“THE DISCONNNECT”, forwarded by Globally Local

A Paper Promoting Conversations concerning Lifestyles and Reality

info@globallylocal.net

PREAMBLE

‘What went wrong – and can we fix it?’

Nathaniel Rich in “Losing Earth” (2019), states “Almost everything we know today about climate change we knew in 1979 – and how to tackle it”.  The same applies to biosphere degradation, the likes of which has not been seen since the dinosaurs had a disagreement with something from outer space.  For over half a century, writers, researchers, even politicians (yes) have raised the alarm.  These were not voices crying in the wilderness.  For some, their publications ran into millions of copies, with media exposure on a global scale.  One of the classics is of course Rachel Carson’s 1962 “Silent Spring”.  Carson was one of those rare individuals who combine meticulous scientific research with an impressive literary – almost lyrical – ability to present their findings to the public.  Sadly, she died young, having experienced the wrath of big business when threatened in its bottom line.

The 1972 Club of Rome “Limits to Growth” Report, should have been a call also for a rethink of our dominant economic model but was systematically trashed.  Nicholas Stern’s 2006 “The Economics of Climate Change”, whilst making it respectable for economists to mention externalities, re-enforced the assumption that continuous economic growth was possible.

Before the turn of the century there was no shortage of ‘messengers’, making clear where our direction of travel was taking us.  It’s worth re-stating that these were not prophets crying in the wilderness.  Just as today, David Attenborough is a name known to most, so in their day, this phalanx of writers was widely known and read, in some cases familiar figures within the broadcast media.   So, something pretty fundamental is going on here when society consistently fails to make the connection.

WERE WE EVER CONNECTED?

• To our Heritage? – to each other? If so, what did that mean for the way society functioned? Did it make any difference to our dedication to the extractive economy?  (See Ted Howard and Marjorie Kelly “The Making of a Democratic Economy”)

Amongst my father’s papers is a batch entitled “The Engineer and the Environment”.  These were delivered during the 1969/70 session of the Mersey & North Wales branch of the Institution of Electrical Engineers.  The author of the first paper was Graeme Shankland, Senior Partner of a major national company handling government and regional contracts.

Shankland’s paper, delivered by an Engineer to Engineers, has references to Ancient Greek philosophy; Mediterranean Culture; quotes from Francis Bacon, Henry Ford and a variety of other historic and contemporary figures.  In examining environmental challenges Shankland faces head on and in detail the population issue.  He is tough on major projects such as the Stanstead fiasco

(London’s third airport) and not without a sense of humour, labeling Anthony Crosland’s Minister for the Environment appointment as “Lord High Admiral of the Environmental Protection Fleet”.

(As Nathaniel Rich points out, back in 1980 some of those pressing for environmental legislation in the US were senior REPUBLICAN senators.  Michael Meacher, when Environment Minister, was sacked for telling the truth and Edwina Currie suffered a similar political demise.)

What else features in Shankland’s Paper?  The “war between growth and civilization” is being fought on a finite planet where economic activity is judged by GNP, so that any production is good (often at the expense of primary producers) “however useless, temporary or marginal and whoever consumes it”.  Shankland sees the Engineer as having to take on social, technical, political and economic considerations, to share a ‘vision’ with society at large.  “We are professionals whose work has an effect on our environment .. ..  but we are also citizens … …”

Where today can you find such ‘Generalists’ – as Dr Brenda Boardman calls them. We used to call them ‘polymaths’.  Note in particular Shankland’s attack on our dominant economic model – and this in 1969 – the era of ‘you’ve never had it so good’. 

In contrast, US Retail Analyst Victor Lebow stated in 1955: “Our enormous productive economy … demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption.  We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, discarded at an ever increasing rate”. 

Which of these views has dominated our economic assumptions for three quarters of a century?

WHAT WENT WRONG?

Here, smugness is to be avoided.  We (nearly) all benefit from business as usual and a return to the status quo ante, however much we protest otherwise.  We are complicit in the general reluctance to consider the heretical proposition that we just might have got some things wrong.

According to Pirsig, in “Zen and the Art of Motor Cycle Maintenance”, published 1974, the root cause of a deep seated malaise in society is an unquestioning commitment to the dominant ancient Greek deconstructive, analytical culture.  This has served (much of) humankind well.  It has given us the Industrial Revolution and our incredible Health Service.   It continues to produce innovation and technical breakthroughs, aiding the battle against biosphere degradation and climate change.  Yet without a counterbalancing intuitive, creative, approach to Values, it’s present day contribution is to underpin economic growth at any cost.

