Sustainability & Political/Economic Systems

[kib]

I guess I'm talking about a mental shift that is almost - sorry Jane - religious in nature. That people consider everything they do in terms of survival and connectedness, that it's the underlying motivation for their actions. Instead of "I want to go to heaven, is this a good idea", or "I want a billion dollars, is this a good idea", (or, as seems to be more and more the case, "I want whatever I want and I want it now, so I'm going to take it and not think about whether it's a good idea") that we think, "I want a sustainable future for humans, is this a good idea." I believe that if that kind of underlying motivator were the norm, the rest might, to some extent, sort itself out.

And I totally agree with Jane's ideas of education and empowerment.

[LDAHL]

The reproductive aspect seems pretty easy. Just educate and emancipate women. The birth rate is in serious decline in most first-world countries--to the extent that governments (Germany, for example) are concerned with a projected lack of workers.

So if rich capitalist countries by and large have lower birth rates and stronger environmental laws, shouldn't we work toward having more rich capitalist countries?

[bae]

Since you're taking the broad view, why limit your vision to Planet Earth?

Because in the timespan I specified, I don't see the human species being able to deplete the resources of this solar system (though there are some Stupid Tricks we could do to mess up solar input o the planet we live on).

As far as I can tell, for the immediate present, most of our species has to live on this planet, so I was hoping we could agree we'd all like to keep it a pleasant place to be.

The end is the childishly easy part. It's the means that present the difficulty. We do in fact need to argue over the details if we want to progress beyond the navel-gazing stage.

If we can't get people to agree that they want the goal (Planet Earth isn't trashed), then it's a bit more difficult to discuss details. I've found it is good to get agreement on deliverables before boldly leaping into solutions/implementations, especially if resources/time are limited.

How do we go about persuading or forcing the world's population to accept the sort of resource and reproductive rationing people here seem to favor?

I'm not sure forced rationing is needed, or the best way. True cost accounting by requiring externalities to be handled by those who produce them would seem to produce a pretty quick course correction.

For instance, my farmland is currently being managed in a sustainable fashion. Our topsoil is accretive, and doesn't wash into the salmon stream behind the property. We don't have chemicals being discharged into that watershed either. It is more expensive in some ways to farm this way, and we charge a premium price for our products, because some local consumers share our values. Other producers do differently, and their watersheds are full of topsoil and chemicals, and their usable soil depth diminishes every year unless they truck in more material, which is itself not an ideal practice. If those producers were not allowed to foist the costs and impacts of their agricultural practices onto the nearby communities without any reckoning, perhaps they'd farm differently, or at least pay enough in fines to clean up the damage. My stream has salmon, the one the next valley over is dead. Go figure.

[LDAHL]

True cost accounting by requiring externalities to be handled by those who produce them would seem to produce a pretty quick course correction.

As an accountant I heartily agree with and support this assertion. However, accounting is a necessary but not sufficient condition for civilization, Other conditions required would be a respect for law and the technical ability to objectively calculate "externalities".

I could see this approach possibly working in Western Europe or North America, assuming we could come to some agreement on what the externalities were (which won't always be easy, with all the unintended consequences that will certainly crop up over the long term). But if we can't currently expect, say China to compensate Canada for damage done to Canada by China's coal-fired plants, doesn't it seem that this viewpoint won't prevail until we become Planet Canada?

There are plenty of nations or semi-nations out there flouting international rules in areas as diverse as intellectual property, immigration, freedom of the seas, debt repayment and even piracy and slavery. Even traditional allies have difficulty in areas like fisheries management or off-shore oil exploration.

[kib]

I came across a youtube that talks about degrowth - the concept of basically slowing down the economy on purpose to slow resource use, without creating a recession. 5 minute discussion. Sounds nifty - what am I missing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MXP2E09dJQ

[catherine]

I came across a youtube that talks about degrowth - the concept of basically slowing down the economy on purpose to slow resource use, without creating a recession. 5 minute discussion. Sounds nifty - what am I missing?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MXP2E09dJQ

Great little video, kib! One of my favorite transition activists at the moment, and I've referenced him here quite a lot, is Charles Eisenstein--and he addresses degrowth in his book Sacred Economics, which is a great book, and in the spirit of the gift economy, he offers online for free.

Here's his chapter on degrowth: http://sacred-economics.com/sacred-e...wth-economics/

[kib]

Thank you, Catherine. I think he should be required reading, this is excellent.