Sustainable Culture

[Sir Bandelot]

We live in unique times in terms of our consumption of natural resources, the energy we use and the amount of waste and toxins we create. Although other societies have had similar problems in the past and ultimately suffered the consequences, the sheer numbers of our population, along with industrialization and now, globalization make this an unprecedented era of consumerism in human history.

Today we hear much hype about the 2012 end of the world as apparently foretold by Mayans, but what many people don't realize is that one of the main reasons that Mayan/Aztec civilizations collapsed (before Cortez) was that they were unable to create a sustainable culture. Link. And so this doomsday vision might be fulfilled in an ironic way, if we don't learn from the past and make plans for a sustainable future.

The problem is that consumerism is so ingrained into our culture, it's the very fundamental part of our economic system. The big challenge will be to maintain this highly technologically advanced society we have created, with all the great benefits of comfort and security, and advanced medicine, and somehow minimize the damage we do to the habitat. If you care, there is a lot the ordinary citizen can do, maybe even the biggest impact could be achieved by ordinary citizens working together. Reduce frivolous spending, reduce the amount of toxic waste your household produces.

If you don't care, well, go to blazes

Report: Consumerism must be halted to save the planet

(CNN) -- Consumerism is threatening to undermine measures by governments worldwide to combat climate change effectively according to a report by a U.S. think tank.

Erik Assadourian, senior researcher and director of the 2010 report told CNN: "In essence, the whole point of the report is to say that for humanity to thrive long into the future we'll need to transform our cultures intentionally and proactively away from consumerism towards sustainability."

"There are six key societal institutions -- education, business, government, media, traditions and social movements," Assadourian said. "We break those six apart and address how we can use those institutions now to help create a cultures of sustainability."

"Italian schools have been sourcing locally for decades," they explain, "often complementing their emphasis on local products with a wide range of educational initiatives for children and their parents that emphasize the values of seasonality and territoriality."

Assadourian believes the path towards sustainability will also be aided by harnessing social marketing to spread a new message.

"No longer is it enough to simply change our lifestyles. We have to take an active role in changing the very cultures we are part of."

[Michael Hardner]

"Italian schools have been sourcing locally for decades," they explain, "often complementing their emphasis on local products with a wide range of educational initiatives for children and their parents that emphasize the values of seasonality and territoriality."

[/i]

I don't see why buying local is necessary, except as an exercise in understanding local supply and demand. The very idea of economy came from Sumerian trade for metals and agriculture.

The costs of transportation aren't that high, even in terms of ecological costs.

Edited March 7, 2010 by Michael Hardner

[eyeball]

I just don't see how any culture with 6.5 billion consuming human beings can ever be sustainable.

1.5 billion or even less sounds a little more realistic.

[Michael Hardner]

I just don't see how any culture with 6.5 billion consuming human beings can ever be sustainable.

1.5 billion or even less sounds a little more realistic.

But you're just listening to how these numbers sound, with no analysis as to what is involved. We're currently feeding 4 or 5 billion perfectly well, if world hunger numbers are to be believed.

[Guest TrueMetis]

I just don't see how any culture with 6.5 billion consuming human beings can ever be sustainable.

1.5 billion or even less sounds a little more realistic.

We can sustain 6.5 billion now, and it is estimated we could feed some 10 billion by 2020. (I think that is the number I am not on my computer which has the source I will post it latter)

[eyeball]

But you're just listening to how these numbers sound, with no analysis as to what is involved. We're currently feeding 4 or 5 billion perfectly well, if world hunger numbers are to be believed.

We're not feeding 4 - 5 billion perfectly well at all if the loss of ecological diversity and the depletion of soils and aquifers is taken into account. I think sustainability in this context is only a temporary condition. We appear to be maintaining ourselves but not in a sustainable manner.

[August1991]

We live in unique times in terms of our consumption of natural resources, the energy we use and the amount of waste and toxins we create. Although other societies have had similar problems in the past and ultimately suffered the consequences, the sheer numbers of our population, along with industrialization and now, globalization make this an unprecedented era of consumerism in human history.

Huh?