Alvin Toffler (Future Shock 1970 and The Third Wave 1980) refers to the anachronistic character of contemporary institutions.  For Toffler, what he terms reversionists work to block the arrival of his Third Wave by opposing such developments as home working (in 1980?!). 

Toffler rejects First Wave Nostalgia which promotes ‘the simple life’ as the solution,  This goes along with the need for a serious rethink around scale and organizational structures.  Schumacher did not say ‘Small is Beautiful’; that was his publisher.  Schumacher referred to ‘Appropriate Scale’.  By the way, he worked for the then National Coal Board (NCB) – coal?  National?

THE MONETARISING OF EVERYTHING

President Clinton’s phrase should be reversed to read “It’s the stupid economy”.   Even The Commons are given a monetary value in order to counter the prevailing view that ‘value’ equals ‘price’.  This dangerous development will come unstuck once a business decides a tree is ‘worth’ more chopped down than left standing.

Our dominant economic system is surely the most intractable element within The Disconnect.  Measures taken during the pandemic demonstrated the potential for central control of the money supply and a form of universal wage.  Without these, we have no chance of ‘disconnecting’ our economic activity from continuous growth.  In this regard we have to promote a Disconnect!

Even then, we haven’t solved the problem.  The technophiles look either to the exploitation of space as a means of keeping our insatiable appetite for consumption satisfied, or – a modern version of the Cargo Cult – assume that salvation will come from some as yet unproven wonder breakthrough in energy.   Even modest developments such as the electric car still produce CO2 and pollution, in both construction and use.  Yet nobody seems to make the connection.  One of the very few states seeming to successfully embrace an alternative lifestyle is Bhutan.  Its stable economy is embracing modern (Toffler’s Third Wave) technology whilst continuing to base its policy and practice on GDH  – gross domestic happiness.

THE DISCONNECT?

Broadcast media have jumped on the latest environmental bandwagon (ref COP 26) and are busy asking celebrities what they are doing ‘for the environment’.  It really is rather late in the day and still fails to address the disconnect between ‘classical’ (i.e. ‘neutral’) reporting and Reality.

The News highlights the Hospitality Industry’s suffering and publicizes the need for people to again take to the skies.  A brilliant example of media disconnect came in a recent TV news  report: first, an item on a pilgrimage wending its way to COP26; then an item on an attempt on the world land speed record – a mere 250mph – in a gas guzzling monster of a car.  I doubt the Editor realized the irony (and I am NOT promoting a banning of such an attempt).  But the juxtaposition, with no attempt to link, raises the question of whether journalism in general ‘gets it’.   Another recent example was the juxtaposition of interviews first with David Attenborough and then with the CEO of Heathrow Airport – again with no attempt to connect the two.

John Kerry (US Climate Ambassador) is keen to emphasise how much of a win-win situation ‘doing something for the environment’ is for everybody. Where’s the politician willing to make clear that a failure to voluntarily change our Lifestyles will result in an enforced change when food and other supplies are disrupted.  Sars-2-Covid 19 enforced a temporary change for health reasons but the lesson has not been learnt.

Even we ‘enlightened ones’ (!) have to pause occasionally to re-examine whether we are always ‘making the connection’, or whether we inadvertently assume that our own lifestyle is sacrosanct, that decisions we make are always made in an understanding of the inter-connections involved.

We tend to view our ‘discipline’, business model, or commercial activity as appropriate to the new world.  I had the enormous privilege of studying Geography under the professorship of Ronald Peel at Bristol.  He welcomed us into academia with two statements, both of which we,    a bunch of upstart know-alls who had just sailed through our A levels, viewed as utter heresy.  First, he made it clear that the Department purpose was to convince us at the end of three years that we knew nothing!  Second – and this really upset us – he said that if a better way could be found of structuring and presenting the knowledge area we knew of as “Geography”, he would be the first to help demolish this sacred discipline.  Wow!

What has this to do with our inability to get to grips with the state of the world?  Actually quite a lot as there is a significant disconnect between our own (sometimes inherited and cherished) beliefs and practices and the requirements of the ‘New World’.   We find it incredibly hard to contemplate the idea that our own institution or organisation just might be rather inadequate to the task – or may have been a few decades ago but now requires a makeover.

Being automatically ‘anti’ any particular activity or development, be it gene technology, flying or enjoying a meal out is not necessarily a good starting point.  It is illogical, even counter-productive – to seek to ban any particular activity without understanding the context.  Reference Toffler’s First Wave Nostalgia which, for example, led to the fiasco over Peak Oil.

