting the Earth’s finite resources.
Scientists now speak of the global economy exceeding the Earth’s
“planetary boundaries.” Second, the violation of these planetary
boundaries threatens the Earth’s physical systems and therefore
humanity itself. </p><p>Specifically, humanity is warming the climate;
destroying the habitat of millions of other species; and polluting the
air, freshwater systems, soils, and oceans. Third, the market economy by
itself will not stop this destruction. </p><p>Many of
the most dangerous actions – such as emitting climate-changing
greenhouse gases, destroying native forests, and adding chemical
nutrients to the rivers and estuaries – do not come with market signals
attached. Earth is currently treated as a free dumping
ground for many horrendously destructive practices. <br />
<br />
Twenty years after <i>Limits to Growth</i>, in 1992, the world’s
governments assembled at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit to adopt
several environmental treaties, including the UN Framework Convention on
Climate Change (UNFCCC) and the Convention on Biological
Diversity. </p><p>Twenty years later, in 2012, the same governments
re-assembled in Rio to discuss the fact that the environmental treaties
were not working properly. Earth, they acknowledged, was in growing
danger. At that 2012 summit they committed to establish
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to guide humanity to safety. In
2015, all 193 UN member states adopted the SDGs and a few weeks later
signed the Paris Climate Agreement to implement the 1992 climate treaty.<br />
<br />
In short, we have gone a half-century from the first warnings to today.
We have adopted many treaties and many global goals, but in practice,
have still not changed course. The Earth continues to warm, indeed at
an accelerating rate. The Earth’s average
temperature is now 1.2°C warmer than in the pre-industrial period
(dated as 1880-1920), and is higher than at any time during the past
10,000 years of civilization. </p><p>Warming has accelerated to more than
0.3°C per decade, meaning that in the next decade we
will very possibly overshoot the 1.5°C warming limit that the world
agreed to in Paris. <br />
<br />
A key insight for our future is that we now understand the difference
between mere “economic growth” and real economic progress. Economic
growth focuses on raising traditional measures of national income, and
is merely doing more of what we are already doing:
more pollution, more greenhouse gas emissions, more destruction of the
forests. </p><p>True economic progress aims to raise the wellbeing of
humanity, by ending poverty, achieving a fairer and more just economy,
ensuring the quality education for all children, preventing
new disease outbreaks, and increasing living standards through
sustainable technologies and business practices. True economic progress
aims to transform our societies and technologies to raise human
wellbeing. <br />
<br />
Regeneration 2030 is a powerful business initiative led by Italian
business leaders committed to real transformation. Regeneration aims to
learn from nature itself, by creating a more circular economy that
eliminates wastes and pollution by recycling, reusing,
and regenerating natural resources. Of course, an economy can’t be
entirely circular – it needs energy from the outside (otherwise
violating the laws of thermodynamics). </p><p>But rather than the energy
coming from digging up and burning fossil fuels, the energy
of the future should come from the sun (including solar power, wind,
hydroelectric, and sustainable bioenergy) and from other safe
technologies. Even safe man-made fusion energy may be within technical
and economical reach in a few decades. <br />
<br />
On my part, I am trying as well to help regenerate economics, to become a
new and more holistic academic discipline of sustainable development.
Just as business needs to be more holistic and aligned with the SDGs,
economics as an intellectual discipline needs
to recognize that the market economy must be embedded within an ethical
framework, and that politics must aim for the common good. Scientific
disciplines must work together, joining forces across the natural
sciences, policy sciences, human sciences, and
the arts. </p><p>Pope Francis has spurred the call for such a new and
holistic economics by encouraging young people to adopt a new “Economy
of Francesco,” inspired by the love of nature and humanity of St.
Francis of Assisi. <br />
<br />
Sustainable Development, Regenerative Economy, and the Economy of
Francesco are, at the core, a new way of harnessing our know-how, 21<sup>st</sup>
century technologies, and ethics, to promote human wellbeing. The
first principle is the common good – and that
means that we must start with peace and cooperation. Ending the war in
Ukraine at the negotiating table without further delay, and finding
global common purpose between the West and East, is a good place for us
to begin anew. <br /> <br />
<span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span></span></p>Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-40638572671786565162022-07-14T16:08:00.073-10:002023-02-16T11:23:17.776-10:00One more lap around the Sun<p>SUBHEAD: Whatever seemed normal, is about to vanish in the rear view mirror.</p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">By Juan Wilson on 14 July 2022 for Island Breath - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(<a href="http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2022/07/one-more-lap-around-sun.html">http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2022/07/one-more-lap-around-sun.html</a>) </p><p><span style="font-size: small;">Image below: View of Hawaiian Islands from hear space looking northwest. From (<a href="https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-hawaiian-island-chain">https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/the-hawaiian-island-chain</a></span><span style="font-size: small;">).</span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><h4><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpFh5mNrsNqJqDDnREQFCxsRtjG9TGbzCJjrx4XIeuFzuQCKo7fXZlYQ-ubgAJ4_AUGnidJHegsOjwRfai9lLQhkp1TFZ8OWpW2yXntgr0_1itn4C2DOrdrAXXepUE18pCHZpCQ4hpW-RK4Bev7CS_K0gjsGYXn9kv75phlSAPiYt_zDS6U3Ntc4VVTA/s1040/220715hawaii.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="694" data-original-width="1040" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpFh5mNrsNqJqDDnREQFCxsRtjG9TGbzCJjrx4XIeuFzuQCKo7fXZlYQ-ubgAJ4_AUGnidJHegsOjwRfai9lLQhkp1TFZ8OWpW2yXntgr0_1itn4C2DOrdrAXXepUE18pCHZpCQ4hpW-RK4Bev7CS_K0gjsGYXn9kv75phlSAPiYt_zDS6U3Ntc4VVTA/w464-h311/220715hawaii.jpg" width="464" /></a></h4></div><br /><br /><p> <br />
</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><br p="" /><br /> <br />
</p><p> </p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: x-small;"> </span></p><p><br /></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><br />There
were times in the past when we would publish 2 or even 3 articles in a day for Island Breath. Back then we used ti have a subscription to a Kauai published and printed daily paper. In those days the ability to find a job, rent an apartment, and buy a car were vital services of a local daily news paper. </p><p>That world has blown away like tumbleweed by the onslaught of features and function of the ubiquitous iPhone and it's copycat competitors. </p><p>As a result one can hardly find a restaurant with a printed menu any more. You're invited by the "staff" to "scan it!"... Some people (like some baby-boomers, and and toddlers don't have an iPhone. "No Prob... we have a <i>printed</i> menu behind the bar... I'll see if I can find it. </p><p>When we cannot keep up the near space telecommunication technology we have developed along with the wireless networks utilized by the iPhone and its copycats.<br /></p><p>All might have gone well if we were not in total denial of the dire straights humanity has cornered itself into. Too many people, ruining, abandoning and throwing a way too much stuff for too long. <br /></p><p>We have had half a century -since 1972- when the <a href="https://www.clubofrome.org/">Club of Rome</a> first published its predictions for our future based on resource losses, consumption increases, human population growth.</p><p>I'm going to try and get back in the saddle... meaning getting back to doing fresh, new articles... although I suspect they will not all avoid some cynicism.</p><p>I'll be back... soon I hope... Juan Wilson </p><a class="wXeWr islib nfEiy" data-nav="1" data-navigation="server" href="https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fi.ytimg.com%2Fvi%2FDMZ5WFRbSTc%2Fmaxresdefault.jpg&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.jpl.nasa.gov%2Fedu%2Flearn%2Fvideo%2Fsolar-system-size-and-distance%2F&tbnid=1F1e5R2A0n5ERM&vet=12ahUKEwiox9T80_n4AhUdj2oFHRoUCB4QMygNegUIARCBAw..i&docid=ehNE3PnpbBOqNM&w=1280&h=720&q=solarsystem&client=firefox-b-1-d&ved=2ahUKEwiox9T80_n4AhUdj2oFHRoUCB4QMygNegUIARCBAw" style="height: 180px;" tabindex="0"><div class="c7cjWc mvjhOe"></div></a><p></p><p></p>Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-16053909441087236892021-11-11T10:12:00.005-10:002021-11-12T11:21:08.291-10:00Summer's Over<p>SUBHEAD: Another season has passed as we tip into the darkening side of the year.<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">By Juan Wilson on 11 November 2021 for IslandBreath - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blog/posts/8803908253839878060">http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2021/11/summers-over.html</a>)
<br /> <br />
<img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2021Year/11/211111fall.jpg" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: Fall colors at peak in mid Atlantic states two weeks ago. From (<a href="https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/09/30/heres-when-fall-foliage-will-peak-around-dc/">https://www.washingtonian.com/2021/09/30/heres-when-fall-foliage-will-peak-around-dc/</a>).</span><br /><br />For some people this last year has been a blessing, not a curse. I know there has been suffering... there always is in a pandemic. However, here on Kauai the impact of Corona Virus was largely mitigated by our County and State government closing down much of commercial tourism. On one hand, some people have lost jobs and are burdened by debt they cannot avoid. On the other hand things on Kauai went back to being more local and independent.<br /></p><p>I have see more local people fishing and gathering along the shore. There has been less car traffic at the beach and less suntan lotion floating in the water. There have been mornings with just a couple of people swimming at our Salt Pond Beach Park. slowly, the wave of rental cars is <span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc">resurging. </span></span></p><p><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc">But my sense is that the real hangover from the pandemic and the the collapse it has generated is just beginning... and that is okay... or at least sufferable. </span></span><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc"><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc">But with over 8 billion of us there are too many people are groping for a mansion on a cul-de-sac. </span></span>The idea that humans can go on reproducing and consuming at the same rate for another generation does not look realistic. </span></span><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc"><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc"> It's not a situation of the more people the merrier. </span></span>What we need more of is more elephants, whales and eagles.</span></span></p><p><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc">In the case of all the great apes (our closest cousins) there are a total of about 500,000 total. The Great Apes include all the </span></span><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc"><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc">gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees and bonobos in the world. Humans are just one branch on that tree... That means there are more than 16,000 times as many humans than all the other great apes we share our traits with.</span></span></span></span></p><p><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc"><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc">Not only that, but we take a much larger share, </span></span></span></span><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc"><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc"><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc"><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc"> individually,</span></span></span></span> of the all the resources of the world - land, water, timber, etc. </span></span></span></span></p><p><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc"><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc">The solution... step back, take less, do less, travel less, eat less, buy less, spawn less. Walk more, talk more, make more, share more, grow more, love more. Buy used and refurbished. </span></span></span></span></p><p><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc"><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc"><span style="color: white;">.</span><br /></span></span></span></span></p><p><span class="ILfuVd"><span class="hgKElc"> </span></span> </p>Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-35528747384919499372021-08-13T12:59:00.007-10:002021-08-13T16:01:38.926-10:00Revisiting an old friend<p>SUBHEAD: Coming back to this website is a bit like returning to Kauai after an absence.<br /><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> By Juan Wilson on 13 August 2021 for Island Breath - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
<a href="(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2021/08/revisiting-old-friend.html">(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2021/08/revisiting-old-friend.html</a>)
<br /> <br />
<img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2021Year/08/210813serfs.jpg" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: French painting of "The Work of the Year", circa 1460-1475 From (<a href="https://www.pinterest.com/pin/107804984815741397">https://www.pinterest.com/pin/107804984815741397</a>).</span><br /><br />It has been over half a year since our last post of an article for Island Breath. That is the longest hiatus since we began publishing the site. Much has changed in that time... In a way we are living on another planet. </p><p>The planet wide ongoing pandemic is an obvious aspect of that change. But there is more than disease to worry about... we are in the midst of an overpopulation of the Earth by human beings that is a threat to all life on Earth as we know it. Our planet is in the midst of a transformation into something akin to Mars. </p><p>Forget about human civilization being baled out by high-tech solutions or sensible long term planning. We have already scooched the pooch. The great greenhouse gas management of planet Earth by massive tropical jungles in Africa and South America have been consumed by human priorities. Fire storms are consuming northern forests, and the oceans have been strip mined for proteins.</p><p>There is no way to stop the freight train of transformation that we are riding. There is only "going with the flow". The way that works is that you you must be responsible for what is most immediately around you to be transformed into a thriving living self sustaining environment that provides food and shelter in trade for your sustained work.</p><p>You need to be situated to live off the resources you can walk to. And that will only work out if there is a collapse of the ginned up real estate development market for the rich who are escaping to their McMansions to live in Paradise and the push for "low cost housing" for the serfs who mow their yards and fix their cars.</p><p>As the climate where you live becomes less friendly and reliable you will need as much green thriving trees and plants around you as you can get. Besides providing shade and holding moisture, plants will provide food and medicine and habitat for you and other nearby species. </p><p>Well, it's good to be back, however I find myself quite rusty getting this blog post up and running. <br /></p><p><span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br /></span></span></p><p><span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></p>Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-18313326624050351542021-02-06T15:59:00.005-10:002021-02-06T16:14:09.362-10:00Your Value Added Products<p>SUBHEAD: You made a more lasting value, like turning berries into jam, or a piece of wood into a bowl...<br /><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> By Juan Wilson on 6 February 2021 for Island Breath - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(<a href="https://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2021/02/your-value-added-products.html">https://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2021/02/your-value-added-products.html</a>)
<br /> <br />
<img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2021Year/02/210206gourd.jpg" /><br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Image above: </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">A gourd shell preserved and decorated for use in carrying water made in Kenya, Africa, for sale online.</span> From (<a href="https://www.secondvoyage.ca/listing/533640266/africa-gourd-calabash-kenyan-carved-jug">https://www.secondvoyage.ca/listing/533640266/africa-gourd-calabash-kenyan-carved-jug</a>)</span><br /><br />It does not mean you have hack out a canoe with an adze or stretch a birch bark canoe from scratch. In this case "value added product" merely means making some item longer lasting and of more useful function.</p><p>It can begin with something you grew from a seed, or something you found on a walk. It often means producing, processing, preserving and packing a food product. It can also mean transforming something into a completely different utility, like a corncob into a tobacco-pipe or a calabash into a drinking-gourd. it transcends beyond being a bit of food.</p><p>Certainly, transforming various forms of the plants and animals that we eat into useful and more permanent items has proven both useful and valuable to people for millennium. Sadly, most of us in the 21st century have forgotten transform and trade some bit of what is around us into anything useful. It becomes trash,waste or garbage.</p><p>Among other things, my partner Linda has learned to make and package comfrey salve, macadamia-nut butter, and jarred bee honey produced on our 1/2 acre yard. </p><p>Other kinds of efforts include fishing or hunting and having the skills to processing, dry and preserve the results. </p><p>Beyond just food are such activities as transforming plants and prey into woven fabrics, cured wood, tanned leather and feather ink pens. </p><p>There is much to re-learn and master in order to thrive in the world we are abruptly going to enter. Once the funny-money checks stop coming and the Costco shelves are empty we better have a reasonable grip on the resulting future where we the Producer and not just the Consumer. </p><p>Of course, there are whole other categories of activities other than making a meal and maintaining a home. Expertise in entertainment and medicine come to mind as areas of skill that can keep a roof over your head and a chicken in the pot. </p><p>If you want that kind of life you'll probably will have had to already been practicing long and hard.</p><p>In any case, your value added products will be of use to you as well as to those who want them. Trading locally produced products will be the re-newed normal... And that will be a blessing. <br /></p><p><span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></p><p><span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"> </span></span></p>Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-70466448084869389612021-01-30T14:22:00.001-10:002021-01-30T14:23:30.783-10:00Getting Through Collapse<p>SUBHEAD: Things are unwinding, but there are preparations you should begin immediately.<br /></p><p><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> By Juan Wilson 29 January 2021 for Island Breath - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(<a href="http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2021/01/getting-through-collapse.html">http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2021/01/getting-through-collapse.html</a>)
<br /> <br />
<img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2021Year/01/210130farming.jpg" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: Plowing a field in a community garden near suburban homes. From (<a href="https://www.treehugger.com/how-to-start-a-small-farm-3016691">https://www.treehugger.com/how-to-start-a-small-farm-3016691</a>).</span><br /><br />There has been a sense of dread for some time... by that I mean decades. Much of the 20th Century was embroiled in World Wars, the Great Depression, the Cold War and fear of nuclear extinction. Now we face a disease that appears more dangerous than the Spanish Influenza Pandemic of 1918.</p><p></p><p>As we wrote in "Winning the Trifecta last year - See (<a href="http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2020/06/winning-trifecta.html">http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2020/06/winning-trifecta.html</a>) with the subhead "<i>To win we will have to solve all our problems together... health, wealth and environment.</i>"</p><p>That has not changed, other than to intensify. The human condition is rapidly changing and not under our control or in our perceived interests. The trappings of civilization and culture are wearing thin under the yoke of lock-downs, indebtedness, fear of the future, and isolation.</p><p>There are not many realistic ways out of our dilemma that does not include a major human population reduction and a severe reduction in our consumption of Earth's resources and will require a monumental increase in recycling, repurposing and renewing those resources we have converted to "garbage". </p><p>Here in Hawaii it is a realistic possibility that modern trans-Pacific container shipping will no longer be economically feasible. We will have to grow the majority of the food we consume in the islands. And more food will be necessary for feeding the eggeries, fisheries, dairy farms and other food and resource related agricultural operations that won't be distant factory operations but neighborhood businesses. </p><p>In short, sustainable farming will become the major human operation in Hawaii. And that will be true in any place that has sustained human population. </p><p>Yes, there will be some nomadic hunter gatherers... small bands of tribal people that move with the herds and the seasons. But the majority will exist in a condition more like the early18th century in rural America... but without great abundance of natural resources that was cut down, plowed up and mined.</p><p>I do not expect to see the complete transition myself. I'm a Baby Boomer in my late 70's. But I imagine it will be a life without personal automobiles, vast shopping plazas and on demand multi-media entertainment. </p><p>My wife, Linda, and I are trying to grow as much food and herbal plants as we can and creating tradable "refined" products... like organic eggs and vegetables, macadamia nut butter, bottled hot sauce, jams, comfrey salves, etc. <br /></p><p>These and other self employed efforts like:</p><p><span> </span>• Providing fresh water through rain-catchment, solar water-pump.<br /></p><p><span> </span>• Providing multiple, overlapping systems for power hot water, and communication.</p><p><span> </span>• Growing and storing food from a place you have some managing control over. <br /></p><p><span> </span>• Having stock of materials, tools and know-how to maintain and repair what you have.</p><p><span> </span>• Ways to entertain yourself with neighborhood theater, music, card games, puzzles, or crafts.</p><p>Just remember there will be no TGI Fridays, Bed Bath & Beyond, Starbucks or GameStop to fill your cravings.<br /></p><p>Bottom line... we are on our own in a land we are unfamiliar with. We are in a "New Normal" that is not going away, but is evolving into another world. One that is not nearly as friendly as the Garden of Eden, but hopefully more comfortable than the Dark Ages, "1984" or "The Matrix" </p><p>Getting better at navigating that new landscape will be a major determination of how happy you are.</p><p>That navigation will require the capability of fixing and maintaining some 20th century tech - like a small simply designed diesel engine or electric tools - but won't include repairing iPhone or maintaining full spectrum satellite communications systems.</p><p>So get yourself a good set of tools for the shop, garden, garage and sewing room... you're going to need them. Once you have the tools - start using them so when the time arrives you'll be useful.</p><p> </p><p> <span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">. </span></span><br /></p>Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-29060791086812711462021-01-21T08:34:00.001-10:002021-01-21T08:37:43.663-10:00Whitewashed Hope<p>SUBHEAD: A message from indigenous leaders on permaculture and regenerative agriculture.</p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">By several indigenous authors on 18 January 2021 in Resilience - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(<a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-01-18/whitewashed-hope/">https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-01-18/whitewashed-hope/</a>) <br /> <br />
<img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2021Year/01/210118couple.jpg" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: An indigenous East Indian couple in indigenous clothing</span><span style="font-size: small;">. <br /> From (<a href="https://www.climatescorecard.org/2020/08/indias-indigenous-peoples-are-key-constituents-in-climate-action/">https://www.climatescorecard.org/2020/08/indias-indigenous-peoples-are-key-constituents-in-climate-action/</a>).</span><br /></p><p>A note from Resilience.org:<br /><i>Our intention is to invite proponents of western ecological
agriculture (e.g., regenerative ag / permaculture) to go deeper and
encourage their peers to go deeper—to not just ‘take’ practices from
Indigenous cultures without their context, but to also encompass the
deeper Indigenous worldviews… inspiring a consciousness shift that
hopefully will support us to go from a dominant culture of supremacy and
domination to one founded on reciprocity, respect, and interrelations
with all beings—including, of course, among all humans.</i></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><b> Whitewashed Hope</b></span><br /></p><p>Regenerative agriculture and permaculture claim to be the solutions
to our ecological crises. While they both borrow practices from
Indigenous cultures, critically, they leave out our worldviews and
continue the pattern of erasing our history and contributions to the
modern world.
