Pick your paradigm

The latest from John Michael Greer offers a very basic insight into the way we discuss (okay, debate) energy and climate issues.



He characterizes the two paradigms: "industrial expansion" and "ecological limits."

In this forum, we continually see inhabitants of each paradigm talking past each other. And each is "right," in the sense of being consistent with their basic premise.

"Industrial" threads tend to treat the basic question as "What can we come up with to keep the cars running and the lights on?" Or, with a tip of the eco-hat, they might modify the question to "What kind of green stuff can we come up with to keep the cars running and the lights on?"

"Ecological" threads, by contrast, tend to ask "How can we change our basic living arrangements so as to burn a whole lot less fuel and demand a lot less in the way of natural resources?"

I say each side is "right" in that they are valid, soundly-reasoned positions, and narratives from either side that suggest the other is "stupid" or whatever are, well, stupid. Each deserves our respect.

However, I don't offer this with any pretense of neutrality -- my own belief is that the "industrial expansion" paradigm is what got us into this mess in the first place and is extremely unlikely to get us out of it. I am also very aware of the more oppressive living arrangements it has imposed on us, and look forward to "limits-friendly" alternatives that might be just a tad more convivial.

YMMV, of course.

Whichever your preferred paradigm, Greer's piece is definitely worth a read -- he's an uncommonly smart guy with well-informed, thoughtful insights.

I always have to post it.

But I argue that unless we adopt and implement the ecological approach, our paradigms will be moot -- because we won't be here, at least not with any remaining capacity to argue over paradigms.

"Hey, buddy can youze paradigm"

Ecological limits are a fact of life, not a "paradigm." Any strategy that doesn't take ecological limits into account as a factual constraint is wrong before it even gets started.

You'll get no argument from me!

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/paradigm

Do we get to pick some other paradigm, where we pretend there aren't ecological limits?

If anybody did that, I think it won't work out so well.

However, for the most part, a paradigm isn't something you pick, it's more like a preexisting condition.

To change your own paradigm pretty much requires some sort of epiphany.

Sadly, if we were to get technology breakthroughs, which are entirely possible, there would be very few "ecological limits" to having at least twice the population we have now. We do certainly have the space to house and feed many more billions. We have plenty of ocean water to desalinate. It wouldn't take much of a "trick of physics" to provide endless and cheap power. There are enough natural resource raw materials that could easily be extracted to build us anything we desire.

However, the quality of all those new lives would surely be radically diminished. More people would surely result in more lunacy, resulting in more petty wars. Maybe some humans are doomed to never being completely happy, and making those who actually are happy defend themselves against the unhappiness. It seems the "human condition" might not not a sustainable one. I sure don't have an answer.

Except there really aren't…

Oil isn't the only thing that's coming to "peak." Copper, platinum, helium, etc. if they're not already at their peak, they're approaching them.

For example, one can acknowledge "ecological limits," while asking the question "What can we come up with to keep the cars running and the lights on?"

One of the reasons for the conservatives' irrational rejection of science, is that they are conservative (i.e. resistant to change.)

So much of our technology is based around the notion that we have as much (energy/raw materials/food etc.) as we need and more, so there's no need to conserve. A true "conservative" should be able to grasp (for example) that there is a finite amount of oil available in the Earth and that (therefore) we cannot pretend that it's infinite.

If you tell conservatives that they can no longer "keep their cars running and the lights on" they will (none too politely) tell you exactly where you can stick your "ecological limits paradigm;" and here's the important part: There's a lot of them, and without full cooperation, we cannot hope to pull our chestnuts out of the fire.

So, as a result, I think we need to acknowledge the "industrial expansion paradigm" and structure our arguments to address it.

There are two kinds of people in the world, those who believe there are two kinds of people in the world and those who don't.

edit to add: There are a wide variety of perspectives, apparently Pope Greer only sees two.

edit to add: Back in the Stone Age, the Druids were preaching that "Peak Rock" would end civilization. Let's not confuse "scientific paradigms" with "religious doctrines".

C'mon, don't be shy -- tell us what you really think of him!

;)

Whatever we do we're gonna end up as an interesting layer in the rocks, no more significant and no less significant than some odd species of foraminifera.

I doubt very much we'll be able to keep the cars running, but maybe we can keep the lights on.

I also doubt we'll have much say in which of our fellow species survive, and which ones don't. It's going to come as a great shock to many of us, but humans are about to be excluded from environments that now support large numbers of us, just as other animals will be excluded, and have been excluded by human activity and natural events. Climate change will take its toll -- we can't breathe water and we can't eat sand.

Surprise, surprise, we're clever monkeys, but we are also animals. The natural environment supports a certain number of us, or it doesn't and we die. End of story.

I mean, seriously, humans have been through a lot. Think about it, without the benefit of what we think of as modern technology, humans lived through full-blown ice ages. Europeans lived through the "dark ages," the "black death," and two "world wars."

So, our culture may become anomalous, our population will likely decline, but I think at least some humans will survive, even if by "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Skin_of_Our_Teeth">the skin of our teeth."