What Next? A Positive Vision of the Future.

After I commented on Tom Friedman's NY Times Column form 3/8/2009, I decided to ask another Green what he thought about it. This is his response. Click Read more!.


What Next? A Positive Vision of the Future.

By Howard Switzer



Seeing Tom Friedman admit that the growth economy was a mistake we cannot continue is something we should encourage many more to do. I think doing what he did may be deeper than simply realizing the level of crisis we've created. It was an admission that he was wrong, that his world view was mistaken and he’s turned his focus to problem solving instead of reacting to perceived fears. I thought it was another sign of the apocalypse, the “lifting of the veil”, the great awakening if you will and many more will follow in an accelerating wave around the world. Well maybe it’s not too great yet but if you look at all the websites and community initiatives pursuing a more sustainable life it begins to look encouraging. Examples include community wise dialogue and listening projects, localized food production, localized fuel production, localized currencies, ecosystem protection and restoration projects, natural building, etc. etc.. All these things and much more speak to an understanding that human well being is threatened and we need to come together around a decentralized system to survive. While some internet activities may seem more a waste of time, the fact that we can find positive efforts to connect people doing good things, besides being a great store of information, is important to informing the human organism. Tom Friedman may be demonstrating the necessary change in attitude toward planet/species, a reversal of the attitude of civilization over the last 6000 years. Paradigm shifts are more a social/political phenomenon than a technological question and have to do with a new worldview and creating whole new structures which are supported by the larger culture. However there are technological artifacts we can probably incorporate into that new worldview.



The system, “Obama World,” is focused on the economic issue at the exclusion of the climate issue and will continue to fail miserably even if they can generate some momentary spurts of economic activity. This is because they not only don’t know what to do but that they work for the banks so any idea of what to do must squeeze through the narrow gate of those interests and all sustainable solutions are much too broad to even come close to getting through. Their list of priorities is anemic and intentionally deceptive. I do think that blogging and twittering endlessly about their machinations has diminishing returns. It seems to me we need to be articulating a positive vision of the future that people can embrace while also hooking people up to something they can dig their toes into. While climate may not make it into the “national dialogue” consider where that dialogue happens, the system’s media. The same media that spoke approvingly of Bush and his agenda and now speaks glowingly of Obama’s agenda. However, on the internet it is not only a national but a planet ‘round dialogue. I also find it is often in the local dialogue because the elders of communities recognize that there are changes, especially in rural areas.

If, as Tom Friedman recently wrote, “we’ve hit the wall,” then what is next? I think the answer is that we clearly articulate a positive vision of the future that millions of people can embrace. So what would be a positive vision of the future? To Greens it would a one that is sustainable. There is much we cannot determine about the future but we can be pretty sure we will be facing less and less fossil fuels, a collapsed global economic system and a climate change. These don’t seem very positive unless you consider them an important catalyst to change in the human organism’s relationship with the planet. The only model of sustainability I know of is that of a healthy mature ecosystem, like a rainforest. That is; one in which every species is fully employed, all work cooperatively while recycling all of their resources, and all products and services are distributed in such a way that every species remains healthy.

Okay, this should be easy; eco-villages full of happy people of all ages employed at growing their own organic foods, medicines and clothing materials, producing energy from the sun, wind & water flows and plants, biologically cleaning water and recycling all materials used; large scale mining would be stopped and metals recycled into their most efficient use in systems for food, healthcare, energy, and transportation, all broadly distributed. Creativity would be encouraged. As many of needed goods as possible would be grown or otherwise produced at the village or regional level. Local credit unions and currencies would be used. Currencies would only be used for a measure of value and a means of exchange. Various forms of non-violent conflict resolution techniques would be utilized as needed. Pre-industrial modes of building using earth, straw, wood, sand and stone, would be utilized in modern passive solar designs. There would be a variety of energy systems, some configurations would produce more than electricity but would also produce fertilizers and bio-char for agriculture, animal and human foods, liquid and gaseous fuels and certain pharmaceuticals utilizing human, animal and plant wastes.

Well, I’ve only begun to fill in this vision, there are doubtless many holes yet to fill, I am only one cell in the human organism. I invite everyone to join in. Whatever the final vision, it will be a collaboration. But there are many roadblocks to any of this happening because we live in a society that is extremely, if not pathologically, polarized. The major divisions include the religious/secular divide related to the science/religion debate and the political divisions we know too well and the divisions within those that we are also familiar with. So a critical part of the vision will be to resolve these polarizations. If we can do that, I believe there is no other party so well positioned to clearly articulate a positive vision of the future that millions can embrace as the Green Party.

If we have hit the wall, what then? Pt. 1

If the major symptom of our economic sickness is the fact that banks are not extending credit, I guess that I need to report things are headed back to normal. I received a credit card promotions in the mail yesterday. That makes 2 for the week. I did not even bother to look to see what the deal was, what the rates were, but it seems that banks want us to spend again.