</p><p>While the practices ‘sustainable farming’ promote are important, they
do not encompass the deep cultural and relational changes needed to
realize our collective healing.</p>
<p><b><u>Where is ‘Nature’?</u></b></p>
<p>Regen Ag & Permaculture often talk about what’s happening ‘in
nature’: “In nature, soil is always covered.” “In nature, there are no
monocultures.” Nature is viewed as separate, outside, ideal, perfect.
Human beings must practice “biomimicry” (the mimicking of life) because
we exist outside of the life of Nature.</p>
<p>Indigenous peoples speak of our role AS Nature. (Actually, Indigenous
languages often don’t have a word for Nature, only a name for Earth and
our Universe.) </p><p>As cells and organs of Earth, we strive to fulfill our
roles as her caregivers and caretakers. We often describe ourselves as
“weavers”, strengthening the bonds between all beings.</p>
<p><b><u>Death Doesn’t Mean Dead</u></b></p>
<p>Regen Ag & Permaculture often maintain the “dead” worldview of
Western culture and science: Rocks, mountains, soil, water, wind, and
light all start as “dead”. (E.g., “Let’s bring life back to the soil!” —
implying soil, without microbes, is dead.) </p><p>This worldview believes that
life only happens when these elements are brought together in some
specific and special way.</p>
<p>Indigenous cultures view the Earth as a communion of beings and not
objects: All matter and energy is alive and conscious. Mountains,
stones, water, and air are relatives and ancestors. Earth is a living
being whose body we are all a part of. </p><p>Life does not only occur when
these elements are brought together; Life always is. No “thing” is ever
dead; Life forms and transforms.</p>
<p><b><u>From Judgemental to Relational</u></b></p>
<p>Regen Ag & Permaculture maintain overly simplistic binaries
through subscribing to good and bad. Tilling is bad; not tilling is
good. Mulch is good; not mulching is bad. We must do only the ‘good’
things to reach the idealized, 99.9% biomimicked farm/garden, though we
will never be as pure or good “as Nature”, because we are separate from
her.</p>
<p>Indigenous cultures often share the view that there is no good, bad,
or ideal—it is not our role to judge. Our role is to tend, care, and
weave to maintain relationships of balance. We give ourselves to the
land: Our breath and hands uplift her gardens, binding our life force
together. </p><p>No one is tainted by our touch, and we have the ability to
heal as much as any other lifeform.</p>
<p><b><u>Our Words Shape Us</u></b></p>
<p>Regen Ag & Permaculture use English as their preferred language
no matter the geography or culture: You must first learn English to
learn from the godFATHERS of this movement. The English language judges
and objectifies, including words most Indigenous languages do not:
‘natural, criminal, waste, dead, wild, pure…’ </p><p>English also utilizes
language like “things” and “its” when referring to “non-living, subhuman
entities”.</p>
<p>Among Indigenous cultures, every language emerges from and is
therefore intricately tied to place. Inuit people have dozens of words
for snow and her movement; Polynesian languages have dozens of words for
water’s ripples. </p><p>To know a place, you must speak her language. There is
no one-size-fits-all, and no words for non-living or sub-human beings,
because all life has equal value.</p>
<p><b><u>People are land. Holistic includes History.</u></b></p>
<p>Regen Ag and Permaculture claim to be holistic in approach. When
regenerating a landscape, ‘everything’ is considered: soil health, water
cycles, local ‘wildlife’, income & profit. </p><p>‘Everything’, however,
tends to EXCLUDE history: Why were Indigenous homelands steal-able and
why were our peoples & lands rape-able? Why were our cultures
erased? Why does our knowledge need to be validated by ‘Science’? Why
are we still excluded from your ‘healing’ of our land?</p>
<p>Among Indigenous cultures, people belong to land rather than land
belonging to people. Healing of land MUST include healing of people and
vice versa. Recognizing and processing the emotional traumas held in our
bodies as descendants of assaulted, enslaved, and displaced peoples is
necessary to the healing of land. </p><p>Returning our rights to care for,
harvest from, and relate to the land that birthed us is part of this
recognition.</p>
<p><b><u>Composting</u></b></p>
<p>Regen Ag & Permaculture often share the environmentalist message
that the world is dying and we must “save” it. Humans are toxic, but if
we try, we can create a “new Nature” of harmony, though one that is not
as harmonious as the “old Nature” that existed before humanity. Towards
this mission, we must put Nature first and sacrifice ourselves for “the
cause”.</p>
<p>Indigenous cultures often see Earth as going through cycles of
continuous transition. We currently find ourselves in a cycle of great
decomposition. Like in any process of composting there is discomfort and
a knowing that death always brings us into rebirth. Within this great
cycle, we all have a role to play. </p><p>Recognizing and healing all of our
own traumas IS healing Earth’s traumas, because we are ONE.</p>
<p><b><u>Where to go from here?</u></b></p>
<p>Making up only 6.2% of our global population, Indigenous peoples
steward 80% of Earth’s biodiversity while managing over 25% of her land.
Indigenous worldviews are the bedrocks that our agricultural practices
& lifeways arise from. </p><p>We invite you to ground your daily practices
in these ancestral ways, as we jointly work towards collective healing.</p>
<ul><li>Learn whose lands you live on (native-land.ca), their history, and how you can support their causes and cultural revitalization.</li><li>Watch @gatherfilm and Aluna documentary.</li><li>Amplify the voices and stories of Indigenous peoples and organizations.</li><li>Follow, support, donate to, and learn from the contributors to this post.</li><li>Help republish this open-source post: <a href="https://bit.ly/IndigenousWorldViews" target="_blank">https://bit.ly/IndigenousWorldViews</a></li></ul>
<p><b>Contributors</b></p>
<ul><li><a href="https://culturalsurvival.org" target="_blank">@CulturalSurvival</a> / Galina Angarova</li><li><a href="http://waitahaexecutivegrandmotherscouncil.com/" target="_blank">Māori Waitaha Grandmothers Council</a> & <a href="https://www.regionnetpositive.com/" target="_blank">Region Net Positive</a> / Tanya Ruka</li><li><a href="http://northeastnetwork.org/" target="_blank">@NEN_NorthEastNetwork</a> / Seno Tsuhah</li><li><a href="https://www.saltnet.org/" target="_blank">Society for Alternative Learning & Transformation</a> & African Biodiversity Network / Simon Mitambo</li><li><a href="https://cikodgh.com/" target="_blank">Center for Indigenous Knowledge and Organizational Development</a> / Bern Guri</li><li><a href="https://instagram.com/earthisohana" target="_blank">@EarthIsOhana</a> <a href="https://loamlove.com" target="_blank">@LoamLove</a> / Kailea Frederick</li><li><a href="https://regenagalliance.org" target="_blank">Regenerative Agriculture Alliance.org</a> / Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin</li><li><a href="https://instagram.com/linda.black.elk" target="_blank">@Linda.Black.Elk</a> / <a href="https://www.facebook.com/tatankawakpala/" target="_blank">Tatanka Wakpala Model Sustainable Community</a></li><li><a href="https://instagram.com/greenstonefarm_la" target="_blank">@GreenstoneFarm_LA</a> / <a href="https://healinggardens.squarespace.com/gardens/greenstone" target="_blank">Greenstone Farm and Sanctuary</a></li><li><a href="http://www.nativeland.org/" target="_blank">@CulturalConservancy</a> / Melissa K. Nelson PhD</li><li><a href="https://instagram.com/natkelley" target="_blank">@NatKelley</a></li><li><a href="https://instagram.com/gatherfilm" target="_blank">@GatherFilm</a></li><li><a href="https://instagram.com/agrowingculture" target="_blank">@AGrowingCulture</a></li><li><a href="https://terralingua.org" target="_blank">@Terralingua.Langscape</a></li><li><a href="https://instagram.com/farmer.rishi" target="_blank">@FarmerRishi</a></li><li><a href="https://instagram.com/kameachayne" target="_blank">@KameaChayne</a></li></ul><br /> <br />
<span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span></span>Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-38340935635348372792021-01-11T12:44:00.004-10:002021-02-07T11:26:44.721-10:00Making Biomass Sustainable<p>SUBHEAD: Coppiced woodlands, pollarded trees, and hedgerows provided sustainable energy. <span style="font-weight: bold;"> <br /></span></p><p><span style="font-weight: bold;">By </span><b>Kris De Decker on 15 September 2020 for Low-Tech Magazine</b><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(<a href="https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/09/how-to-make-biomass-energy-sustainable-again.html">https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/09/how-to-make-biomass-energy-sustainable-again.html</a>)
<br /> <br />
<img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2021Year/01/210111coppice.jpg" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above:Pollarded trees in Germany are a technology worth keeping. Photo by Rene Schroder in original article.</span><br /></p><p><i>IB Editor's note: The article has many more images of coppiced and pollarded wood farms in Europe that have operated for centuries</i>.</p><p>From the Neolithic to the beginning of the twentieth century, coppiced
woodlands, pollarded trees, and hedgerows provided people with a
sustainable supply of energy, materials, and food.</p><p></p><h2><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>How is Cutting Down Trees Sustainable?</b></span></h2>
<p>Advocating for the use of biomass as a renewable source of energy –
replacing fossil fuels – has become controversial among
environmentalists. The comments on the previous article, <a href="https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/05/thermoelectric-stoves-ditch-the-solar-panels.html">which discussed thermoelectric stoves</a>, illustrate this:</p>
<ul><li>“As the recent film Planet of the Humans points out, biomass a.k.a.
dead trees is not a renewable resource by any means, even though the EU
classifies it as such.”</li><li>“How is cutting down trees sustainable?”</li><li>“Article fails to mention that a wood stove produces more CO2 than a
coal power plant for every ton of wood/coal that is burned.”</li><li>“This is pure insanity. Burning trees to reduce our carbon footprint is oxymoronic.”</li><li>“The carbon footprint alone is just horrifying.”</li><li>“The biggest problem with burning anything is once it's burned, it's gone forever.”</li><li>“The only silly question I can add to to the silliness of this piece, is where is all the wood coming from?”</li></ul>
<p>In contrast to what the comments suggest, the article does not
advocate the expansion of biomass as an energy source. Instead, it
argues that already burning biomass fires – used by roughly 40% of
today’s global population – could also produce electricity as a
by-product, if they are outfitted with thermoelectric modules. </p><p>Nevertheless, several commenters maintained their criticism after they
read the article more carefully. One of them wrote: “We should aim to
eliminate the burning of biomass globally, not make it more attractive.”</p>
<p>Apparently, high-tech thinking has permeated the minds of (urban)
environmentalists to such an extent that they view biomass as an
inherently troublesome energy source – similar to fossil fuels. To be
clear, critics are right to call out unsustainable practices in biomass
production. </p><p>However, these are the consequences of a relatively recent,
“industrial” approach to forestry. When we look at historical forest
management practices, it becomes clear that biomass is potentially one
of the most sustainable energy sources on this planet.</p>
<h2><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Coppicing: Harvesting Wood Without Killing Trees</b></span></h2>
<p>Nowadays, most wood is harvested by killing trees. Before the
Industrial Revolution, a lot of wood was harvested from living trees,
which were <i>coppiced</i>. The principle of coppicing is based on the
natural ability of many broad-leaved species to regrow from damaged
stems or roots – damage caused by fire, wind, snow, animals, pathogens,
or (on slopes) falling rocks. </p><p>Coppice management involves the cutting
down of trees close to ground level, after which the base – called the
“stool” – develops several new shoots, resulting in a multi-stemmed
tree.</p><p>When we think of a forest or a tree plantation, we imagine it as a
landscape stacked with tall trees. However, until the beginning of the
twentieth century, at least half of the forests in Europe were coppiced,
giving them a more bush-like appearance. [<span style="color: #c00000;">1</span>] </p><p> The coppicing of trees can be dated back to the stone age, when people
built pile dwellings and trackways crossing prehistoric fenlands using
thousands of branches of equal size – a feat that can only be
accomplished by coppicing. [<span style="color: #c00000;">2</span>]</p><p>Ever since then, the technique formed the standard approach to wood
production – not just in Europe but almost all over the world. Coppicing
expanded greatly during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when
population growth and the rise of industrial activity (glass, iron, tile
and lime manufacturing) put increasing pressure on wood reserves.</p>
<h2><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Short Rotation Cycles</b></span></h2>
<p>Because the young shoots of a coppiced tree can exploit an already
well-developed root system, a coppiced tree produces wood faster than a
tall tree. Or, to be more precise: although its photosynthetic
efficiency is the same, a tall tree provides more biomass below ground
(in the roots) while a coppiced tree produces more biomass above ground
(in the shoots) – which is clearly more practical for harvesting. [<span style="color: #c00000;">3</span>] </p><p>Partly because of this, coppicing was based on short rotation cycles,
often of around two to four years, although both yearly rotations and
rotations up to 12 years or longer also occurred.</p><p>Because of the short rotation cycles, a coppice forest was a very
quick, regular and reliable supplier of firewood. Often, it was cut up
into a number of equal compartments that corresponded to the number of
years in the planned rotation. </p><p>For example, if the shoots were harvested
every three years, the forest was divided into three parts, and one of
these was coppiced each year. Short rotation cycles also meant that it
took only a few years before the carbon released by the burning of the
wood was compensated by the carbon that was absorbed by new growth,
making a coppice forest truly carbon neutral. In very short rotation
cycles, new growth could even be ready for harvest by the time the old
growth wood had dried enough to be burned.</p>
<p>In some tree species, the stump sprouting ability decreases with age.
After several rotations, these trees were either harvested in their
entirety and replaced by new trees, or converted into a coppice with a
longer rotation. Other tree species resprout well from stumps of all
ages, and can provide shoots for centuries, especially on rich soils
with a good water supply. Surviving coppice stools can be more than
1,000 years old.</p>
<h2><span style="font-size: medium;">Biodiversity</span></h2>
<p>A coppice can be called a “coppice forest” or a “coppice plantation”,
but in reality it was neither a forest nor a plantation – perhaps
something in between. Although managed by humans, coppice forests were
not environmentally destructive, on the contrary. Harvesting wood from
living trees instead of killing them is beneficial for the life forms
that depend on them. </p><p>Coppice forests can have a richer biodiversity than
unmanaged forests, because they always contain areas with different
stages of light and growth. None of this is true in industrial wood
plantations, which support little or no plant and animal life, and which
have longer rotation cycles (of at least twenty years).</p><p>Our forebears also cut down tall, standing trees with large-diameter
stems – just not for firewood. Large trees were only “killed” when large
timber was required, for example for the construction of ships,
buildings, bridges, and windmills. [<span style="color: #c00000;">4</span>] </p><p>Coppice forests could contain tall trees (a “coppice-with-standards”),
which were left to grow for decades while the surrounding trees were
regularly pruned. However, even these standing trees could be partly
coppiced, for example by harvesting their side branches while they were
alive (<i>shredding</i>).</p>
<h2><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Multipurpose Trees</b></span></h2>
<p>The archetypical wood plantation promoted by the industrial world
involves regularly spaced rows of trees in even-aged, monocultural
stands, providing a single output – timber for construction, pulpwood
for paper production, or fuelwood for power plants. </p><p>In contrast, trees
in pre-industrial coppice forests had multiple purposes. They provided
firewood, but also construction materials and animal fodder.</p>
<p>The targeted wood dimensions, determined by the use of the shoots,
set the rotation period of the coppice. Because not every type of wood
was suited for every type of use, coppiced forests often consisted of a
variety of tree species at different ages. </p><p>Several age classes of stems
could even be rotated on the same coppice stool (“selection coppice”),
and the rotations could evolve over time according to the needs and
priorities of the economic activities.</p><p>Coppiced wood was used to build almost anything that was needed in a community. [<span style="color: #c00000;">5</span>]
For example, young willow shoots, which are very flexible, were braided
into baskets and crates, while sweet chestnut prunings, which do not
expand or shrink after drying, were used to make all kinds of barrels.
Ash and goat willow, which yield straight and sturdy wood, provided the
material for making the handles of brooms, axes, shovels, rakes and
other tools.</p>
<p>Young hazel shoots were split along the entire length, braided
between the wooden beams of buildings, and then sealed with loam and cow
manure – the so-called wattle-and-daub construction. Hazel shoots also
kept thatched roofs together. </p><p>Alder and willow, which have almost
limitless life expectancy under water, were used as foundation piles and
river bank reinforcements. The construction wood that was taken out of a
coppice forest did not diminish its energy supply: because the
artefacts were often used locally, at the end of their lives they could
still be burned as firewood.</p><p>Coppice forests also supplied food. On the one hand, they provided
people with fruits, berries, truffles, nuts, mushrooms, herbs, honey,
and game. On the other hand, they were an important source of winter
fodder for farm animals. Before the Industrial Revolution, many sheep
and goats were fed with so-called “leaf fodder” or “leaf hay” – leaves
with or without twigs. [<span style="color: #c00000;">6</span>]</p>
<p>Elm and ash were among the most nutritious species, but sheep also
got birch, hazel, linden, bird cherry and even oak, while goats were
also fed with alder. In mountainous regions, horses, cattle, pigs and
silk worms could be given leaf hay too. Leaf fodder was grown in
rotations of three to six years, when the branches provided the highest
ratio of leaves to wood. When the leaves were eaten by the animals, the
wood could still be burned.</p>
<h2><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Pollards & Hedgerows</b></span></h2>
<p>Coppice stools are vulnerable to grazing animals, especially when the
shoots are young. Therefore, coppice forests were usually protected
against animals by building a ditch, fence or hedge around them. In
contrast, <i>pollarding</i> allowed animals and trees to be mixed on
the same land. Pollarded trees were pruned like coppices, but to a
height of at least two metres to keep the young shoots out of reach of
grazing animals.</p><p>Wooded meadows and wood pastures – mosaics of pasture and forest –
combined the grazing of animals with the production of fodder, firewood
and/or construction wood from pollarded trees. “Pannage” or “mast
feeding” was the method of sending pigs into pollarded oak forests
during autumn, where they could feed on fallen acorns. </p><p>The system formed
the mainstay of pork production in Europe for centuries. [<span style="color: #c00000;">7</span>]
The “meadow orchard” or “grazed orchard” combined fruit cultivation and
grazing -- pollarded fruit trees offered shade to the animals, while
the animals could not reach the fruit but fertilised the trees.</p><p>While agriculture and forestry are now strictly separated activities,
in earlier times the farm was the forest and vice versa. It would make a
lot of sense to bring them back together, because agriculture and
livestock production – not wood production – are the main drivers of
deforestation. </p><p>If trees provide animal fodder, meat and dairy production
should not lead to deforestation. If crops can be grown in fields with
trees, agriculture should not lead to deforestation. Forest farms would
also improve animal welfare, soil fertility and erosion control.</p>
<h2><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Line Plantings</b></span></h2>
<p>Extensive plantations could consist of coppiced or pollarded trees,
and were often managed as a commons. However, coppicing and pollarding
were not techniques seen only in large-scale forest management. Small
woodlands in between fields or next to a rural house and managed by an
individual household would be coppiced or pollarded. </p><p>A lot of wood was
also grown as line plantings around farmyards, fields and meadows, near
buildings, and along paths, roads and waterways. Here, lopped trees and
shrubs could also appear in the form of <i>hedgerows</i>, thickly planted hedges. [<span style="color: #c00000;">8</span>]</p><p>Although line plantings are usually associated with the use of
hedgerows in England, they were common in large parts of Europe. In
1804, English historian Abbé Mann expressed his surprise when he wrote
about his trip to Flanders (today part of Belgium):</p><p> “All fields are
enclosed with hedges, and thick set with trees, insomuch that the whole
face of the country, seen from a little height, seems one continued
wood”. </p><p>Typical for the region was the large number of pollarded trees. [<span style="color: #c00000;">8</span>]</p>
<p>Like coppice forests, line plantings were diverse and provided people
with firewood, construction materials and leaf fodder. However, unlike
coppice forests, they had extra functions because of their specific
location. [<span style="color: #c00000;">9</span>] One of these was plot
separation: keeping farm animals in, and keeping wild animals or cattle
grazing on common lands out. Various techniques existed to make
hedgerows impenetrable, even for small animals such as rabbits. </p><p>Around
meadows, hedgerows or rows of very closely planted pollarded trees
(“pollarded tree hedges”) could stop large animals such as cows. If
willow wicker was braided between them, such a line planting could also
keep small animals out. [<span style="color: #c00000;">8</span>]</p>
<p>Trees and line plantings also offered protection against the weather.
Line plantings protected fields, orchards and vegetable gardens against
the wind, which could erode the soil and damage the crops. In warmer
climates, trees could shield crops from the sun and fertilize the soil.
