What Should We Do?

Soil-building is one of the answers.

There will be no great leader, this time.

Many have commented that a mass mobilization, on the scale of World War II, is what we need, right now, to prepare for peak oil and preserve a habitable climate and biosphere. There are a number of logical and practical issues with this notion.

First, no one in a position to be a leader -- say, the President, a member of Congress, a Governor, a respected (hah) national news correspondent -- has shown either (a) any understanding of the magnitude of the crises we face or (b) any inclination to be an actual leader on these issues. Instead, we get nonsensical screeds on American "exceptionalism," which I must put in quotation marks due to the fact of its not being either a word or a remotely coherent idea.

Second, the analysis of some very intelligent and thoughtful people (see, e.g., the Hirsch Report) has shown that we would need a WWII-scale mobilization twenty years in advance of oil peaking to successfully avert a peak oil-based global economic and political collapse. Since peak crude oil was five years ago, in 2006, and we are now at the final edge of the "undulating plateau" of oil production, this opportunity was lost nearly 25 years ago.

Third, we have already left the geologic epoch known as the Holocene (from holos = whole, and cene = new; thus: wholly new), which began about 11,700 years ago, and during which we had the steady, stable climate which permitted human civilization to develop for the first time on Earth (anatomically modern Homo sapiens first appeared over 200,000 years ago, and behaviorally-modern humans first appeared about 50,000 years ago). The Holocene is over; we have now entered what geologist call the Anthropocene (from anthropo = human), an epoch characterized by the global extent and impact of human activities on the Earth. This new epoch will be distinguished by (among other things) an increasingly chaotic climatic system, leading to regional and possibly global food shortages, the inundation of human settlements by rising flood waters, continent-sized Dust Bowls in North America and elsewhere, tens or hundreds of millions of environmental refugees, political and economic collapse, regional unrest, disruptions in the shipment of vital materials (such as food, energy, minerals), etc.

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As an aside, I will note that part of the reason for this chaotic climate change is that we have already blown past the global carbon budget by at least 40, if not 90, parts per million (ppm). Present concentrations of CO₂ in the atmosphere stand at about 390ppm. For at least the past 400,000 years, those levels never went much over 300ppm, and the current rate of increase (2ppm / year) is about 10,000 times the natural rate. Just as with our oil addiction, we have missed our deadline for keeping atmospheric carbon at safe levels by over 20 years.

In other words, in almost ever sense, we have overshot. Too many people consuming too many resources dumping too much pollution and waste into a finite global ecosystem. Every year in which we continue to add carbon to the atmosphere, just as every year in which we fail to ween ourselves off of our oil and lifestyle addiction, is another year in which are digging our own collective grave.

Cheerful, huh?

As I said above, and for the reasons already outlined (plus many more besides), don't expect any person purporting to represent that entity known as the United States (or most any other "nation-state") to take any proactive steps on these issues. Don't expect anyone to exhort you, or your neighbors, to take up any great national cause that might effectively meet these foolishly self-imposed threats. You've got no one but yourself, as hard as that sounds. At most, you've got your immediate geographic community; hopefully, that community is organizing, as Lancaster is, around a Transition movement that recognizes the present importance of these issues, and is seeking ways to meet them positively.

So, you've read the above and you agree on the three following propositions: (1) we are in for some hard times ahead, (2) no one is going to help us but ourselves and maybe our friends, and (3) we need to start working now. So what do we actually do?

The bottom pyramid doesn't look terribly stable, does it?

There are very few things I know for sure on this subject, but thanks to some pretty clear statistics this is one of them: start growing your own food. As I showed in a presentation on October 24, 2009 (the 350.org Global Day of Action and Eastern Market's first annual Green Fest), the United States has a woefully inadequate supply of farmers right now. Over 170 years ago, in 1840, before the advent of industrialism and widespread use of fossil fuels, the world had a basically solar-powered economy. The sun shown, grass and trees grew, and humans and animals ate food that had been cultivated with human and animal labor in a basically (though not entirely) closed-loop system whose driving energy source was the sun. At that time, 69% of the population of the USA, or 11.7 million people (out of 17 million), was directly involved in farming. In 2008, nationally, that percentage was below 0.62%, or 1.9 out of 304 million. In other words, we had more farmers in 1840 than we have now. Since it is pretty clear to most observers that this extraordinary feat has been made possibly by basically free energy, in the form of coal, oil, and natural gas, it becomes clear that one of the pressing needs we will feel as that free energy disappears is for more farmers -- and farm animals -- to directly work the land.

