WanderingEng, here are some little excerpts that stand out to me. Any thing italicized in the quotes is italicized in the book. His philosophy on local power. Your question on feasibility and cost. A compelling statement on Farmers' Markets This is in the very beginning of the previous chapter, but here's the bit that he said that reminds me of Steady State Economics Durable. Sturdy. Stable. Hardy. Robust. These are squat, solid, stout words. They conjure a world where we no longer grow by leaps and bounds, but where we hunker down, where we dig in. They are words that we associate with maturity, not youth; with steadiness, not flash. They aren't exciting, but they are comforting - think husband, not boyfriend. Like I said, it's a really interesting book and he has a lot of ideas, many of them pretty exciting. I think there are a lot of points he brings up where, if this were a conversation in a living room, people with different experiences or knowledge bases could lean in and say things like "Yes, but blah blah blah" or "We should also keep in mind blah blah blah." Which, if I'm being completely honest, would be great. Can you imagine how awesome it would be if McKibben popped up on Hubski and you and kleinbl00 and me and whoever else was interested and really got into a dynamic conversation? It'd be awesome. Overall though, he has a philosophy, he embraces it and can bring up a lot of points to support it. He does an amazing job painting a picture and while he might not paint the picture you or I see, or he doesn't paint it the way you or I might paint a picture, it's still an easy picture to appreciate.In one sense, though, constructing a huge national green energy system is sort of like buying organic food at the supermarket; it's an improvement, in that the fields where it's grown aren't soaked in pesticides, but that produce is still traveling an enormous distance along vulnerable supply lines. And instead of building stronger local communities, the money you spend buying it just builds the bank accounts of a few huge firms.
In fact, in 2008 the Institute for Local Self-Reliance published a series of studies that showed half of all American states could meet their energy needs entirely within their borders, "and the vast majority could meet a significant percentage." Wind turbines and rooftop solar panels could provide 81 percent of New York's power, for instance, and almost two-thirds of Ohio's. But since North Dakota could provide 14,300 percent of its power needs, almost entirely from windmills, you might think the most logical course would be to simply concentrate on building turbines near Fargo and then ship the energy to Akron and Dayton; after all, it's 30 percent cheaper to spin those blades in the Dakotas than in Ohio. But it turns out the math is more complicated. For on thing, the new transmission lines necessary to carry that wind power east would run at least $100 billion. The institutes analysis found that once you factor in the cost of building the transmission lines, and subtract for the amount of electricity that's lost by sending it long-distance, the cost to Ohio consumers would be "fifteen percent higher than local generation with minimal transmission upgrades."
Eliminating all the middlemen that take most of the agricultural dollar would keep prices affordable. By some estimates, seventy-five cents of every dollar spent on supermarket food covers the cost of advertising, packaging, long-distance transport, and storage; at a farmers' market, by contrast, 95 percent of the price goes to the farmer growing the food. For poor people, the price is particularly right; since inner-city supermarkets typically charge a third more than suburban ones, and since the produce on the bodega shelf usually defines wilted, urban farmers' markets allow what one story called "ready access to wholesome and cheap food." When such a market is nearby, the consumption of fruit and vegetables increase, and recent immigrants are often the most enthusiastic customers (perhaps because they can remember what actual food tastes like). They also save money because the food's fresher: a local vegetable "might last a week in the fridge, whereas one that'd traveled might last only two days, since it's aged" says the Tufts University analyst Hugh Joseph. Since one out of four fruits and vegetables never makes it to the table because it spoils, that adds up."
We lack the vocabulary and the metaphors we need for life on a different scale. We're so used to growth that we can't imagine the alternatives; at best we embrace the squishy sustainable, with its implied claim that we can keep on as before. So here are my candidates for words that may help us think usefully about the future.
I like his ideas about being durable rather than continued growth (with "like" as a synonym for "I attempt this myself in some fashion already"). I do like a farmer's market. It makes me think maybe a problem with grocery stores is they offer so much choice. Do I really need bananas from Guatemala? Limiting options to what is available in the local growing season seems "better." I think my hangups with approaches like this is they don't really offer a path forward. They point out the (very real) flaws today, describe a utopia, and then leave as an exercise for the reader how to get there. I mentioned Hunt for Red October yesterday in pubski. There's a scene where Alec Baldwin is trying to guess how the submarine captain is goingto get the crew off the boat. "They have to want to get off." On the same token, people have to want to have fewer options and more times of scarcity. It a scenario I just don't see happening until they're forced to.
I've had a long day at work, so I apologize in advanced if this is hard to read because I'm not explaining myself well. It's easier to think of the ideas being offered not as "a path forward" but as "an eye towards possibilities." When we look back at people's ideas of what the future might look like, both cynical and optimistic, even when they're based on data and the best information possible, they're often at least partly wrong. We can never really predict "a path forward" because what's around the bend is obscured by hills, trees, and dense fog. When we think about the future in less defined terms of figuring out what will be and in more vague terms of musing over what might be, we allow flexibility, creativity, and awe to take hold and suddenly the sense of possibility is what drives us. I disagree with quite a few things McKibben said, some on particulars and some on philosophies, but I still come away from the book with a sense that we have a chance of making things work. I had a wonderful conversation with a new friend earlier this week. One of the themes we touched upon was carelessness and awareness. We talked about one of the reasons people are careless, both in the sense of heedlessness as well as apathy, is that it's because it's impossible to care about something if we know very little about it, much less if we know nothing at all. Personally, I'm an optimist on the issue, but I think in regards to the environment I don't think we have to wait until things become so horrible that we run out of options and then must be forced to accept things. Yeah, we have some real problems with weather right now, in terms of hurricanes, droughts, etc. Same with biodiversity and a whole host of issues. But I think we're reaching a greater and greater awareness every year. Case in point, when McKibben wrote this book ten years ago, I don't think you could use the word Greenwashing in a room with a hundred people and expect anyone to know what you're talking about. Today though? I bet you'd get at least a few people knowing what you mean without explanation. I think this is because the activity is becoming more common, which points to A) the activity is increasing among companies to the point that they're starting to bow to very real market pressures and B) they're responding to it so much and enough people care about the world enough, that the very idea of Greenwashing being an issue means that there's a greater awareness of environmental issues in the public in general. I pulled up Youtube and typed in "Compost." The first five videos I came across have a total of over 3.5 Million views together. The first five videos I came across for "Urban Farming" have a total of over 1.8 Million views together. The first five videos "Solar Panels" similarly have over 4.1 million views together. I doubt any of the people who watched those videos did so because they felt forced to. I very much think they did because there's a part to each one of them that very much cared to.I think my hangups with approaches like this is they don't really offer a path forward. They point out the (very real) flaws today, describe a utopia, and then leave as an exercise for the reader how to get there.
On the same token, people have to want to have fewer options and more times of scarcity. It a scenario I just don't see happening until they're forced to.