In Pursuit of Happiness
In this blog, I’ve very often discussed happiness which at first glance may seem unrelated to sustainability. However, as I see it, the two are quite inter-related because the fundamental drive of people, perhaps even the purpose of life is to find happiness. In the world we are now creating, people believe they will be happier once they have x, y and z – usually things that can be bought. Where our modern pursuit of happiness clashes with sustainability is that after we’ve bought x, y and z we realize we’re still not happy and develop a new list of things to buy that will make us happy. And, little by little we are consuming our world. From my experience I’ve found that happiness is found in our relationships and not in our stuff.
The engine of our world economy is our consumption and this creates problems not only in terms of environmental sustainability, but also has consequences in how it creates poverty. So much of our consumption economy is simply driven by corporations, businesses and advertisers need to feed their profitability by fulfilling peoples search for happiness. If I am correct that it is relationships that foster happiness then, this is a huge distraction of resources, wasteful and is contributing to other people’s poverty.
The question then is how do we build a civilization that contributes to relationships? I think the answers already exist and have a proven track record. For example, pedestrian friendly communities help people to know their neighbors and develop a sense of connection with their community. Public transit is a major element that contributes to the pedestrian culture. Local economies literally allow people to invest in their own communities and the welfare of the people that create it. Systems that require less work create less stress and more family time. And, finally communities that utilize sweat equity rather than taxes create a greater sense of connection not only with the community, but with the idea of self-governance and responsibility to their community.
One of our obstacles to making fundamental changes to our world stems from public confidence in several myths about our civilization. The first is the images of happiness that I’ve just discussed. Once we realize that happiness cannot be found in buying stuff and that it is found in our relationships with each other, we will change our priorities. A huge myth is that somehow if we keep doing what we’re doing that poverty will disappear. Well, the devil is in the details and the current system is built upon economic inequity. And, the prosperity that billions of people have experienced relies on a resource bubble that is unsustainable. This brings up the next myth that life is getting better: While this may have been true in the past, we’ve reached a critical point in our population growth, use of natural resources and people’s tolerance of social inequity. A sustainable system does not try to have people live without stuff, but rather recognize what is enough. People need to come to terms with the reality that it is not important to live like a millionaire nor should that be their goal.
No one can make anyone else happy, but we can certainly make it easier for everyone to achieve by designing and building systems that contribute to the greater goal of happiness. Ultimately, I believe the movement to sustainable systems will result from a rising awareness of our consumption of resources and its impact on our fellow man and will result in voluntary societal restraint of our consumption of products. While the Sustainability Puzzle is attempting to address the built elements of our world, I’m trying to tackle both sides of the happiness equation. I’ll soon be releasing an ebook with the working title of Liking Yourself to address the existential challenges of being happy. While these writings are probably inadequate to change our world, I’m doing what I can with the limited resources at my disposal.
Manifesting the Golden Rule
While philosophers may debate the purpose of life, I believe one thing all people seek in life is happiness. The traditional route to becoming a happy individual usually leads people to embrace religious or spiritual teachings. However, I also believe that the values and morals we learn from them can only take us so far. Because, let’s be real, the world we have created and live in is full of problems and constantly clashes with our values. As a result, people compartmentalize life as a coping strategy and we are forced to apply different standards to different areas of our life – this is something I really do not like.
We’ve created a world full of systems that is creating unhappiness – systems that we blindly serve rather than serve us. It almost feels like we’ve created a monster that is now controlling our lives. Call me crazy, but it seems to me like we should do something about it. Creating a sustainable civilization is a way to manifest the Golden Rule into our real world because they are both founded on the principal of respecting the individual. Likewise we might be able to say that by really living according to the Golden Rule, by treating others the way you want to be treated, we will by necessity create sustainable systems.
As a civilization, the challenge of the Golden Rule does not lie within the realm of the extraordinary, but in the ordinary. It is not a call to create a lifestyle of millionaires, but rather very simple, reasonable and achievable goals. And, we need not look beyond our own needs, wants and dreams to recognize them. I want to be able to achieve my potential. I want to breathe clean air and drink clean water. I want my children and their children to benefit from the planet’s abundance of species and have their share of the planet’s natural resources. If I’m sick I want to have access to health care. I don’t expect everyone to like me, but I want others to respect my personal choices. I don’t want my prosperity or happiness to come at the expense of others. I want to live in dignity and be able to provide for my family.
And, although the concept of sustainability may be new to most people and a challenge to grasp, the Golden Rule is an idea that most people already know. In fact, since it is the lesson of the Old Testament, it seems to me that the combined 3.6 billion Muslims, Jews and Christians should be in support of creating a sustainable world. And, I’m pretty sure Buddhist values also lead to sustainability so it’s actually about 4 billion supporters! The question then remains how to rally the faithful to action.