As a supporting statistic, I will note that, for every one calorie of food you consume, approximately 10 calories of fossil fuel-based energy (primarily oil and natural gas) was required as an input. Or, to put it another way, Americans consume, on average, about 400 gallons of gasoline-equivalent annually to produce our food. It also turns out that a barrel of oil is worth about 11.3 person-years of labor. The amount of energy we shovel into the US food system is thus equivalent to about 33 billion person-years of labor (or nearly 5x the population of Earth -- just to feed the USA). If that sounds like a lot, you're right.

Left: nutrient-poor oxisol. Right: an oxisol transformed into fertile terra preta using biochar. (source)

All is not lost! The first step in solving your problem, as they say, is recognizing that you have one. Well, we can check that step off the list. Step two is knowing where you need to get. Well, I would say, in the context of this post, "where we need to get" is a place that has a sustainable food supply, which means we need more farmers working the land directly with the help of domesticated animals and very little, if any, fossil fuels. This will mean, among other things, much smaller farms; but that's ok and even good, because it has been shown that small farms produce more food per acre than large farms. We also need to reduce and then stop emissions of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, and then move to start taking carbon out of the atmosphere (to get from 390ppm CO₂ to under 350ppm). Well, damn! Our idea of de-urbanizing and putting more people back on the land as farmers will also help with that as well, as it has been shown that good stewardship of the land and husbandry of animals can actually build topsoil, which means that small farms could actually become carbon sinks rather than carbon sources (topsoil is a reservoir of carbon), especially if they make use of biochar. Might we actually see a return to a stable climate? Well, not in your lifetime, but maybe in your grandchildren's. We need to take the long view on this one. After all, it has taken well over a century to utterly erode the Earth's life-support systems, and it'll probably take much longer than that to restore them. And restoration ought to be our mission.

How likely is all this? Not very, if you're waiting for someone on high to tell you to do it. Doubly unlikely, if you think you can sit idly by doing what you've always done while waiting for your neighbor to take care of all the hard work. Nevertheless, it is possible. If step one is recognizing the problem, and step two is having a vision for the future, then step three is getting there (or maybe having a plan for getting there, followed by getting there, if you are a planner like me).

So how will we get there? What will you do? I look forward to your thoughts.

Hurtling Towards the Wall

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If anyone ever wonders why I seem to obsessively forward on information of this nature (in the Transition Lancaster newsletter), a little reflection should provide the answer: it is simply impossible for a human being to maintain his sanity and believe himself to be alone in his knowledge. I am following a compulsion buried deep in my evolutionary nature.

From the Inter Press Service in Paris:

PARIS, Jan 24, 2011 (IPS) - Despite repeated warnings by environmental and climate experts that reduction of fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions is fundamental to forestalling global warming, disaster appears imminent. According to the latest statistics, unprecedented climate change has Earth hurtling down a path of catastrophic proportions.

It would be a mistake to regard this as hyperbole. We know, for instance, that sea-level rise this century is almost certainly to be in the multi-meter range, meaning a minimum of around 20' from present levels; this will inundate most every major metropolitan center in the US, from Miami to Boston. Flooding is already devastating many coastal communities worldwide. We know that a continent-sized Dust Bowl is growing now in the heart of North America, not to mention Africa, Asia and Europe. The world's coral are being driven to extinction -- and they have been present on Earth for over 540 million years. Occupying less than one-tenth of one percent of the world ocean surface, reefs nevertheless shelter around 25% of all marine species. Many of the world's peoples depend upon reefs for food, not to mention flood protection and tourist dollars.

Thank God for the economic collapse:

[Global greenhouse gas emissions], measured as equivalent to carbon dioxide, reached at least 32 billion tonnes last year, only one step below the most pessimistic scenario imagined by the IPCC in 2000: 33 billion tonnes of CO2.

The results for 2010 were conditioned by the present global economic crisis – meaning that under normal economic circumstances, the numbers would have been higher. In other words, total consumption of energy in 2010 would have been worse than the most pessimistic scenario the IPCC formulated ten years ago had the global economy been in better shape.

