PowerSwitch

Just a thought.

The question is how far do we need to change our lifestyles in order to prevent the destruction of much of the global environment or civilisation as we know it? If it really is that bad that our continued burning of fossil fuels will lead to catastrophic global warming, or a chronic supply shortage that will undermine hte eonomy and the very survival of many, and if so much we do impacts upon the environment to some extent (it seems even fishing, for example, is not sustainable without wiping out fish stocks, and agriculture may be leading to the extinction of bees).

Is it right that we limit our activities solely to the bare essentials for survival (food, clothing, shelter &c.), given this is perhaps something no society has ever yet done? (Even stone age man seems to have had his cave paintings and 'Venus of Whatever' figurines...) And even then to try hardest to minimise our impact? Is it perhaps then possible that even the efforts by many on this very forum to live more sustainable lives, prepare for collapse etc. are not enough?

Furthermore, what would you say would be the minimum level of change people would need to make in order to be either more sustainable, or at least to prepere for surviving any crash to come? And will society have to move away altogether from anything resembling industrialisation?

We're living in complete overshoot.

In short.... our way of life is underpined by a way of death.

Incidentally....I was reading his post yesterday, his delivery may well be forthright, but after that.....it's not a case of him being right per se, it's acceptance of the obvious. IMHO.

He's not the only one either.

Nothing need 'crash', regenerative food production is pusing boundries all the time, we don't necessarily have an 'energy crisis', we have a lifestyle crisis.
We've a lot to unlearn and evaluate, a reversal of the staus quo would be a start.

the_lyniezian wrote: (Even stone age man seems to have had his cave paintings and 'Venus of Whatever' figurines...)

I don't see why we can't keep doing cave painting and figurine making. In fact I don't see why we can't carry on with most of the stuff that signifies culture. After all, most of the greatest works of art were created before we started burning coal and oil on a large scale.

You don't need an oil well to sing a song and hug a friend.

peaceful_life wrote: Nothing need 'crash', regenerative food production is pusing boundries all the time, we don't necessarily have an 'energy crisis', we have a lifestyle crisis.
We've a lot to unlearn and evaluate, a reversal of the staus quo would be a start.

The problem is not a lot of people know that. The amount of waste is huge. We see very little but I know of a waste handling firm with more than 20 lorries. They move several loads a day each, mostly of useful materials but there is so much it cannot be dealt with to make use of it, so it is junked. Piles of wood, useful for all sorts of things, sent for chipping, piles of expensive paving slabs (not concrete) sent for crushing for hardcore. It goes on.

biffvernon wrote: I don't see why we can't keep doing cave painting and figurine making. In fact I don't see why we can't carry on with most of the stuff that signifies culture. After all, most of the greatest works of art were created before we started burning coal and oil on a large scale.

You don't need an oil well to sing a song and hug a friend.

There is so much unsociable living now I doubt it would work. People used to talk over the fence, now most places have 2m high solid fences for "privacy". Our house had no fence between ours and the adjoining property. Then in went a leylandii hedge (neighbours doing) now thirty years on, the part that was left a low wire netting fence is being replaced by new neighbour with 2m solid fence. He wonders why people don't seem friendly. The reason is he does the developers stuff, hopes to sell and make a profit then go on to screw up somewhere else. Hopefully he might come unstuck this time.

biffvernon wrote:

the_lyniezian wrote: (Even stone age man seems to have had his cave paintings and 'Venus of Whatever' figurines...)

I don't see why we can't keep doing cave painting and figurine making. In fact I don't see why we can't carry on with most of the stuff that signifies culture. After all, most of the greatest works of art were created before we started burning coal and oil on a large scale.

You don't need an oil well to sing a song and hug a friend.

The problem is that we can't go back to life without hydrocarbons. Not with 7 billion and rising. We need hydrocarbons to sustain that 7 billion.

Which is why it is not only our way of life that is unsustainable, but our very life.

Our population has got to crash in order for both us and the rest of life on Earth to have a future.

Stand by for inane questions asking if you would be the first to give up your place on the planet. I wonder who will ask the question.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkQCy-UrLYw

Now, I don't know about the intricacies of the stats mentioned in the above link, but Kerela seems to be headed in the right direction.

Woodburner, of course you're right about people not knowing, so I guess that takes us here again... "
... “Trouble is that once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There’s no innocence. Either way, you’re accountable.”

I'm not so sure that our numbers couldn't be sustained Steve, although certainly not under it's current structure, and yes... nothing short of a seismological SHIFT in consciousness is going to help achieve that, should even be achieved? maybe not, should we of discovered hydrocarbons? doesn't look like it's done us much good....but here we sit.

We're in the midst of the collapse anyway, however...if we were to sytematically crash overnight.........then what would be the ramifications of that in ecological terms, all manner of chemicals, compounds, rigs, labs etc etc etc......, in the short term it would probably just accelerate the velocity of ecocide already going on, but it would most definitely belittle the chances of any human life continuing, will that be allowed to happen?
I very much doubt it, even if just for selfish reasons, and if it does happen..... then that takes care of the human dilemma.

We've really got no choice.

Either way, wether 7 billion or 100,000....that SHIFT is still waiting to be fulfilled, or the human quirk of evolutionary lineage will be by by.

woodburner wrote:Stand by for inane questions asking if you would be the first to give up your place on the planet. I wonder who will ask the question.

No!

What Steve said is spot on and the truth.

It's comments like "roll on the population crash" or "a good cull would do us the world of good" etc, that are (imo) not on and likely to get a response from me and others.

woodburner wrote:Stand by for inane questions asking if you would be the first to give up your place on the planet. I wonder who will ask the question.