Ultimately our character as an individual or a civilization will be judged on how we treat others – both known and unknown to us. Yes, the challenge we are presented is a tough one, but what people don’t yet understand is that our physical journey and our spiritual journey are actually one and the same. The amazing thing is that making our civilization sustainable is inevitable AND we get to live our lives in harmony with our values. Why do we resist?
Effective Government
Government is an important part of how a modern civilization organizes itself. While many americans very often treat it as a boogy-man, Abraham Lincoln described its purpose in very practical terms: “We should do together what we cannot do as well by ourselves.” The problem today is that government has become a catch-all and as such is becoming ineffective — kind of the “jack of all trades, master of none” syndrome. In a sustainable system, however, government’s role will be refocused. The concept of sustainable communities is that they are self-governing and self-reliant and designed to resolve as many issues as possible at their local level thereby decreasing the responsibilities people place on a centralized government system.
Geography: At present, governments are responsible for everything, everywhere. This is causing a strain on its ability to provide effective services to everyone. By contrast, in a cantilevered system of sustainability, the role of government would shrink the domain of its responsibility to the consumption based economies of the cities, leaving the sustainable communities to self-govern and coordinate resources amongst each other.
Financial Liabilities: Currently, governments are responsible for social welfare programs for everyone that is resulting in huge budget deficits as well as inadequate services for those in need. The structure of sustainable communities would actually eliminate the need for any social welfare programs since the design of the communities achieves the same results. So, for example, if eventually 80% of a population emigrates into the sustainable system, the US Federal government would similarly decrease its future liabilities for social security, Medicare, Medicaid, unemployment and all other services.
Jobs: Economics is a fancy word to describe how people make a living – providing for oneself and one’s family. Our “modern” system accomplishes this through jobs which government policies are forced to promote at any cost. In a consumption-based world of 6+ billion people, near full employment is not possible and irresolvable. However, if 80% of the population retreats into a sustainable system of living, full-employment within the consumption economy becomes possible and will in fact increase the value of labor in cities.
The systems in place that make the “world go around” were not designed, but evolved over time through trial and error. And, while they may have gotten us to where we are, they are inadequate to meet the modern challenges we now face. The game has changed and we don’t recognize it yet. And, while I’m not sure exactly what the game is, if it’s “who’s on top”, the United States is rapidly losing its place. Moreover, right now the United States and the world are facing the new, great depression. The course of action I’m proposing will prime the economic pump to keep the world going in the short term and lead us into a system that is sustainable for generations to come.
The Big Idea
Ever wonder why there are so many problems in the world? Why there continues to be homelessness, hunger and illiteracy? Why do both parents have to work just to make ends meet leaving no time for their children? Why are 3 billion people still in poverty? It could be that our solutions to our problems are not comprehensive, but one dimensional. Well, this little picture might help us understand why we are plagued by problems and how we can deal with them.
For most people sustainability is a very vague word, but It is actually very specific and a very big idea with big implications. The three circles represent the environmental, social and economic dimensions that make up our world and the range of options available to us. According to the picture, what is “sustainable” is where the circles overlap. It reveals some really big ideas that are hard to disagree with.
- CHOOSE: The picture shows us that many options exist, but truly sustainable choices are fewer in number. The world we live in today is focused on mostly economic concerns and usually ignores social or environmental interests. Yes, we’ve created a machine that seems to be working, but is it really?
- TAKE ACTION:Sustainability will not “just happen”. On our current path, we will become more aware and more “green”, but a civilization based on consumption is ultimately unsustainable. Sustainability requires us to make different choices from the ones we are making and it will be assembled from our thoughtful choices as a global community.
- ACCEPT INEVITABILITY: The very logic of sustainability can be a tough one to swallow, but I’m just the messenger: As a species, we will eventually choose sustainable solutions because they are the only choices that insure our survival as a civilization over time. The only reason we will choose unsustainable systems is because of short-sighted interests.
- WIN/WIN: The great news is that there are solutions that can accommodate all three interests! Sustainable solutions do not make economics more important than our happiness nor the environment. It almost seems magical that all three concerns are resolved together! No interest outweighs or competes with another.
- HAPPINESS: And, to be sustainable, the solutions will all be ones that we like, otherwise they are unsustainable!
