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
Steven Levitt
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

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 rail 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.

The Changing Face of Agriculture

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.

Related Entries

The Home: The Cornerstone of a Sustainable Future

Straightening Out a Broken Food Chain

Educationally Challenged

The Transportation Trap

The Responsible Society

We teach the subject of social responsibility in our universities, we lecture the topic to our children and I think many assume that society is generally responsible. But, are we? It seems to me that just as a person is responsible for their choices, society is likewise responsible for its collective actions. What does this imply? It implies that society is responsible for the failure of the systems it implements and that poverty, homelessness, hunger and inadequate healthcare are the manifestations of our system’s failures.

Throughout this blog, I’ve tried to capture the implications of responsibility by describing the essence of what distinguishes children from adults – taking responsibility for their actions. It does not magically happen at the age of 18, 21 or even 74. It is a state of mind that we accept when we are mature enough to comprehend it. And, like a teenager modern society wants the benefits of being an adult, but we still try to escape taking responsibility for our choices.

As a society, I think we have yet to mature to the point of accepting our full responsibilities. The huge variance in incomes demonstrates that we still do not believe every person and job in a system is essential to the mechanics of society. Our economics is like the unexplored frontier where everyone is on their own. But, in a day of global communication, transportation and trade, with a population racing toward 7 billion, we ignore the obvious interdependence and reliance of one people’s prosperity and wealth upon another’s labor. Indeed, we are all in this together and our individual prosperity stands on the shoulders of many others. In a responsible society we will be treating our brothers as we would have them treat us. We’re not there yet.

Getting people to wrap their heads around sustainability is an uphill battle, so framing the argument in terms of responsibility is more tangible, but still neither sexy nor motivating enough for most to take action. So, in search of motivation I ask the following: Is a responsible society also a moral society? The debate of what is moral behavior can become dizzying and lost in the relativism of perspectives. However, if you believe as I do that being responsible is a subset of moral behavior, then by society focusing on meeting its responsibilities we will move a long way toward becoming a moral society.

The good news is that a responsible society also turns out to be a sustainable one. So, while people may not understand what sustainability is, most people value and can strive for being responsible. But now I’m wondering does that also imply our society will not be a moral one until it is sustainable? Hmmm. Curious, very curious…

Related Entries

Ubuntu: Little Word, Big Idea

The Transportation Trap

If we look at the modern world and ponder what single element defines it, I would pick transportation. It has been an essential medium for both our technological and economic progress and in less than 50 years we have conquered the distances that used to separate and isolate us. However, judged against the scales of time and innovation, this transportation system organized on the building blocks of planes, trains and automobiles could easily be described as “version 1.0”. And, while I like what our system accomplishes – mobility, I don’t like how we achieve it – through environmental degradation and the consequential social inequity. So, to achieve a sustainable future we will need a “system upgrade”. Unfortunately, our greatest obstacle to sustainability is our child-like infatuation with the current transportation system based on fossil fuels and the resource intense automobile.

The private car is the foundation of our transportation system in America and in my earlier entry, Transportation and Social Equity, I argue that the auto is also a barrier to participation in our greater society. But, if you consider all the pieces of infrastructure needed to support this system, the investment costs become clearer. These pieces include : roads, gas stations, mechanics, driveways, garages, parking lots, land and space, fuel, refineries, pipe-lines, car manufacturers, dealers, junk yards, traffic police, road signs and lights, regulations, the commute time we invest, bridges, tunnels, pollution, injuries, lives (1.2 million deaths/year), labor to build and maintain, insurance and the health care costs that result from the sedentary lifestyle it systematizes.

Even if we develop a car that travels 400 miles on a gallon of water, the costs are too high – the infrastructure needed to support it largely remains the same and continues to be inefficient, wasteful and a source of poverty. What is the alternative? Public transportation seems the obvious answer. The problem with this simplistic answer is that the domination of the almighty car has shaped American society into a suburban sprawl that makes our current paradigm of public transportation ineffective and not a realistic solution.

In our quest to achieve a sustainable civilization, if public transportation utilizing high speed trains, light rail and automated people movers is to become a reality, then we will need to change the paradigm by reorganizing how and where we live. That is to say, rather than build this system to go where people currently populate (the current mindset), we will have to build the system to connect strategic resources such as agriculture and energy, and let people populate along those routes.

Barriers to realizing this “Transportation System v2.0” reside in the public’s mindset – Americans are unlikely to lead the world toward a sustainable future because of our deep association of the car as a symbol of freedom and individuality. In this way our success also becomes our trap and sustainable transportation systems will probably appear in underdeveloped countries first. Why? One, with scarce resources they must be more strategic in their infrastructure choices. And two, neither their egos nor livelihoods are as invested in the current paradigm to resist such innovation.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” – Albert Einstein

Related Entries

The Home: The Cornerstone of a Sustainable Future

Transportation and Social Equity

Would Jesus be a Republican?