Irony, don't let it be lost on you.

hodson2k9 wrote:

woodburner wrote:Stand by for inane questions asking if you would be the first to give up your place on the planet. I wonder who will ask the question.

No!

What Steve said is spot on and the truth.

It's comments like "roll on the population crash" or "a good cull would do us the world of good" etc, that are (imo) not on and likely to get a response from me and others.

+1
I thought we got it down to... 'tact' too.

Anyway....back on thread.

stevecook172001 wrote:The problem is that we can't go back to life without hydrocarbons. Not with 7 billion and rising. We need hydrocarbons to sustain that 7 billion.

That's clearly not the case, as evidenced by the many millions, hundreds of millions who live on very little hydrocarbons indeed. 7bn, can live without hydrocarbons - just not the way (or the distributions) we do now.

Obviously I don't think we will make the changes to our ways and distributions, and death for many of that 7bn is more likely.

stevecook172001 wrote:The problem is that we can't go back to life without hydrocarbons. Not with 7 billion and rising. We need hydrocarbons to sustain that 7 billion.

Which is why it is not only our way of life that is unsustainable, but our very life.

Our population has got to crash in order for both us and the rest of life on Earth to have a future.

You're probably right, but I live my life by the glimmer of light that you're not. Shaun Chamberlin tweeted thus earlier today:

Peasants & indigenous peoples produce almost half the world’s food from only around 20% of global agricultural land:

and put a link to http://viacampesina.org/en/index.php?op ... le&id=1277

There seems a lot of good sense in the article and I'm not yet certain that 7 or even 9 billion peasants living cheerfully on one planet is an impossibility. The alternative is likely to be grim.

The answer to the question in the post title is YES.

To be honest I realised this not long after the thread was started. It is a hard truth to deal with, but Industrial society does destroy Mind and Environment.

Thanks for pointing out the Elephant in the room, Sushil Yadev. I hadn't noticed it before

So how do we deal with that fact? Thats what we need to be debating......

clv101 wrote:

stevecook172001 wrote:The problem is that we can't go back to life without hydrocarbons. Not with 7 billion and rising. We need hydrocarbons to sustain that 7 billion.

That's clearly not the case, as evidenced by the many millions, hundreds of millions who live on very little hydrocarbons indeed. 7bn, can live without hydrocarbons - just not the way (or the distributions) we do now.

Obviously I don't think we will make the changes to our ways and distributions, and death for many of that 7bn is more likely.

It comes down to game-theory; specifically "hawks" and "doves".

Imagine an island where there live only doves. Doves have the following characteristics;

Doves are absolute altruists. They will always share their resources with another dove based on a straightforward assessment of how many resources each of them already has. The dove with the most resources always gives away half of the difference between himself and his fellow dove. Thus, when they part, each has exactly the same amount. This way, all doves, on the average, have access to an equitable amount of resources. Following on from the above, all doves are both honest and are pacifists and will never try to deceive another dove with regards to how many resources they posses in order to gain an unfair advantage or try to steal another dove's resources. Finally, as well as being altruists and pacifists, all doves are intelligent enough to realize that they must limit their reproduction and/or consumption of resources in order to maintain a sustainable life for their descendants. All is well on Dove island.

Until, one day, a small number of breeding pairs of hawks land on the island. Hawks have the following characteristics;

Hawks are completely selfish. Or, to the extent to which they show any kind of "altruism" at all, it will only be towards those who are very closely related to them. Hawks will never honestly share their resources with another dove or even another hawk unless they are closely related. They will even steal with violence from another bird if they think they are bigger than them and can get away with it. However, Hawks quickly learn that they don't need to force a dove to give them their resources. All they need to do it to lie to them. This is easy for hawks as they are good liars. They simply tell the dove they have less resources than is the case. On this basis, the dove gives them an inequitably larger amount of resources than they should have.

In fairly short-order, the hawks possess most of the resources and, given that access to resources equates to reproductive success, the dove population crashes and the hawk population booms. The hawks now have a problem, though. Given that any other bird they now meet is likely to be a hawk, they are always going to end up in an outright fight for resources. This is very costly and so the hawk population begins to crash. At which point, the dove population recovers a little. But, only a little.

It turns out, that if you put all of the above parameters into a simulation, you end up with an evolutionary stable population equilibrium of about 80% hawks to 20% doves. Furthermore, if you allow interbreeding to occur between hawks and doves, you end up with the same distribution of psychological characteristics within each bird. In other words, 80% of the time they will act like hawks and 20% of the time they will act like doves.

The only way to increase the dove population to have absolute transparency (so that lying is ineffective), for doves and hawks to be equally capable of violence and/or for there to be an unlimited supply of resources. This way, no-one can lie and no one can gain advantage merely as a function of power or, in the case of unlimited resources, there is little point in lying or stealing. When these parameters are added to a simulation, it will work for a while. The trouble is, there is always going to be variation in the tendency to lie and to be stronger than others and resources are always finite. As soon as behavioral variation creeps back into a population existing in an environment of finite resources, the 20%/80% ratio re-establishes itself.

To come back to the problem of 7 billion people living on this planet and how it may be possible, at least in-principle, for 7 billion or more people to be able to survive and prosper without destroying the rest of the biosphere; this is akin to expecting the entire human population of the planet to behave like doves 100% of the time and for there to be absolutely no hawks present to screw it up for everyone else.

It's why we are totally and utterly f*cked.

It's also why the doves among us know we are f*cked, yet are unable to stop the insanity.