Myth of infinite growth on a finite planet
I want this site to be a quick and easy reference guide for people waking up to the myth of infinite growth on a finite planet.
I often find myself in discussions with people who have no idea what I'm talking about when I mention peak oil or peak food or peak water or other peaking resources.
What do I mean by "peak" or "peaking"? Generally speaking, I mean the point at which we're able to extract and exploit the most of any finite resource. After the peak, extraction and exploitation rates remorsefully decline forcing us to adapt from a life of relative plenty to a life of relative scarcity. I also, by extension, like to apply the concept of peaking to the modern enterprise of humanity as a whole. In short, we can't – by definition – keep consuming as much and living as large as we currently do. As Jared Diamond observed in What’s Your Consumption Factor?, "...it is certain that within most of our lifetimes we’ll be consuming less than we do now...".
Diamond thinks there is a good chance we will adjust to the coming sea change on a voluntary basis. I disagree. I think Kirkpatrick Sale's 2005 analysis in Imperial Entropy is infinitely more plausible:
"Jared Diamond's recent book [Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed] detailing the ways societies collapse suggests that American society, or industrial civilization as a whole, once it is aware of the dangers of its current course, can learn from the failures of the past and avoid their fates. But it will never happen, and for a reason Diamond himself understands.
"As he says, in his analysis of the doomed Norse society on Greenland that collapsed in the early 15th century: 'The values to which people cling most stubbornly under inappropriate conditions are those values that were previously the source of their greatest triumphs over adversity.' If this is so, and his examples would seem to prove it, then we can isolate the values of American society that have been responsible for its greatest triumphs and know that we will cling to them no matter what. They are, in one rough mixture, capitalism, individualism, nationalism, technophilia, and humanism (as the dominance of humans over nature). There is no chance whatever, no matter how grave and obvious the threat, that as a society that we will abandon those.
"Hence no chance to escape the collapse of empire."
Such concepts are not yet mainstream and are not easy to convey. I thought it would be worthwhile to create a simple website so I could say, "check out CrashWatch.org". My aim is to express my concerns and to help you understand the crises we face. My hope is to play a small part in developing public awareness of the facts
Why "CrashWatch"? Perhaps the words of David Suzuki best answer that question, "We're in a giant car heading towards a brick wall and everyone's arguing over where they're going to sit."
Or maybe this quote from a recent article titled, The Peak Oil Crisis: Connecting The Dots: "It is looking more and more as if we are going to go over a cliff, while buying nearly unaffordable food and waiting in lines at the gas pumps before meaningful action is taken."
To understand the basics I recommend the following 5 steps:
1) Start with Annie Leonard's Story of Stuff
2) Move on to Energy Bulletin's Peak Oil Primer
3) Next read Richard Heinberg's Peak Everything
4) Then peruse Perspectives on Population Issues (Dr. Keith Montgomery, University of Wisconsin) for insight into the competing schools of thought represented by Liberal Economists (infinite growth) and Neo-Malthusians (finite planet)
5) And finally, take a few minutes to play Consumer Consequences to find out how many additional planets worth of resources would be necessary if the world's population shared your individual standard of living.
After which you should have a working knowledge of the concepts of peaking resources, limits to growth and the unsustainability of our modern lives.
But you might still be resistant to the idea of limits because, in all likelihood, you have been brought up believing there are no practical limits to growth a la Ronald Reagan's words, "There are no great limits to growth because there are no limits of human intelligence, imagination and wonder" (the Liberal Economists' mantra).
But there is, I believe, ample, readily available evidence to the contrary.
Here are some examples:
● peak(1)
energy(2)
[see also, We
Are
Starting To Dim and peak(1)
coal(2)]
● peak
meat
● peak(1)
fish(2)
● peak
bananas
● peak
grain
● peak
food in general
(see
also, Ethanol
Will Drive Food Prices Even Higher
in 2008)
● global
warming
● peak
water
(see also, Drought
Could Force
Nuke-Plant Shutdowns)
● peak
metals
● peak
trees
● peak
phosphorus
● peak
soil
● peak(1)
economy(2)
● peak(1)
empire(2)
● overpopulation
All of these serious problems are complex, interrelated and naturally inclined toward feedback loops (they influence, reinforce and exacerbate each other) yet we tend to analyze them – if we evaluate them at all – as separate problems to be individually addressed and solved.
I believe the struggle between our myth of infinite growth and the reality of our finite planet is the fundamental issue of our age but there is essentially no recognition, understanding or acceptance of this problem.
In the 2004 documentary The End of Suburbia James Howard Kunstler said, "The hardest thing to accomplish right now is to get America's attention away from recreational shopping at the mall and Jennifer Lopez and playing computer games and NFL football and Nascar and all their other preoccupations". His words speak to my biggest concern regarding the consequences of limits to growth: the public's lack of awareness.
I'm more worried about people's potential response to dwindling resources and overpopulation than the limits to growth themselves. I think people will jump to all kinds of irrational, counterproductive and dangerous conclusions in the wake of the impending, involuntary sea change.
I think education about these issues and their component problems could go a long way toward mitigating the inevitable fallout.
I encourage you to spread the word.
