George Monbiot seems to me to be writing consistently a whole lot of sense. When I read this article I recognised loads of concerns I had dimly articulated -or not- in my blog postings on TheGreening all rolled up into one well-expressed article. The tenor of the thing can be grapsed a bit from this quote. "Alternative technology permits us to imagine that we can build our way out of trouble. By responding to one form of over-development with another, we can, we believe, continue to expand our total energy demands without destroying the planetary systems required to sustain human life. This might, for a while, be true. But it would soon require the use of the entire land surface of the United Kingdom."
In other words reducing energy consumption has to be part of the solution. Until we say this it may be hard to see the upcoming arguments between renewables and nuke power in a helpful frame. I suggest that this means several developments at once. Concentrating on things that reduce consumption [lower power lighting and other devices and also insulation and so on]. Changing culture -or rather emphasising cultural tenrds that are low-impact. Better design in the mode of 'Natural Capitalism' by Lovins and the others.
I think where I would fault Monbiot's argument is the equation of capital needing to expand energy use. The argument of Lovins etc is precisely that capital can conceivably be made to serve the biomimetic ends of maximally using what we have rather than the present norm of single inefficient use. Scarcity could drive whole new industries based on reclaiming and reusing. I think that the Green Party are arguing this too. Scarcity is actually a set of opportunities for capital and those with eyes to see the way that things will be going. Whether and how that's politically good is another matter ...
George Monbiot � A Different Kind of Revolution:
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"Spend and tax" not "tax and spend"
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"'Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell yo...
2 comments:
Yeah, capital can definitely be repurposed to serve low energy use, but in terms of maximising human wealth (or rather what is perceived as human wealth!) capital is most effective when running hand in hand with as much cheap energy as possible.
If people are willing to accept the repurposing of capital and this drop in 'apparent' wealth then the problem becomes: Can a growth orientated debt based economy work efficiently when 'apparent' wealth is dropping consistently? Debt might only be sustainable during periods of growing 'wealth'...
Thanks Mark. I'm a little confused about whether we are taking 'capital' in economic or financial terms [ie as a means of production or wealth to invest], but that doesn't obscure your main point. I think that your question about growth-orientated, debt-based economy is important and at the heart of the issues we face. I suspect aht part of what will need to happen, may even be happening is redefinition of 'apparent wealth' in more sustainable terms. The energy inputs are the crucial thing though even here we can be looking at consiedrable inprovements in energy use and still sustain quite good material standards of living. I don't offer this as a pnacea, but I think that we should be aware that the choice isn't a simple 'poverty vs wealth' choice, rather it's more convoluted than that depedning on how you measure the terms. The Green party are right along with others [eg Adbusters] to press for different measures of 'prosperity' than GDP.
I think I see signs that culture is heading towards seeing 'wealth' in relational and quality of life terms not simply amounts of stuff.
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