April 28, 2006
An interesting article about Earth Day recently appeared on the web site of a West Coast environmental group. "On Earth Day" was written by Alex Steffen – who is the Executive Editor and Co-Founder of World Changing.
I didn't find a mission statement for his organization, but the web site features a mix of articles about "green technology" and ecological sustainability. Their political views are possibly summarized by this bizarre picture of a future green city. The article below the picture – written by the Managing Editor, Sarah Rich – suggests that World Changing sees itself as the neo-vanguard of the "Next Green Revolution."
Steffen seems to welcome comments, so I wrote a response and submitted it to the web site on April 26. He didn't respond.
Alex,
There are aspects of your essay that I greatly admire. You're obviously a radical – someone interested in getting to the root of problems. I often think that the world would be a better place with more radicals.
However, I want to challenge you on the premises of your conclusions. For example, why should we continue to value large scale?
Your main suggestion seems to be that we need to band together to overthrow the system that is destroying the Earth, and replace it with a large-scale system that creates a sustainable society. I doubt that would be a successful effort. I'll offer specific replies to some of your essay to illustrate my point.
But the solutions being touted ... are themselves creating a new kind of problem ... at a time when we need to be rebuilding our civilization to avoid disaster.Would it be best to "rebuild" or decentralize?
Most of the harm we cause in the world is done far from our sight, created through the workings of vast systems whose workings are often intentionally hidden from us, and over which we have very little influence as single individuals.That's well-stated. But you seem to suggest later that we should replace that vast system with a better vast system. I doubt that a new system would be any more empowering.
That to be focused on lifestyle tweaks and attitudinal adjustments at this moment in history is like showing up with a teaspoon to help bail out a sinking ship.Yes, and see this site for a continuation of that metaphor. The Earth is the ocean; the ship is the modern industrial world. Why do you want to save the ship?
We need to create a closed-loop, biomimetic, neobiological industrial system.I strongly disagree. Any "industrial system" will not be sustainable.
We need to ban the vast majority of the toxic chemicals upon which our livestyles currently float and invent a completely non-toxic green chemistry.Who will do the banning? Will it be the state? I urge caution here. Do you want to replace the current "vast system whose workings are often intentionally hidden from us" with a vast state system? Large scale dehumanizes. Read Kirkpatrick Sale to learn more about the importance of human scale.
We need transparency, accountability, genuine equity, real democracy and human rights.Real democracy is only possible on a human scale.
We need to grab hold of these economic systems, strip them down to their component parts and rebuild them anew.Again, who is the "we" here? History shows that any Jacobin-style revolution (overthrowing and replacing the old order) has a vanguard with disproportionate power. Perhaps secession would be a better strategy than revolution.
That means supporting (or becoming) clean energy entrepreneurs, green builders, sustainable product designers, socially-responsible investors, and so on.Capitalism is a system predicated on growth, because surplus production provides the profit for investors. I doubt that capital investors would accept no return on their investments. So any solution using the tools of capitalism would be doomed from the start.
We need to defend the commons, from the air we breath to the culture we create together.If you're allowing that defense to be decentralized and diverse, then I would agree. But if the "we" is a centralized Brave New World, then I see a prescription for tyranny.
We need better mousetraps.I recommend dismantling most of the mousetraps we have and learning to live with mice. I recommend less complexity, less consumption, and greater spiritual awareness. If you seek greater balance and freedom, then better technology is not the answer.
We need to admit that we're at war over the definition of the future.If the means are the ends in the making, and "we" wage war on capitalism, what kind of future will be created? Will there be soma available?
Alex, I don't mean to discourage your rebellion against the horrible system in which we live. But I encourage you to think about the values that got us into this ecological mess in the first place – such as large scale, high speed, centralization and efficiency. I challenge you to consider whether sustainable societies can truly evolve with those industrial values.
Mark Knapp