Pollarded lime trees, which have very dense foliage, were often planted
right next to wattle-and-daub buildings in order to protect them from
wind, rain and sun. [<span style="color: #c00000;">10</span>]</p>
<p>Dunghills were protected by one or more trees, preventing the
valuable resource from evaporating due to sun or wind. In the yard of a
watermill, the wooden water wheel was shielded by a tree to prevent the
wood from shrinking or expanding in times of drought or inactivity. [<span style="color: #c00000;">8</span>]</p><h2><span style="font-size: small;"><b>Location Matters</b></span></h2>
<p>Along paths, roads and waterways, line plantings had many of the same
location-specific functions as on farms. Cattle and pigs were hoarded
over dedicated droveways lined with hedgerows, coppices and/or pollards. </p><p>When the railroads appeared, line plantings prevented collisions with
animals. They protected road travellers from the weather, and marked the
route so that people and animals would not get off the road in a snowy
landscape. They prevented soil erosion at riverbanks and hollow roads.</p>
<p>All functions of line plantings could be managed by dead wood fences,
which can be moved more easily than hedgerows, take up less space,
don’t compete for light and food with crops, and can be ready in a short
time. [<span style="color: #c00000;">11</span>] </p><p>However, in times and
places were wood was scarce a living hedge was often preferred (and
sometimes obliged) because it was a continuous wood <i>producer</i>, while a dead wood fence was a continuous wood <i>consumer</i>.
A dead wood fence may save space and time on the spot, but it implies
that the wood for its construction and maintenance is grown and
harvested elsewhere in the surroundings.</p><p>Local use of wood resources was maximised. For example, the tree that
was planted next to the waterwheel, was not just any tree. It was red
dogwood or elm, the wood that was best suited for constructing the
interior gearwork of the mill. When a new part was needed for repairs,
the wood could be harvested right next to the mill. </p><p>Likewise, line
plantings along dirt roads were used for the maintenance of those roads.
The shoots were tied together in bundles and used as a foundation or to
fill up holes. Because the trees were coppiced or pollarded and not cut
down, no function was ever at the expense of another.</p>
<p>Nowadays, when people advocate for the planting of trees, targets are
set in terms of forested area or the number of trees, and little
attention is given to their location – which could even be on the other
side of the world. However, as these examples show, planting trees
closeby and in the right location can significantly optimise their
potential.</p>
<h2><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Shaped by Limits</b></span></h2>
<p>Coppicing has largely disappeared in industrial societies, although
pollarded trees can still be found along streets and in parks. Their
prunings, which once sustained entire communities, are now considered
waste products. If it worked so well, why was coppicing abandoned as a
source of energy, materials and food? The answer is short: fossil fuels. </p><p> Our forebears relied on coppice because they had no access to fossil
fuels, and we don’t rely on coppice because we have.</p><p>Most obviously, fossil fuels have replaced wood as a source of energy
and materials. Coal, gas and oil took the place of firewood for
cooking, space heating, water heating and industrial processes based on
thermal energy. Metal, concrete and brick – materials that had been
around for many centuries – only became widespread alternatives to wood
after they could be made with fossil fuels, which also brought us
plastics. </p><p>Artificial fertilizers – products of fossil fuels – boosted
the supply and the global trade of animal fodder, making leaf fodder
obsolete. The mechanisation of agriculture – driven by fossil fuels –
led to farming on much larger plots along with the elimination of trees
and line plantings on farms.</p>
<p>Less obvious, but at least as important, is that fossil fuels have
transformed forestry itself. Nowadays, the harvesting, processing and
transporting of wood is heavily supported by the use of fossil fuels,
while in earlier times they were entirely based on human and animal
power – which themselves get their fuel from biomass. It was the
limitations of these power sources that created and shaped coppice
management all over the world.</p><p>Wood was harvested and processed by hand, using simple tools such as
knives, machetes, billhooks, axes and (later) saws. Because the labour
requirements of harvesting trees by hand increase with stem diameter, it
was cheaper and more convenient to harvest many small branches instead
of cutting down a few large trees. </p><p>Furthermore, there was no need to
split coppiced wood after it was harvested. Shoots were cut to a length
of around one metre, and tied together in “faggots”, which were an easy
size to handle manually.</p><p>To transport firewood, our forebears relied on animal drawn carts
over often very bad roads. This meant that, unless it could be
transported over water, firewood had to be harvested within a radius of
at most 15-30 km from the place where it was used. [<span style="color: #c00000;">12</span>] </p><p> Beyond those distances, the animal power required for transporting the
firewood was larger than its energy content, and it would have made more
sense to grow firewood on the pasture that fed the draft animal. [<span style="color: #c00000;">13</span>]
T</p><p>here were some exceptions to this rule. Some industrial activities,
like iron and potash production, could be moved to more distant forests –
transporting iron or potash was more economical than transporting the
firewood required for their production. However, in general, coppice
forests (and of course also line plantings) were located in the
immediate vicinity of the settlement where the wood was used.</p>
<p>In short, coppicing appeared in a context of limits. Because of its
faster growth and versatile use of space, it maximised the local wood
supply of a given area. Because of its use of small branches, it made
manual harvesting and transporting as economical and convenient as
possible.</p>
<h2><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Can Coppicing be Mechanised?</b></span></h2>
<p>From the twentieth century onwards, harvesting was done by motor saw,
and since the 1980s, wood is increasingly harvested by powerful
vehicles that can fell entire trees and cut them on the spot in a matter
of minutes. </p><p>Fossil fuels have also brought better transportation
infrastructures, which have unlocked wood reserves that were
inaccessible in earlier times. Consequently, firewood can now be grown
on one side of the planet and consumed at the other.</p>
<p>The use of fossil fuels adds carbon emissions to what used to be a
completely carbon neutral activity, but much more important is that it
has pushed wood production to a larger – unsustainable – scale. [<span style="color: #c00000;">14</span>] </p><p>Fossil fueled transportation has destroyed the connection between
supply and demand that governed local forestry. If the wood supply is
limited, a community has no other choice than to make sure that the wood
harvest rate and the wood renewal rate are in balance. Otherwise, it
risks running out of fuelwood, craft wood and animal fodder, and it
would be abandoned.</p><p>Likewise, fully mechanised harvesting has pushed forestry to a scale
that is incompatible with sustainable forest management. Our forebears
did not cut down large trees for firewood, because it was not
economical. </p><p>Today, the forest industry does exactly that because
mechanisation makes it the most profitable thing to do. Compared to
industrial forestry, where one worker can harvest up to 60 m3 of wood
per hour, coppicing is extremely labour-intensive. </p><p>Consequently, it
cannot compete in an economic system that fosters the replacement of
human labour with machines powered by fossil fuels.</p><p>Some scientists and engineers have tried to solve this by demonstrating coppice harvesting machines. </p><p>[<span style="color: #c00000;">15</span>]
However, mechanisation is a slippery slope. The machines are only
practical and economical on somewhat larger tracts of woodland (>1
ha) which contain coppiced trees of the same species and the same age,
with only one purpose (often fuelwood for power generation).</p><p> As we have
seen, this excludes many older forms of coppice management, such as the
use of multipurpose trees and line plantings. Add fossil fueled
transportation to the mix, and the result is a type of industrial
coppice management that brings few improvements.</p><p>Sustainable forest management is essentially local and manual. This
doesn’t mean that we need to copy the past to make biomass energy
sustainable again.</p><p> For example, the radius of the wood supply could be
increased by low energy transport options, such as <a href="https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2014/05/modular-cargo-cycles.html">cargo bikes</a> and <a href="https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2011/01/aerial-ropeways-automatic-cargo-transport.html">aerial ropeways</a>,
which are much more efficient than horse or ox drawn carts over bad
roads, and which could be operated without fossil fuels. </p><p>Hand tools have
also improved in terms of efficiency and ergonomics. We could even use
motor saws that run on biofuels – a much more realistic application than
their use in car engines. [<span style="color: #c00000;">16</span>]</p>
<h2><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>The Past Lives On</b></span></h2>
<p>This article has compared industrial biomass production with
historical forms of forest management in Europe, but in fact there was
no need to look to the past for inspiration. The 40% of the global
population consisting of people in poor societies that still burn wood
for cooking and water and/or space heating, are no clients of industrial
forestry. Instead, they obtain firewood in much of the same ways that
we did in earlier times, although the tree species and the environmental
conditions can be very different. [<span style="color: #c00000;">17</span>]</p>
<p>A 2017 study calculated that the wood consumption by people in
“developing” societies – good for 55% of the global wood harvest and
9-15% of total global energy consumption – only causes 2-8% of
anthropogenic climate impacts. [<span style="color: #c00000;">18</span>] </p><p> Why so little? Because around two-thirds of the wood that is harvested
in developing societies is harvested sustainably, write the scientists.
People collect mainly dead wood, they grow a lot of wood outside the
forest, they coppice and pollard trees, and they prefer the use of
multipurpose trees, which are too valuable to cut down. </p><p>The motives are
the same as those of our ancestors: people have no access to fossil
fuels and are thus tied to a local wood supply, which needs to be
harvested and transported manually.</p><p>These numbers confirm that it is not biomass energy that’s
unsustainable. If the whole of humanity would live as the 40% that still
burns biomass regularly, climate change would not be an issue. What is
really unsustainable is a high energy lifestyle. </p><p>We can obviously not
sustain a high-tech industrial society on coppice forests and line
plantings alone. But the same is true for any other energy source,
including uranium and fossil fuels. <br /></p>Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-59200043527481658542020-12-24T14:02:00.004-10:002020-12-25T19:54:17.171-10:00Gaia's Response to Us<p>SUBHEAD: The Earth is not dying, Gaia is just reacting to our mistakes. <span style="font-size: small;"></span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"><span><b><span>By Erik Assadournian on 20 December 2020 for Gaianism.org - </span></b><br />(<a href="http://gaianism.org/gaia-is-responding-to-our-actions-will-we-act-differently-in-time/">http://gaianism.org/gaia-is-responding-to-our-actions-will-we-act-differently-in-time/</a>) </span></span><br /></p><p><i>
</i><img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2020Year/12/201224earth.jpg" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: One of the earliest images of the whole Earth from 29,000 miles into space taken from NASA Appolo 17 spaceship on way to Moon. It was titled the Blue Marble and </span><span style="font-size: small;">and is one of the most reproduced images in history. (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Marble">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blue_Marble</a>).</span><br /><br />So often we hear the phrase ‘save the world’ or the ‘<a href="https://www.wwf.org.uk/thingsyoucando">save our planet.</a>’
We may even use it. But sometime back in my career someone wise
corrected that, explaining that the planet is not dying but changing—and
through that change many species, including our own, will probably die.
But the Earth, in all likelihood, will not die.</p><p>But to say the Earth is changing, just as to say it is dying, is passive, like, saying ‘Oops,
too bad, we were born on a sick old planet—just our bad luck.’
</p><p>No, Gaia is <i>responding</i>. Responding to our actions. Whatever
metaphors you want to use here, feel free: You want to make Gaia into a
finely-balanced aquarium filled with exotic fish, and us a wild child <a href="http://www.shitmykidsruined.com/2011/03/25/fish-tank-graveyard/">dropping soap in the tank to ‘clean’ it</a>? </p><p>You want to make Gaia a partner suffering from domestic abuse who
finally lashes out on us, her abuser, after years of mistreatment? You
want to make Gaia a complex planetary system that holds heat from space
with a thin coating of co2, a layer that has increased to a level not
seen in <a href="https://earthsky.org/earth/rising-carbon-dioxide-co2-record-high-june2020">23 million years</a>, higher than even <a href="https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide">three million years ago when global temperatures were 2 degrees C warmer and sea levels were 15-25 meters higher</a>? While the last isn’t artful, it is accurate.</p>
<p>Gaia is responding. To the altered conditions we have unleashed—with
our profligate burning of fossil fuels, our cutting down of forests and
ravaging of oceans, and our sheer numbers (us <i>and</i> our pets and livestock).</p>
<p>Amazingly, I don’t see us correcting course any time soon.</p>
<p>This past year, in response to the coronavirus pandemic, we shut down
large parts of our economy. And so far an additional 1.7 million people
<a href="https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html">have died from COVID</a>. Each and every death is a tragedy. But guess what? <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/nov/23/climate-crisis-co2-hits-new-record-despite-covid-19-lockdowns">Atmospheric concentrations of co2 increased this past year</a>, hitting yet another record (though at this point every year is a record as long as it keeps going up).</p>
<p>That’s pretty amazing. Air travel declined dramatically and is currently <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104036/novel-coronavirus-weekly-flights-change-airlines-region/">46% lower than in 2019</a>. Road travel in the US <a href="https://www.advisorperspectives.com/dshort/updates/2020/11/13/americas-driving-habits-as-of-september-2020">declined 11 percent</a>
compared with last year. Many businesses were shuttered and will never
come back, particularly restaurants. </p><p>But we kept eating, kept making
things (after a brief pause) and perhaps even <i>more</i> things to fill consumer demand for novelties while stuck at home (from <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/19/914715503/major-appliances-in-short-supply-as-manufacturers-scale-down-production-amid-pan">appliances</a> to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/22/realestate/turning-your-backyard-into-a-vacation-spot.html">backyard patio sets</a>),** plus, all the personal protective equipment (<a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ppe-pollution-oceans-covid/2020/12/10/91c28e98-3990-11eb-80ac-d1978d86bc9c_story.html">129 billion masks a month!</a>), vaccines, and the equipment needed to deliver them (see, for example, the current boon in <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/25/ultra-cold-freezer-maker-sees-surge-in-demand-to-store-covid-vaccines.html">freezers</a> and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/12/09/covid-vaccine-dry-ice-sales-skyrocket-as-hospitals-prepare-to-deliver-shots.html">dry ice</a>).</p>
<p>If anything, this year of pandemic, of urgent antiracism protests and
prodemocracy demonstrations (not just in the US but countries like
Belarus), and of endless Trumpian shenanigans and stoking of conflict
and partisanship have crippled the climate movement.</p><p>Online protests
don’t draw eyes—especially when there are half a dozen other crises to
report on every day (including climate-driven ones like raging fires and
a record hurricane season). And while groups like <a href="https://fridaysforfuture.org/">Fridays for the Future</a> and the <a href="https://rebellion.global/">Extinction Rebellion</a> have remained active, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/11/extinction-rebellion-how-successful-were-the-latest-protests">the smaller actions they’ve taken have gotten much less attention</a>.</p><p>This past week, my wife, son, and I watched <i><a href="https://www.hulu.com/movie/i-am-greta-6eb88d15-22f0-4f7b-90aa-6933ddc2f90a">I am Greta</a></i>. It was certainly a moving film, exploring how <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greta_Thunberg">Greta Thunberg</a>
went from one individual striking, alone, in front of the Swedish
parliament building for the climate, to sparking a global climate
movement to becoming a symbol—both of youthful leadership and
truth-telling as well as a vilified figure for those on the right, even
receiving death threats.</p><p></p><p>And thus Greta has also become a symbol of this whole polarized
nightmare. Climate change is a threat to our existence, but truly
effective action (meaning <a href="http://gaianism.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/The-Path-to-Degrowth.pdf">economic degrowth</a> and <a href="http://gaianism.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/The-Rise-and-Fall-of-Consumer-Cultures-1.pdf">daunting levels of cultural change</a>)
is a threat to “our way of life” (i.e. the dominant consumer-capitalist
paradigm). </p><p>And thus, as viewers see in one scene, Thunburg argues
passionately for action in front of the European Economic and Social
Committee and Jean-Claude Juncker (president of the European Commission
at the time) responds by saying that they’re working “to harmonize all
flushes across all toilets in Europe,” which will help save water and
energy. You could see the palpable contempt on Thunberg’s face.</p>
<p>Deep down I was hoping my son, 8.5, would say to me let’s start going
to the Middletown Town Hall each Friday to strike. I’d be up for that. I
<i>want</i> to do that. But I want him to lead that. I don’t want to ‘use’ him, like in an uncomfortably funny scene in <a href="https://www.netflix.com/watch/81172839?trackId=13752289&tctx=0%2C0%2Ceb5dbd686ef14481d29340f44b4a4826f253fe88%3Aab271c09063e72850abb7acf257706ca7d42e7e0%2Ceb5dbd686ef14481d29340f44b4a4826f253fe88%3Aab271c09063e72850abb7acf257706ca7d42e7e0%2Cunknown%2C">the Dutch show <i>Rita</i></a> where parents make their daughter lead a school climate strike in order to get a book deal.</p>
<p>But the majority of kids, nej, the majority of all people do not want
to spend their days protesting. They simply want to enjoy their lives.</p>
<p>But Gaia is responding. To our carbon-intensive life-enjoyment
processes. And if we don’t try something different, perhaps partaking in “<a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/how-we-rise/2020/07/23/five-things-john-lewis-taught-us-about-getting-in-good-trouble/">good trouble</a>”, we’re gonna be in great trouble.</p>
<h3>Carbon March to DC</h3>
<p>Back in late 2008 (12 long years ago), I shared a proposal with some
of the leaders of the climate movement at the time. It was a proposal to
organize people from around the United States to walk to Washington,***
taking several months, building the energy and media attention as
smaller groups merged into bigger ones and neared the capital, and then
blockading major entryways into the city until the new president, Barack
Obama, and the Congress felt compelled to respond. </p><p>Note, this was
before Occupy Wall Street and XR but absolutely not a new idea—I took it
directly from Gandhi’s Salt March to Dandi mixed with Ukraine’s Orange
Revolution and other non-violent actions (<a href="http://gaianism.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/TheCarbonMarchtoDC.pdf">as you can read here</a>).****
I got some generic positive comments, like Greta at the European
Commission, but nothing more. </p><p>And considering I had a cushy job at a
sustainability think tank, and had just been invited to direct a new
book (on consumerism and cultural change my passion), I didn’t push very
hard. Especially as everyone else seemed so optimistic that, under the
new president, we’d deal with climate change.</p><p>But we didn’t. And I should have pushed harder. And I should now. But
even now, as the crisis is upon us (not a looming threat any longer),
when I have a young son who will inherit this mess, I find myself
hesitating at the idea of putting life on hold and risking life and
liberty. </p><p>Sure, in part it’s because I have a child, though old enough to
walk with me now (and he’d probably get a kick out of walking from
Connecticut to DC, where we used to live). And partly it’s because I’m
conflicted about whether it’s simply too late to stop the climate
unraveling (see the postscript below). But if I’m honest, it’s also
because I’m too comfortable.</p>
<p>Yet, without sustained and consistent pressure, Biden’s climate policy, especially with a divided Congress, will not be enough <a href="http://gaianism.org/reflections-from-a-climate-rally/">nor will the Green New Deal that activists are advocating for and mostly consists of unsustainable techno-fixes</a> instead of returning to live within Earth’s limits. <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/paris-agreement-climate-change-policy-tracker-b1766928.html">No country is currently doing enough</a>,
as yet more research shows. Do we just accept that and prepare for
collapse as best we can or do we fight, risking our freedom, safety, and
comfort for that?</p>
<p>Perhaps the Carbon March is not a good idea (though I admit I still
really like it, post-pandemic) but we certainly need to expand, support,
and deepen efforts of groups like XR and Fridays for the Future,
particularly in the United States, where climate protests have taken a
back seat to issues that feel more pressing (and frankly have never
gotten enough attention or energy here). </p><p>Of course, we need to address
racism, COVID, inequality, growing far-right extremism, and gun
violence, as well, but if we don’t find a way to fold climate change
into the mix, or even fold all of these into an <a href="http://gaianism.org/without-solidarity-no-survival/">intersectionalist environmentalist</a>
framework—then we’re toast, and, as the world burns, all the social
gains fought for over the past two centuries will go up in flames with
it.</p>
<h3>Postscript: To Fight or Adapt? Or Both?</h3>
<p>Taking on one other dimension of this, there is a new divide growing
between those still trying to ‘save the world’ (aka stop runaway climate
change and the mass die off of life including people), and those who
simply think it’s too late, and that the best we can do is prepare for
the inevitable transition ahead. This latter community, perhaps best
represented by <a href="https://deepadaptation.ning.com/">The Deep Adaptation Forum</a>,
may be right. But that doesn’t mean we can throw in the towel. </p><p>Every
part per million of co2 in the atmosphere is going to make things worse
(in a non-linear kind of way). Yes, we need those working on preparing
for the transition (in both direct ways, like the Transition Town
Movement, and deeper ways, including, I’d argue <a href="http://gaianism.org/a-reflection-on-what-the-gaian-way-means-to-me/">cultivating an ecocentric spirituality that can help us get through the horrors ahead with our humanity intact</a>),
because a post-growth future—one wracked by a never-ending series of
disasters—is coming soon to a theater near all of us. But we also need
those slowing down this march to collapse (especially as after a point,
adaptation is impossible).</p>
<p>This is the ideal, though: the actions we take in one realm would
also help in the other. For example, a months-long march to Washington
to press for climate solutions would also build social capital, engage
communities around the country, teach participants to live simply (and
get used to living with less), and rediscover basic skills like cooking
(for their cadre of marchers). </p><p>This might subtly do a lot to get us
ready for the degrowth/collapsed reality ahead. And cultivating an
ecospirituality that strongly encourages its adherents to be engaged
politically and socially (<a href="http://gaianism.org/reflections-from-a-climate-rally/">especially in ways that help normalize degrowth</a>)
would also support both realms. </p><p>Ultimately, with the scope of change
needed, it does not much matter if you devote yourself to deep
adaptation or to slowing the collapse—both are essential and both are
part of our bigger collective struggle. The only thing we cannot afford
is no corrective action at all.</p>
<p><span style="font-size: large;"><b>Notes:</b></span></p>
<p>*Then again, as James Lovelock has noted, Gaia is older than <a href="http://gaianism.org/recognizing-gaia-for-who-gi-is/">Gi</a>
once was. There is a point when the strain of switching states could
end all life on Earth and thus Gaia. And of course, like all beings, it
is inevitable that Gaia will one day die, the sun’s growing heat and
finite life guarantee that. But I have faith that <a href="https://orionmagazine.org/article/state-of-the-species/">Lynn Margulis is right</a>
in that the bacteria deep in the Earth will spread out and create new
variations to fill in the empty niches of the new hot world humanity
unleashes, starting another cycle of life.</p>
<p>**And factoring in hoarding, we may have even consumed more household
goods and food (though it is feasible that this increase might have
been offset by food waste avoided from eating at restaurants).</p>
<p>***Due to the nature of this journey, many of the participants would
be students and elders (retirees) supported by the communities with food
and shelter and attention as they passed through. </p>
<p>****I was inspired to write this after listening to Wendell Berry
speak, telling his audience of environmental journalists that the time
for “symbolic” civil disobedience was over (in 2008). By that he meant
short-term actions that were designed for media attention but did not
really disrupt anything in any sustained way that would force a serious
response.</p><p> <i><br />
<span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span></span></i></p>Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-53331364231790713622020-12-22T14:38:00.008-10:002020-12-23T09:20:18.411-10:00When Consensus is Fractured<p>SUBHEAD: In 2020 we found ourselves in a world where we could not agree on what is reality.</p><p><br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> By Richard Heinberg on 18 December 2020 for Resilience.org - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(<a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-12-18/2020-the-year-consensus-reality-fractured/">https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-12-18/2020-the-year-consensus-reality-fractured/</a>)
<br /> <br />
<img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2020Year/12/201222looting.jpg" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span class="article-image-credit">Volunteers help clean up the parking
lot outside a Best Buy store, Monday, Aug. 10, 2020, after vandals
struck overnight in the Lincoln Park neighborhood in Chicago. </span>From (<a href="https://www.hotsr.com/news/2020/aug/11/hundreds-ransack-downtown-chicago-businesses/">https://www.hotsr.com/news/2020/aug/11/hundreds-ransack-downtown-chicago-businesses/</a>).</span><br /><br />Virtually everyone agrees that 2020 was an abomination. An entire industry of opinion writers is busying itself with end-of-year hand wringing, scouring every online thesaurus for adjectives to express just how horrible the last twelve months have been. </p><p>But what facet of the awfulness to focus on? For the appalled chronicler, the most obvious starting points are the coronavirus pandemic, which has left illness, death, shuttered businesses, and lost jobs trailing in its wake, and the chaotic US presidential election, in which the soundly defeated incumbent has attacked and seriously weakened the very foundations of democracy on his way out the door. </p><p>These two baskets of grim news (pandemic and election) have been accompanied by a shift in the national (and, to some extent, global) zeitgeist—a shift that’s been obvious to anyone paying attention, but that’s nevertheless challenging to capture in words. </p><p>Let’s call it the fracturing of consensus reality. While it won’t be the top story of the year according to most news roundups, it may end up being just as impactful as anything else that’s happened during our latest orbit of the sun. And that’s saying something. </p><p>What’s Real? Let’s All Agree
As social and linguistic creatures, we humans—operating in groups—create shared mental worlds. We perceive sensory data, then we verbalize and conceptualize those perceptions, and finally we check our verbalized and conceptualized accounts of reality with other people. </p><p>Over time, a consensus emerges.