And more on this century of challenges:

According to the newest IPCC estimations, global temperatures may rise as much as eight degrees Celsius [14.4°F] by the year 2200.

Levermann explained that the temperature difference within an interglacial period, such as the one we are living now, have historically reached about five Celsius degrees.

"The transition between these temperature extremes lasted some 50,000 years in the past," Levermann said. "But at the present rate of [greenhouse gas emissions] we are reducing such a transition by 50 times."

He added that the rapid rising of global temperatures could provoke extreme weather catastrophes that humankind won’t be able to survive.

"The rising frequency of weather extremes, with their enormous social and economic consequences, would not allow public budgets to recuperate, nor give societies the time to breathe again," Levermann said. "Nor would insurance companies be able to compensate for the damages."

Levermann echoed earlier warnings that climate change could destroy countries such as Bangladesh, cities situated near the oceans, such as New York and Amsterdam, and make large parts of Africa uninhabitable.

"Climate change would destroy drinking water supplies, agriculture, habitats, and provoke giant waves of migration and mass mortality," he explained.

Levermann compared the consequences of global warming to a wall hidden in fog. "We cannot see the wall, but it is there. And we are driving at the highest possible speed towards it."

And people wonder why I seem so concerned. I will blog later on the efforts some are making to put us on a WWII-type footing to deal with this appropriately. Strict energy rationing and a rapid transition to a fossil fuel-free way of life would be good starts. Local transition movements only set the stage for this move to very necessary nation- and global-scale efforts.

The Story of What Could Be

It won't be easy. (source)

I wrote this originally back on July 4. Though most of us have forgotten about the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon and the catastrophic and seemingly endless oil spill that resulted, the legacy remains, and will continue to remain, for decades. This story is about what that legacy could be, if we wanted it badly enough.

In the beginning, there was an oil spill. The worst spill in the history of spills. The worst spill imaginable. Unlike past spills, this one came  from a bottomless cup: the Earth. During the worst of it -- and every day seemed the worst -- the people of the world sometimes felt the Earth was bleeding out every last drop of oil. A wound, that's what it was. Not a spill, but a wound -- an arterial cut so deep we sometimes felt the Earth itself would die. Or that we would die. We wished for death -- of ourselves, of the other, of the person responsible--

--But this isn't that story. This is not a story of death, nor murder, but of redemption. This is a story of healing. It begins with anger, rage, pain, despair, it is true, but that is only the beginning.

So we have a wound, a deep wound. It was -- and is -- a terrible thing. No one would wish for this wound, for any reason. But it woke us up to the fact that it was and is but one wound among many. It stood up alongside the raping of the forests, the poisoning of the atmosphere, the destruction of the top soil and the desertification of our souls as but one of the great crimes of Man. This wound was simply so large it finally could not be ignored, as much as we would have liked to.

It woke us up; and, like dreamers rudely awakened, we sat as in a daze, gazing at our works -- and a terrible fear grew. We had destroyed the Gulf, bled it dry. Nothing could be done, we thought. In our despair, we imagined an endless welling up of oil. We were not far wrong. Oh, these were bad times.

--Yet, I spoke of redemption earlier, and healing. Can you see it? It is germinating -- right there, in the fear and despair. Some might tell you that nothing good can come of such things, but they have this to say for them: they begin the process, the necessary process, of stripping away illusions. At first, in our fear, we tried many things. Anything we could think of to staunch the flow of oil. "Top hats", "top kills", "junk shots", giant hoses and centrifuges to vacuum it up. Meaningless to you, I know, but to us, briefly, they were everything: we placed all our hopes in these strange techniques, these magics. They all failed. When they failed, as they must have, we tried blame. We blamed the corporatists most involved in the catastrophe. We blamed the bureaucrats who let it happen and the politicians who failed in their sworn duties. All this was right, and just -- partly. In the end, we couldn't help ourselves, we continued to point fingers, pointing on and on till none were left to be singled out but we ourselves. Who purchased the oil so drilled? In plastics, pesticides, pseudo-foods, dish detergents, children's toys, gasoline for our mammoth cars and heating oil for our gargantuan, far-away homes, our make-believe castles. We purchased the oil, bought with blood and destroyed livelihoods and crippled ecologies. We burned it and poisoned the air and acidified the waters. We came to understand that, even without the endless spill, the oceans were under such aggressive assault they had mere decades left, anyway. We came to realize that we, that we were the ones. We caused the spill.

