Zone5

Three important reports out in the last week highlight how utterly unsustainable the current human system is, locked in as it is to a process seeking the impossible, the unnatural and the undesirable: unending growth.

Many thanks to Transition Culture for the links to the first two: From Carbon Equity comes The Big Melt Report which critiques the IPCC report as being out by a mile: not only have is the actual effects of climate change being felt much sooner than predictions, with Arctic ice now expected to be gone as soon as 2013- a full century ahead of the IPCC predictions; but perhaps even more significantly,CO2 emissions are now growing more rapidly than “business-as-usual”, the most pessimistic of the IPCC scenarios:

“Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are rising at an increasing rate: a May 2007 study found the annual growth in global CO2 emissions caused by human activity jumping from an average 1.1 per cent for 1990–1999 to more than 3 per cent for 2000–2004″

Furthermore, Michael Raupach, lead author of the Innovations Report, 2007, is quoted as saying:

““a major driver accelerating the growth rate in global emissions is that, globally, we’re burning more carbon per dollar of wealth created. In the last few years, the global use of fossil fuels has actually become less efficient. This adds to pressures from increasing population and wealth”.

This may be an indication of the principles of Diminishing Returns: as we approach Peak Everything, it takes more and more energy just to keep the system standing still. The over-blown, over-extended industrial system has exercised its voracious appetite for the Earth’s resources to the limit, and there is nothing else it can do but begin consume itself.

In the same way, Ivan Illich argued in Tools for Conviviality over 30 years ago that a society that opts for a mode of transport faster than a bicycle will actually be moving slower once all the time it takes to produce the fuel and build and maintain the relevant infrastructure is taken into account.

A report from The Energy Watch Group judges that we have passed peak:

“The major result from this analysis is that world oil production has peaked in 2006. Production will start to decline at a rate of several percent per year. By 2020, and even more by 2030, global oil supply will be dramatically lower. This will create a supply gap which can hardly be closed by growing contributions from other fossil, nuclear or alternative energy sources in this time frame.”

Finally, the London Independent carries a story about Unep’s (United Nations Environment Programme) Global Environment Outlook (GEO-4) which states that nealry everyu environmental indicators of planetary well-being are declining, including over-fishing, de-forestation, and species extinction.

In other words, after more than 40 years of warnings from environmental scientists and activists that an unsustainable system simply cannot last, we are fast approaching pay-back time.

I have also just heard on RTE Radio that many Irish bakers may go out of business because of rising grain prices, and the pig industry here “could even collapse” because of its dependence on imported grain for feed.

It seems that the effects of both rising fossil fuel costs and of burning those fossil fuels- climate change- are being felt right now and severely testing the industrial society which depends on the same fuels.

It may well be that the modern world is so over-exposed and dependent on a system inherently unsustainable- that it may collpase, or parts of it may collapse quite abruptly, perhaps in a cascading effect.

The issue is of course not the type of energy we use (fossil energy) per se but the combined effects of the total human footprint which is still increasing.

Now more than ever we need to sing with one voice: reduce. Live more simply. Cut back on material needs. Take the advice of Albert Bates who, on his recent visit to Ireland, recommended seeking out activities like surfing that might keep you busy but dont in themselves require too many resources.