This language-mediated reality-building process is hardly new; it’s been going on since we all lived by hunting and gathering. Then, everybody within their little groups shared the same stories and the same basic mental map of the world.</p><p>After we adopted agriculture, social classes and full-time division of labor ensued. With slavery, kings, and a dramatic reduction in the social power of women, consensus reality became more of a Venn diagram, with the king having the final word in defining the overlapping region on the diagram representing consensus. </p><p>Later, the emergence of writing and Big God religions enabled reality to be codified for empires, and elements of the dominant consensus (e.g., Roman law and Christianity) could be spread among alien cultures. </p><p>For most Europeans, even as dynasties came and went, reality remained essentially whatever the Bible, the church, and the king or emperor said it was.
Consensus reality was never consistent or complete and never a correct map of what it purported to represent; it was always an approximation skewed by power relations. </p><p>Some people’s realities were privileged, while other people’s were marginalized, excluded, or intentionally destroyed. And there were always blind spots—actual trends, vulnerabilities, and consequences that nobody noticed or talked about, such as the gradual depletion of natural resources—that only became “real” when they could no longer be ignored.
The modern era (from roughly 1500 on) brought new sources of diversity to the consensus-building process. </p><p>As Europeans conquered societies around the globe, “reality” began to reflect the sounds and flavors of these diverse cultures; the result was everything from jazz to fusion cuisine. Meanwhile, the power of commerce greatly increased, reducing the influence of church and aristocracy. </p><p>Increased diversity and a shift toward commercial primacy were accompanied by new integrative trends in the process of collective reality-building. Principal among these was the emergence of science—a self-correcting method for discovering objective truth. </p><p>Of course, science had its blind spots, too (for example, it was often subject to commercial influence—witness the long lags in recognizing the nasty side effects of tobacco and pesticides), but it was persuasive: assertions could be tested by controlled experiment. </p><p>Over the decades, science built formidable structures of knowledge that most people lacked the expertise or temerity to question, but that could be verified by anyone with the necessary resources. Reality became “enlightened.”
Another integrative trend consisted of the development of new communication tools—the printing press, and later radio, movies, and television. </p><p>Increasingly, through these media, nearly everyone was exposed to common facts, ideas, and images. The wealthy banker and the destitute farmer uprooted by the dust bowl were marinated in the same Hollywood imagery, and the same civics homilies taught in compulsory public schools. </p><p>Cracks in the Modern Consensus
The emerging global consensus suffered a couple of serious ruptures during the modern era. In Europe, fascism brought more than a new set of political power relations; it created a mental universe so dominated by notions of racial and national superiority that it demanded the rewriting of textbooks. </p><p>And in Russia, communism built a narrative in which the dictatorship of the proletariat—under constant attack by the forces of capitalism—must ultimately prevail, leading to a workers’ paradise. </p><p>Both fascists and communists used new mass communication tools (radio, movies, and newspapers) to give their consensus realities force and credibility.
Even science could be repurposed to support alternate realities. In the Soviet Union, the state decided to back an alternative to natural selection and science-based agriculture. </p><p>The originator of this heterodox set of views, Trofim Lysenko, became Director of the Soviet Union’s Academy of Agricultural Sciences, where—with Stalin’s approving help—he rooted out the study of Mendelian genetics and taught instead the theory that characteristics acquired by parents can be directly transmitted to their offspring. </p><p>Opponents of Lysenko were accused of “mysticism, obscurantism, and backwardness,” then banished to Siberian work camps. As a result, biological science in the Soviet bloc was set back decades.
After the defeat of fascism in WWII and the fall of the Soviet bloc, the West’s consensus—shaped largely by the US—seemed to become reunified and stabilized. </p><p>Political scientist Francis Fukuyama called it “the end of history.”
But blind spots persisted and grew. Some of these profoundly shaped not just the dominant worldview itself, but the contours of daily life for multitudes. </p><p>One telling example: the so-called science of economics codified for nearly everyone the false assumption that perpetual growth in industrial activity is possible, and denied all evidence to the contrary. </p><p>Economics concealed other blind spots as well, as it continually ignored widespread signs that the “free market” does not in fact benefit everyone, and that people do not actually behave like idealized rational self-interest-maximizing robots. </p><p>Some persistent and periodically worsening cracks in the consensus ripped along economic, ethnic, or political fault lines: especially during the Jim Crow era, African-Americans and European-Americans in southern US states inhabited sharply different realities, and stark inequities have persisted to the present. </p><p>Other cracks, fed by suspicions that powerful people were manipulating the consensus to their own benefit, led to what came to be known as conspiracy theories—including doubts about the official accounts of the JFK assassination and 9/11, as well as misgivings about the safety and “real” purpose of water fluoridation and vaccination.
Meanwhile, communications media were evolving still further. </p><p>While radio and television had a largely unifying effect during the 20th century, the internet and social media are proving to be disintegrative to consensus in the 21st. Algorithms capture users’ interests and prejudices and feed them news and opinion articles that lead them to have ever-more-extreme views. </p><p>“Do you think the government is suppressing information about space aliens? You don’t know the half of it! Read this!” </p><p>The radicalizing propensity of social media was a factor in the sudden political ascendancy of Donald Trump, who acted as both symptom and driver of consensus breakdown. As a real estate developer and reality TV personality, he seemed an exceedingly inexperienced and unlikely candidate for the top political office in the country, and arguably the world. His intellect and ethics were widely suspect. </p><p>But he had the ability to give utterance to the grievances of a sector of the populace that feels left behind—people of mostly European ancestry in low-density towns and rural areas across the nation (in recent decades, most of America’s wealth and cultural attention has flowed to high-density, multi-ethnic cities). </p><p>Even if Trump could not change the material circumstances of small-town families, he could make them feel as though they had a voice. Ironically—and perhaps therefore somehow even more fittingly—it was the voice of a gaudily privileged New Yorker. </p><p>But it was an angry voice, and it spoke in words of few syllables. He was the first Twitter President. The Trump team’s communication strategy, in the immortal words of former top adviser Steve Bannon, was to <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/16/20991816/impeachment-trial-trump-bannon-misinformation">“flood the zone with shit.”</a> Disruption of consensus reality wasn’t a regrettable side effect of their efforts; it was a central goal.
2020: The Dam Breaks
In short, prior to the year now ending, consensus reality in the US was already starting to crumble. But 2020 delivered two sledgehammer blows: a pandemic and a polarizing presidential election.
First, the pandemic. </p><p>As many observers have pointed out, COVID-19 has greatly varying infection and death rates by nation, and countries with higher levels of social cohesion have generally tended to do better at combatting the disease. </p><p>The United States has fared the worst of all countries in raw numbers, with over 17 million total cases so far and over 300,000 deaths (about a dozen smaller countries, including Belgium and San Marino, have suffered higher per capita rates of infection and mortality). Currently the US is seeing over 200,000 new cases each day and roughly 2,500 deaths. </p><p>Unless the trend changes, total mortality for the country may eventually begin to rival that of the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic, in which about 675,000 died (though the per capita death rate will almost certainly not be as grim, given today’s far larger population). </p><p> Why has the US suffered such a horrific outcome? </p><p>Much of the blame certainly must be borne by President Trump and his political appointees and allies in the federal government. They mounted almost no coordinated national pandemic response; instead, states were left to formulate their own policies and to compete with each other for medical supplies. </p><p>Messaging from the executive branch was likewise unhelpful or downright counterproductive: in the early weeks, when the virus was largely just a distant menace and preparations could have made a huge difference, the President dismissed the need for concern (on January 22, he told a CNBC interviewer, “We have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine.”). </p><p>Then, when it became clear that sickness was spreading and people were dying, Trump invented the term “China virus,” evidently seeking to deflect blame while still failing to forge a national response plan. Later in the year, as economic and political concerns took the spotlight, </p><p>Trump returned to almost completely ignoring the disease, even omitting attendance, for weeks at a time, at meetings of his coronavirus task force.
With no clear messaging from the President, it was essential that the appropriate federal agencies step in. But here again the response faltered. </p><p>The Centers for Disease Control at first advised the public against mask wearing, despite clear evidence that masks were effective at stopping the spread of the disease. Only later, once masks became more widely available, did the CDC change its recommendation. </p><p>But this self-contradiction had undercut the agency’s credibility. Many people continued to believe that mask wearing is ineffective, while the President encouraged his followers to see mask mandates as government overreach.
Conspiracy theories immediately filled the vacuum of leadership and consistent government messaging. </p><p>Millions of people, stuck at home under lockdowns, were spending more time than ever on social media and Google, exploring ideas and opinions about the coronavirus. A pair of YouTube documentaries titled “Plandemic” became instant sensations.</p><p> Many people adopted the view that there simply is no pandemic, and that the “fake news” media ginned up the story as a way to enable globalist liberal elites to exert more control over citizens and the economy.
Now that vaccines are on the horizon, the conspiracy mill is cranking harder and faster than ever. While the anti-vax movement has been slowly simmering for decades, its current leaders’ books are suddenly among the top-sellers on Amazon.</p><p><a href="https://www.statnews.com/pharmalot/2020/11/10/harris-poll-covid19-vaccine-masks-distancing/">Up to a third</a> of Americans say they will likely refuse to take a vaccine when it is available. While many people hope that the advent of vaccines will halt the pandemic in its tracks, anti-vax fervor, along with the soaring rate of infections, may mean that the disease will continue to spread and kill far into the new year.
If Americans were divided prior to the pandemic, their tribalism only intensified as the decision about whether to wear a mask became an instantly visible expression of group identity. </p><p>But division was deepened also by the fact that 2020 was a presidential election year.
Elections are always polarizing. That’s the point: each voter must choose one candidate or another; “all of the above” is not an option. </p><p>But this election season pushed the polarization needle far into the danger zone. Democrats steeped themselves in books and articles detailing accusations that Donald Trump presents all the clinical symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder, and that he is an authoritarian, a rapist, a tax cheat, a business fraudster, a Russian puppet, and a traitor.</p><p>At the same time, followers of QAnon (who is supposedly a patriotic government insider) spread the notion that leading Democrats are Satan-worshiping pedophiles running a global child sex-trafficking ring, while Trump—a messiah sent by God—heads a heroic behind-the-scenes effort to preserve decency, freedom, and Christianity (QAnon believers now occupy seats in Congress and many state houses).
The election outcome was unequivocal. </p><p>Biden bested Trump by 7 million popular votes, with electoral votes stacked 306 to 232. Even Republican election officials in swing states said the balloting went off with scarcely a hitch. But Trump, evidently unwilling to be seen as a loser (or perhaps wishing to avoid prosecution for financial crimes once he leaves office), claimed that the election was rigged and that he had actually won. </p><p>A flurry of almost 60 lawsuits followed, two making their way to the Supreme Court; all were dismissed. No convincing evidence of widespread irregularities was produced. Nevertheless, Trump’s followers adopted the narrative that millions of dead people had voted for Biden, and that suitcases full of illicit Biden ballots had been surreptitiously delivered to vote tabulators. According to one poll, only a quarter of Republicans think Biden was legitimately elected.</p><p> A steady drumbeat of evidence-free assertions resounding through right-wing media channels and parroted by Republican elected officials (who fear retribution from Trump’s base) has created a formidable alternate reality in which Trump won fair and square, while Biden is being falsely elevated to the highest office.</p><p> Consensus Dynamics
Cognitive dissonance—the holding of contradictory thoughts or beliefs—makes people miserable. And when a person’s own interpretation of reality runs counter to the consensus reality, some degree of paranoia or depression often results. </p><p>Alternatively, a person unmoored from the dominant consensus may become a dedicated paradigm warrior intent on converting others to their own views, sometimes even by violence.
The loss of consensus is therefore also problematic for society as a whole. </p><p>People who have left the consensus behind may disregard or flout norms (such as longstanding informal rules with regard to elections and Congressional procedures). Society then becomes less capable of solving problems; and so, if economic, social, or environmental crises materialize, societal collapse of one sort or another becomes a real possibility. </p><p>As individuals find themselves not just disagreeing on politics or religion, but living in different and directly conflicting mental universes, they individually experience cognitive pain and anguish. Families are torn apart, friendships severed. </p><p>But the collective risks of consensus breakdown go deeper, and include the possibility of widespread rage, pushing society toward civil violence, coup, or state failure. If, as is often the case, the fracturing of consensus results in (or is caused by) strong feelings of grievance among one group against another, a cycle of retribution may ensue. </p><p><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/12/trump-grievance-addiction-444570">R</a><a href="https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/12/12/trump-grievance-addiction-444570">ecent brain research</a> by James Kimmel, Jr. at the Yale University School of Medicine shows that the brain on grievance craves retribution in much the same way a brain addicted to heroin craves more heroin. </p><p> Is the fracturing of consensus reality a symptom of societal decline due to other factors (such as economic crisis or limits to vital resources), or is it an independent variable, capable of causing collapse by itself? </p><p>In my view, the former is more likely the case: if a society is doing well economically, it is usually able to resolve occasional cognitive contradictions over time. A polarizing demagogue (like Joseph McCarthy or George Wallace) may appear, but the status quo eventually reasserts itself. </p><p>However, if a society is experiencing an economic, political, or social emergency, consensus breakdown may contribute to a self-reinforcing process of collapse.
People’s views of reality don’t diverge arbitrarily and without cause. They do so because people’s self-interests (which may differ by income, status, region, religion, or ethnicity) are becoming further divided. The divergence of worldviews is thus a secondary problem. </p><p>But once consensus begins to shatter, people’s interests are likely to diverge even further as bifurcating worldviews create economic and social islands. People may even separate geographically, moving to be closer to people with whom they share values and views. </p><p>Further, if an increasing majority people in a given community are espousing a new shared belief, others may feel compelled to alter their previous beliefs in order to belong.
The fragmentation of consensus reality isn’t just a war of ideas. It is a more profound and disturbing process both psychologically and socially. People who have abandoned, or who have been abandoned by, the consensus may find dubious new beliefs to cling to; but they may also become keenly aware of cultural blind spots that others continue to ignore. </p><p>They feel themselves flung into a new universe; the experience can be either terrifying or thrilling, or both.
One of the effects of loss of consensus is the lowering of social trust. Trust is the basis of cooperation, and high levels of cooperation are required for modern complex societies to function. </p><p>According to <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2019/07/22/the-state-of-personal-trust/">surveys by Pew Research Center</a>, 71 percent of Americans think interpersonal trust has weakened in the past 20 years. There is a strong correlation between low trust and Trump voters—which could be an explanation for why the pre-election 2020 polls were inaccurate: people who are distrustful not only disproportionately voted for Trump but also refused to participate in polling surveys.
Because the costs to society of loss of consensus are obvious and considerable, societies invest heavily in maintaining a shared worldview. </p><p>But if there are severe and growing flaws in that consensus, keeping it whole may not be an option. </p><p>When consensus fractures into two directly competing narratives, some people may seek to resolve cognitive dissonance by claiming that the two narratives are equally valid. But this is a difficult stance to maintain, as the narratives are usually mutually exclusive. Take the current case with regard to the US presidential election: the main competing reality claims are not on equal footing with regard to facts or outcomes. </p><p>The “Trump really won” claim is simply fantasy; the “Biden really won” claim is backed by clear evidence that will result in the actual inauguration of a new President. But, in a way, facts are beside the point. Over a third of Americans are so alienated from the consensus that they prefer to believe obviously fabricated lies rather than to acknowledge demonstrable proof. </p><p>The new Republican “reality” is tenable not because it is based on anything physically verifiable, but because it is emotionally satisfying for people who refuse to accept the dominant narrative. In the post-Trump era, traditional Republican ideology (low taxes, states’ rights, limited government spending) becomes entirely expendable. </p><p>Any argument that “owns the Dems” is good, regardless how specious. </p><p>Democracy itself becomes an impediment to the goal of wrecking the consensus.
Defenders of the dominant worldview can’t understand why anyone would be so upset with it. Isn’t it based on science and established values and traditions? </p><p>Doesn’t the alternative represent a devolution into pseudoscience, conspiracy theories, and deepening dissension? </p><p>To a certain extent, the fervor of the disestablishmentarian faction is traceable to economic and social trends mentioned earlier (the flow of wealth and power to coastal urban centers and the slow demographic shift of the country toward multi-ethnicity). The upholders of the mainstream consensus accept those trends, which their elites use to their own advantage, but they fail to take account of those left behind, or to see the holes and blind spots in the consensus they defend. </p><p> Perhaps the deepest blind spot in the current US consensus is that it has no satisfying and unifying vision, no coherent ideology; its main guiding value is simply “more.” Its implicit message: we must keep on doing what we’re doing (producing more wealth by turning more of nature into waste) because to do otherwise would result in economic Armageddon. </p><p>The best we can do is to somehow avert catastrophic climate change and reduce extreme wealth inequality with technical work-arounds, even as we continue to do the very things that cause those problems. </p><p> The central lie of the consensus is that the rising tide of economic growth will lift all boats . . . eventually. But eventually never seems to come. As the folly of expecting endless economic growth on a finite planet starts to reveal itself—via the need for ever more drastic measures to maintain the appearance of growth and to prevent widespread destitution—something has to give. People who feel unfairly treated as the impossible perpetual-growth machine decelerates begin fleeing the consensus, even if doing so leads them to curse imaginary scapegoats and believe obvious fictions. </p><p> Can the Old Consensus Be Repaired? Can a New One Be Built?