Many shook their heads, they denied, they fought, they justified... but eventually all that fell away. When the visible poison swept through the Florida Keys and on to the Atlantic, nothing sufficed. Justifications could not stand before that endless spill. It stopped mouths and quelled hearts. There was silence, but for the tide; silence, but for the weeping.

***

From that silence sprang a new resolve. We came to know that our only path forward must begin with a realization -- an acknowledgment -- of failure, the utter and absolute failure of modern industrial civilization to protect and preserve the foundation of all things -- the land, sea and air. That path continued with the deep determination to restore and repair. We had lost all possibilities for happiness, for happiness depends on happenstance, on chance, on good fortune, and those were nowhere more to be found. But we did find joy, the unfathomable, ineffable joy that comes from good work righteously pursued. Our work to restore the Earth -- and our proper places in it -- required almost all the energies of humankind. We began with the Gulf. As you know, children, that work continues, two and more generations removed from the final cut that woke us up. Many more it will continue -- but it progresses. We believe that one day it will be restored, and work tirelessly for that day.

Though that work took (and is taking) longer than we had initially hoped, we no longer sought the counsel of despair, and instead put our hands and minds and spirits to work elsewhere, everywhere -- repairing, restoring. What else was there to do? Nothing. But there was nothing else we wanted to do. We rebuilt the soil, planted trees, cleaned the streams, the rivers, the estuaries -- all water became sacred to us again. ...We left. That was the most important thing, in many ways. We left places we never should have been in the first place, and shrunk our right places that had grown too large. The cities became comprehensible again and the countryside had stewards again, and in between -- wilderness.

Couldn't resist.

The work goes on, and will continue forever. What is to be done with the toxic waste, the radioactive poisons? Nothing but to guard forever. Sufficient cause to continue to exist. What is to be done about the upended mountains? Nothing, but to wait for the Earth to shrug her great shoulders. More than sufficient cause to continue to watch and protect. The cleared forests? We plant trees wherever we can, always with great consideration for their placement in relation to others... but we know it will be many generations -- hundreds if not thousands of years -- before they can truly restore themselves. We certainly cannot do that, yet we can help, we can speed the process.

This, as you know, is our joy. It is our reason. Our Great Purpose: the Restoration. What else is there? Nothing. What else could we want? Nothing.

Go now, children, play; an old man needs his rest.

Both Damned and Saved; or, The Inner Transition

I hope not. (source)

There are many types of transition we must go through to reach the better world we all believe -- or want to believe -- is out there. I consistently return to the conclusion that the most important, most fundamental transition, is the internal (psychological) one. Using less energy, walking and bicycling instead of driving, eating locally and more efficiently (i.e., having a higher vegetable/meat ratio), reducing waste, and composting (etc.) are all important, yet they're all insufficient. Completely. Even all together, they will not even come close to sufficing in the face of everything we know is happening in the world. To me, the true value in these actions lies not in the actions themselves, but in the mindsets or worldviews these actions help to foster. Riding a bicycle, while valuable as a money-saving, pollution-avoiding and health-promoting endeavor, to me finds its true worth in re-introducing us to the joy of using our own bodies and the beauty of the changing seasons -- and to the understanding that the fundamental crime of driving a motorized vehicle is its quiet theft of these experiences from us. It's theft, in essence, of our humanity.

When you know the joy of bicycling, the inner tranquility that a healthy diet promotes, the satisfaction of a near-empty garbage can, you begin to realize how unnecessary are so many modern "conveniences". Not just unnecessary, but actively obstructionist towards a fulfilling life. And that is when Transition becomes truly possible.

Part of the transition is facing up to very difficult facts. In an ideal world, we would have no urgency and could simply amble along the road towards a better world for the simple fact we saw it as a better world. But in the world as it is, we must, in fact, run towards this better world because the one we're leaving behind is crumbling, and threatening to take us with it. I speak, of course, of the twin drivers of the Transition Towns Movement: peak oil and climate change (with a dash of economic crisis thrown in for fun).

