Regenerate Our Planet
This is not just a feel-good sentiment. Returning health, diversity and stability to our ecology is a survival imperative. Simply switching our industry and society to renewable fuel sources is:
A) not able to support the economic output we expect given the structure of our economy and
B) not enough to prevent the likely scenario of ecological systems collapse caused by continued patterns of resource use and waste streams.
Carbon emissions are relevant, but not the most important factor in whether our civilization can create a mutually beneficial relationship with the earth. Healthy ecosystems are the real thing to achieve, carbon emissions are just a clumsy proxy. The metaphor that most clearly guides necessary action is that the earth is a living being, and that the beings she hosts are her cells, and the ecosystems in which they self organize are her organs. Humans, likewise, can be viewed as a global “super organism,” and we need to make conscious choices about what kind of relationship these two global beings should have. I’d like that relationship to be a loving marriage.
Scale Up Perrenial and Regenerative Agriculture ↓
I support massive investment and incentivization in employee owned farms that build soil health, manage lands to promote diversity and health in our crops and farming practices. These investments should be made with forefront in our minds beginning the transition of our food system to perrenial crops that require less energy, tilling and effort.
Energy in the future will be more expensve. Right now, every calorie of food costs us 14 calories of fossil fuel energy. We must bring the "energy cost" of food down if we are to keep a stable society as conventional energy supplies dwindle. That means incentivizing more human powered food system.
Cover cropping is probably the "lowest hanging fruit" in respect to soil health.
More visionary, we should begin and expand upon the research and investment needed to replace corn, soy and wheat as the backbone of our diet with perrrenial based alternatives.
Scale Up Marine Permaculture ↓
Stewarding a healthy ocean is paramount for global food security. Dr Brian Von Herzen is pioneering absolutely inspiring techniques to protect fish populations and restore carbon balance to marine ecosystems. I would support investments to scale his work.
Transition from Limited Fossil Fuels While Bringing Alternatives Online ↓
It takes more oil to find and extract oil than it used to. Jed Clampett, the Beverly Hillbilly, shot at the ground and oil bubbled out. Today, we drill at the bottom of the ocean, and drill 3,000 feet into shale, the last known conventional reserve. My point is, it is becoming more scarce while energy demand increases, causing prices to rise along with the risk of resource conflict.
Innovations in efficiency, like an engine that gets 100 miles per gallon, or innovations in production, like tar sand extraction might kick the can down the road a decade or two, but it won't solve the underlying problem - fossil fuels are running out at an accelerating pace.
What's more, improved efficiency tends to just increase the amount we use. In energy-nerd circles, this is known as Jeavon's Law. It means that our challenge is not just about technology, it's about human behavior, and social organization. We need to find ways to navigate a very tricky problem, which, simply stated is:
We humans want more, more, more, and more, more, more requires economic activity, and economic activity IS TETHERED to energy use. Yet, energy is, practically speaking, limited. Fossil energy is limited by the 40 years or so of it the earth has left. Solar and wind are limited by the amount of land we have (or are willing) to smother in machines with 30 year lifespans. (72% of land is required to meet current energy needs with wind power, according to Harvard Professor David Kieth).
So, if that's the problem, then we need to consider what a future society can look like where we create physical, relational, emotional and spiritual wellbeing, and creative freedom - while living on an energy budget.
Hmmm. Well, there's no doubt in my mind we can create far more well being with less energy. After all, our best experiences in life are the time spent with loved ones, in nature, learning and creatively expressing ourselves. These tend to not be very energy expensive activities.
BUT! this whole living on an energy budget idea contradicts the economic dogma of never-ending growth. We can't BOTH live on an energy budget AND grow, grow, grow, which the modern captilaist economy requires. Requires? Yes, first of all, interest bearing debt is the basis of all money in our economy, and paying interest forces growth.
More importantly, capitalism does provide more comfort and resources to the population (while concentrating wealth at the top 1%), but that only works when the whole economic pie is growing. Otherwise, without growth, it just concentrates the benefits of society's wealth, creating a caste system with no social mobility. Think about it, how many ordinary people become wealthy when the economy stops growing (ie, during recessions or depressions)? Not many, right?
On the other hand, how many wealthy people stay wealthy during recessions or depressions? Most of them, right? Meaning, economic growth is a requirement to solve the problem of "The rich get richer, and the poor get poorer." Growth means, "The rich get richer, and some of the poor can get richer too."
Without growth, it's back to the Hunger Games for the ordinary people.
So, the crux of this seems to be, can we change our economic system to stop growth for the sake of growth, (cancer much?) and yet also meet more of our needs and do more of what we love?
My logic leads me here, we must enact a peaceful world order where we: A) don't fight for energy resources B) do increase the standard of living of the world's poor C) do preserve open societies (not shove authoritarian social control down the throats of ordinary people so that a global elite can enjoy their seats atop a pyramid of power and luxury) D) organize society around relationships, health, creative expression, and a perfect marraige of civilization and the more than human world... and not the pursuit of the more, more, more that would drive us toward resource war, permanent poverty for much of the world, and authortarian social systems needed to enforce the rules set up by the rulers.
Yes, we can create this world. But not with the problem solving tools (political and economic systems) we have. The winners of the old game want to keep the rules exactly as they are.
As it relates to transitioning from fossil fuel, the market will help us do that, because it is already becoming more expensive to use fossil fuels, and alternatives will be invested in. But that won't happen, in my opinion, fast enough, or wisely enough, or affordably enough for the vast majority of us to avoid the consequences of incredible societal volatility caused by energy price spikes, UNLESS we supplement market forces with conscious public investments in new energy, agricultural, housing and transportation infrastructure.