Joe Biden is central casting’s answer to the call for a tried-and-true figurehead to restore the old consensus. Anyone who’s not swept up in anti-elite fervor probably finds it easy to sympathize with his exhortation to bring America back together, and his intention to be President of all the people, including those who voted against him.</p><p>However, Biden faces daunting if not insurmountable challenges. These arise not just from fervent, defeated, and angry Trumpists, who may attempt to run a “shadow” presidency, countering every action of the new administration. </p><p>There are also hurdles inherent in the taming of the pandemic and the stabilization of the economy. Less widely acknowledged but perhaps most formidable of all is the challenge of finally coming to terms with the blind spots and lies embedded in the worldview that still runs the machinery of our economy and government. Consumerism—a way of organizing the economy that is fundamentally at odds with nature’s limits—is so deeply and implicitly woven into the warp and weft of modern America that only a cathartic collapse and renewal is likely to expunge it. </p><p>The best Biden can likely do, even if he has the strategic brilliance to propose a <a href="https://shelterforce.org/2020/03/27/we-need-a-rural-new-deal/">Rural New Deal</a>, is to be a competent placeholder.
The perplexing fact is that we don’t know what kind of new consensus may emerge, or when. </p><p>Indeed, it is entirely possible that, in the context of energy and economic decline, the human ideasphere will remain fragmented from now onward.
However, I’d like to think that a new consensus is indeed possible, and that it will comprise the best of what we humans have learned so far. </p><p>And, though what follows is entirely speculative, it seems appropriate to close this essay with an exploration of what that consensus might look like.
Science would be an obvious candidate for inclusion, blind spots and all: its self-correcting mechanism tends to deliver improving approximations of truth with regard to physical reality. </p><p>Of course, in a world with a smaller and slower economy and much less energy available, only comparatively small and simple experiments might be possible, but it’s the method that matters. </p><p> Science can’t tell us much about values and goals. For those, knowledge is less important than wisdom. And wisdom comes from intelligent self-control. As sages have always taught, it is in the taming of selfish urges that we find compassion and contentment. </p><p>After the environmental and social mayhem that our two-century fossil-fueled consumerist mania will ultimately and undoubtedly unleash, I think we are likely to develop a strong and healthy collective skepticism regarding the aggregation of power for its own sake. </p><p>A sustainability-oriented worldview would acknowledge the ongoing need for a low and stable population relative to environmental carrying capacity. And it would prize sufficiency, equity, resilience, and happiness above accumulation and ostentatious display. </p><p>Our remarkable human capacities for language and tool making have gotten us into plenty of trouble over the millennia, never more so than now. A healthy consensus worldview would channel those outsized abilities away from geopolitical dominance and the production of wealth for the few, and toward the democratic (rather than just elite) production of beauty in all its possible forms—including poetry, literature, movement, music, art, drama, and architecture. And it would guide aesthetic appreciation toward the enhancement and emulation of nature.</p><p>Finally, a future consensus would take account of varying human needs, proclivities, modes of expression, histories, brain chemistry, and more, seeking reconciliation and community rather than exploitation and dominance. </p><p>Such a consensus reality, such a culture, is far from where we are now. Between here and there sits a valley we must cross. If we travel together, we have a better chance of arriving safely on the other side. That requires healing the divisions among us, if and when we disagree. </p><p>Have a peaceful holiday season.<br /> <br />
<span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span></span></p>Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-17400078710616357602020-11-22T13:37:00.026-10:002020-12-25T19:58:13.725-10:00The Great Unravelling<p style="text-align: left;">SUBHEAD: Part of a discussion series on adapting to the environmental crises we have created.<br /> <br />
<span><b> By Asher Miller on 28 October 2020 for the Post Carbon <br /></b></span>(<a href="https://www.postcarbon.org/is-the-great-unraveling-upon-us/">https://www.postcarbon.org/is-the-great-unraveling-upon-us/</a>)</p><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-O-eqIWzSPV0/X76-E3zpRnI/AAAAAAAABLY/awLYMyRsyQg5yBgtkq8RjWx_1XNNiitawCLcBGAsYHQ/s520/201029fire.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="325" data-original-width="520" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2020Year/10/201029fire.jpg" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small;"></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Image above: Firefighters conduct a back-burn operation along Route CA-168 during the Creek fire as it approaches the Shaver Lake Marina on Sunday, Sept. 6, 2020. Photo by Kent Nishimura for The Los Angeles Times. From (<a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-09-27/times-photos-california-fires</a>).</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br />Introducing “<a href="https://www.blogger.com/#">The Great Unraveling?</a>”, a series of interviews with some of the world’s foremost experts on a broad range of environmental and societal challenges, culminating with a powerful discussion on what these converging and accelerating crises mean, and how we can respond.<br /><br />What if we don’t look back on 2020 as the year from hell, a painful and surreal slip on the otherwise generally smooth path of progress? What if, instead, we look back in five or ten or twenty years to 2020 as the moment when everything started to really and truly unravel?<br /><br />Of course, what I’ve presented is a false choice. The truth is that for billions of people (and other species!) the unraveling has been occurring for a long time, assuming they had anything that could be unravelled to begin with. <br /><br />People who have been left behind or churned up by the relentless machine of exploitative capitalism. People and natural ecosystems already on the frontline of the climate crisis. Communities that have lost their social cohesion and ability to confront problems collectively.<br /><br />2020 has exposed and supercharged the fragility, unsustainability, and injustice of so many of our global systems:<br /></div><ul><li>untenable economic and racial inequality;</li><li>brittle, globalized supply chains controlled by a relatively small number of corporations;</li><li>a global climate system that’s already fevered at 1.2ºC warming;</li><li>growing political instability, distrust, and the rise of authoritarian governments;</li><li>the collapse of biodiversity and the crossing of other planetary boundaries;</li><li>an economy dependent on growth, consumption, debt, energy, & population;</li><li>the failure of governmental institutions to respond to, let alone anticipate, crises;</li><li>the likely peak in the amount of energy available to power modern society.</li></ul>These crises were already here or looming long before the coronavirus pandemic hit us broadside this year. In fact, my colleagues at Post Carbon Institute, the many writers who we have featured here at resilience.org, and allies across the globe have been sounding the alarm for decades that the <a href="http://www.igbp.net/globalchange/greatacceleration.4.1b8ae20512db692f2a680001630.html">Great Acceleration</a> would inevitably lead to a <a href="https://www.postcarbon.org/great-unraveling/">Great Unraveling</a> or even collapse. That forewarning may now be moot.<br /><br />To begin considering how to navigate the “Great Unraveling,” we must first try to understand how various environmental and social systems may interact. So a few months ago, Post Carbon Institute and Anthropocene Actions <a href="https://www.postcarbon.org/great-unraveling/">asked some of the world’s foremost experts</a> to share their views of where things stand with some of our most pressing environmental and societal challenges, particularly in the wake of the pandemic.<br /><br />We then hosted a powerful discussion with an esteemed, diverse panel on what these converging and accelerating crises mean, and how we can respond.<br /><br />Facing up to these interconnected crises requires unprecedented cooperation and coordination, if we have any hope of creating a sustainable, equitable, and resilient world. To this end, campaigners, politicians, companies, governments, and communities all across the world are pushing for and enacting change. <div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But these efforts will have to remain robust, flexible, and resilient in the face of growing destabilization. And they must be grounded in an understanding of the systemic nature of the predicament we face.<br /><br />The wrenching disruption of the pandemic presents barriers to change, as shown by those seeking to reinforce the pre-pandemic status quo. But this historic moment also presents opportunities to move toward a sustainable society that benefits all. The key to a better future is to learn how to manage the compounding crises of a more destabilized future – how to navigate the Great Unraveling. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span>.</span></span></div>Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-965620973444924302020-06-24T11:39:00.001-10:002020-12-25T14:07:38.612-10:00Winning the Trifecta<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
SUBHEAD: To win we will have to solve all our problems together... health, wealth and environment.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;"> By Juan Wilson on 24 June 2020 for Island Breath - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(<a href="https://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2020/06/winning-trifecta.htm">https://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2020/06/winning-trifecta.htm</a>l)
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<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: An urban street in America after a major collapse. From (<a href="https://www.masktactical.com/urban-survival-series-part-1/">https://www.masktactical.com/urban-survival-series-part-1/</a>).</span><br />
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A trifecta is a certain kind of bet in a horse race. The better makes a great deal of money if he wins, but the chances are slim. The better must not only win on picking the first place finisher of the race, but also the second and third place winners.<br />
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We humans have to win against a trifecta of disasters that we have brought unto ourselves by greed, complacency and ignorance.<br />
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We have known for more than three generations that the jig was up. We realized humans were destroying the Earth that is our only home. Its was 1970 (50 years ago) that President Richard Nixon, a conservative Republican, who signed into law the US Environmental Protection Agency.<br />
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There were high hopes that some remedy to our environmental plight might be found. It wasn't found and it wasn't in our short term interest to do so. We avoided finding a way to save the Earth and the creatures that inhabit it because it wasn't as profitable or as comfortable as continuing on burning up the planet for profit and comfort. </div>
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Well, now we will have to win a trifecta to survive and flourish any longer. We face three implacable dangers that are intertwined.</div>
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<li>Economic Collapse</li>
<li>Environmental Collapse</li>
<li>Worldwide Fatal Pandemic</li>
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The financial collapse is from over-borrowing against the future to continue economic growth as the means of creating wealth.</div>
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The environmental collapse is a result of supplying and utilizing the resources for the energy and resources for ever growing economic growth.</div>
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In my mind the worldwide fatal pandemic is a correction by Gaia (Mother Nature) for the financial and environmental collapse we have created. Mother Nature is shaking off her blood sucking tics.</div>
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There is little time or the will among us to change our ways... but for those that survive the 2020's it will because they have embraced small scale locally resourced food and fabrication. Those survivors will be using hand tools and sailboats rather than tractors and container ships to operate their steady state economy.</div>
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As we have been recommending for years... get a head start! As John Michael Greer wrote in 2012 "<a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2012-06-06/collapse-now-and-avoid-rush/">Collapse Now and Avoid the Rush!</a>". That means getting educated to the situation and acting on it right now. </div>
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If you are a newby to these thoughts you will have to work overtime to catch up. As James Howard Kunstler envisioned in his Would Made By Hand novels, most middle class suburbanites like car salesmen and insurance men will be lucky if they end up living on a productive plantation doing manual labor. </div>
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Manual skills, whether making a barrel, playing a violin, or stitching up a wound, will have real and lasting value in the future. </div>
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As things stand now, I have no clue how long we will have a "world wide web" to go to in the future. Right now we can count on it to inform us the answer to all the questions that we have. </div>
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Once it is unreliable or down we will have only the hard copy left in the schools the libraries or your bookshelves for reference. You might try finding an Encyclopedia set that's been abandoned by your local library or at a local garage sale.</div>
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Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-28074002045919809862020-05-31T09:51:00.000-10:002020-05-31T15:14:39.724-10:00Re-opening won't fix our economy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
SUBHEAD: Our national economy is too fragile, brittle, bankrupt, corrupt and hopelessly perverse.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;"> By Charles Hugh Smith on 26 May 2020 for Of Two Minds - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(<a href="http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2020/05/re-opening-economy-wont-fix-whats-broken.html">http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2020/05/re-opening-economy-wont-fix-whats-broken.html</a>) <br />
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<img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2020Year/05/200531vegas.jpg" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: I</span><span style="font-size: small;">llustration </span>of <span style="font-size: small;">t</span>he ruins of Las Vegas with the Bellagio Casino in the left foreground and Caesar's Palace to the right for the story "Underneath Us" <span style="font-size: small;">by Alex TIllson</span>. From (<a href="http://alextillson.com/writing/underneath-us/">http://alextillson.com/writing/underneath-us/</a>).<br />
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The stock market is in a frenzy of euphoria at the re-opening of the economy. Too bad the re-opening won't fix what's broken. As I've been noting recently, the real problem is the systemic fragility of the U.S. economy, which has lurched from one new extreme to the next to maintain a thin, brittle veneer of normalcy.</div>
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Fragile economies cannot survive any impact with reality that disrupts the distortions that are keeping the illusion of "growth" from shattering. </div>
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For the past two decades, every collision with reality cracked the illusion, and the "fix" was to duct-tape the pieces together with new extremes of money-creation, debt, risk and speculative excess.</div>
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While the stock market has soared, the real world falls apart. If your region needs a new bridge built, count on about 20 years to get all the "stakeholders" to agree and get the thing actually built. </div>
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Count on the cost quintupling from $500 million to $2.5 billion. Count on corners being cut as costs skyrocket, so those cheap steel bolts from China that are already rusting before the bridge is even finished? Oops. Replacing them will add millions to the already bloated budget.</div>
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Want to add a passenger stop on an existing railroad line? Count on 20 years to get it done.<br />
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The complexity thicket of every regulatory agency with the power to say "no" basically guarantees the project will never get approved, because every one of these bureaucracies justifies its existence by saying "no." Sorry, you need another study, another environmental review, and so on.</div>
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Need a new landfill? I hope you started the process 15 years ago, so you'll get approval in only five more years. Every agency with the power to say "no" will stretch out the approval, so they have guaranteed "work" for another decade or two.</div>
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Did your subway fares double? Was the excuse repairing a crumbling system? Did the work get done on budget and on time? You must be joking, right? All the fare increase did was cover the costs of skyrocketing salaries, pensions and administrative costs. Repairs to the tracks and cars-- that's extra. </div>
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Let's float a $1 billion bond so nobody have to tighten their belts, and have riders pay for it indirectly, through higher taxes to pay the exorbitant costs of 20 years of interest on the bond.</div>
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Have you been thrown off your bicycle by the giant potholes in the city's "bike lanes"? The city reluctantly admits that these streets that haven't been maintained for decades--yes, decades. </div>
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The city once paid for street maintenance out of its general budget, but alas, that's been eaten up by skyrocketing salaries, pensions and administrative costs, so now we need to float $100 million bond to fund filling potholes.<br />
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If all goes according to plan (ha-ha), we should be able to re-pave the streets that have been crumbling for 20 years in... the next 20 years.</div>
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These real-world examples are just four of thousands of manifestations of a broken system. Rather than make tough choices that drain power and wealth from vested interests, we simply borrow more money, in ever increasing amounts, to keep the entrenched interests and elites happy.</div>
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There are two "solutions" in the status quo: dump the debt on taxpayers or on powerless debt-serfs--for example, college students. (See chart below of the $1.6 trillion that's stripmining student debt-serfs.)<br />
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Who benefits from selling all the municipal bonds, bundled student loans, etc. to investors starving for a yield above 0.1%? Wall Street, of course.</div>
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The problem is that while debt has soared, productivity and earned income have stagnated. The statistical narrative has been ruthlessly gamed to hide the erosion of living standards, but even with the bogus "low inflation" of official statistics, wages for the bottom 95% have stagnated for decades.</div>
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Measures of productivity have also been gamed to mask the ugly reality that the vast majority of the U.S. economy is stagnating under the weight of interest payments on debt, mal-investments in speculative gambles, higher junk fees and taxes, crushing regulatory compliance, high costs imposed by monopolies and cartels and a well-cloaked decline in the quality of just about everything the bottom 95% uses or owns.</div>
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What little productivity gains have been made have been skimmed by the top 5%. Coupled with the Federal Reserve's single-minded goosing of the one signaling device it controls, the stock market, the top 0.1% in America own more wealth than the bottom 80%.</div>
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If productivity stagnates and winners take all, the wages of the bottom 95% cannot rise. Real wealth is only created by increases in the productivity of labor and capital; everything else is phantom wealth.</div>
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The only way stagnant incomes can support more debt is if interest rates decline. Presto, the Fed dropped interest rates to near-zero a decade ago. </div>
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Of course you and I can't actually borrow millions for 0.1%; that privilege is reserved for financiers and other financial parasites and predators.</div>
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Debt-serfs were able to refinance their crushing mortgages to save a few bucks, and so they can afford to 1) take on more debt and 2) pay higher taxes to fund the ballooning public debt.</div>
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Every one of these extremes has increased the systemic fragility of the American economy. This fragility is reflected in the impoverishment of the bottom 95%, the thin line between solvency and bankruptcy, the decay of public trust in institutions run for the benefit of entrenched interests, and the quickening erosion of America's social contract.</div>
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Re-opening a fragile, brittle, bankrupt, hopelessly perverse and corrupt "normal" won't fix what's broken.<br />
<span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span></span></div>
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Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-37318824463110516082020-05-22T16:29:00.000-10:002020-05-22T16:29:46.358-10:00When Giants Fall<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
SUBHEAD: If you think Walmart will survive what’s killing other retail generally, you’re wrong. <br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;"> By James Kunstler on 22 May 2020 for Kunstler.com - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(<a href="https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/when-giants-fall/">https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/when-giants-fall/</a>) <br />
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<img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2020Year/05/200522malwart.jpg" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: "Wal*Mart" pun art by Mark Tichenor. </span>From (<a href="https://www.redhen.ca/mal_wart.htm">https://www.redhen.ca/mal_wart.htm</a>).<br />
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It was only a few decades ago that Walmart entered the pantheon of American icons, joining motherhood, apple pie, and baseball on the highest tier of the altar.<br />
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The people were entranced by this behemoth cornucopia of unbelievably cheap stuff packaged in gargantuan quantities. It was something like their participation trophy for the sheer luck of being born in this exceptional land, or having valiantly clawed their way in from wretched places near and far — where, increasingly, the mighty stream of magically cheap stuff was manufactured.<br />
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The evolving psychology of Walmart-ism had a strangely self-destructive aura about it. Like cargo cultists waiting on a jungle mountaintop, small town Americans prayed and importuned the gods of commerce to bring them a Walmart.<br />
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Historians of the future, pan-frying ‘possum cutlets over their campfires, will marvel at the potency of their ancestors’ prayers.<br />
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Every little burg in the USA eventually saw a Walmart UFO land in the cornfield or cow-pasture on the edge of town. Like the space invaders of sci-fi filmdom, Walmart quickly killed off everything else of economic worth around it, and eventually the towns themselves.<br />
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And that was where things stood as the long emergency commenced in the winter of early 2020, along with the Covid-19 corona virus riding shotgun on the hearse-wagon it rolled in on.<br />
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We’re in a liminal, transitional moment of history, like beach-goers gawking at the glassy-green curve of a great wave in the throes of breaking. Such mesmerizing beauty!<br />
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Alas, most people can’t surf. It looks easy on TV, but you’d be surprised at the conditioning it takes, and Americans are way, way out of condition. (All those tattoos don’t give you an ounce of extra mojo.)<br />
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And so, in this liminal moment, the people still trudge dutifully to the Walmarts with their dwindling reserves of cash money to get stuff, going through all the devotions that we took for granted before the wave welled up and threatened to break over us.<br />
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Which is happening. Despite all the fake-heroic blather from the Federal Reserve, from Nancy Pelosi, from Mr. Trump and Mr. Mnuchin — from everybody in charge, to be really fair — and in the immortal words of another recent president — this sucker is going down. Specifically, what’s going down is the aggregate of transactions we call “the economy.”<br />
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Meanwhile, the people in charge struggle to prop up the mere financial indexes that supposedly represent economic activity, but more and more just look like a shadow play on the wall of some special slum where the street-corner economists peddle their crack. </div>
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Eventually, the people don’t even have money for the crack, and to make matters worse, whatever money actually remains on the street is worthless.<br />
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The wave is breaking now, and a lot of things will be smashed under it — are getting smashed as you read. As in any extinction event, it will be the smaller organisms that survive and eventually thrive and that’s how it will go in the next edition of America, whether we remain states united or find ourselves organized differently.<br />
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Accordingly, the giants must fall. When the communities of America rebuild, it will be the thousands of small activities that matter, because they will entail the rebuilding of social capital as well as exchanges that amount to business. </div>
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Social capital is exactly what Walmart and things like it killed in every community from sea to shining sea. People stopped doing business with their neighbors. It took a cataclysm for them to finally notice.<br />
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If you think Walmart will survive the same cataclysm that’s killing chain-store retail generally, you’re going to be disappointed.<br />
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Everything about it is over and done, including the Happy Motoring adjunct that allowed the cargo-cultists to haul their booty those many miles home. (And, ironically, it wasn’t the oil issue that determined this, but the end of the financing system that allowed Americans to buy their cars on installment loans, when it ran out of credit-worthy borrowers.)<br />