Still, the bigger question is always whether all of the spending is a good thing.


In my previous post, I cited Tom Friedman and compared his view that our current system is not sustainable with that promulgated by the Center for American Progress. Friedman follows that first column with another that asks a similar question in a more fundamental manner.

What if the crisis of 2008 represents something much more fundamental than a deep recession? What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall — when Mother Nature and the market both said: “No more.”

Wait a miniute%hellip; is this really Tom Friedman, champion of all things global in a very flat world? Or is it that global understanding which led him to be nearly the only writer in our MSM dominated world who is daring to ask that question.

It is clear that Greens would say that Friedman has posed the fundamental question for our economy. Unfortunately, Greens have not reached any consensus as to what we should do about it. To me, that is the invitation to explore a range of solution. For some of this, I will invite a guest blogger or two. I will try to have at least one update per week. Stay tuned.

Progressive Growth?

In an earlier post today, I pointed out the fact that we are not making a lot of progress in getting climate change into the national dialog. The people making the decisions are still willing to put almost everything else ahead of it.

This is just to call attention to yet another discrepancy in how perceptions differ depending on the problems you are trying to solve. While, as I pointed out, Tom Friedman made a glowing reference to the Climate Lack of Progress blog, his real point was about the fact that economic growth is not sustainable.

We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese ...

We can’t do this anymore.

Friedman is right, but no one is listening. I have written before about the influence on the Obama Administration from the Center for American Progress. Here, according to their web home page, are our goals

FOUR PROGRESSIVE PRIORITIES

• Restoring America's global leadership
• Seizing the energy opportunity
• Creating progressive growth
• Delivering universal health care

Not one time do the linked pages contain the idea "sustainable." It is all about seizing the opportunity and making a better life. Consumption corruption is not progressive.

Are we making Climate Progress?

For all the efforts, it would seem that we are beginning to get somewhere. It feels like we are when Tom Friedman refers to Joe Romm's Climate Progress as the "indispensable blog".

Still, I am beginning to wonder if blogging, and twittering is not the new opiate of the people, making them feel good about doing something while the real power is applied behind the scenes to achieve other goals. Yes, I know that I am blogging about this, but the irony is that this is the one outlet that is open to me.



While Friedman is referring his readers to Climate Progress, Times reporter Andrew Revkin has an article on the Heartland Institute sponsored International Conference on Climate Change (Denial). It was a pretty one-sided gathering, reported honestly. What Revkin showed is that there is a large group of people who listen to a minority of scientists and are willing to swallow anything.

Many participants said that any division or dissent was minor and that the global recession and a series of years with cooler temperatures would help them in combating changes in energy policy in Washington.

It appears that the real goal is to not change policies, rather than to understand what is really happening.

At the same time, those of Friedman's readers who follow his link to Climate Progress will find that Romm is a Sr. Fellow at the Center for American Progress. Thus, the name of the blog... Climate Progress. If they were willing to dig around a bit, they might find their way to Romm's opinions on the future of coal or on advisability of pursuing Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) as a way to continue the use of coal despite its proven contributions to greenhouse gas emission.

But I am against anybody thinking that CCS is going to be practical or affordable anytime soon, against people relying on the “false sense of security,” as the Economist put it, that CCS is likely to be a major contributor to national or global CO2 emissions reductions before, say, 2030

While Romm, the scientist, is writing this, the Center for American Progress where he is a Senior Fellow, is making the case for CCS as good policy. Carbon Capture and Sequestration 101 is more than the tutorial that it's title makes it appear. It is a statement of policy imperatives.

Widespread CCS deployment—in combination with other policies to reduce CO2 emissions and diversify energy sources—could be invaluable in meeting our emission reduction goals for greenhouse gases and would encourage the export of CCS technology around the world, particularly to developing nations such as China and India, many of which are depending on low-cost coal to fuel economic growth. The Bush administration’s discontinuation of FutureGen, a power plant employing IGCC, set the process back, as it would have been the world’s first functioning power plant to demonstrate the feasibility of CCS technology. To take the reins on this emerging technology, we must start now with an aggressive program of proper legislation, demonstration projects, and funding backed by political will.

There is a big difference between Romm (a physicist with experience in climate research) and Kenneth Berlin or Robert Sussman. The latter are high powered Washington Lawyers. Berlin's practice at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom has been to represent corporations who were trying to minimize the effects of environmental regulation.

I will believe that we are truly making progress when the Center for American Progress (CAP) puts Romm front and center, rather than their top notch legal protection team. Given the close connection between CAP and the Obama administration, I fully expect to see Romm ignored and the lawyers prevail, carrying us one step closer to Climaticide.