The world seems adrift. The “haves” are not content and want more meaning out of life, while the “have-nots” continue to struggle in the wake of those who “have”. We will only find greater meaning in life when we recognize that it comes through serving a purpose beyond ourselves – our fellow man, our common future. The interesting thing is that if we ask ourselves what we truly value and the type of world we want for our children, it looks very much like what a sustainable world offers us.
Where Sustainability Becomes Philosophy
No one can disagree with sustainable principles – that we be able to sustain ourselves, our families and our communities. The questions arise when the discussion enters the abstract of scope and time, but coincidentally this is also where the realm of philosophy begins. It seems to me that it is commonplace today for most people to compartmentalize these life-guiding ideas into one of the neatly packaged religions of Judaism, Islam, Christianity or Hinduism without really questioning the source or meaning of their beliefs – and, that is okay – it is human nature. The challenge of any of the great prophets has been to make the people of their time recognize societal changes and the religions that arose were that people’s adaptation to that new reality.
Well, we too have entered a new reality for which our current systems and beliefs are no longer adequate. People don’t object to the principals of sustaining a way of life for them or their children. And, it is within this narrow circle of interest where “modern civilization” as we know it seems feasible. But humanity’s new reality lies in the domain of scope and scale. In terms of scope, I’m talking about economic well-being for the people we don’t see or meet or hear from – i.e. everyone, all humanity. In terms of time, people relate mostly to their own time scale which is their lifetime and maybe their children’s. And, again the abstract asks the question: What about their grandchildren, their children’s children and so forth. The notion of 1000 years is beyond most people’s calculations and grasp. So, it’s in striving to achieve solutions which can be sustained for all humanity and across the millennia where we can realize this stark reality: the norms of today will not suffice.
While I believe compassion for our fellow man lies in the hearts of us all, it is fear that is guiding our societal decisions. In English we have an expression “Better the devil we know than the devil we don’t know.” And it probably offers some wise advice. However, in Mexico there is a similar expression with very different implications. They very often say “Better the devil we know than the angel we don’t know.” Personally, I find this expression disturbing, but I feel is a better reflection of societal attitudes toward achieving a sustainable future because we do possess the technology and know-how to achieve that future – what we lack is the will.
And, ultimately these abstracts are irrelevant because to know the fears, hopes and dreams of others, we need only look at the fears, hopes and dreams of ourselves. You do not need to personally know or meet the starving Sudanese child to what he or she or their parent hopes for – the same opportunity to fulfill their potential as you wish for your own children. I believe people can and will agree to sustainable principals – not as a result of a logical explanation, but from a leap of faith to these principals because they are common to all major religions and are therefore ones which we already know and believe in.
We have arrived at a time of choice created by our own technological success that has allowed our population to swell and has simultaneously been impacting our environment. A philosophy is ultimately a set of values that guides us in our day to day decisions of life. If we make our choices based on our fears of what we will lose, I believe we are doomed. However, if we make those same choices in hope of what we can become, then the “tough” decisions will become easy and humanity will face a bright future.
Jon Stewart Freaks-out on Environmental Conservation
… At least, that was my first impression. Jon Stewart, host of The Daily Show is undoubtedly one of my favorite and I believe one of the most effective political commentators “out there”. However, in a recent interview with Super Freakonomics author Steven Levitt, he seemed to side with the author’s position advocating techno fixes in lieu of environmental conservation efforts (see video). However, after listening to the interview more carefully, Jon’s position seems much more middle-of-the-road. I think the questions he raises are worth responding to.
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
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Levitt argues from the economics point-of-view. I should point out that conventional, modern economics can also be considered a “secular religion.” And, while the label of economics carries a hefty validation to what it professes, there are growing doubts to many of its underlying assumptions and therefore its solutions. And, while geo-engineering fixes to the carbon problem could be a “band-aid” as Levitt puts it, such techno-fixes ignore a reverence and respect for what we don’t know. Modern, human history is riddled with examples of environmental interventions gone astray due to complete knowledge of the very complex systems which they attempt to influence. In a way, conservation is humanity’s insurance policy.
In general, the conversations regarding global warming are filled with misinformation, bias, self-interest and a host of other nouns. And, in this age of political, and media partisanship, it can be even more confusing to get to the crux of such big problems. As an example, the arguments against building windmills range from endangering birds to being ugly. Do you know how many birds die from flying into high rise buildings? I don’t know the exact number either, but I do know it’s a lot. And, while windmills may not beautify the landscape they occupy a small footprint and can be dismantled in the future when we do arrive at a better energy solution. I feel that many times people raise such arguments for the sake of being argumentative to resist change. To me, choosing clean energy such as windmills is a testament to our respect for our environment and conservation is our effort to improve the quality of life for all our brothers and sister. And, that my friend is a beautiful thing.