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Amazon will be the last giant standing perhaps, but it will go down, too, eventually, on its ridiculous business model, which depends utterly on a doomed trucking system. It will be like the last dinosaur roaring at the dimming sun — while the little proto-mammals skitter to their hidey-holes beneath it.<br />
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One thing remains constant: human beings are very adept and resourceful at supplying each other’s needs, which is what business amounts to. Young people, freed from the fate of becoming serfs to corporate giants, can start right now at least imagining what they can do to be useful to others in exchange for a livelihood.<br />
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The earnest and energetic will find a way to do that at a scale that makes sense when a new order emerges from the wreckage. After a while, it won’t matter much what any government thinks about it, either. </div>
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Like all the other giants, it will fall, too.<br />
<span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span></span></div>
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Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-88334417887574159482020-05-21T11:08:00.000-10:002020-05-21T11:10:46.879-10:00Dance Macabre<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
SUBHEAD: Hundreds of kinds of services no longer have customers who can afford their offerings.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;"> By James Kunstler on 18 May 2020 for Kunstler.com</span><br />
(<a href="https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/dance-macabre/">https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/dance-macabre/</a>)<br />
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<img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2020Year/05/200521macabre.jpg" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: Painting from the 16th or 17th century illustrating the "Dance Macabre". From (<a href="https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/dance-macabre-how-dead-danced-living-medieval-society-009063">https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/dance-macabre-how-dead-danced-living-medieval-society-009063</a>).</span><br />
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Western Civ’s most infamous encounter with pandemic disease, so far, was the big first wave of the Black Death that had a marathon run from 1346 to 1353. That bug was the real deal. It killed folks left and right, every age group, every social station, and it killed them ugly.<br />
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Few who caught it survived. Up to half the population of Europe perished, along with a lot of their social and economic ways.<br />
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The cause of the Black Death was subject to every possible explanation except the actual one, Yersina pestis, a bacterium associated with rats and their insect parasites, fleas and lice, who also enjoyed an association with humans living in the generally squalid conditions of the day — the ancient Roman habit of bathing long forgotten.<br />
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At the top of their list of causes was an angry God, and his wicked erstwhile subordinate, Satan.<br />
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The “experts” of that time tended to cluster in the church hierarchy, with its drear obsessions and compulsions. The squishy boundary between the supernatural and reality loosed all manner of derangement.<br />
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The Jews came in for much vilification, leading to massacres in Strasbourg, Mainz, and Cologne. On the whole, the episode represented a terrific humbling of humanity. The allegory of the Dance Macabre summed it up in mankind’s universal antic journey to the Palookaville of death.<br />
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On the plus side, as modern interpolators might say, the bubonic plague winnowed down Europe’s population to a scale more congenial with its resource base. After that big first wave of the disease, land was cheaper and human labor better rewarded.<br />
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Eventually, more food got around. Incidentally, the plague provoked nostalgia for the classical antiquity of Greece and Rome, especially among the scholars of Florence, launching the extravaganzas of the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and eventually our own pageant of techno-supremacist Modernity.<br />
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Covid-19 seems rather a punk-ass illness compared to the Black Death. Its victims by far are people already on a fast track to the last roundup. We know exactly what causes it, if not so exactly its origin, and yet the response among our experts has been far more ambiguous than those long-ago bishops of Christendom to the Great Plague.<br />
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The various scientists, physicians, public health officers, and politicians seem, to the casual observer, about equally divided between those who consider the corona virus a grave threat and those who insist it’s hardly worse than any annual flu. What is one to believe? Or do?<br />
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Which brings us to the verge of the Great Opening-up. The current nostalgia for pre-Covid-19 business-as-usual is understandably intense.<br />
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Gone especially from daily life are all the ceremonies of human togetherness, from gatherings of friends to the casual shoulder-rubbings of urban life to the crowded venues of the lively arts to the great moiling orgies of pro sports.<br />
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The life of the perpetual jigsaw puzzle, YouTube, and Netflix has proved inadequate to human aspiration. Gone, too, are livelihoods, revenue streams, and rewarding roles in everyday existence. The itch to get out and do, get out and make, get out and be, is overwhelming.<br />
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Behind those plain yearnings, though, looms the specter of a system that appeared to be already foundering before Covid-19 entered the scene. There is, at least, considerable agreement that the disease catalyzed the disorders of finance and economy and accelerated the damage — just not among the people most responsible for engineering the fragilities that actually crashed things.<br />
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Jerome Powell, Pope of the Church of the Federal Reserve, went on the 60-Minutes show Sunday night to reassure the nation that things will eventually get back to normal. “I think you’ll see the economy recover steadily through the second half of this year.”<br />
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Yessir, if you say so. Were his fingers crossed? You couldn’t tell because the camera had him framed in a head-shot. Personally, I think the Fed Chairman was blowing smoke up the nation’s wazoo.<br />
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Spooky as it’s been, the Covid-19 virus has also been a great cover-story for the natural collapse of a severely unbalanced, ecologically unsound, and dishonestly represented set of arrangements that are now unspooling at horrifying speed.<br />
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The car industry is dying. The airline industry is laying out its fleet of big birds in desert graveyards. The college racketeering operation went off a cliff, along with medical profiteering. Agribusiness no longer has a business model.<br />
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Hundreds of kinds of services no longer have customers who can afford their offerings from acupuncture to zymurgy.<br />
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None of that will be fixed by injections of miracle money borrowed from ourselves in quantities that would turn every US citizen into a millionaire — if it wasn’t just pounded down the rat-holes of the stock and bond markets. The big question about the Great Opening-up is when the recognition of all that turns to raw emotion.<br />
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Covid-19 may still be with us then, but it will be the least of our problems.<br />
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The masks will come off. The dance will commence.<br />
<span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span></span></div>
Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-17662987444666469842020-05-09T11:49:00.000-10:002020-05-10T10:52:00.056-10:00'Planet of the Humans" review<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">SUBHEAD: The calls into question the solutions proposed by so-called renewable technologies.<br />
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<span style="font-weight: bold;"> By Edwardo Sasso 0n 7 May 2020 for Resilience - </span><br />
(<a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-05-07/planet-of-the-humans-reviewing-the-film-and-its-reviews/">https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-05-07/planet-of-the-humans-reviewing-the-film-and-its-reviews/</a>) <br />
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<img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2020Year/05/200509solarfarm.jpg" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: This immense photovoltaic power plant is operated by an Italian company in the desert near Villanueva, Mexico. From <a href="https://www.blogger.com/(https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/supersized-solar-farms-are-sprouting-around-world-maybe-space-too-ncna901666">(https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/supersized-solar-farms-are-sprouting-around-world-maybe-space-too-ncna901666</a>).</span><br />
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<i>[IB Publisher's comment: In our experience in Hawaii solar-electricity generation does not necessarily require the use of large quantities of cement and steel. The panels themselves often have aluminum frames. In Hawaii we have a corrugated metal roof. Our solar panels have aluminum frames bolted to 2"x4" wood frames that are bolted to the metal roofing. Small scale individual residential and commercial solar systems don't need high voltage distribution towers or heavy duty foundations and framing. We worry about hurricane damage... but that's likely to take the whole roof off.]</i><br />
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If you haven’t seen the latest (and arguably the most contentious) documentary on renewable energy, be prepared for an aftertaste of mixed feelings.<br />
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Joining hands with the controversial Michael Moore, environmentalist and filmmaker Jeff Gibbs has sent an eerie message that is now somewhat dividing the climate movement—in many ways for the worse, but, in a few others, for the better.<br />
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So, at least, one could argue is the case of <a href="https://youtu.be/dxQT3EWlTsg"><i>Planet of the Humans</i></a>. After engaging briefly with some of the well-deserved criticisms the film has received thus far, there are nevertheless some important aspects brought to our attention by the movie.<br />
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Specifically, at one point in the documentary, Gibbs touches upon the religious and existential dimensions underlying our ecological hot waters—aspects that, for what it seems, many of his critics have left unaddressed. Hence the focus towards the end of this review will fall on the cosmic role of religion (or cosmology, if we will) in helping us engage with “the great scheme of things”, to use the phrase of one of the scholars interviewed in the documentary.<br />
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But first a sketch of the film and its criticism.<br />
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<b>What is the Central Claim of Planet of the Humans?</b><br />
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Drawing implicitly on the legacy of renowned environmentalist <a href="https://www.rachelcarson.org/">Rachel Carson</a>, in essence, <i>Planet of the Humans</i> calls into question the solutions proposed by so-called renewable technologies.<br />
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Such solutions, Gibbs argues, are to a degree or another an extension-in-disguise of the same problems created by our technological society. For one, solar panels and wind towers still burn fuels to be produced; for another, they rely on copious amounts of minerals and rare earth metals.<br />
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More worryingly, what Gibbs calls “the narrow solution of green technology” keeps feeding the pockets of a smaller few at the expense of the greater rest, leaving underlying societal problems unattended.<br />
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Overall, the documentary thus aims to show how the creation of these panels and towers, as well as the burning of biofuels and biomass, are also problematic, albeit in different ways if compared with the fossil fuels they aim to displace. Old wine in new wineskins, in short.<br />
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“Is it possible” thus asks Gibbs, “for machines made by industrial civilization to save us from industrial civilization?” (<a href="https://youtu.be/dxQT3EWlTsg?t=1030">17:10</a>)<br />
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Even if he argues for an unnerving “no”, some of the film’s reviewers are ready to claim the opposite.<br />
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<b>(Well-Deserved) Hot-Blooded Reactions</b><br />
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To begin with, Gibbs’s critics are quick to signal how the film’s downplaying of renewables is outdated. The dismissal of solar panels (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxQT3EWlTsg&t=1s">14:45</a>, a scene whose panels arguably date from 2008), for instance, is done on the ground of their inefficiency.<br />
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However, as leading environmental activist <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/bill-mckibben-climate-movement-michael-moore-993073/">Bill McKibben</a> answers back, engineers have done their job since in vastly improving this technology, making solar the cheapest way of generating energy today.<br />
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According to McKibben, since a panel now lasts (up to) three decades—taking four years to compensate for the energy it took to build it—90 percent of the power it then produces is carbon-emissions-free.<br />
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Moreover, <a href="https://ketanjoshi.co/2020/04/24/planet-of-the-humans-a-reheated-mess-of-lazy-old-myths/">others</a> point out how the overall impacts across the lifecycle (to mine materials, build, transport, install, and uninstall) both solar PVs and wind towers is between 3 and 28 times lower than using, say, liquified natural gas for electricity production (natural gas is one of the less polluting forms of fossil fuels).<br />
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The Guardian, too, implicitly takes sides with furious scientists calling to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/28/climate-dangerous-documentary-planet-of-the-humans-michael-moore-taken-down">take down</a> the movie—not least because <a href="https://www.vox.com/2020/4/28/21238597/michael-moore-planet-of-the-humans-climate-change">fact-checks</a> are revealing the film’s slim evidence to back up some claims.<br />
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<b>Getting Rid of the Mud-water, but Keeping the Baby</b><br />
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Besides valid reasons like the above, what struck me as most troubling was the grim and rather accusatory tone of the documentary. It’s also (to a considerable extent) polarizing, at times dismissing perhaps too easily the honest intentions of some well-meaning folk. (Sad but true; especially in an age of ecological breakdown when we need to unite despite our differences.)<br />
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Still, could the film’s field-splitting call to choose sides, be the method to its madness? Could its polarizing stance somehow serve Gibb’s insistence to untangle the ecological cause from the story of unceasing economic growth—even of so-called ‘green’ economic growth—that continues to dictate the north of our industrialized societies?<br />
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Senior Fellow of the Post-Carbon Institute and author of Afterburn: Societies Beyond Fossil Fuels, <a href="https://www.postcarbon.org/review-planet-of-the-humans/">Richard Heinberg</a>, agrees with the filmmakers in admitting how the belief that with ‘green’ investments and political will we’ll ultimately be able to build a green future is “an illusion that deserves shattering.”<br />
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According to Heinberg,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>“The only realistic way to make the transition in industrial countries like the US is to begin reducing overall energy usage substantially [solar-/wind-powered or otherwise], eventually running the economy on a quarter, a fifth, or maybe even a tenth of current energy.” </i></blockquote><br />
Read: Renewables? To an extent, yes; but far beyond: lifestyle change, and cutbacks—something that some environmentalists shy away from championing, admittedly for the tactical communication purpose of not losing their audience.<br />
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And yet, as Heinberg notes, “it’s a mistake to let marketing consultants sort truth from fiction for us”—a chief reason why <i>Planet of the Humans</i> doesn’t have space for such bargaining.<br />
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<b>Just Give Me (One More) Fact</b><br />
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On a similar vein, world-renowned Professor Emeritus of Community Planning at the University of British Columbia, William Rees, has recently shown the limitations of renewables and remains a <a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-11-12/dont-call-me-a-pessimist-on-climate-change-i-am-a-realist/">pessimist</a> facing what he labels as a “superficial support for the notion that green tech is our savior.”<br />
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To back his claim, Rees points out how building just one typical wind turbine requires 817 energy-intensive tonnes of steel, 2,270 tonnes of concrete, and 41 tonnes of non-recyclable plastic.<br />
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In turn, solar power also demands large quantities of cement, steel, and glass—let alone rare earth metals. Aside from their compromised mining and refining processes, world demand for such metals of so-called <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/if-you-want-renewable-energy-get-ready-to-dig-11565045328">renewable energy</a> would rise 300 percent to 1,000 percent by 2050 just to meet the Paris goals.<br />
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“Ironically,” Rees remarks, “the mining, transportation, refining and manufacturing of material inputs to the green energy solution would be powered mainly by fossil fuels.”<br />
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For all we’d like them to, towers and panels don’t simply drop from heaven. So, too, more or less argues the film.<br />
<br />
Fact-checking and physical limitations aside, a deeper and more fundamental issue that <i>Planet of the Humans</i> unveils is that of the societal story that we continue to tell ourselves, in one shape or another—be it green, orange, right, left, or center.<br />
<br />
And it’s the 300-year-old, now-taken-for-granted story of our increasingly urbanized, Techno-Industrial Age: namely, that we are the captains of our souls and the masters of our fates, and that we attain that fate through technology, production, and consumption.<br />
<br />
In short, this societal narrative (including many ‘green’ versions of such narrative) has made us believe that we are above, front-and-center, while everything else is below, in the backstage.<br />
<br />
Under this worldview, ‘nature’ is not a ‘Home’ but a ‘resource’; we are not earthly humans but technological ‘citizens’ (and now virtual ‘Internauts’); countries are not made of communities of earth-dwellers but of abstract ‘markets’ of X or Y number of ‘consumers’. And thus our very language betrays us.<br />
<br />
Scholars call this ‘anthropocentrism’ blended with ‘economism’. Others label it ‘speciesism’ and ‘<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/132784/technopoly-by-neil-postman/">technopoly</a>’, even as one corporation praised it by making us sing “You got the whole world in your hands, with Mastercard at your command.”<br />
<br />
As materialist historian Yuval Noah Harari has shown in the sixteenth chapter of Sapiens, this story championed by today’s economic system has become so pervasive that it now has all the elements of religion—however secular its scope.<br />
<br />
It tells us what to believe (economic growth will lead to the benefit of all), how to behave (rational and disciplined at the workplace, unrestrained and narcissistic at the shopping mall), and what to value (“Life is Now”, as Visa trumpeted rather conveniently, and dogmatically).<br />
<br />
Hence to culture and religion we now turn—and to their characteristic interest in “the great scheme of things”.<br />
<br />
<b>Remixed Echoes of an Even-Older Story</b><br />
<br />
In one of the most existential sections of the documentary (<a href="https://youtu.be/dxQT3EWlTsg?t=2944">49:04</a>), the director asks whether our inability to come to terms with our mortality misinforms most of our societal decisions. He also asks rhetorically whether his side (the environmental side) has an unspoken religion, even as the Right has Christianity and a belief in infinite fossil fuels.<br />
<br />
I would nuance this second claim—at least pertaining to the so-called religion of (many) of the Right. And that because such a belief system is often in fact Deist. (Deism is a modern distortion of ancient Christianity, presenting us with a deity that’s detached from the world, which is then purportedly left for us to control as we discover and master its immutable laws.)<br />
<br />
It is not my aim here to make a case for <a href="https://www.climateofdesire.com/post/believing-in-god-in-the-21st-century">believing in a transcendental Agent</a>, but simply to acknowledge how director Jeff Gibbs might be unknowingly inviting us to shed the same tears of the God testified to and experienced by the descendants of the ancient Hebrews.<br />
<br />
In contrast to the absent deity of Deism, the sixth chapter of the Book of Genesis, for instance, speaks of the Most High becoming “regretful” considering the evil doings of humankind—something that “grieved God to his heart”.<br />
<br />
According to the Book of Jeremiah, the Eternal One recoiled and was immersed in swirls of grief as people became strangers in their own land. In fact, in and through the cry of that young Hebrew prophet, God wept (Jer 14).<br />
<br />
<b>A Prophet in the Making?</b><br />
<br />
haps, one of the film’s greatest contributions: its invitation to mourn, to leave us with discomfort towards superficial solutions, to invite us to feel and experience grief? However somberly and imperfectly, Gibbs may as well be helping us to traverse an unavoidable but ultimately necessary dark valley—one where we are reminded of how, before any blink of light, we must first confess and turn away from our pathological complicity with the decimation of our sacred Home. Genuine tears are the only cradle of authentic beginnings.<br />
<br />
Even if commonly dismissed by large strands of the scientific and humanist communities in our <a href="https://books.friesenpress.com/store/title/119734000030151103/Christian-J.-Barrigar-Freedom-All-The-Way-Up">scientific age</a>, here lays one of the fundamental insights of what we call ‘religion’ or ‘spirituality’; namely, their ability to disclose the ultimate horizons that should inform and inspire our lives.<br />
<br />
Such horizons have been barred by the smokescreens created by the Industrial Revolution, tempting us not to see anywhere beyond. (Who needs to pray for rain for crops when one is a click away from a Caesar’s salad or a Papa John’s pizza?)<br />
<br />
For numerous reasons, for the past three centuries we’ve increasingly come to believe that there’s no ultimate purpose or ‘goal’ to life. Instead, all we’ve been left with is an unrestrained desire to impose our will upon others and upon the living world, as it’s now tragically evident. When ultimate purposes vanish out of sight, we strive to become gods.<br />
<br />
<b>Recovering Forgotten Horizon</b><br />
<br />
Intentionally or not, the film’s sorrowful approach begins to dismantle this very ‘scheme of things’; one that has made us believe that we are alone, at the center, in control of an inert universe without ultimate meaning.<br />
<br />
In contrast, the forgotten grand-view cracked open by ancient spiritual traditions summon us to acknowledge ourselves as guests in a world that precedes us and that is not our own. The spotlight falls elsewhere.<br />
<br />
At least according to the Judeo-Christian tradition that now unspokenly undergirds pretty much all of today’s <a href="https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674026766">secularized Western cultures</a>, we are mortal tenants and fragile earthlings; accountable, dependent, small. We are animated by sacred breath, even as we are made from the very dust to which we will return.<br />
<br />
But, precisely as such, we are nevertheless invited into an extravagant feast hosted by the Ultimate Source of completeness, gladness, and joy—the very Source who also cries and grieves.<br />
<br />
Is such plenitude the hidden treasure that we are most searching for today—left, right, or center? Far beyond any technical glitch that we can muster, isn’t such plenitude the very ‘something’ which we know in our bones to be ultimately missing?<br />
<br />
Those, of course, are questions for another occasion. And they may seem trivial should we continue to dismiss the divine and the transcendental as sheer social constructions that our human ancestors invented back in yesteryear to soothe our consciousness.<br />
<br />
But then we must ask, how far will the dogmas of Materialism continue to take us? As posed by one of the film’s social scientists: “If we’re to make progress (whatever that word means). . . we’re going to radically overhaul our basic conception of who and what we are and what it is that we value.”<br />
<br />
Or to borrow the words from Albert Einstein:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq"><i>“A human being is part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe’; a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest—a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. . . . Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”</i></blockquote><br />
Not unlike Einstein’s summons, <i>Planet of the Humans</i> is at least spot on about the need to turn away from our technocentric story and all its delusions that have claimed to give us full control. Then, and only then, will any light shine like the dawn. And perhaps then, and only then, will we humans realize ourselves as transient guests on a planet that is certainly not of our own making.<br />
<br />
<b>Our tears will not be in vain.</b><br />
<span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span></span></div>Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-25245291121957342432020-04-21T12:32:00.002-10:002020-05-10T10:52:54.018-10:00Not a Cause but a Trigger<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">SUBHEAD: This corona virus pandemic may cause civilization to collapse for good reasons. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> By Ugo Bardi on 16 April 2020 for Cassandra's Legacy - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(<a href="https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2020/04/collapse-coronavirus-is-not-cause-it-is.html">https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2020/04/collapse-coronavirus-is-not-cause-it-is.html</a>) <br />
<br />