This particular post derives much of its motivation from two forces: a speech by Mari Margil of the PA-based Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) on the harsh reality of the state of the global biosphere, as well as a recent special issue of the Royal Society (the world's first scientific body) on the effects of a mere 4°C (7.2°F) of global warming, which could happen as early as 2060. As a practicing planner with an undergrad degree in math and physics, I am well aware of (a) the stark scientific case for why we're all (almost) screwed and (b) the pathetic political case for why (almost) nothing can be done about it. In a fit of depression, I wrote a short, sarcasm-rich version of this post which I have since deleted. I had made the cardinal sin of forgetting to look at things holistically -- looking only at our collapsing biosphere, I had forgotten about peak oil! You see, most of the worst-case scenarios with respect to climate change and global ocean death require something called "business-as-usual" emissions, which rely on a business-as-usual economy. Thank God for peak oil! Without growing oil consumption, the economy can't grow, and without a growing economy, emissions can't grow -- and, in fact, the prime likelihood is for some deepening economic depression that leads to global economic decline if not outright collapse; in this tangled web we call the global economy, the collapse of one major player can only lead to the collapse, sooner or later, of all the others. So we're saved! By collapse. But maybe there are other options....

It is fitting that we should be both damned and saved by our profligate use of polluting fossil fuels, particularly oil. But the extent to which we are saved rather than damned depends utterly on our willingness to make smart decisions now, while other options remain, rather than wait for the unsympathetic laws of physics to decide for us. It is a guarantee that we will not like the ways in which Mother Nature unilaterally restores the natural balance of things. I would like to believe she'd prefer us as active partners in that restoration, rather than passive victims of our own malign neglect. I know I would.

We have fallen under the influence of the strange conception that "sustainable" means "what I'm doing now, but better", where "better" means "more." What we're doing now -- collectively -- is the problem. What we desire is inconspicuous, painless incrementalism, where what we need is radical transformation. 4°C warming by 2060 -- that's a death sentence for the human race. And the fact that the only politically feasible option we have for averting that cataclysm is political collapse points to the extreme level of dysfunction we have reached as a people.

So what are the other options? I return to where I began with the imperative of the internal transition. The major problem is our expectations for the future, which are out of all sync with reality. They are also all out of sync with ourselves -- our hidden humanity. We've allowed ourselves (collectively) to be lulled into false notions of how the world is. The extent to which we are saved rather than damned depends on our ability to make this internal transition, to deny what we think we know and accept the truths of the world as it is. All else follows.

Transition Lancaster Newsletter #51, with much interesting news.

Fabulously Fridgeless Was, Indeed

Kick it to the curb!

I'll have photos soon, but I just wanted to take a moment and thank everyone who attended our first-ever Fabulously Fridgeless event with Jonathan Colon. I think I can speak for all in attendance when I say: truly, truly fabulous. What a fun night.

We made tortillas from scratch just using flour, water, kale and herbs. They were simply delicious with a sprinkling of honey, sea salt, steamed collards and crisp greens --- all fresh, all local (the salt was from Maine).

Then we made squash gnocchi, also from scratch, using a roasted neck pumpkin, flour and herbs, made extra-delicious by a just-made stock from the vegetable scraps, crisped kale, Northeast sunflower seed oil, and more of that Maine sea salt.

Jonathan also took a moment (just a moment) and showed us all how to make fresh pasta. The ease and speed with which he prepared fresh food for thirteen people was truly a joy to behold.

Topped off with a few glasses of wine (some local, some not), we enjoyed the good company till late into the evening.

Given the success of the evening, Jonathan and I are interested in doing this again, possibly on a regular basis. If you're interested, let me know by emailing me at TransitionLancaster(at)gmail(dot)com.

Small is Sustainable

(source)

I had this epiphany while on a walk a few weeks ago, but have been too busy till now to write it down. It is dovetailing with my renewed appreciation for planning, which is, by nature, an incremental art. I was pondering the ever-unfolding economic collapse, and arrived at the conclusion that having limited resources might actually increase the odds of making "sustainable"^* decisions.
This is a point easiest to explain by counter-example (if "small is sustainable", then is large unsustainable?). Consider the national highway system. It took (and is taking) the federal government hundreds of billions of dollars to build and maintain that monstrosity. Only a large, centralized body with access to vast resources (and apparently untapped reserves of hubris) could have conceived of something like that, let alone have built it. And the building of it is one of the many drivers that has set our nation, literally, on the road to ruin.