Jon raised an interesting point regarding “5000 years of human nature”. I think it’s a very relevant point in considering these issues, but I’m wondering if the behavior he refers to is human nature or socialized behavior? I would argue that human history has been plagued by scarcity and that has translated into competitive behavior. But, I don’t think that behavior is necessarily human nature. I believe that “deep down” if we can satisfy our own needs, it is human nature to have compassion for others. And, today we are technologically at that point where we can satisfy everyone’s needs. What we lack is the will to overcome the systems and learned behaviors that prevent us from creating a sustainable future. While the link between global warming, resources use and social justice might seem to be unrelated, they aren’t. And, with at least two billion people living in poverty, I believe it’s time the public begin understating this very real relationship.
Jon Stewart is brilliant in his ability to capture the essence of arguments in an entertaining fashion. And, while Jon’s comments were disappointing, I think his remark is a reflection of prevailing societal attitudes and offers us an opportunity to more fully understand the challenges that humanity currently faces. I would recommend that he invite William Rees of the University of British Columbia to counter Levitt’s arguments. Dr. Rees created the Ecological Footprint and I think would be helpful in explaining the deeper issues at play in this discussion of global warming.
Cantilevered Sustainability
The question of how we as a global civilization can achieve a sustainable economic system looms large in my thoughts. As any economist will tell you, the question of economics is one of scope and scale, but with a population over 6 billion people, our conventional systems and tactics are failing us. And, while we know what practices are sustainable, the challenge I’m tackling is to achieve global sustainability that is palatable to the great diversity of people that make up our world – not only culturally, but economically. Because, let’s face it, the world is being shaped and molded by the “have’s” and the developed countries of the world are very much attached to the trappings of modernity they’ve accumulated over the past century. The solution I’ve come up with is what I refer to as “Cantilevered Sustainability”.
A cantilevered structure is one that is supported only at one end. As I envision it, a civilization that is economically and socially cantilevered to be sustainable will be anchored by millions of resource-light communities that locally combine their products and services via smart rai
l and internet to offset the more resource intense cities around which they are centered (see diagram). In this way, a cantilevered system will allow us to have our proverbial cake and eat it too.
The success of this cantilevered design is rooted in the ability of local communities to resolve and provide for most of their economic needs from local sources. By resolving these fundamental needs at their production source, a great deal of wasted time and energy is recaptured by its participating members. This “trickle up” approach to self governance and reliance will eliminate a growing reliance on central governments for local solutions allowing the big governments to focus on the “big matters” such as financing and coordinating rail infrastructure and international relations.
This “whole systems design” approach offers the opportunity to simplify and streamline structures in ways that incremental changes cannot. The complexities of our current legal, tax, transportation and health care systems are testament to the downside of incrementalism. While it is a complicated idea to sell, I believe it is one that the Obama administration understands as it tries to reform health care.
Why is this a good idea? Well, to any undertaking there is a time component. And, while academics and policy makers think in terms of incentives – carrots and sticks to achieve policy goals, it is also an approach that requires time we don’t have. I should be clear that this urgency is not about our planet’s environment – the Earth will eventually restore its ecological balances and health. The urgency is a social one rooted in how our economics is impacting, both socially and environmentally, our fellow mankind.
I understand that such a drastic change in how we live may seem an unreasonable choice – as a species we prefer to take the tried and tested path. What this argument fails to recognize is that the path we are on is neither tried nor tested because of the scope and scale of the problem. We are conducting an experiment whose failure can be witnessed in poverty and terrorism. I truly believe that our humanity is defined by how we treat one another. And, if we don’t do our best to care for our brother’s and sister’s around the globe, we will have failed the very challenge that a conscious life offers us individually and collectively as a species.
Bumper Sticker Values and Sustainability
Honor thy parents, our children are our future and one of my personal favorites think globally, act locally may be values that we preach, but is it what we practice? While these bumper sticker gems of philosophy sound great, their disconnect with how we lead our daily lives creates the schism between us achieving our most cherished hopes and the realities we forge through our daily behaviors.
However, such a disconnect is not without reason – there are obstacles that we have created unintentionally that prevent us from living these ideals. Long distance relationships may be commonplace, but are they sustainable? Do they challenge us personally in the same way that the “pinpricks of daily life” do when we have to live in close proximity to these people? Modern realities, however, require two incomes to pay the bills. Modern realities make children leave their families for work opportunities. And, the time demands of these realities bring us to subcontract many of our responsibilities including our children’s education and the care of our aging parents. And, the fast pace of our world contributes to the growing dysfunction among these key relationships.
