Alberta, Septiembre/September 2009
16
ALTERNATIVA Latinoamericana
ENGLISH SECTION
By Nora Fernández
EDITORIAL:
Is
the
end
of
the
world
as
we
know
it . . .
It is increasingly obvious that
humanity faces the biggest challenge
ever. We are at a global crossroad
that involves not only the meltdown of
the economic system (of pillage and
plunder) but also the limits of our
world´s capacity to sustain us.
Food, energy, fresh water -we
are eshausting and contaminating the
home we inhabit, we are "pooping" in
our nest, and this is fatal. We have
depleted the oceans, used up the
soils and driven many species into
extinction (right now there are 16.928
species threatened). But, for the
most part we do not seem committed
to change our ways, on the contrary
we continue to invest most, if not all
our energies in either denying the true
challenge we face or trying frantically
to resuscitate the dying system of
pillage and plunder that brought us where we are
today.
It worries me that when this topic is
discussed int is complexity people react by
interpreting concerns as "pessimism" and
recommending those who challenge our current
ways a "more positive" attitude or outlook.
Others agree that in fact we face a huge
challenge but interpret as impossible to do
anything about it; thus, they recommend us to
stop worrying and forget about what cannot be
changed. Either perspective is very human and
yet unacceptable as it condems us to a
collapse.
We need to understand better what we face
without falling into denial or indifference; thus, we
may be able to take responsibility for making the
changes that need to be made towards a
sustainable future. Because, regardless of
whether we see this crossroad we face as a
wonderful opportunity to mend our ways creating
more balanced lifestyles for a sustainable future,
or we simply understand that we have come to
the end of the "pillage and plunder" road and, if
we are fortunate, we may still have a future
provided we learn to live in respect and harmony
with each other and nature, we still have to act.
Smarter than Bacteria
We still need to prove whether we are in
fact smarter than bacteria growing in a Petri
dish. I believe, we are finally starting to see, that
our planet, like the Petri dish, is finite, even if it is
large, and certainly much larger than a dish.
Thus, we need to start thinking ways of
managing our voracity for growth or, like
bacteria, we may end "cannibalizing" each other
when resources end.
It seems that "our way of life" is not coming
to an end mainly because it is unfair, exploitative
or even criminal -all good enough reasons, in my
view, to send it into the waste basket. No, our
way of life, is confronting its own inevitable
nemesis: its own success in growing. We have
grown so much, and have such faith in growth
itself, that we have reached the limit faster and
our way of life is turning into "our way of death".
The famous physicist from India, Vandana
Shiva, has pointed repeatedly the fragility of the
web of life that sustains us and the planet and
the need to invest in this web, something
Western civilization doesn´t seem to want to
understand. Thus, life itself will have to teach us
this.
Understanding where we are
Chris Martenson, in his "Crash Course" on
the challenges we face these times and in
connection with the economic meltdown that
came upon us, questions a few dominant
assumptions upon which "our way of life" has
been built.
He identifies the economy, energy and the
environment as crucial and explains a few basic
ideas we need to know if we are to be able to
understand our situation in the world today.
Martenson challenges, for example, the myth
that "growth is good and that it equals
prosperity." He argues instead that growth and
prosperity are not the same, in fact they
compete with each other for any available
surplus. Thus, we can invest the surplus on
growth, and become "bigger", or we can invest it
on prosperity, and build a better future.
Although growth is not in itself a good thing,
we are led to believe that growth is always good.
Larger shopping centers, more consumption,
larger houses, bigger cars, larger portions of
food, more of everything, including more people
in the planet (or a larger market). Thus, rather
than thanking the people who decide to have a
single child or not to have children, we often
condem them, perceiving them as "cold,
uncaring, selfish, or egoist." And yet, thank to
their choice of limiting growth the demographic
pressure the planet faces diminishes, giving us
more time to solve the challenge of too many
people sharing limited resources. The truth is
that Earth can sustain a limited number of us,
and no matter how large the number, we are
approaching the limit at increasing fast pace.