<img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2020Year/04/200421collapse.jpg" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: Illustration by Steven Castelluccia of economic collapse caused by pandemic a peak consumption. From original article</span>.<br />
<br />
Do you remember the story of the straw that broke the camel’s back? It is an illustration of how overloaded systems are sensitive to small perturbations. Could the COVID-19 epidemic be the straw that breaks the back of the world’s economy? <br />
<br />
Like an overloaded camel, the world’s economy is strained by at least two tremendous burdens: one is the increasing costs of production of mineral resources (don’t be fooled by the current low prices of oil: prices are one thing, costs are another). Then, there is pollution, including climate change, also weighing on the economy.<br />
<br />
These two factors define the condition called “overshoot,” occurring when an economic system is consuming more resources than nature can replace. Sooner or later, an economy in overshoot has to come to terms with reality. It means that it can’t continue to grow: it must decline. <br />
<br />
These considerations can be quantified. It was done for the first time in 1972 with the famous report The Limits to Growth sponsored by the Club of Rome. Widely disbelieved at the time, today we recognize that the model used for the study had correctly identified the trends of the world’s economy.<br />
<br />
The results of the study showed that the double burden of resource depletion and pollution would bring economic growth first to a halt and then cause it to collapse, probably at some moment during the first decades of the 21st century.<br />
<br />
Even with very optimistic assumptions on the availability of natural resources and of new technologies the calculations show that the collapse could at best be postponed, but not avoided.<br />
<br />
Many later studies confirmed these results: collapse turns out to be a typical feature of systems in overshoot, a phenomenon called sometimes the “<a href="https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2011/08/seneca-effect-origins-of-collapse.html">Seneca Cliff</a>” from a sentence of the ancient Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca.<br />
<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><br />
<br />
<img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2020Year/04/200421club.jpg" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Image above: Chart of the projections by the Club of Rome in March 1972 showing the projected </span>" Limits to Growth". Note now in 2020 we have recently passed maximum food production and industrial output per person and are approaching maximum pollution as we slide down the steepest losses of resources. From (<a href="https://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/so-much-for-debunking-the-club-of-rome/">https://damnthematrix.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/so-much-for-debunking-the-club-of-rome/</a>)</span><br />
<br />
The coronavirus, in itself, is a minor perturbation, but the system is poised for collapse and the epidemics may trigger it. We already saw how the world’s economy is fragile: it nearly collapsed in 2008 under the relatively small perturbation of the crash of the subprime mortgage market.<br />
<br />
At that time, it was possible to contain the damage but, today, the fragility of the system has not improved and the coronavirus may be a stronger perturbation.<br />
<br />
The collapse of entire sectors of the economy, such as the tourism industry (more than 10% of the world’s gross product), is already ongoing and it may be impossible to stop it from spreading to other sectors. <br />
<br />
So, what exactly is it going to happen to us? Since we started with mentioning a camel, we may also mention a famous statement by Shaykh Rāshid that we can summarize as, "My father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son will ride a camel." Might that sentence have been truly prophetic? <br />
<br />
Indeed, the coming crisis might turn out to be so bad to push us back to the Middle Ages. But it is also true that all major epidemics in history have seen a robust rebound after the collapse.<br />
<br />
Consider that, in the mid-14th century, the “black death” killed perhaps 40% of the population of Europe but, a century later, Europeans were discovering America and starting their attempt of conquering the world. It may be that the black death was instrumental in this rebound: the temporary reduction of the European population had freed the resources necessary for a new leap forward. <br />
<br />
Could we see a similar rebound of our society in the future? Why not? After all, the coronavirus could be doing us a favor by forcing us to abandon the obsolete and polluting fossil fuels we use today. The current low market prices are the result of the contraction of the demand and are likely to be the straw that breaks the back of the oil industry. That will leave space for new and more efficient technologies.<br />
<br />
Today, solar energy has become so cheap that it is possible to think of a society fully based on renewable energy. It won’t be easy, but <a href="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/094009/meta">recent studies </a>show that it can be done. <br />
<br />
That doesn’t mean that the near term collapse can be avoided. The transition to a new energy infrastructure will require enormous investments, impossible to find in a moment of economic contraction we expect for the near future.<br />
<br />
But, in the long run, the transition is unavoidable and there is hope for a "<a href="https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2018/10/how-could-europe-conquer-world-seneca.html">Seneca rebound</a>" toward a new society based on clean and renewable energy, no more plagued by the threats of depletion and climate change. <br />
<br />
It will take time, but we can heal the poor camel’s back. <br />
<br />
<span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span></span></div></div>Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-49841896737419505432020-04-19T11:16:00.002-10:002020-05-10T14:41:47.308-10:00A Way Down<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
SUBHEAD: There's a solution to global warming, energy crisis, loss of biosphere and over-population.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> By Juan Wilson on 19 April 2020 for IslandBreath.org - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(<a href="https://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-way-down.html">https://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-way-down.html</a>) <br />
<br />
<img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2020Year/04/200419tree.jpg" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: Up a tree? Your options are waiting to get rescued or climbing down. And I don't hear any sirens approaching. From (<a href="https://ui.uncc.edu/story/eastern-cottonwood-native-nc-tree">https://ui.uncc.edu/story/eastern-cottonwood-native-nc-tree</a>).</span><br />
<br />
My father became a practicing physician around 1950. For a while he had his office in our home in Levittown and did daily house calls and hospital visits. He delivered many babies and watched many people die. My sister, mother and I would hear details of these events at the dinner table.<br />
<br />
I remember him using a phrase about dying that was "common knowledge" back then... "Pneumonia was the Old Peoples' Friend". That because if left untreated pneumonia causes the patient to lapse into a state of reduced consciousness, slipping peacefully away in their sleep, thus giving a peaceful end to a period of often considerable suffering. Some would say an easy way out.<br />
<br />
Well, the COVID-19 pandemic is having a two pronged impact on human civilization... basically ending it. It is causing a collapse of the energy, and resource consumption that is driving the destruction of the planet in the support of about seven billion too many people inhabiting the Earth today.<br />
<br />
It's a place we have to climb down from... either voluntarily, by plan, or otherwise.<br />
<br />
For much of my life my fear has been that the means would be a world-wide nuclear war involving untold thousands of atomic weapons being detonated in an exchange between America, Russia, China etc. Fortunately, that has not happened.<br />
<br />
Nuclear armagedon would be much worse than the impact of COVID-19 to people and, more importantly, to all life on Earth.<br />
<br />
Even without nuclear war we are on a track to destroy life on Earth. Our insane destruction of the biosphere in search of energy, resources and new places to "develop" have brought us in site of the end of the road for our species.... and many others.<br />
<br />
A thinning of the heard is at hand. The reduction in human rapacity provided by the linkage of pandemic and economic collapse has cleared pollution from the skies over China. We could respond to our current predicament by abandoning "Economic Growth" as the "American Way of Life". <br />
<br />
We could go back to small farms in local communities as it was before World War One. That was about the time we lost our connection to the land. Remember that 1919 song by Harry Fay, "How are You Going to Keep Them Down on the Farm?"<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
How you going to keep them down on the farm<br />
After they've seen Paree?<br />
How you going to keep them away from Broadway,<br />
Jazzing around, painting the town?<br />
How you going to keep them away from harm?<br />
That's a mystery.<br />
They'd wish they'd never seen a rake or plow,<br />
So who the heck can parlez-vous a cow,<br />
How you gonna keep them down on the farm,<br />
After they've seen Paree?</blockquote>
Serious urbanization resulted from the coal and oil fueled economies that have flourished in the past century and a half. Since World War Two the mass production in automobiles fueled by cheap oil encouraged the surroundings of cities to be expanded with endless suburbs. Consumption became a stampede.<br />
<br />
And here we are. Sheltering in place and beginning to realize a new normal.<br />
<br />
The only way out alive is to a more localized way of life.<br />
<br />
It's time to climb down fro our dangerous perch to a changed landscape... to grow food, make music!<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span></span></div>
Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-15120560129565890302020-04-18T11:20:00.003-10:002020-04-18T11:20:46.394-10:00Fligfht Path <div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
SUBHEAD: The “wealth” acquired by “one-percenters” was loaded onto a defective Boeing 737. <br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> By James Kunstler on 17 April 2020 for Clusterfuck Nation - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(<a href="https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/flight-path/">https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/flight-path/</a>) <br />
<br />
<img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2020Year/04/200418lionair.jpg" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: </span><span style="font-size: small;">In 2013, a two-month-old Boeing 737-800, operated by LionAir, undershot the runway at Bali Airport, crashing into the water. Half the 108 passengers were injured. Luckily there were no fatalities. From (<a href="https://airwaysmag.com/industry/lion-air-boeing-737max8-crashes/">https://airwaysmag.com/industry/lion-air-boeing-737max8-crashes/</a>).</span><br />
<br />
This age of battling narratives tends to conceal the broken consensus behind it. What’s gone is a broad social agreement that there are certain fundamental realities, and then codes of conduct that follow from them. When anything goes, don’t expect people to do the right thing, or even know what it is. <br />
<br />
The Covid-19 debacle presents just such a set of quandaries and puzzles. For many people stewing in quarantine, the virus is just another evil phantom lurking in the permanent twilight zone of television, and even there, among the familiar jabbering figments, there’s little agreement about it. The statistical projections mutate weekly.<br />
<br />
It’s no worse than any annual flu… It’s a savage illness that attacks every organ in the body, leaves survivors maimed, and you can even catch it again… The lockdowns are imperative… the lockdowns amount to economic suicide… There’s no sorting it all out, and the uncertainty itself is intolerable. <br />
<br />
The only certainty is that most of the people in lockdown are going broke fast. By any ordinary rules, they are wiped out. They can’t even pretend anymore to keep juggling all those monthly payments for rent or mortgages, food, the cars, the medical insurance, the electricity, the cable, and on and on.<br />
<br />
The $1200 mad money checks promised by Uncle Sam are little consolation for that, and the small business “loans” – if you can even jump through the infuriating hoops to get them – just pile on an additional layer of obligation in a lifetime of debt serfdom.<br />
<br />
You don’t have to leap too many steps ahead mentally to imagine utter personal ruin on that glide path. And so what if millions of others are feeling squashed by the same phantom forces of disease and finance? <br />
<br />
One firm reality is this: the global debt system that supported the turbo-charged global economy was disintegrating badly in the early fall of 2019, threatening every financial asset and the markets that affected to manage them – and all the operations of modern daily life that they represented.<br />
<br />
Nowhere on earth was the debt load more out-of-control than in China, where there were no constraints whatsoever on the banks’ accounting fraud, since they answered solely to the ruling party, which had but one overarching policy: to keep ruling. <br />
<br />
And the biggest economic fiction of all was that China could maintain its supernatural growth rates in a world that had actually reached the limits of growth. Mr. Trump’s trade wars sent tremors through the system. A whole lot of bad loans were about to be flushed down the drain.<br />
<br />
Banks everywhere else felt the vibrations, too, you may be sure. The Wuhan virus was, at least, a very convenient distraction from all that. And then, the darn thing got loose on countless airplane flights around the world. <br />
<br />
The Covid-19 corona virus didn’t initiate the financial disorders of the moment in the US and Europe, but it ensured that there would not be another appearance of any “recovery” a la the central bank interventions of 2008-09.<br />
<br />
What it portends is a fast-track journey to a whole new disposition of things: first, for a while, a harsher, hungrier, angrier society of broken promises and dashed expectations; and then adaptation when a consensus emerges that the set of facts at hand amount to a new reality. In the meantime, we’re living in the meantime, which is not a comfortable place. <br />
<br />
Money is not an economy. Money is a medium of exchange within an economy where people grow things, make things, move things, and serve each other in countless ways. We’re not going to replace all those growings, makings, movings, and services by just giving people money.<br />
<br />
Money may produce more money by the magic of compound interest, but money is not necessarily wealth, it just represents our ideas about wealth, and interest stops compounding anyway when the trend is clearly for reduced growings, makings, movings, and servicings. That’s exactly how and why capital vanishes.<br />
<br />
The hocus-pocus of Modern Monetary Theory can only pretend to work around that reality. <br />
<br />
The world never reached such a pitch of activity up to the blow-ups of 2008, and it went through the motions for a decade after that. Now that it’s stopped, all that’s left is the law of gravity, and it doesn’t get more basic.<br />
<br />
The “wealth” acquired in the decade since by the so-called “one-percent” was loaded onto a defective aircraft, like a Boeing 737-MAX, and an awful lot of it will fall to earth now on broken wings. Their agents and praetorians on Wall Street are working feverishly to stave off that crash-landing, like a band of magicians casting spells on the ground while that big hunk of juddering metal augers earthward.<br />
<br />
Wait for it as spring brings new life across the land and things unseen before steal onto the scene.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span></span></div>
Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-27026999589220302932020-04-16T14:17:00.004-10:002020-04-16T14:17:57.443-10:00End of Growth Nears<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
SUBHEAD: Pandemic response will require a Post-Growth economic thinking and action.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> By Richard Heinberg on 10 April 2020 for Common Dreams - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(<a href="https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/09/pandemic-response-requires-post-growth-economic-thinking">https://www.commondreams.org/views/2020/04/09/pandemic-response-requires-post-growth-economic-thinking</a>) <br />
<br />
<img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2020Year/04/200415seoul.jpg" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: Aerial view of polluted overcrowded Seoul, South Korea. Seoul is a major world city engaged in supporting a growth oriented economy. From (<a href="https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/26506/the-end-of-infinite-growth/">https://www.greenpeace.org/international/story/26506/the-end-of-infinite-growth/</a>).</span><br />
<br />
Amid a horrific human tragedy of sickness and death, much of it taking place in hospitals staffed by brave but overworked and under-equipped doctors and nurses, we are all learning once again what it feels like when economic growth comes to a shuddering stop and the economy goes into reverse—shrinking and consuming itself.<br />
<br />
Millions have been thrown out of work, untold numbers of businesses shuttered. The St. Louis Federal Reserve estimates that Q2 unemployment could clock in as high as <a href="https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2020/march/back-envelope-estimates-next-quarters-unemployment-rate">32.1 percent</a> (for comparison, unemployment at the depths of the Great Depression was 25 percent, and during the Great Recession of 2008-2010 it peaked at 10 percent)<br />
<br />
Though radical measures must now be adopted to slow the spread of the coronavirus, those measures are having toxic side effects on the economy.<br />
<br />
Yet, economic growth was bound to end at some point, with or without the virus. A few moments of critical thought confirm that the exponential expansion of the economy—whose physical processes inevitably entail extracting natural resources and dumping polluting wastes—is destined to reach limits, given the obvious and verifiable fact that we live on a finite planet.<br />
<br />
However, we also happen to live in a human social world in which a decades-long spurt of economic and population growth, based on the snowballing exploitation of a finite supply of fossil fuels, has become normalized, so that world leaders have come to agree that growth can and must continue forever.<br />
<br />
In response to this situation, clear-eyed systems and environmental scientists have, during the past few decades, proposed policies either to transition the global economy away from its near-suicidal requirement for infinite growth, or to cushion the impact when growth limits are finally reached.<br />
<br />
At first, this post-growth train of thought was so marginalized by mainstream economists that few educated people were even aware of its existence. In other words, it lay entirely outside the <a href="https://www.mackinac.org/7504">Overton window</a> of acceptable public discourse.<br />
<br />
Then, in 2008, the wheels of the financial bus that we were all riding fell off, and there was an opening for discussion about different ways of organizing the economy. During the early recovery period after the global financial crisis, I presented a natural-limits-based view of economics in my book <a href="https://richardheinberg.com/bookshelf/the-end-of-growth-book">The End of Growth</a>, in which I summarized heterodox policy proposals for getting society on a sustainable track without destroying livelihoods.<br />
<br />
However, central banks and national governments managed temporarily to bail out the wizards and quants who had precipitated the crisis, restarted the growth machine, and thereby narrowed the Overton window once again.<br />
<br />
Still, during the decade that followed, a seed of post-growth economic thinking was planted and began to sprout. In Europe, ecological economists and environmental activists organized “<a href="https://www.degrowth.info/en/conferences/">degrowth” conferences</a><br />
<br />
The tiny nation of Bhutan, which had been experimenting since the 1970s with Gross National Happiness (GNH) as an alternative to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), tallied up its findings and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/dec/01/bhutan-wealth-happiness-counts">argued at the United Nations</a> that other countries should likewise aim for widespread social satisfaction rather than growth in monetary exchange.<br />
<br />
Groups promoting <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/150594/public-banks-suddenly-popular">public banking</a>mushroomed across the U.S., and articles about <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/4/16/18251646/modern-monetary-theory-new-moment-explained">Modern Monetary Theory</a>(MMT) and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/27/free-cash-handouts-what-is-universal-basic-income-or-ubi.html">Universal Basic Income</a> (UBI) appeared in major news outlets; the latter was even promoted by <a href="https://www.yang2020.com/what-is-freedom-dividend-faq/">an early contender</a> for the Democratic Party presidential nomination.<br />
<br />
Still, the economic priesthood held tight to its dogma. Although it was patently illogical, the demand for endless growth continued to be defended using <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/09/12/why-growth-cant-be-green/">tortured reasoning and cherry-picked statistics</a>. We can grow in green ways, the orthodox economists insisted—ways that don’t impact the environment. Well, it’s true that we can use resources more efficiently, we can recycle more, and we can find ways to reduce the toxicity of the wastes we produce.<br />
<br />
But the fact remains: over time, a growing economy will eventually and inevitably <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/24/consume-conserve-economic-growth-sustainability">take up more ecological space</a> than one that does not grow.<br />
<br />
Even the richest man in the world, who made his hundreds of billions of dollars from consumers, <a href="https://youtu.be/GQ98hGUe6FM?t=360">came to the conclusion</a> that there are limits to energy and gains in efficiency, and that we face a future on this planet of limits. (He, less surprisingly, came to a different solution than I and other “limits to growthers” would offer, his being that we should harvest the moon and colonize space.)<br />
<br />
Now, the coronavirus pandemic has seismically shifted the discussion once again. The Overton window is broken and the wall that held it has caved in. Suddenly the first priority of world leaders is no longer economic growth; instead, it is public safety. Lives must be saved and health care systems salvaged regardless of the short-term hit to profits, employment, and investment returns.<br />
<br />
This sea change in priorities requires entirely different thinking and policies—ones much more closely aligned with heterodox post-growth thinking than with pro-growth economic orthodoxy.<br />
<br />
Here is a quick survey of the post-growth economic policies recently introduced by sustainability theorists, and a brief discussion of how and whether each is relevant to our new pandemic-obsessed moment.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Universal Basic Income (UBI)</b></span><br />
<br />
UBI is a government plan for providing all citizens with a given sum of money, regardless of their income or employment status. The purpose is to prevent or reduce poverty and inequality. However, UBI would also be useful in a post-growth scenario. Suppose, for example, that a nation decided to lower its greenhouse gas emissions by restructuring its economy so as to substantially reduce energy usage and material throughput.<br />
<br />
Eventually, many people could transition from jobs in airlines and other energy-intensive industries to become food producers and small-scale manufacturers within more localized economies (see below). But, over the short run, substantial numbers would be thrown out of work; how to avoid widespread economic hardship and social instability in the interim? Answer: UBI.<br />
<br />
The U.S. federal government’s just-passed stimulus plan includes the equivalent of a nascent UBI: It mandates one-time cash payments of $1,200 for each adult and $500 per child. It also sets aside $367 billion to help small businesses and $500 billion for loans to larger industries. (The Fed is meanwhile <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/business/economy/coronavirus-fed-bond-buying.html">buying corporate bonds</a> and securities from hedge funds, to the tune of trillions, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-27/federal-reserve-s-financial-cure-risks-being-worse-than-disease">putting the Treasury on the hook</a> for them.)<br />
<br />
There is ongoing discussion among policy wonks about <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-03-11/payroll-tax-cut-isn-t-best-way-to-perk-up-coronavirus-economy">longer-term cash payments</a>to individuals; if this indeed happens, the U.S. will be officially experimenting with UBI.<br />
<br />
But where’s the money to come from? For the time being, it’s being conjured through a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/26/business/economy/fed-coronavirus-stimulus.html">cozy arrangement</a> between Congress and the Federal Reserve: Congress issues debt, which the Fed buys—without requirement for interest payments. This brings us to:<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b><br />
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) </b></span><br />
<br />
MMT says that monetarily sovereign countries like the U.S., U.K., Japan, and Canada are not limited by tax revenues or borrowing when it comes to federal government spending. They can create as much digital or paper money as they need, and are (or should be) the legal monopoly issuers of their currency. Therefore, they should be able to create and spend as much energy as needed to create full employment.<br />
<br />
I must confess some skepticism with regard to MMT. It’s obvious how it would be useful in a crisis; but, over the longer term, if the money supply is growing faster than energy and materials, the result must be inflation.<br />
<br />
In fairness, Modern Monetary Theorists have given considerable thought to the problem of inflation, and have come up with ways of limiting it—such as by levying deficit-reducing taxes, during times of full employment, to reduce aggregate demand.<br />
<br />
Yet, in my experience, most Modern Monetary Theorists follow conventional economists in mistakenly assuming that energy and natural resources are effectively infinite, rather than finite and depleting. By focusing just on employment, they miss the essential basis of all economic productivity.<br />
<br />
In any case, a crisis is what we have: Governments and central banks are being forced to resort to a form of MMT because of a sudden, dramatic spike in unemployment. And, over the short term, money printing is an essential economic tonic.<br />
<br />
However, over the longer term, the best outcome would be achieved if the current crisis forces economists to think anew about the nature of money itself—what it is, how it is created, and what are is social effects. Most economists still think of money as simply a medium of exchange, but it is better understood as storable, quantifiable, and transferrable social power.<br />
<br />
Renegade economist Steve Keen <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevekeen/2015/02/10/nobody-understands-debt-including-paul-krugman/#4a1091991ac3">points out</a> that conventional economic theory does a surprisingly poor job of explaining money and debt. Alternative currency theorists like <a href="https://reinventingmoney.com/">Thomas Greco</a> do a much better job of it.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.isecoeco.org/">Ecological</a> and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/01900692.2019.1645691?journalCode=lpad20">biophysical</a> economists—the vanguard of post-growth economists—go even further. They start with realistic assessments of finite energy sources and natural resources, then explore how economic systems could fairly harvest and distribute resources without depleting nature’s stores over time.<br />