QUO VADIS?

Assuming we ‘get’ The Disconnect, what can be done?

The first step is to develop a clearer UNDERSTANDING that CONSEQUENCES are not necessarily those we anticipate.  As a mantra, ‘all things are connected.’ is fine; in the real world, it’s often far from straightforward.

Which leads into the COMPLEXITIES of this interconnectedness.  Is it simply a matter of choosing between organic New Zealand apples in season, and our non-organic CO2 cooled out of season varieties?  Or do we look for another way of measuring the impact of our behaviour , rather than offsetting one action against another?  Maybe neither apple variety is acceptable – or possibly both are, within a very different economic regime to the one we operate at present.

Pirsig sub-titled his book ‘an enquiry into VALUES’.   The third step is to re-structure the means by which we ‘value’ activity.  We have to replace monetary valuation with a set of criteria which place happiness (cf Bhutan), health, the welfare of future generations, justice, inclusivity and equal opportunity before (classical) economic cost.  Ted Howard and Marjorie Kelly’s book (op.cit.) gives some excellent examples of people actually DOING SOMETHING ABOUT THIS within the present world of business.   I hasten to add this is not to denigrate the excellent research and development of new technologies and the hard won changes within existing businesses.  However, Ted and Marjorie identify more sustainable developments i.e. new businesses or business models taking on board the above list.

There’s a fourth piece of action which is to LOBBY: – first, the MEDIA.  Broadcast media in particular tend to the view that they reflect the real world.  The degree to which they reflect the DISCONNECT confirms this!   Then also LOCAL GOVERNMENT, together with regional institutions – Ted and Marjorie’s ‘anchor institutions’.   Local authorities receive many brickbats – often well earned, one might assert.  Yet it is U.S. and Brazilian cities, for example, which have consistently cocked a snook at central government and developed their own strategies for sustainability.  It is at the local level that facilitating change is most effective – as demonstrated in the pandemic when it took persistent lobbying of central government to get this message across.

ADAPTATION to what is clearly inevitable, is a good starting point.  If on a sinking ship, best acknowledge the vessel is going down and that efforts need to focus on making sure the lifeboats are seaworthy and provisioned, rather than making the ship more comfortable for passengers.

What Toffler terms the reversionists, that is, those favouring the status quo, or in today’s world, the status quo ante, remain adamantly disconnected from this ‘inconvenient truth’.  The psychology of the disconnect is that of denial.  Accepting that we ‘got it wrong’ by not making the connections in an earlier age, helps us accept that, like it or not, this is payback time.  We cannot undo the damage done, but can avoid making things worse by ceasing to run society along lines which deny the finite nature of our world.

‘THE STUPID ECONOMY’

Whether we prefer our economy to be circular; doughnut; steady; or whatever, it remains questionable whether any of the proposed alternatives would resolve the conundrum; how to provide everybody with a decent standard of living when the resources required are finite.  So called sustainable energy production, be it mini nuclear reactors, giant windmills, or solar farms, all consume limited resources and require more in their maintenance.  The imposition of renewable energy systems, as with wind farms in Latin America and China’s 3 Dams project, has involved the displacement of numerous local communities.  The assumption that the prevailing capitalist model, wherever applied, is the only way to ‘get things done’ has to be questioned.

At the core of the challenge are issues not resting comfortably with the mindset of The Establishment:-

• control of money creation;
• a living wage for all;
• the narrow concentration of global capital (power) to the detriment of democratic institutions.

Whilst wealth creation remains for the benefit of the few, there is little if any chance of our building an economic system in harmony with the biosphere.   In the late 19^th century the US government legislated to control the power of the corporation.  However, successive governments have reversed that initiative – with globally disastrous consequences.

The spectre of INFLATION is used by financial institutions to scare governments away from taking control of money creation.  Banks not only have the legal right to create money out of nothing, they then charge interest on it.  That is inflationary and requires increased production and consumption simply to service the debts.

A LIVING WAGE for all removes a significant barrier to many citizens engaging in socially productive activity which does not require endless consumption and waste creation.   This would remove much of the anxiety from people struggling to ‘make ends meet’.

A SENSIBLE ECONOMY?

The above are in my view sine qua none for any attempt to build a sustainable economy.

Such changes provide the framework within which we can begin to build that better society.

Do we go with Graeme Shankland, or with US Retail Analyst Victor Lebow ?

