[GJM] Comments from Dave Ewoldt: Re: Peak Oil, Climate Change and Monbiot's plans of

[marguerite hampton]

 Dear Dave -  Thanks for your comments for Co-learner's to consider.
I've interspersed some futher comments in the dialog below. 

eco 
 
-------Original Message-------
 
From: Dave Ewoldt
Date: 12/08/06 10:44:52
To: marguerite hampton
Subject: Re: Fw: Peak Oil, Climate Change and Monbiot's plan
 
On 7 Dec 2006 at 20:20, marguerite hampton wrote:
 
>  Somehow, this seems to be another one of those Catch 22 scenarios because
> if you reduce energy sufficiently to slow global warming then you place
> billions of people in an untenable economic position. . . . 
 
Hi Marguerite... (snip personal note) 
 
I think there are a couple of major assumptions in your statement that
revolve
around the control story of the Global Monetocracy. One of them concerns the
manner in which we often unthinkingly accept these assumptions.
 
A person will not die if either human created energy or money is withheld.
They
will die if either food or water is withheld, and depending on the climate,
shelter. But we need to separate these two concepts. 

eco:  Dave, this is one of my points -- apparently, most of us are not
willing to get 
out of our comfort zone in order to create the transformation to a
sustainable living
culture that we need to do in order to live.  

Dave continues:  
 
The global economy, especially in its current guise of the Industrial Growth
Society, requires increasing amounts of energy to keep growing. But let's be
honest about where the majority of that growth is going--CEO salaries,
shareholder wealth, mergers and acquisitions--basically accumulation of
property and paper wealth in order to confer power.
 
But let's analyze what this means as well. Money isn't an intrinsic aspect
of
power. Simply having money doesn't make one powerful, correct, or better. To
_confer_ power means to legitimize a story.
 
>  they prefer to keep their jobs and live as long as possible with the
> current lifestyle rather than face the horrific possibilities associated
> with the economic collapse that would result from a sudden change in
energy
> consumption without a reasonable substitute.
 
People like to keep their jobs partly because they like to be contributing
members of their community. A sudden change in energy consumption will cause

an economic collapse in one sector of society--the elites--and the rest of
society
will relocalize. Yes, it will lead to population decreases, but I think we
can
keep this fairly humane over the next few decades by putting a little bit of
effort into it.

eco:  Dave, I do agree with this.  Someone wrote an article the other day
saying
that the survivors of this crisis will in all likliehood be the worldwide
migrants who
have already been forced off of their land and are learning to survive 
flying by 
the seat of their pants" as they go.  It won't be those of us who can't
survive without
the "cushy" but deadly lifestyle we've created for ourselves and are
addicted to 
even though it has cost us our souls. 

Dave again:  
 
We also need to realize that about 50% of the electricity generated today
doesn't even get used, it is lost in transmission over the national central
grid. I've seen some analysis that point to about half of the electricity
people do use in their homes is unnecessary--phantom loads, hair dryers, etc

Having to walk or bicycle to the store or work would be an inconvenience for
most people by today's standards, but hardly life-threatening. It would
improve
most people's health, and it would hasten the creation of urban eco-villages

which is one form of sustainable development that will occur under
relocalized
steady-state economies.
 
Most of what I've heard from the free energy advocates so far seems to be
based
on the assumption that the growth economy must be protected and preserved in
order to keep our quality of life. But this merely protects our standard of
living.
 
Much of the "conventional wisdom" (that which maintains the status quo)
revolves around finding a non- or minimally-polluting source of energy to
replace fossil fuels in order to keep the economy growing and create more
jobs
(not different jobs). The rationalization for this is to combat what is
referred to (supposedly to minimize public panic) as global climate change,
but
is actually catastrophic climate destabilization (CCD). This also serves to
keep the focus on the increase of greenhouse gases, as if they're the only
contributing factor to CCD, or the only one important enough to be dealt
with.
Sometimes in passing deforestation and other forms of natural resource
depletion are mentioned, but the need to address these is generally ignored
by
the spokespeople for the status quo.
 
Why might this be, you could be reasonably expected to wonder? Why all the
emphasis on a techno-fix to only those factors contributing to CCD that don
t
cause us to call into question the underlying assumptions of either
Industrialism or its growth economy? The only reason I can find is that to
mention any of these other aspects brings into sharp focus the inconvenient
truth that the Western lifestyle of increasing consumption and infinite
economic growth is slowly killing us and the planet!
 
We're told our way of life is non-negotiable; that the overall project of
free-
market capitalism is increasing the quality of life. But what type of
quality
of life requires 50% of the population to be dependent on at least one
prescription drug, and 20% on three or more, in order to tolerate or make it
through the day? What type of quality of life has caused American to be
ranked
next to last out of 150 countries on the happiness scale? What type of
quality
of life increases net poverty, increases personal debt, and further widens
the
wealth gap? What type of quality of life causes the average American's "body
burden" of toxic chemicals and industrial pollutants to be at a level, if
the
body were regulated by the EPA, where it would qualify for regulation as a
Superfund cleanup site? What type of quality of life has actually decreased
average life expectancy, increased infant mortality, and increased rates of
nearly every malady known?
 
