The
following is a rough draft of the introduction to my third book.
Welcome to Understanding
Sustainability! On the
following pages, you will find reviews of books that explore many facets of ecological
sustainability, an extremely important subject that remains largely unknown in
our society. You will meet authors with
gifts for thinking outside the box, writers who can give us keys to treasure
chests of vital knowledge. It’s sad to
wreck the ecosystem for no good reason — or any reason at all. It’s especially sad that the masterminds of
the great demolition are among the world’s “best-educated” people, and they have
countless “well-educated” collaborators.
In its original meaning, a sustainable way of life is one that
can continue for millennia without causing permanent degradation to the
ecosystem. All animals have succeeded at
living in this manner, and they have done so for millions of years. They can satisfy their essential needs (food
and shelter) without damaging the community of life, a precious skill.
But one species has spawned several billion smarty-pants renegades
who have stumbled far from the path of balance.
This outlaw society is zooming into deep trouble, and it barely
understands why. If we understood why,
there is a fair chance that we would behave in a manner that was less destructive. There is a fair chance that we would abandon
myths that hobble our ability to think clearly and live responsibly.
Outlaw society is heavily addicted to extracting nonrenewable
resources, like coal, oil, gas, metals, phosphates, potash, and on and on. The reserves of these resources are
diminishing every day, while the cost of extracting them increases. Obviously, this approach can only operate
temporarily. It has an expiration date,
a point at which the goodies are depleted, the bubble bursts, and the machine melts
down. No other animals suffer from
addiction to nonrenewable resources, because they continue to live in their
traditional manner. They did not get
lost.
Outlaw society is also heavily addicted to depleting renewable
resources at rates faster than nature can replenish them. We’re exterminating forests, mass murdering
fish, destroying topsoil, draining aquifers, and pumping rivers dry. This is also a dead end. Other animals don’t mutilate the ecosystem.
Outlaw society generates many wastes and emissions at levels
far beyond the ecosystem’s ability to harmlessly absorb them, and this is
causing serious irreparable damage — melting icecaps, acidic seawater, coastal
dead zones. No wild animal has basic
needs that require high-impact amusements like automobiles, computers, or
electricity — these are “wants” not “needs,” and we don’t need wants. Needs are basic and simple, wants include
everything money can buy.
Most of humankind is in overshoot, because our population and
way of life far exceeds the long-term carrying capacity of Earth’s
ecosystem. Every day, the planet’s
carrying capacity shrinks, as the ongoing ecological wreckage accumulates, and
this worsens the overshoot. Nature has a
low tolerance for overshoot, and outlaw society is too lost to comprehend why
it’s swirling the drain. Luckily, there
are effective cures for ignorance, and they are most often found outside the walls
of the outlaw culture.
In the following pages, you will not find The Solution. Only problems have solutions — sleepiness is
a problem that can be solved by taking a nap.
Predicaments, on the other hand, cannot be effectively eliminated by
solutions. There are no rituals,
medicines, or gizmos for undoing climate change, or inspiring educators to abandon
their diabolical obsession with perpetual growth. We are way over our heads in
predicaments.
Every civilization collapses, and ours will too, one way or
another, suddenly or gradually. This is
perfectly normal. Industrial
civilization was designed to grow like crazy, flame out, and collapse. And we were thoroughly trained to devote our
lives to it, so don’t be embarrassed, be annoyed. The consumer way of life was a grand
adventure in soul-killing foolishness. The
squirrels in the tree outside my window are so much healthier and happier. They live in the here and now, satisfying
their needs, playing with great enthusiasm, celebrating the perfection of
creation.
Now, if these yucky ideas make you twitch and squirm, there
is an effective distraction — magical thinking!
The well-educated wizards of outlaw society have a thrilling answer for
everything — sustainable growth, sustainable fish mining, sustainable soil
mining, sustainable forest mining, and on and on. I call this ersatz sustainability, a murky
elixir of snake oil loaded with mind-numbing intoxicants. We see and hear the word sustainable many
times each day, and this is what it usually refers to. Sustainability can be anything we want it to
be! If we call something “sustainable”
enough times, then it is! Whee!
The devious wizards are giddy with joy, because humankind has
finally completed the long and difficult journey to Utopia. This is it!
We are the luckiest generation of all!
Wild predators no longer devour our friends and relatives. Pandemic disease and world wars are ancient
history. More and more babies survive to
maturity and reproduce. Natural selection
no longer weeds out the weaklings and mutants, because science has rendered
evolution obsolete. We’re working hard
on a cure for death.
A growing population is wonderful, because it allows more and
more to enjoy the Utopian delights.
Feeding ten billion will be no problem, thanks to science and
technology. Eliminating climate change
will be a piece of cake. The transition
from fossil energy to renewable energy will be smooth and painless. Ingenious innovation will make all the bad
stuff go away, and we’ll all be able to continue enjoying a wondrous high tech
lifestyle without any major sacrifices. Electric
cars, green energy, and all the latest gadgets can now be made from sustainable
fairy dust and good vibes. Utopia is
awesome.
The Sustainable Development cult has billions of
converts. Its holy mission is to keep
industrial civilization on life support for as long as possible, at any cost,
and leave the bills for the kids. It’s
about enduring jobs you don’t like, to buy stuff you don’t need, to impress
people you don’t respect. It’s about
living as if we are the last generation, without a thought for those who come
after us. It’s a sustainable suicide
cult.
Nobody reading these pages in 2015 will experience
humankind’s return to genuine sustainability.
Healing will take centuries, and success is not guaranteed. Luck is fickle. Our closest living relatives, chimps and
bonobos, share about 99 percent of our genes.
Their ancestors have lived in the same place for two million years
without trashing it. They did not get
lost.
Humans strayed onto a very different path, and the way that
most of us now live is the opposite of sustainable. Yet every day we are bombarded by grand proclamations
of ersatz sustainability, thundering geysers of bull excrement. My mission here is to provide intelligent
pilgrims with tools that increase their ability to recognize the difference
between ecological sustainability and ersatz sustainability. Where we belong is so far from where we are.
It is deeply troubling to contemplate the staggering implications
of ecological sustainability, because they blow the fundamental illusions of
our culture to smithereens. We are
indeed animals, and we are indeed living in an unbelievably harmful manner. Should we think about this? Should we talk about this? What should we do? Well-fed minds and clear thinking are vital.
The reviews in Understanding
Sustainability will introduce you to dozens of books that might be
of interest. Reviews only provide hints
of the contents. They are never a
substitute for reading the full work.
Authors that intrigue you may have written other books or essays. They may be the stars of online videos. Critical thinking is essential for any
adventure in learning. I do not agree
with every idea in every book reviewed here.
Understanding
Sustainability is a companion to my previous book, Sustainable or Bust,
another collection of book reviews. Both
supplement my first book, What
is Sustainable, an introduction to environmental history and good
old fashioned fundamentalist sustainability.
If you like one, you’ll like them all.
Enjoy!
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