Cary Neeper's Blog: Reviewing World-changing Nonfiction - Posts Tagged "conservation"

The End of Normal: The Great Crisis and the Future of Growth by James K. Galbraith, New York, Simon and Schuster, 2014.
This book came out at the same time steadystate.org was making a strong case that "Enough Is Enough." A book with that title by Rob Dietz and Dan O'Neill was published at the same time we released our fictional portrayal of how no-growth economics might work—the award-winner The Webs of Varok (http://archivesofvarok.com).

My shelves are full of excellent non-fiction written in the last four decades by experts in many fields that agree that we must learn to pull back, stabilize populations, and conserve resources—that economic growth is not sustainable in the long run.

Nowadays, no one dare talk about population limits, but it cannot be reasonably separated from our concern that resources are limited. We are already seeing water shortages. Surely we can now agree that classical economics is faulty in neglecting to apply resource availability and scarcity in their equations. Galbraith makes the detailed case, sharing how the equations lead to false conclusions.

He reviews the Soviet Union's demise and how it sends a shadow of parallel concerns with America's loss of post-World War II's booming economy. Things have changed, and we cannot expect to see business as usual. In the end, Galbraith preaches "slow growth," assuming that some economic growth is necessary because human greed and power drives must be assumed.

Given that assumption, I don't see much hope. I believe he is wrong. We are smarter than that. We know that nothing real grows forever. Given the chance for a decent existence, the human being is a remarkable creature, capable of selfless reasoning and brilliant creativity. Capable, even of saying, "Enough is enough."

We can understand how a population of germs can grown and prosper in a closed test tube filled with liquid nutrients. We seed the test tube with a few multiplying bacteria. We watch the population grow until the resources—the nutrient broth—is used up. We can understand why the population growth of the bacteria then slows, then drops to zero as the death rate increases. For a while a few mutants survive on the wastes, then they wink out.

Earth is our test tube, but we are know now that our resources are finite. Therefore, with willful restraint, we can keep them available over millennia by recycling and keeping count, by being watchful, resourceful and efficient in maintaining a comfortable status quo.

Already our population overload may seem overwhelming. It's true that technology will help, but only if it adds to our efficiency. It can't save us if we squander what Earth supplies. Growth—even slow growth—is not a long-term solution.

Neither is escaping to some other planet, for all but very few of us. Again, realism raises hard-to-grasp concepts. The time, energy and distances required to travel through the galaxy--even if we invent speed-of-light buses—are huge. We must take care of planet Earth, and tame our baser instincts to reproduce beyond reason.

New York, W.W.Norton and Company, 2011
Do re-read this book. It’s 200 pages filled with data --all confirmed and expanded by recent events--erratic weather extremes, water loss, expanding deserts, rising temperatures, refugees and failed states.

The Earth Policy Institutes “Plan B” is simple--its conclusions all too obvious: “…we need to build an economy…powered [by] wind, solar and geothermal--one that has a diversified transparent system that reuses and recycles everything.

Changing our current economy requires “full-cost pricing.” Economists must calculate indirect costs and restructure taxes. Cutting income taxes while increasing gasoline taxes would provide “rapid economic growth.” Taxing carbon emissions is an obvious need-- being honest about costs of “…burning gasoline or coal…deforestation…over pumping aquifers and …overfishing.” We need to recognize the “sustainable yield limits of natural systems.”

In 2007 a Florida coal plant license was refused because “…the utility proposing it could not prove that building the plant would be cheaper than investing in conservation, efficiency, or renewable energy sources.”

The obvious quick fixes are “…eliminating fossil fuel subsidies…build[ing] together” instead of spending so much on the military, and “taxing each tree cut” and cutting only mature trees.

The extreme storms had already begun when this book was written. Surely Lester Brown’s Plan B makes a lot more sense than blindly assuming we must grow the economy, regardless. See Lester Brown

Life Without Oil--Why We Must Shift to a New energy Future by Steve Hallett with John Wright, Prometheus Books, Amherst, 2011.

Note the publication date! 2011!! This book should have been entitled “The Beginning of Our End.” It begins with a historical overview of humanity’s use of Earth’s resources and the failed example of Easter Island, in which the first resource to be exploited was the bird life, then the big trees. The authors make the point that “Creeping environmental degradation such as this is occurring around the world today.”

Why didn’t Easter Islanders see their problem? Why don’t we? They were divided into territories that competed-- as we are divided into nations.

The impressive Mayan example of disaster is summarized next. Its “…colossal pyramids and stairways were gradually destroyed by 800 CD.E., as they fought over resources.” Their real…enemy was their own exploitation of the environment.”

The Fertile Crescent is a similar, more current example. Questions about the fall of the Roman Empire have arisen. There is good evidence that it depleted its landbase by its “…overuse of wood and clearing trees for agriculture.” The Dark Ages came next.