The American political dialogue irks me in several different ways. Among the most needling is the debate among conservative Christians about which Presidential candidate to support and has led me down some interesting thought experiments. While they presume many of their beliefs, they likewise might presume that were Jesus here today, he would definitely be a Republican. But, would he? And, more importantly to my readers, how does this relate to sustainability?

First, for the purpose of full disclosure, this is not my first trip down this particular thought experiment. A couple of years ago I wrote a screenplay investigating a similar idea. If a modern day prophet lived among us with all the answers to our problems, would anyone pay attention to him or his message? While I gave the story a happy ending because people like happy endings and that’s generally what Hollywood buys, we have a real-life example from which we can draw a more rational conclusion.

As I understand the situation, Jesus and most prophets were problem-solvers of their time and culture, so likewise he would be concerned with today’s problems in the context of today’s culture. Being pragmatic, he would not have any party loyalty, but support the one which best tackles the problems he believes most pressing. In a way, the prophet does exist through the concept of sustainability – it explains to us dispassionately the problems humanity faces as well as the solutions, but no one is paying attention – particularly conservatives.

Growing political will for sustainable alternatives is a factor of time and we are at the start of that change in consciousness. While our biggest obstacle to change lies in our culture of presumptions and assumptions, there are signs of hope. For example, among young, conservative Christians, “creation care” is a movement gaining ground that prioritizes the issues of social justice and environmental care before politicized concerns. Pragmatism is reaching solutions and requires everyone to start sleeping with strange bedfellows by crossing political, religious and philosophical lines — democrats with conservatives, conservatives with democrats, and most likely both democrats and republicans with some out of the box ideas that are hard to identify where they fit on the political spectrum.

So, would Jesus be a Republican? No, he would be as apolitical as is the concept of sustainability. And, like a concept, the prophet has no power to change anything. It’s through the billions of choices we collectively make every day that we create our own fate. And, when will we mature as a society to achieve this solution-oriented ideal? I don’t know, but from this perspective it feels like we are not changing fast enough. One thing is true, if we are to find sustainable solutions, change is inevitable.

Sustainability and Cooperation

I think many people resist the notion that they are part of a system, but our modern society seems to be growing the influence of those systems into our lives whether we like them or not.  In our current systems of government and consumer based economics, we are all seen as “consumers” and the account numbers that fill our lives and are now more our identity than our own name.  Now, if it worked, I’d probably have no objections.  But, signs of its failures are proliferating and evident in the poverty, homelessness, lack of health care that surround us, as well as the unrelenting stress we place on our environment.

I’d like to share a few of my personal observations.  One, by investing in unsustainable systems, governments are expanding their sphere of responsibility for their citizenry.  Two, by taking on this added responsibility, governments are mandating future revenue streams (i.e., taxes) in order to provide for these services.  Three, these fiscal mandates raise the minimum levels of productivity needed from each citizen to meet budgetary needs.  As a result, this raises the probability of poverty over time.  The key is: if we want to constrain the size and limits of government, we need to also constrain its responsibilities.

Americans resist cooperative systems.  That’s fine, but it has consequences and that is to strengthen the role of an intermediary (i.e., government) to coordinate between separate interests.  While it may satisfy our short-term (sighted) sense of independence, it erodes at our long-term goal of private freedoms.  One result has been a “safety-net” system which is great in theory until the gaps in the economic system allow more than a very small number of people to fall through.

I’m a pragmatist.  I don’t place my faith in “isms” but in what works.  There are tremendous inefficiencies built into our government and economics today and none are contributing to our individual happiness.  It seems to me that the role of government should not be to provide all the answers.  But should be to frame systems that are built and supported from the ground up – from individuals to their communities and those communities to our greater society so that we can sustain ourselves with minimal intervention.  But in order for it to be successful, people have to voluntarily coordinate and cooperate with each other to a degree that we are presently unaccustomed.

Corporations are present day examples of cooperative systems, but are at least dictatorial if not pathological in nature.  What leap do we need to make as a society to coordinate our actions in a more democratic way?  Examples do exist.  Open source software such as Linux is created and improved by people working together voluntarily.  Again, such a system may require more self responsibility and initiative than we are currently accustomed to.

The lynchpin to the success of a cooperative system is trust – a quality sorely lacking in competitive systems.  But, trust can’t be imposed or willed into existence, it has to be built upon our shared experience.  I think if we are going to achieve sustainable solutions, it will have to be a grass roots movement built by us and for us. And, government will have its role – to coordinate and build those structures that are beyond local means. But I end with a curious thought: that the underlying motivation of a society might determine its social character.  And, if today’s world mirrors the greed and fear that motivate competitive systems, what would a world based on trust and responsibility look like?

Additional Reading

The Corporation: The Pathological Pursuit of Profit and Power by Joel Bakan