In order to refocus our attention to what is important its useful to take a philosophical perspective and ponder on that long asked question: what is life about? Ultimately it is about our relationships with friends and family. They say happiness can’t be bought – well, they’re right! This stuff, career prestige, status symbols of house, car and cell phones are for many our society’s means of luring others into our lives when the only real way is to be actively involved in the lives of those we love. And, we do that by sharing our thoughts and feelings and by demonstrating them through our actions. That means giving those we love our most precious resource – our time.
There is often a disconnect between our ideals and the realities of those ideals, so what are the implications of living our values? Well to put it simply, not only would our lives be reorganized, but our world would be transformed. Families would stick together geographically. Extended household would become commonplace as aging parents live with their children. Parents would educate themselves in order to aid in their children’s education. And, basically, we would spend less time working and invest more of it in our homes and communities.
Sustainability is not just an objective process that we will achieve in the environment we inhabit because to truly achieve it “out there” we also have to achieve it in ourselves. By living the values we profess, sustainability will happen without debate of costs and without fear of change. But this is the tallest order of the challenge because few people I know (if any) actually live the values they profess. So I offer you my own best advice to achieve both sustainability and happiness in bumper sticker format! Make your life your testament.
Dissecting Utopia: Will the Details Lead us to a Sustainable World?
Our modern notion of utopia comes from multiple sources ranging from religious texts to science fiction. The result is images without the burden of consequences making them an unrealistic estimates of what or how that utopia will be achieved. For example, there is a Walgreen’s commercial depicting the consumer’s notion of utopia by suggesting there is a parking space next to the store entrance. Is this what Utopia looks like? Will it be a world without limits and endless convenience resembling the ultimate shopping experience? Today, a utopia is still an idea, a concept. In this state it is something “other” and dream-like that will happen in some vague and distant future. And, it will remain so until we define what it will look like. However, by defining what utopia is, we are taking the first steps towards actually building it.
Maybe we can’t know exactly what our utopia will look like, but I believe there are broad areas of consensus. For example, I don’t believe paradise can exist unless it exists for everyone. And, to achieve this goal I think such a society will have to be “buoyant”. By that I mean just as one should float in water with little thought or effort, so too should our systems be designed to provide our basic needs of food and shelter. But, how? I think we can borrow from the lessons of modern business practices, the system design concept of simplicity and the call of sustainable living to rely principally on local resources. I have written previously on possible solutions for specific needs and each can be resolved on one of three levels: one’s household, one’s community and one’s national government. But, each solution strives to resolve problems as close to the source of need as possible.
- Food: Our food can be mostly solved at the community level by organizing them under the umbrella of Community Supported Agriculture also known as a CSA. (see Straightening Out a Broken Food Chain)
- Shelter: Mennonites and Amish demonstrate that housing solutions can be solved at the household and community levels (see The Home: The Cornerstone of a Sustainable Future)
- Energy: The electricity, heating and cooling we need to live in modern comfort can be produced at the household level utilizing renewable resources (See The Home: The Cornerstone of a Sustainable Future)
- Transportation: Our mobility is one of the defining characteristics of our modern society. It is an issue that affects everyone, everywhere and a sustainable system will require the resources and coordination of central governments (see The Transportation Trap)
- Education: Our children’s most profound teachers are their parents. This fact suggests a common sense solution that is rooted at both the household and community levels. However, the idea of equal opportunity through education mandates larger scales of coordination in defining the curriculum to achieve that uniform standard. The Federal government or central authority can empower both households and communities to accomplish this task by providing the systems, tools and framework – specifically a K-12 self-guided curriculum that can be taught in 4 hours of class per day and reinforced by the family during the remainder of the day. (see Educationally Challenged)
While comprehensive systemic design can offer the efficiencies that will fuel the system, the “magic” that we hope for cannot be imposed or created out of design. It is what we choose to do with our newly discovered free time that will make the magic. Will we educate ourselves or pursue our passion? Will we create art or devote our time to our family and friends? When we are no longer burdened with the need to scramble for our survival we will truly experience the freedom to realize both our individual and societal potential.
But, how do we get there? How do we move from ideas to reality? That too will require a paradigm shift in how we each perceive and interact in our world. For sustainability ultimately recognizes that we are all in this boat together. And, it is through this awareness that we will discover the motivation for societal transformation – compassion. This past week the Dalai Lama hosted a conference on compassion. And, while this may strike the western ear as an odd focus for a conference, its importance cannot be understated because it is through finding compassion for our fellow man that we will also find the motivation to transform our world from one of poverty and wasteful consumption to the utopia of our dreams.
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