^*I am uninterested, at this time, in defining the word "sustainable."

So: small is sustainable. With limited resources, one is forced to be creative, resourceful... small. If a mistake is made, terrifying amounts of wealth are not extinguished thereby; it remains a mistake, rather than a catastrophe: one is free to learn and try again. If one succeeds, then others, also of limited means, may learn of that good practice, adapt it to their particular circumstances, and try it themselves. Their success -- or failure -- contributes to the breadth and depth of our collective well of wisdom.

Many small groups experimenting is much better than one centralized entity pooling resources from a large area and rolling the dice. I would not suggest it is never advisable to pool resources, but I am asserting that this ought to be the exception rather than the rule. And just because I'm a hopeless romantic who loves lost causes, here's one exception: universal, single-payer healthcare. This would support small solutions by granting working people and entrepreneurs the freedom to try and fail and move on if and when they choose; there would no longer be a need to stay in a job out of fear of losing all-important health coverage. This enables small enterprise in another way: it lifts the burden of one of the heaviest costs of business, which is caring for employees' health. This is but one example of risk management which, in general, is a sector that benefits from the pooling together of large groups.

Smallness is resilient. The failure of one does not precipitate the failure of another; to the contrary, it may stimulate their improvement by the example of what not to do. Further, the failed, having committed relatively few resources, and presumably surrounded by non-failures, may recover with less delay. Smallness also, by nature, is less interdependent (and more, but not completely, independent). Smallness can't draw on limitless territories for natural and human capital: it must make do with what is close at hand. This contributes to the diversity of experimental solution-finding, but also limits the small's vulnerability to drawn-out resource chains. Consider our situation today, when, by a hilariously perverse (perversely hilarious?) turn of events, the Pentagon finds itself reliant on Chinese rare-earths for key components to its "advanced" weapons systems. Not so "advanced" when they rely on the goodwill of a creditor and powerful economic competitor, eh? Smallness doesn't have that problem... and not least because it probably wouldn't be in the habit of dropping "smart" bombs on some faraway desert to secure the oil it doesn't need.

So, smallness is resilient. But what about the case of systemic failure? This would most likely be the result of neglecting the advice above and tending too far in the direction of centralization of resources and power. As this seems to be where we're trending, however, the question may be worth essaying an answer: in the case of systemic failure, save what's worth saving, discard what's not, and start again. It wouldn't be the first time.

Lancaster County Burn Ban

(source)

I've been meaning to post something on this for weeks -- ever since I first heard it might happen earlier this month, in fact -- and now I'm just going to post something abbreviated before I lose my inspiration totally.

So here's the question: did anyone else, upon hearing of a county-wide burn ban, think to themselves "is this due to global warming?" If you did, you're not alone, although you might be forgiven for thinking so, because there was literally no mention of such a possibility on any of the local news sources I pay attention to, including WITF/NPR and the Lancaster News. (In fact, as an aside, I never hear "global warming" or "climate change" mentioned in connection with strange weather events from these sources.)

For global warming aficionados -- and aren't we all, really? -- this might strike one as rather absurd. You have the hottest year on record, on top of the hottest decade on record, on top of two other previously record-breaking decades, and no one in the media seems to think to themselves "huh. I wonder if this drought which has led to a rash of fires is in any way related to global warming and the extreme weather events it portends?" Now, I don't actually expect a reporter to use a word like "portends", but leave me and my diction alone, ok?

Below is a great image I lifted off the Climate Progress blog. It shows the difference in temperature, in degrees Fahrenheit, between the actual maximum temperature (for the day) and the average maximum temperature, on July 6. You'll notice that, in Central PA, this was apparently in the 12-16 degree range. That's rather a lot. As NASA has pointed out, this is what global warming looks like. We can throw out all the old averages because they're based on a different climate -- the climate of Earth. We live on Eaarth, now. And in Lancaster, that apparently means months with very little rain, higher probability of fires that burn farm fields (and food) and homes... and burn bans.

Weather Underground offers this “plot of the difference between maximum temperature (the high for the day) and average maximum temperature in degrees F for July 6″ (source)