The modern field of environmental health owes much to the tragedy that befell Greater London, some 50 years ago this month. From 5 December through 9 December 1952 a heavy, motionless layer of smoky, dusty fumes from the region's million or more coal stoves and local factories settled in the London basin. This thick sulfurous smoky fog, the "smog," brought traffic and people to a standstill. Not all medical and political authorities appreciated what was happening, but the undertakers and florists knew there was a problem. They ran out of caskets and flowers.

Link

It is estimated that 12,000 people died in London as a result. And London was no exception, the use of coal was common in all northern countries. Many older buildings in Montreal are still defaced with teh black soot of coal.

Needless to say, coal is not a problem in London or Montreal now. (BTW, coal has a sweet smell. I used to travel to Belgrade in Soviet times when coal was the main source of heat. It is impossible to imagine the 19th century without the smell of coal.)

London in 1900 had 11,000 cabs, all horse-powered. There were also several thousand buses, each of which required 12 horses per day, a total of more than 50,000 horses. In addition, there were countless carts, drays, and wains, all working constantly to deliver the goods needed by the rapidly growing population of what was then the largest city in the world. Similar figures could be produced for any great city of the time.*

The problem of course was that all these horses produced huge amounts of manure. A horse will on average produce between 15 and 35 pounds of manure per day. Consequently, the streets of nineteenth-century cities were covered by horse manure. This in turn attracted huge numbers of flies, and the dried and ground-up manure was blown everywhere. In New York in 1900, the population of 100,000 horses produced 2.5 million pounds of horse manure per day, which all had to be swept up and disposed of.

...

In 1898 the first international urban-planning conference convened in New York. It was abandoned after three days, instead of the scheduled ten, because none of the delegates could see any solution to the growing crisis posed by urban horses and their output.

The problem did indeed seem intractable. The larger and richer that cities became, the more horses they needed to function. The more horses, the more manure. Writing in the Times of London in 1894, one writer estimated that in 50 years every street in London would be buried under nine feet of manure.

Link

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Sir Bandelot, we don't live in a "consumerist society". We live in a world of individuals. I agree that these indivduals may cause problems to themselves, and the world around them. But I think you should give greater thought to the individual choices of the so-called consumers in your consumerist society.

[Bonam]

The Earth's carrying capacity for humans is dependent on our level of technology. Technological progress is happening at an exponentially accelerating rate, with no reason to believe there are any fundamental limits to this progress in the near future. Meanwhile, the growth rate of the human population appears to no longer be following an exponential trend.

This means that even if our civilization is not sustainable now, it will be in short order simply due to the continued advance of technology. We need not take any action to reduce consumption, any such actions could only have a minute impact anyway, compared to the continued increase in available energy, resources, goods, and services afforded by technological progress.

The only thing we need to do to be sustainable is to maintain an economic climate in which innovation continues to be rewarded.

Edited March 6, 2010 by Bonam

[Sir Bandelot]

Technology may provide part of the solution, but will it come in time? I do not hold such "faith" in our good use of technology. We have much still to learn, and the Earth's biosphere is a complex system. We do not know about the effect we are having on the environment, when we use technology because it often interacts with nature in surprising, and often harmful ways.

Simple example- The use of advanced pharmaceuticals has gone a long way to improving human health and happiness. Yet we now know that trace amounts of pharmaceuticals are being detected in our water systems, as they are excreted in our urine when we take pills. And the treatment facilities are not yet able to deal with that, to remove these chemicals. Result is, not only are the lakes filling with traces of drugs and hormones, which affects the natural wildlife, but its coming through in the tap and well water. This is a complex "soup" of drugs that is very low in level, but it's always there.

We may be able to develop a technology to deal with this, but the sheer expense of it becomes another obstacle. Not only would he have to treat the water coming into our homes, we have to prevent it from getting out there. The existing infrastructure is not built that way.

Technology is primarily motivated by consumerism, and where there is no motivation to clean up the environmental waste, because there's no money in it and no interest from the consumer, there is far more interest in developing a new cell phone or a new computer because of the potential market. We need to find a way to make this kind of development "profitable" for it to be successful.

Meanwhile the report from CNN provided in the original post flies directly in the face of what we need to continue with our current civilization. The latest economic reports indicate that consumer spending is still down, way down and without it picking up, there will be no full economic recovery. Worse, we may be on the road to a second financial collapse.