The authors state that now there are signs that the world is full. Like the “demise of past societies,” we have “over-exploited our sources of energy, [done] environmental damage, [and strained] agricultural productions.

Are we too blind to the evidence from previous civilizations? The author argues in 2011 for a shift away from our addiction to oil. Coal, oil and natural gasses are finite resources. The special constitutional rights of corporations, their limited liability and their shareholder mandate for “wealth increase…to deliver…high levels of productivity” mean they may not be able to respond to the long-term historical dangers this book outlines. The next century will see the “decline, demise, and disappearance of oil.”

During this “petroleum interval… of glittering progress “we have tripled our population, destroyed forests , turned farmland into wasteland or urban sprawl, filled our oceans with plastic and vacuumed them for fish, emptied freshwater aquifers, shaved mountains, sent untold species into extinction (and culture too)….drained lakes and rivers, and stuffed the atmosphere with climate altering gases.”

We need to reduce, reuse, repair and recycle. Now! Maybe that should have been the title of this book. And I’m only referencing up to page 115. The details fill the rest of the book--the false assumptions we keep making: 1)that human well-being requires continued economic growth and all that implies, 2) that the marketplace and its competition will provide the energy, resources and competition to keep it growing, and 3)that resources are unlimited and our “life-supporting processes” cannot be damaged. These are all “false assumptions.”

The author concludes by saying that we can recover from “the coming depression” by replacing sustainability for growth and by sharing , conserving, and NOT competing

Tipping Point For Planet Earth by Anthony D. Barnosky and Elizabeth A. Hadly, St. Martin’s Press, N.Y., 2015.

Fifty percent of Earth’s land “…has been changed from forested prairies to farms and pavement.” This book gives us a laundry list of what to do. Now, five years after this book’s publication, as we dominate Earth’s global ecosystem…”we are seeing more of what the authors predicted--genocides, and scarcities of food, water and oil. As the globe’s complexity increases, irreversible “state-changes” become real, not just likely

The authors’ numbers tell the tale: Human populations have increased “threefold from 1950 to 2015, double from 1969 to 2011. Eighty percent “live below poverty levels, and nearly a billion have inadequate food and water. Drought and hot weather have “been going on since 2010, while rapid growth of the human population continues--but could be brought down fast with a promise of “education and economic betterment.”

The rest of the book focuses on “stuff” and storms, hunger and thirst, too many diseases and war--all ready to push us over the tipping point if not reduced or controlled. Five Earths are required for all the world’s population to enjoy the American lifestyle.

The needed shift in our thinking is obvious: 1)Level our percapita consumption, 2) Change economic modeling from growth to consistency, and 3) Encourage reuse, and design products that leave no environmental footprint.

On page 238 one finds the authors’ summary of ways to reverse our rush to the tipping point. Conserve water, consume less, educate women with economic opportunities and health care, recycle, buy experience not things, design products with low environmental footprints, use carbon-neutral energy sources, eat less meat and waste less in distribution, waste less water, produce energy from waste, use wind and solar, track vectors and minimize deforestation, and avoid war by lowering population growth and ensuring basic needs while recognizing the one “common theme that runs though all solutions: “There is no such thing as local any more.”

Inheritors of the Earth--How Nature is Thriving in an Age of Extinction
By Chris D. Thomas, Hatchette Public Affairs, N.Y., 2017.

Author Chris D. Thomas is a biology professor at the University of York, UK. As a “prolific writer” of “210 scientific journal articles and 29 book chapters,” we welcome his conclusion: Though we humans have “irreversibly changed” our planet home Earth, not all the news is bad. New species on Earth are being formed at the highest level ever.

In his Prologue, Thomas treats us to a summary of Earth’s “diversity of immigrant critters,” and trees and shrubs, while we humans leave our “indelible signature.” Earth’s vegetation is now 1/3 human food. Though we are responsible for the acidification of the oceans, climate change, and the loss of many species, there are others that are thriving. Since we “live in a globalized world,” we need to understand what we can do to encourage the “new hybrid plant species” and keep “as many species as possible alive on our global Ark.” We do no good with a “loss-only view.”

Thomas leaves us with the duty to “maintain robust ecosystems,” using “maximum efficiency to “fulfill all human needs” while “generating the least possible collateral damage.” While accepting inevitable change, flexibility is required while we minimize the number of species that become extinct. We could hybridize new species, even create biological diversity. Such new species may have future importance.

We can “shed self-imposed restraints” and “introduce new species” to new geographic regions, diverse landscapes, even develop new insects that eat our weeds. We can “help direct the evolutionary process.”In five million years, we could be credited with increasing Earth’s biological diversity. We could be responsible for a ‘sixth genesis.”

The author doesn’t forget to remind us that humans need to do the obvious: stabilize and then reduce the human population, minimize consumption, reduce our foot print obtaining food, recycle the water we use, and reduce greenhouse emissions. Those are the tall orders, recognized in this creatively hopeful but realistic book.