Planning Ahead

In addition to our personal and local work, we need to keep pushing for the creation of a sustainable, low energy economy. I’ve been wanting to write about why we, as a species, fail to plan ahead, in the light of the very probable disastrous consequences of climate change.  A little story might help you see it the way I do.

Imagine that you are rafting on a beautiful, serene river on a beautiful day.  The guide is at the helm and you don’t have a care in the world.  Suddenly, someone on shore yells out to you that a landslide has occurred downriver, creating a huge waterfall, and urges you to land and portage your boat.  Dismayed, you look to your guide, who assures you that no such thing has ever happened before, and not to worry about it.  “It may be a class 2 rapid, nothing more, nothing we can’t handle,” he says.  You readily accept your guide’s assessment because the alternative would mean quitting this beautiful drift, going ashore where it is hot and buggy, and slogging through the brush carrying this boat instead of it carrying you.  As you continue downriver, more people urge you to land your boat, you notice that the current has picked up a bit, and occasionally you hear a very deep roar, not unlike a large waterfall.  This is really putting a damper on your wonderful day, but you can’t help thinking about the possibilities.  If you stay in the river until you actually see the falls, it will probably be too late to get out of the river in time.  You know your guide is experienced and competent, but all these people on the shore say there is danger and some of them probably have a better vantage point than you do.  It would be really embarrassing to wimp out and go ashore if there turns out to be no danger.  On the other hand, if there is a waterfall, you will very likely die.  This sort of landside has never happened before… Why should you believe it could happen now?  Meanwhile, it is a beautiful day, and your mind wanders off…

We are cruising down the middle of the river on our wonderful high-energy lifestyle with more miraculous and wonderful things to be had all the time.  Meanwhile, the supposed dangers ahead are not only unseen, they have never before been seen by any human being.  We do know that the temperature of the Earth has risen one degree in the last hundred years, and, with the output of greenhouse gasses growing every year, it will take considerably less time to reach 2 degrees.  We know from the past that we can maintain some semblance of the world we now have if we can keep the rise within 2 degrees.  The problem is that we have yet to experience the extent of climate change due to the concentration of gasses that we already have.  If we immediately returned to our production levels of 1990, as is recommended, we would still have more warming in the years ahead.  Perhaps it is no longer possible to keep the change within 2 degrees.  The gasses do not dissipate readily; the past has shown that it takes about 1000 years for those gasses to get reabsorbed by the Earth after cessation of output.  The consensus is that if we want to keep the temperature rise within 3 degrees in 2050, we need to start decreasing our output of gasses by 2015, very little time for such a radical change.

Will we really give up a high carbon lifestyle that will likely lead to our ruin?  Will we have the courage to abandon our growth economy and invent a new steady state economy that pursues happiness and wellbeing rather than wealth and excess?  Will we radically reduce our energy usage so we can generate all we need from renewables?  Will we start to work with the web of life instead of trying to master it?  This is where you write or call your representatives to tell them that the situation is not business as usual and you will support extensive life-changing measures to lower our carbon footprint.  Let’s try to shake this lethargy before it’s too late.

Folks, this is the most serious challenge our species has ever faced.  Many other species have faced similar challenges, and most of them are extinct.  The difference between us and them could be our mind, which allows us to plan ahead.  Do we have the courage and wisdom to use it?

Think about riding your bike to festival!

Comments please.   terry@vashonloop.com