<br />
For starters, they propose <a href="https://taxfoundation.org/financial-transaction-tax/">taxing all financial transactions</a>and requiring banks to hold <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full-reserve_banking">100 percent reserves</a>. They also tend to hold to the principle, first propounded by American economist <a href="https://www.britannica.com/biography/Henry-George">Henry George</a> (1839-1897), that each person should own what he or she creates, but that everything found in nature, most importantly land, should belong equally to all humanity.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><b>Public Banks</b></span><br />
<br />
Today most money is created by <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2017/10/31/how-bank-lending-really-creates-money-and-why-the-magic-money-tree-is-not-cost-free/#174461423073">private banks</a> through the process of issuing loans. Digital money is called into existence when a loan is granted; when the loan is repaid, that money vanishes. The problem is, interest must be paid on the loan, and the money needed to pay that interest isn’t created when the loan is issued. The borrower must earn or borrow money for interest payments from elsewhere.<br />
<br />
As long as the overall economy is growing, that’s usually possible. But if the economy isn’t growing, defaults ensue. Lending slows to a dribble, with more money disappearing than is being created. That’s called a deflationary depression, and it’s something to be avoided if possible—though it’s an inevitable feature of debt-based economies in a finite world.<br />
<br />
As a solution, why not create government-run public banks that loan money at no interest, at least in the cases of businesses that are operating for the public good? For example, if a state decided that it was in the public interest to promote renewable energy, its state bank could make zero-interest loans to solar installers.<br />
<br />
Public banks <a href="https://www.publicbankinginstitute.org/">have a long history</a>, and operate in many nations. In the U.S., the prime example is the Bank of North Dakota, which partners with private banks to loan money to farmers, schools, and small businesses.<br />
<br />
The idea of public banks is closely tied to MMT; think of public banks as MMT at the retail level. So far, the pandemic has not provoked wide interest in public banking; but, as the incipient recession deepens and lengthens, expect this to be a subject of increasing discussion.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Gross National Happiness (GNH)</span></b><br />
<br />
In 1972, Bhutan’s 16-year-old King Jigme Singye Wangchuck used the phrase “Gross National Happiness” to describe the economy that would serve his country’s Buddhist-influenced culture. The label stuck, and soon the Centre for Bhutan Studies set out to develop a survey instrument to measure the Bhutanese people’s general sense of well-being. That <a href="https://gnhusa.org/gross-national-happiness/">survey instrument</a> measures nine domains:<br />
<ul style="text-align: left;">
<li>Time use</li>
<li>Living standards</li>
<li>Good governance</li>
<li>Psychological well-being</li>
<li>Community vitality</li>
<li>Culture</li>
<li>Health</li>
<li>Education</li>
<li>Ecology</li>
</ul>
Bhutan’s efforts to boost GNH have led to the banning of plastic bags and re-introduction of meditation into schools, as well as a “go-slow” approach toward the standard economic development pathway paved by costly infrastructure projects paid for with huge loans from international banks.<br />
<br />
There’s nothing in the recent stimulus package that resembles GNH, but policy makers increasingly could be forced into considering something like it, out of necessity. As people are stuck at home for long periods, some are descending into loneliness and depression brought on by isolation; others are filling their time with art, music, home schooling, and gardening.<br />
<br />
Leaders will eventually realize they must do something to discourage the former and encourage the latter. They may eventually conclude that gauging their success using GDP is pointless, and that directly measuring safety, health, and life satisfaction makes a lot more sense.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">The Sharing Economy</span></b><br />
<br />
The last time the U.S. suffered through an economic depression, in the 1930s, government economists and leaders of industry responded by creating a new economic paradigm—<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumerism">consumerism</a>. Henceforth American citizens would be termed consumers, whose duty is to buy and discard products at an ever-accelerating rate so as to steadily increase overall employment levels, the size of the economy, returns on investments, and government tax revenues.<br />
<br />
Two key strategies of consumerism were <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence">planned obsolescence</a>, in which products were designed to have limited useful lifetimes, or to soon become aesthetically undesirable in comparison with new versions of the same product; and redundant consumption, in which individuals were encouraged through advertising to prefer owning their own products (such as cars and lawn mowers) rather than sharing them with family members, neighbors, or friends.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, while consumerism succeeded in overcoming the problem of overproduction (which was one of the causes of the Great Depression), it resulted in the steady ramping up of resource consumption.<br />
<br />
At the same time, it had a negative impact on many people’s <a href="https://www.apa.org/monitor/jun04/discontents">psychological health</a>, as they spent more time viewing advertising messages and shopping, and less time engaging with family, friends, and nature.<br />
<br />
The idea of the sharing economy took hold around the time of the Great Recession of 2008; it proposed a <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/peertopeer-p2p-economy.asp">peer-to-peer</a> (P2P) way of organizing the economy in which the sharing of goods and services is facilitated by community-based online platforms. Many pioneers of the sharing economy were motivated by the ecological ideal of reducing overall consumption levels.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, however, the sharing economy quickly became equated with the gig economy, and with ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft—which promised to eliminate the perceived need for everyone to own a car, and thereby reduce carbon emissions from transportation. Unfortunately, it turned out that <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/25/21152512/uber-lyft-climate-change-emissions-pollution-ucs-study">Uber and Lyft generate more carbon emissions</a> than the trips they displace, and <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/17/uber-drivers-are-protesting-again-heres-what-the-job-is-really-like.html">aren’t always model employers</a>.<br />
<br />
Nevertheless, the original ideals of the sharing economy persist among advocates of the <a href="https://makerfaire.com/maker-movement/">maker movement</a>, <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/collaborative-consumption.asp">collaborative consumption</a>, <a href="https://thenextsystem.org/learn/stories/solidarity-economy-building-economy-people-planet">the solidarity economy</a>, <a href="https://opensource.org/">open source software</a>, <a href="https://transitionnetwork.org/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIjNTg4enH6AIV2eDICh05gAHwEAAYASAAEgI2GvD_BwE">transition towns</a>, <a href="https://www.opengovpartnership.org/">open government</a>, and <a href="https://socialenterprise.us/about/social-enterprise/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5Ob9_-nH6AIVjYCfCh3MFw87EAAYASAAEgILfvD_BwE">social enterprise</a>—as well as bridging organizations like<br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.shareable.net/">Shareable</a>, whose founder, Neal Gorenflo, has <a href="https://www.shareable.net/the-coronavirus-pandemic-calls-us-to-share-more-than-ever-here-are-10-ways-to-get-started/">some ideas</a> on why sharing is even more important during the pandemic, and how we could seize the current moment this as an opportunity to come together in cooperation and mutual aid even though we remain separated physically.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Green New Deal (GND)</span></b><br />
<br />
<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/14/politics/green-new-deal-proposal-breakdown/index.html">GND proposals</a> circulating in the U.S. prior to the pandemic aimed to provide 100 percent renewable energy in 10 to 20 years while supporting job retraining and aiding communities impacted by climate change.<br />
<br />
Some proposals also included a carbon tax (often with a fee-and-dividend structure that would rebate funds to low-income people so they could afford more costly energy services), incentives for green investment, public banks, measures to re-regulate the financial system, and the first steps toward a global Marshall Plan.<br />
<br />
While GND advocates seldom publicly acknowledge that economic growth is both ephemeral and antithetical to a livable environment, their proposals are nevertheless largely consistent with policy advice post-growth thinkers.<br />
<br />
The coronavirus pandemic cuts both ways with regard to climate change. Emissions are down, because businesses are closed and people are staying home. But the transition to renewable energy has slowed to a crawl. If we’re to move to a post-carbon economy, we’ll need massive investment in post-carbon transportation, building heating, manufacturing, and agriculture.<br />
<br />
President Trump has <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-31/trump-calls-for-2-trillion-infrastructure-bill-to-create-jobs">signaled</a> he wants Congress to appropriate a couple of trillion dollars for infrastructure spending, but what he has in mind are subsidies for existing fossil fuel-dependent industries. MMT notwithstanding, the nation’s money pot is not bottomless. If we are to have a Green New Deal, it must come soon.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Resilience</span></b><br />
<br />
We have made the world more economically efficient by lengthening supply chains to take advantage of the cheapest labor and raw materials anywhere they exist, and by minimizing inventories with just-in-time supply strategies; but the result has been a withering of resilience—the ability to recover and adapt to a crisis or disruption.<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Post-growth thinkers tend to agree that the structural unsustainability of modern industrial economies has created a series of crises that are lined up to bite—from climate change to the threat of global pandemics. Therefore, preparing for the post-growth era requires building resilience—particularly at the community level.<br />
<br />
Suddenly, in this moment of broken supply chains, and shortages of toilet paper, masks, and ventilators, the argument for resilience is easier to make: there are perfectly obvious reasons to shorten supply chains, and establish strategic stockpiles that are distributed locally. Trump’s ham-fisted attempt to renegotiate globalization via tariffs hardly counts as a step in that direction.<br />
<br />
Unfortunately, because world leaders previously didn’t listen to <a href="https://www.stockholmresilience.org/">resilience advocates</a> sooner, we will all be paying a price for some time to come.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Localism</span></b><br />
<br />
The lengthening of supply chains is the essence of globalization; if this has made us more vulnerable to crisis, then it stands to reason that we should re-localize some of our economic activity.<br />
<br />
Post-growth thinkers have been advocating <a href="https://www.localfutures.org/publications/local-is-our-future-book-helena-norberg-hodge/">localism</a> for decades. Naturally there are objections and questions: What about xenophobia? What about sharing knowledge and best practices across cultures?<br />
<br />
What about global cooperation to meet global challenges like climate change? In answer, localists say we needn’t view the recovery of local knowledge, local culture, and local economic vitality as all-or-nothing. Think of it as the rebalancing of a system that has become lopsided and dangerously unstable.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, in nations like the United States, where national leadership during the pandemic is absent or inept, citizens are being forced into thinking and acting more locally. Localism can have either a welcoming or an exclusionary face; it’s up to us to choose. Fortunately, many people so far seem to be <a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-04-01/the-horror-films-got-it-wrong-this-virus-has-turned-us-into-caring-neighbours/">choosing to be neighborly</a>.<br />
<br />
The end of growth is painful. We had a foretaste of it in 2008, but the current crisis promises to be much worse. Our leaders are flying blind, just as they were during the Global Financial Crisis over a decade ago. We were unprepared for it, just as we were for the pandemic and the economic carnage that is accompanying it.<br />
<br />
However, there are people who have been anticipating a moment like this for decades. If we are willing now to listen and learn from post-growth thinkers, the crisis and its aftermath can be a process of adaptation that leaves us more locally resilient, happier, and more connected.<br />
<br />
That’s not to downplay the immensity of the task. Redesigning national economies in the midst of crisis is a challenge perhaps comparable to redesigning an airplane in mid-air, while attempting to make a safe landing.<br />
<br />
Navigating the end of growth will require courage, new thinking, flexibility, and a willingness to make mistakes.<br />
<br />
It’s understandable why, during “normal” times, people want to stick with what’s familiar. But we’re no longer in normal times. We are in a moment that requires us to undertake bold changes that have been put off for far too long.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span></span></div>
</div>
Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-9663226005540683142020-04-15T10:19:00.000-10:002020-04-21T10:10:55.485-10:00Weird Days<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
SUBHEAD: A list of some of the odd experiences of disasters in my lifetime.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> By Juan Wilson on 15 April 2020 for Island Breath - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(<a href="https://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2020/04/weird-days.html">https://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2020/04/weird-days.html</a>) <br />
<br />
<img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2020Year/04/200415garbage.jpg" /> <br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: Photo of garbage piled into street in Manhattan, NY, during 1968 garbage strike. From (<a href="https://accesscities.org/nycrfei-pilot-for-public-realm-refuse-and-recyclingsolutionsrequest-for-expressionsof-interest-rfei/">https://accesscities.org/nycrfei-pilot-for-public-realm-refuse-and-recyclingsolutionsrequest-for-expressionsof-interest-rfei/</a>).</span><br />
<br />
These are weird days and they seem to be leading to a major reset of life on Earth. The lists below are calamities I have lived through or witnessed through media in my lifetime.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Personally Experienced</span></b><br />
<b>Cuban Missile Crisis 1962 </b>(We thought World War 3 was at hand)<br />
(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis</a>)<br />
<br />
<b>North East Blackout 1965</b> (lived in Boston. People thought WW3 had begun)<br />
(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_1965">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northeast_blackout_of_1965</a>)<br />
<br />
<b>NYC Garbage Strike 1968 </b>(Lived in Lower East side. Garbage up past windows slid into streets)<br />
(<a href="https://untappedcities.com/2015/02/11/today-in-nyc-history-the-great-garbage-strike-of-1968/">https://untappedcities.com/2015/02/11/today-in-nyc-history-the-great-garbage-strike-of-1968/</a>)<br />
<br />
<b>OPEC Oil Embargo 1973 </b>(A few people were shot to death for jumping long lines at gas stations)<br />
(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis</a>)<br />
<br />
<b>Iran US Embassy Crisis 1979 </b>(I lived in Iran 1975-76 and saw what preceded revolution)<br />
(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran_hostage_crisis</a>) <br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Witnessed Through Mass Media</span></b><br />
<b>Exxon Valdis Oil Spill 1989 </b>(Effects included the deaths as many as 250,000 seabirds)<br />
(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exxon_Valdez_oil_spill</a>)<br />
<br />
<b>Bangladesh Cyclone 1991 </b>(over 135,000 people killed)<b> </b><br />
(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Bangladesh_cyclone">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Bangladesh_cyclone</a>)<br />
<br />
<b>World Trade Center Attack 2001 </b>(over 2,700 people killed)<br />
(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11_attacks</a>)<br />
<br />
<b>Tohoku Earthquake & Tsunami 2011 </b>(over 15,000 people killed)<br />
(<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_T%C5%8Dhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Tōhoku_earthquake_and_tsunami</a>)<br />
<br />
When you look at the numbers of fatalities the World Trade Center collapse was not nearly as lethal as the other disasters listed above. But maybe it was so traumatic for Americans because it was a disaster created by humans intentionally and involved a symbol of American prowess. It was also witnessed live in the streets of New York and by millions on television.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Simultaneously Experiencing</span></b><br />
<b>Corona Virus Pandemic 2020 & Worldwide Economic Collapse 2020</b><br />
<br />
These current disasters are interrelated and will transform the world in ways that will be in Nature's interest and ultimately our human interest. It's past time for a reset.<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="color: #fce5cd;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">.</span></span></div>
Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8803908253839878060.post-31015797397638742802020-04-13T10:02:00.018-10:002020-12-22T09:41:01.297-10:00Covid19 Best Case Scenario<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
SUBHEAD: Imagining the aftermath of the pandemic and monetary collapse as a time of rebirth.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-weight: bold;"> By Atossa Araxia Abrahamian on 20 March 2020 for the Nation - </span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> <br />
(<a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/world/coronavirus-future-fiction/">https://www.thenation.com/article/world/coronavirus-future-fiction/</a>) <br />
<br /> <img border="0" src="http://www.islandbreath.org/2020Year/04/200413optimism.jpg" />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">Image above: A view of optimism from a perspective of Islam. From (https://aboutislam.net/spirituality/be-optimistic-about-the-future-trust-in-allahs-plan/).</span><br />
<br />
The virus made itself known in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December in the form of a respiratory illness not unlike pneumonia.<br />
<br />
At first, no one knew quite where the disease had come from, but it seemed to touch workers at a wet market where exotic live animals were sold.<br />
<br />
Before long, a 61-year-old man with preexisting health conditions died. He’d been a regular at the market, so they blamed the bats, then the pangolins, then the shoppers who procured these delicacies, and finally, just China.<br />
<br />
Within weeks, the region was on lockdown, and flights were canceled.<br />
<br />
But it was too late for containment. The virus had taken up residence in lungs and on fingertips, clothing and cardboard. Deterred only by soap and water, it traveled far and wide: to South Korea and Thailand, to Seattle and London.<br />
<br />
One case was detected in the prophetically named French ski town of Contamines; a large outbreak occurred in Milan before spreading thick and fast throughout Italy. Hospital wards filled.<br />
<br />
People panic-shopped for hand sanitizer and, bafflingly, toilet paper. On January 30, the World Health Organization declared the virus a public health emergency; six weeks later, it deemed the crisis a full-blown pandemic.<br />
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As winter gave way to spring, the virus crept into schools, cafés, subway cars, and nursing homes. Universities closed dorms and moved to conduct classes online. Remote work protocols were adopted. Service work dried up, dealing cab drivers and waiters and aestheticians an economic blow.<br />
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Children were told to stay home from school; parents were not told what to do with their children. But we are social creatures, unfit for long periods of solitude. When large gatherings were shut down, phone calls went unscreened and were even answered. People checked in. People cared.<br />
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As the plague spread, the human cost was staggering. Tens of thousands died. Millions more were sickened. It hit the elderly the hardest, as well as those with underlying conditions. The funeral industry boomed, as did the appeal of apocalyptic cults and slickly branded start-up religions.<br />
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Fortunately, children were mostly spared, and communities came together to make sure they caught up on their schoolwork in the absence of classrooms, courses, and teachers.<br />
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Facing anger, outrage, and grief from their citizens, governments realized that those who could not do their jobs remotely—not to mention those whose work had dried up–would be destitute if they did not receive significant aid.<br />
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So that’s what workers received: help, in the form of cash, food, and services. Means-testing went out the window. Work requirements were a joke. Debt payments and water bills and evictions were suspended, then canceled altogether.<br />
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Central banks enacted radical measures to stimulate the economy. There were no interest rates left to cut, so lending turned into giving.<br />
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No one asked where all the money was coming from, because everyone understood that this was where it had always come from. Some states actually ended up saving money: the happy result of all wars’ being put on hold thanks to a unanimous resolution in the UN Security Council.<br />
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Iran reached a détente with Israel after medical researchers banded together to develop a treatment that saved the life of millions, including former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The treatment prevented him from infecting his cellmates in his supermax prison; he ended up succumbing to a stroke.<br />
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All but a tiny number of inmates in the United States were released. State funerals for politicians who said they could pray their way out of becoming sick were broadcast online, but attended by no one.<br />
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Military contractors started churning out medical supplies; soldiers mobilized to build homes and hospitals; unemployed workers pledged to build small-scale local green infrastructure. Austerity became a distant nightmare of the past.<br />
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With the airline industry in shambles and industrial activity at a virtual standstill, carbon emissions dropped dramatically. Demand for oil dried up, too.<br />
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Endangered species, unaffected by the virus, began to proliferate. Bats were studied and revered for their immunity to this virus, and many others. Pangolins were never seen at the dinner table again.<br />
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Because of stringent precautionary measures and warmer temperatures, the virus did not hit African states as hard as Western ones—a small mercy that nonetheless pushed countries there to establish a continental health system, with the help of the World Health Organization and an interest-free grant from the World Trade Organization, which changed its mission statement entirely.<br />
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Instead of lending to economically ailing nations, it would pool funding and make debt-free development grants, reasoning it was the only way to avoid a market crash.<br />
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Refugees living in camps—in South America, Lebanon, Greece, and beyond—were rehoused in decent accommodations to cut back on the risk of spreading the infection. They helped with relief efforts, earning them the admiration of locals and helping them integrate in their new homes.<br />
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Under the crushing weight of an overburdened health care system, countries began recognizing each others’ medical licenses, easing visa restrictions on doctors and nurses from less affected regions to emigrate and offering high-quality health care to everyone, no questions asked.<br />
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People necessarily crossed fewer borders, but when they did, they were greeted with open arms.<br />
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The TSA stopped banning liquids on flights, beginning with 12-ounce containers of hand sanitizer. Scientists worked around the clock to develop vaccines; philanthropists poured money into the initiative, even though they would no longer receive tax breaks for their efforts.<br />
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As their daily lives were upended, reorganized, and reimagined by the demands of the pandemic and the community, workers around the world adjusted to their new rhythms.<br />
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In China, where the crisis began, months of lockdown gave way to blue skies and clean breezes. The smog had cleared—a result of massive factory shutdowns. The sun shone brighter. It was easier to breathe.<br />
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Young peopled wondered, Why couldn’t the air be so clean every day? Why did they have to choose?<br />
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Farmers even found their livestock thriving, and their crops growing better—a consequence of cleaner soil and water, as well as regulation by health authorities to prevent immunocompromization and animal-borne infections.<br />
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For office workers, as the months passed, they began to question the way they had been living before the virus. They missed human contact, but not their commutes.<br />
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They wanted to see their colleagues, though were relieved to shed the artifice of the nine-to-five, the endless meetings, the pretending to be busy at all hours of the day, the sad desk lunches and minute-counting.<br />
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They worked when they needed to, and stopped when it was over. They spent more time with their families and made bad music and bad art.<br />
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See also:<br />
<a href="https://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2020/03/world-after-covid-19-pandemic.html">World After Covid-19 Pandemic</a> 3/20/20<br />
<a href="https://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2020/02/is-coronavirus-bio-weapon.html">Island Breath: Is Corona Virus a Bioweapon</a> 2/20/20<br />
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Juan Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00235465611717847305noreply@blogger.com0