Kenneth Boulding (during hearings of the 93^rd Congress on the energy reorganisation act):

“Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on for ever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist”. 

“COLLABORATIVE FUNCTIONAL REGIONS” 

On the assumption we are not in favour of ‘the simple life’ as a solution, we have to tackle an economic system which, if allowed to continue, will inevitably sink our attempts at both mitigation and adaptation.  Just take a look at any European container port and check where those hundreds of thousands of containers have come from – never mind what they contain. (ref. Shankland’s “ … any production … however useless, temporary or marginal …”).  Pre covid, there were an estimated 200,000 commercial aircraft airborne at any one time.  How many of those were carrying goods for general public consumption?

With what can we replace this economic monster?   Is there a way to replace the present global trading system with a regionally based model?  At the same time, can we modify the role of the consumer without promoting an economic recession?

A REGIONALLY BASED SOCIO/ECONOMIC MODEL

There do exist a number of attempts at developing a ‘resilient and cohesive strategy’.  For example Richard Heinberg’s “Powerdown” promotes the concept of social and economic “lifeboats”, but is not developed as a working strategy, and omits any recognition of the need for cohesion based on common geographical, cultural, geopolitical, and social understandings linked to a resilient economy.

We need a clear understanding of each society’s basic economic requirements, and of  those mechanisms which assist societies in maintaining cohesion in the face of multiple threats.  The “lifeboat” concept is well worth considering so long as it is based on the realities of geography, demographics, economics and culture.

Let’s consider these three words.

REGIONS

The macro geographic blocks are self evident from a study of a globe.  Within these it is possible to identify smaller units, based on physical, cultural, political considerations.  For example, western Europe could be considered a macro region, within which are sub regions, based in large measure on political divisions.  Problems arise when ‘natural’ sub regions such as islands are encumbered with political divisions.

FUNCTIONAL

There’s little point in considering an area as a viable region or sub region if it cannot sustain itself in terms of basic necessities and with a degree of social cohesion.

COLLABORATIVE

No region will be entirely self sufficient and inter-regional trade will be an essential part of a new order.  However, what is not acceptable, is trade based purely on the promotion of consumption designed to keep an unsustainable economic system afloat.

Nor is the race to the bottom acceptable whereby production goes to those reliant on unfair, inequitable and unjust practices.  One could add to this, biosphere degradation as a basis for refusing trade with the perpetrators.  Consider the destruction of the Aral Sea or the Brazilian rainforest and ask whether we should be trading in resultant produce.

REGIONAL SUSTAINABILITY.

It may be helpful to consider the cultural and social dynamics, as well as geographic factors which have led some, such as the Basques; the Kurds; the Celts, to bid for regional autonomy in the face of nation state opposition.  The old tribal structures of, for example, West Africa, and the faith and culturally based Arab societies, may prove more resilient under pressure than imposed national boundaries.

As global societies come under increasing pressure from the triple whammy of CLIMATE CHANGE; RESOURCE DEPLETION; POPULATION PRESSURE; their resilience will be tested in accordance with two factors:-

1. a) their ability to secure BASIC RESOURCES, to include:-

Fresh Water; Food: Energy: Transport Infrastructure; Finance;

1. b) the degree to which there is SOCIAL/ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL COHESION based on national, cultural, as well as geographic

Very few identified regions will be self sufficient even in the basic necessities, and therefore TRADE based on NEED and REGIONAL DIVERSITY will be essential to avoid major conflict.  (See caveat above as to what is acceptable trade.)

STARTING POINTS

• development of a METHODOLOGY for the identification of cohesive economic/geographic regions world-wide; and the testing of the concept by the study of a selection of contrasting regions (see GLOBALLY LOCAL flyer for suggested list);

RESEARCH into the long-term viability of these regions on the basis of: current activity, and the degree of self-sufficiency in basic resources (see above); potential for short to medium term restructuring; and requirements for inter-regional TRADE for the purpose of achieving viability.

• TRIALS and appraisal of a range of initiatives in: –       producing and processing locally – foodstuffs and other primary goods; new materials and technologies – for example through regional structures as pioneered by Nagoya Carbon & Technology Exchange (NCTX).

• AWARENESS RAISING AND EDUCATION       local and central government, adopting their true role of ENABLING, funding and promoting, local initiatives aimed at developing COHESION, ADAPTATION and RESILIENCE.

… … to be continued … …

“Enjoy the rest of your day”, as the person in the call centre would say.

Malcolm Currie info@globallylocal.net

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