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Forget Saving the Planet, Save the Human Beings
Just how much does the lifestyle of the average American hasten the tipping point for global climate change? The tipping point being that point beyond which we cannot get the genie back in the bottle.
Last winter my wife and I spent the night at a 50 acre permaculture community in Argentina. http://www.gaia.org.ar/english/iinstituto.htm I was very impressed with this sustainable community. They use cutting edge solar and wind energy strategies as well as low tech solutions to create a very comfortable lifestyle for themselves.
Something I got from them was that the slogan "Save the Planet" doesn't make sense. The planet will be fine, it was fine when it was a molten ball of lava. The conversation should be "Save the Human Beings"
After we left I started thinking about ways to push back the tipping point. What changes in my lifestyle might delay the environmental tipping point by even one second? Can one person change their lifestyle so they could give human beings one more second or even one more minute to work on saving ourselves?
The world population is approaching seven billion. More than half live in poverty making less than $2 a day. The biggest impact most of those people could make might be by having fewer children. How much would zero population growth put back the tipping point? Those folks can't change their light bulbs or adjust the thermostats [a whole other conversation].
The people who can make the biggest difference right now are those of us who live in the developed world.
According to the 2008 World Population Data Sheet, http://www.prb.org/pdf08/08WPDS_Eng.pdf, issued by the Population Reference Bureau, about 18% of us live in the "more developed" segment of the world, roughly 1.2 billion of us. 5% of the world population or 300 million live in the United States. We in the US account for 23% of worldly energy use each year. Said differently, the 5% of the world's population that lives in the U.S. has more environmental impact than the 51% that live in the other five largest countries.
I actually see an opportunity in those statistics. Our actions in the US have a greater proportionate impact on the problem of climate change than the actions of those in other countries.
If each American added one more second to the time before we reach a climate change tipping point, how much time would that be? There are a little more than 300,000,000 Americans, so 300,000,000 seconds = 5,000,000 minutes = 83,333 hours = 3472 days = 9.5 years. Would that make a difference? We went from a standing start to putting a man on the moon in only 10 years.
I don't even know if one person could change their lifestyle in such a way that it would give humanity one more second to save itself. If it is possible, how about one more minute? 300,000,000 minutes = 5,000,000 hours = 208,333 days = 570 years.
What kind of actions would make any difference? I imagine there are lots of things that we don't even think of. I started shaving with a mug and brush about 20 years ago. How many cans of shaving cream did I save? I never thought about it until I went to that community in Argentina. I have been looking for double edged razor blades in the store to replace the cartridges I use now, they don't carry them. Online I found 100 stainless blades for $17 delivered. I could shave for a year for $20 bucks and have hardly any garbage.
At home my wife and I eat food that our grandmothers would recognize. As a result we eat a lot of food cooked from scratch that doesn't make a lot of garbage. We didn't start cooking at home to save humanity. We cook like that because we like our own cooking. Again, I never though much about it until we were at that permaculture community.
I know I get more than 15% better mileage when I drive 55 instead of 70. I also notice that when I am going 55, the same drivers pass me all day long. We probably go about the same distance in a day.
None of that seems like much, and yet certainly makes some tiny fractional difference. Can we make enough of a difference to save us humans? I don't know, but I know if we don't try, the planet will be fine, it just may not be habitable by us.
Last winter my wife and I spent the night at a 50 acre permaculture community in Argentina. http://www.gaia.org.ar/english/iinstituto.htm I was very impressed with this sustainable community. They use cutting edge solar and wind energy strategies as well as low tech solutions to create a very comfortable lifestyle for themselves.
Something I got from them was that the slogan "Save the Planet" doesn't make sense. The planet will be fine, it was fine when it was a molten ball of lava. The conversation should be "Save the Human Beings"
After we left I started thinking about ways to push back the tipping point. What changes in my lifestyle might delay the environmental tipping point by even one second? Can one person change their lifestyle so they could give human beings one more second or even one more minute to work on saving ourselves?
The world population is approaching seven billion. More than half live in poverty making less than $2 a day. The biggest impact most of those people could make might be by having fewer children. How much would zero population growth put back the tipping point? Those folks can't change their light bulbs or adjust the thermostats [a whole other conversation].
The people who can make the biggest difference right now are those of us who live in the developed world.
According to the 2008 World Population Data Sheet, http://www.prb.org/pdf08/08WPDS_Eng.pdf, issued by the Population Reference Bureau, about 18% of us live in the "more developed" segment of the world, roughly 1.2 billion of us. 5% of the world population or 300 million live in the United States. We in the US account for 23% of worldly energy use each year. Said differently, the 5% of the world's population that lives in the U.S. has more environmental impact than the 51% that live in the other five largest countries.
I actually see an opportunity in those statistics. Our actions in the US have a greater proportionate impact on the problem of climate change than the actions of those in other countries.
If each American added one more second to the time before we reach a climate change tipping point, how much time would that be? There are a little more than 300,000,000 Americans, so 300,000,000 seconds = 5,000,000 minutes = 83,333 hours = 3472 days = 9.5 years. Would that make a difference? We went from a standing start to putting a man on the moon in only 10 years.
I don't even know if one person could change their lifestyle in such a way that it would give humanity one more second to save itself. If it is possible, how about one more minute? 300,000,000 minutes = 5,000,000 hours = 208,333 days = 570 years.
What kind of actions would make any difference? I imagine there are lots of things that we don't even think of. I started shaving with a mug and brush about 20 years ago. How many cans of shaving cream did I save? I never thought about it until I went to that community in Argentina. I have been looking for double edged razor blades in the store to replace the cartridges I use now, they don't carry them. Online I found 100 stainless blades for $17 delivered. I could shave for a year for $20 bucks and have hardly any garbage.
At home my wife and I eat food that our grandmothers would recognize. As a result we eat a lot of food cooked from scratch that doesn't make a lot of garbage. We didn't start cooking at home to save humanity. We cook like that because we like our own cooking. Again, I never though much about it until we were at that permaculture community.
I know I get more than 15% better mileage when I drive 55 instead of 70. I also notice that when I am going 55, the same drivers pass me all day long. We probably go about the same distance in a day.
None of that seems like much, and yet certainly makes some tiny fractional difference. Can we make enough of a difference to save us humans? I don't know, but I know if we don't try, the planet will be fine, it just may not be habitable by us.
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I wonder. I wonder if seven billion - or nine plus, which is projected by mid-century, is going to be viable when I read articles like this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/31/science/earth/31ocean.html?_r=1
And I wonder about where the food is going to come from, and who is going to get the clean water, and things like that. Fighting over oil may seem quaint in a few years.
I am glad that someone's picking up on the "save the planet" point, though. I remember it being part4 of the late (and great) George Carlin's routine some years back. His take, of course, was much more darkly comic. It's about making/keeping it a decent world for human habitation. And we're either not very good at it, or most of us are deliberately obtuse.
February 2, 2009 1:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
You might enjoy looking at this web site, which highlights the development of an urban permaculture farm in the heart of San Francisco: http://18thandrhodeisland.org/
February 2, 2009 8:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
that's great, I tend to think of permaculture as rural, no longer, thanks
February 2, 2009 9:38 AM | Reply | Permalink