Martenson explains also the concept of
exponential growth: the "hockey stick pattern"
common to most biological functions, including
bacteria growth on a Petri dish and our growth
on our planet. Exponential growth identifies
growth occurring at a small, but constant, rate
over time. At some point exponential growth
reaches a number and turns the corner, this is
when "speeding up" emerges. In truth speeding
up has more to do with the capacity of an
environment, and actual size, than with growth
itself. In an infinite open system we would never
be concerned about speeding up. But most
systems relevant to us are finite.
Speeding us for us humans means that if it
took us almost 700 years to reach a population
level of 1 billion people, it took us less that that to
reach the 2 billion people mark (100 years) and
even less to reach the 3 billion people mark, and
so on. Speeding up means that once we turn the
corner in our finite system (Earth) the time we
have to deal with huge amounts of change is
increasingly smaller. We learn this is high
school biology but rarely reflect on how
exponential functions affect our lives.
This past weekend, while at a Emergency
at a hospital in Halifax, I met Iris. She is a senior
and reminded me with her simple comment that
we even feel that things are moving faster. This
feeling has something to do with us getting older
but it has much to do with what we experience
everyday. We have increased our activity levels
ourselves, we keep our children busier too, we
use faster means of transportation, have faster
communication tools, and we seem to be
reaching for the world. We may no even know
how to slow down any more. It is a challenge for
us to sit and reflect, to pay attention to small
details, and to the rate at which things move.
Martenson discusses also the concept of
"compounding," crucial because in exponential
growth much of the action happens in conexion
with compounding when things are
moving faster and we have less time
to make crucial decisions. Thus, he
explains, "there is simply not a lot of
maneuvering room once you hop on
the vertical portion of a compound
graph." To understand this
Martenson recommends Dr. Albert
Bartlett´s paper, who provides an
interesting example on the practical
meaning of this. I encourage you to
read it at:
www.chrismartenson.com/
dr_albert_bartlett.
Dr. Bartlett explains the
powerful importance of the
exponential function saying: "The
greatest shortcoming of the human
race is the inability to understand the
exponential function." You can
access Martenson´s crash course of
twenty lessons at this address:
http:/
/www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse
.
Martenson's Relevance
In discussing the exponential function
Martenson contributes to our awareness that we
are committed to a way of life that is no longer
sustainable: population is growing exponentially
while energy has reached its peak (it will not only
be less of it available but it will be more costly to
extract) but also our environment cannot sustain
much more growth. Yet, our thinking fails to
understand or consider the complex challenges
these facts pose to our very existence. We
continue to favour growth even when growth is
no longer viable. We invest our surplus in the
wrong place.
Another contribution Martenson makes is
identifying four positions people take along a
gradient of possibilities in connection with the
challenge we face today. There some (a) who
see today's situation as part of the cycles our
economy undergoes and merely await for the
return of the status quo. There are others who
(b) see the current situation as a prolonged
recession, maybe even a depression. There are
yet other who (c) see the situation as a financial
system collapse, and yet those (d) who believe
is the possible collapse of the US government.
Regardless of where we locate ourselves in this
gradient, there are things we can do, argues
Martenson, to protect ourselves. He goes on to
discuss a framework for action which includes
self-assessment, possibilities and alternatives,
and prioritizing. It is an exercise that can develop
our increased understanding of where we are
and our options. It is, however, quite
individualistic, even if Martenson often explains
that the challenge we face is beyond individuals.
It seems difficult for him to transcend individual
action, to favour organized collective political
action.
Some of the points Martenson raises have
been raised by others. His argument that the
current dominant economic paradigm (growth
based and addicted to growth) is impossible to
sustain has been noted. That the paradigm
dependance on oil and gas, resources that are
past their peak, when other resources are not
able to take their place (neither nuclear, nor
solar, or wind or other forms of energy) has also
been discussed. The fact that we are
experiencing bio-system stress -depleted high
quality soils, oceans, other species is also
common in the literature. It all point to the reality
that the dominant paradigm is unsustainable,
including from a financial perspective. The US
total debt is 48 trillions, meaning that each
person in the US owes U$S 183.000, more than
U$S 700.000 per household. Debt is a claim on
"future human labour" argues Martenson as
others have pointed and, he adds, current levels
of debt assume, falsely, that US GDP
will be larger in the future than it is
today, which is impossible (even
current GDP numbers are inflated
by fuzzy stats). Martenson´s