I mean, is this really the lifestyle we want to preserve? Is this why our
loved
ones are dying in Iraq? How much deeper could we possibly bury our heads 
in the sand?
 
Since it is our lifestyles that are causing the problems, the major aspect
of
the change that must occur is social, not technological. Social changes,
however, would disrupt (at the very least) the control centers of power.

eco:  agree that the major aspect of change is going to be social, but the
social in turn  will affect technology and how work is accomplished.  This
will have a major effect on social organization and the future of
civilization. 
Civilization was built on topsoil and we have tried to substitute technology

for topsoil and it just isn't working.   

I think when the shit hits the fan, most people's inclination will be to
step
out of the way and go somewhere it's not blowing so hard. I have a very hard
time seeing power-down as the death knoll of civilization.

eco:  Power-down alone, won't do it, but when you combine economic 
down-turn with the hardship that will bring, coupled with CCD and the 
forced migration it will bring, turning almost everyone's life upside down,
then I do believe that civilization will be hard hit to survive.      
 
> We have to stop "particalizing this" and look at the whole scenario
through
> holodynamic lenses.  But,what is apparentl is most of the world
inhabitants
> today are incapable of thinking holodynamically and are stuck in a linear
mode.
> And it is impossible to deal with or manage reality from a linear point of
> view.  This IMHO is the major blockage to moving forward in some sort of
> coordinated effort.
 
Here's one of my little nits. I basically agree, but think a slight
reframing
would be helpful, in part to inspire our own motivation that what we're
suggesting and doing is possible.
 
I think every human (barring some sort of severe neurological damage) is
perfectly capable of thinking holistically. The ability to do so is a
natural
inheritance. We are systems, born from a system, and have at least 53 ways
of
knowing and interacting with the world and the natural systems principles
that
support the continuation and enjoyment of life. Western culture attempts to
subjugate these tendencies, but look at how much effort is required to do
so--
education, media, politics, jobs, and automobile dependent sprawl and
separation.
 
Yes, this is a severe blockage, but it doesn't really take all that much to
trigger the rebuilding of these long disused and abused neural pathways.
What's
required is the initial effort and having a viable alternative to present.

eco:  Dave from my research for The Sacred Quest, what it takes is to 
entrain both hemispheres of the brain with the "heart brain" so that the
"natural" or "Christ-like consciousness," that I keep referring to, is able
to
emerge.  What is holding us in our current pattern is the "dissociation" we
have  from our natural Earth system, which is really our life support 
system," and as a substitute, we reated an "aberrant"  (alienated) lifestyle
 
due to an "over-dependence" upon technology which has served to suppress 
the basic qualities of life which were inherent at the beginning of our
social 
evolution.   These qualities such as: community, natural living, equality, 
vitality, and belonging, were largely the things that gave meaning to our
lives 
-- were the basis of *soul*.  Since these qualities are increasingly non-
evident, 
as a collective consciousness, our society is now very open to "addiction"
as 
it strives to fill the emptiness left when the basic qualities, which gave
meaning 
to our lives, disappeared.   

Technology, while exciting, doesn't provide for the "substance" from which
we
drew sustenance.  Consequently, we glom on to it and keep trying to fill up 
the emptiness inside as does the alcoholic or the drug addict.  But there is
never "enough" to fill the hole -- we keep demanding more and more. .

The cure for us is to "de-emphasize" technology while at the same time
bringing back and re-emphasizing the basic qualities of life -- the more
feminine aspects of ourselves, so that we are "balanced". . 

But instead, we seem  to focus on "job-creation" and the reward of 
money it brings.  But as you write, we won't die from lack of money or
jobs, particularly if we know "how to fish" -- and what I'm referring to is
the quote:
from the cover of Stephen Covey's book:  "Principle-centered Leadership".
"Give a  man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach him to fish and you
feed him for a lifetime".  Let's insert "job" and "entrepreneur" here and
read 
"Give a wo/man a job and you feed him/her for a day; teach a wo/man how to 
be  an entrepreneur, and he/she  will feed themselves (and family) for a
lifetime.  

It appears to me that a return to re-localization means a return to
entrepreneurship.
Which the human family practiced in the beginning before any one knew how to

create jobs or had any concept as to 'slave labor".  Entrepreneurship
provides 
dignity it seems to me while employment drags along the irons of "indenture"
with
it.  And, I feel that's the problem with money also as related to "hiring"
-- it always 
connotates "servitude" -- the exchange is always unequal due to the power we

give to money in our society. 

eco       
 
 
 
For the Earth...
_dave_(this entire message is composed of recycled electrons)
Natural Systems Solutions
http://www.attractionretreat.org/NSS
Sustainable lifestyles, organizations, and communities
 
 
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