For today's thought, I would like to consider a quote from The Amish Newcomer from my post earlier this week:
"Then you were lying when you said you were interested in green and sustainable living. A zero-waste lifestyle. You say you support those things, yet you disdain the skills that make that kind of lifestyle possible. If those things are important to you, then you should be willing and able to preach it to others."
This has always been a point of contention with me for those that espouse the theory of green and sustainable. To many (not all), it often seems like green and sustainable is required to conform to a particular point of view in order for it to truly be green and sustainable: electric cars are the only acceptable solution to transport (let us not speak of how the batteries are manufactured or disposed of), certain forms of energy are the only acceptable ones (renewable wind and sun: Good; renewable wood, human, and animal labor: Bad), organic foods are the only acceptable food (or at least, only organically sourced foods sold at your local supermarket).
This version of green and sustainable is the view of the privileged city dweller: all green and sustainable efforts must fit within the dominant paradigm that cities and technology are the most important centers, that white collar work is the only desirable work, and that anything which does not involve technology is "archaic" and "outdated" (and probably inefficient).
This is not true sustainability. As any economist would tell you, something that requires more inputs than outputs is a losing proposition in the long term. And of course as the technology increases, so does the price and fragility: a level or measuring tape is much less expensive than the smart phone I buy with those applications on it so I do not have to buy a level or measuring tape. The level and measuring tape will also not have a cracked screen when I drop them on the ground.
So why is it? Why is it in our quest for green and sustainable we overlook actual tested techniques and practices hundreds or thousands of years old and try to replace them with the ones that are seemingly the most convenient to us rather than potentially better for the planet and environment?
Lewis hits the nail on the head. The first arrives from a disdain of this methods, an underlying sense (fed by our culture and educational system) that anything manual or low tech is essentially drudgery or for the "less better" people. It involves inconvenience. It involves effort, sometimes a great amount of effort in many cases for what would appear to be a minimal result (the result is not minimal if it meets the requirements of sustainable and meeting the need, it only seems so: the yield from a gallon of milk is perhaps a pound of cheese. To many, that does not seem right in the age of the 5 lb. cheese blocks they can buy in the store).
The second - which Lewis addresses in her book but not specifically in the quote - is the question of values.
To the trendy green and sustainable people, all that meets their interpretation of this lifestyle must fit within the context of the modern world. Values which make green and sustainable living work - hard work, frugality, long hours, simple pleasures, community values built on traditional or religious tenants - are "backwards". They should not have to adopt the one to keep the other: we want to be "modern" and still feel as if we have upheld the sustainable values of generations past.
Of course there is adaptation: a chainsaw works more quickly than a two handed saw, a tractor can take the place of a team of horses. But at best you are buying time and physical wear: the food only grows as quickly as a plant grows or stacking cut wood, whether by maul and wedge or by a splitter, only stacks one piece at a time. Sustainability has a rhythm and pace that cannot ever be moved along faster by our wishes or desires.
This is the rub, of course: you cannot have the one without the other. Like anything, there is a trade off. A trade off that the trendy are not willing to make.
They can try, of course. And perhaps - for a short time - they can succeed. But ultimately, the inputs in this system will always be more than the outputs. They are building to a pyramid, a point with brilliant white marble paneling which can seen (and admired by others) for miles around.
Of course, once you reach the top of the pyramid, the only place to go is back down.
Having worked with solar, and having some idea of its limitations, I love popping the balloons of people that think they’re going to go off the grid and have the same energy consumption after they convert. Wind is even a bigger scam; up here in Alberta where we get rain, ice and snow... the small residential wind turbines don’t fare well at all.
ReplyDeleteKing Peter and I squabbled over that recently. He was griping about how little the evil oil companies weren’t living up to new rules about cleaning up and reclaiming abandoned oil well sites. Where I used to hunt, they were everywhere. If you wanted to reclaim and clean them up...you’d have to knock down 80 acres of trees first. When you really start looking into what these dweebs want and what it will mean to implement it... you start getting an appreciation of how ignorant these people really are.
Glen - You have been educational to me in this regard. Solar, and even wind have their place as a limited supplemental provider of energy (see Leigh and Dan's unit at Five Acres and a Dram, which is targeted towards powering a very specific part of their house). Wind can work - if, again, you have the right conditions. But even with that, it seems that wind turbine blades cannot be re-used, reduced, or recycled - so we have to burn or bury them.
DeleteThe point of it underlies a principle, the principle I was trying to get at: they want the green and sustainable life style, but in a way that does not inconvenience them or make them have to change their lives in ways other than what they want. I suspect - I do not know - that confronting them with this kind of data will not change their minds.
In Iceland when we were there, you can drive by and see geothermal plants - there was big one on the way in to Reykjavik. That works for them - but they have the geothermal situation where that applies. The reality is that one solution will not fit all circumstances and until that is accepted, this sort of silliness will continue.
Begging your pardon, TB - but no, wind and solar are not going to be viable in a complete 'collapse' or SHTF scenarios. Anyone thinking so is kidding themselves. Most home wind turbines fail in the first year. Count on needing parts and service - but most turbines are 'throw aways' and are not economical to repair. The best panels we have today degrade at 1% per year. To achieve peak energy harvest, solar panels have to be on mechanial trackers that follow the sun and aim the panels at it. Humidity, critters that knaw on cables like mice and squirrels, ice, snow - all this has huge impacts on your array. Most inverters are the cheap ones imported from China. They carry a ten year warranty and I have seen them fail in as little as two. Good luck getting the Chinese to honour their warranties. Sure, you can hook up your panels and make electricity... but a proper installation requires you to do an energy audit. Then you need the more expensive MPPT inverters, the additional optimizers, and the battery storage, and that means huge cash outlay. Some gov'ts subsidize solar, and for those that do - your average array is going to be in the $15~20k range. Depending on the subsidy, your array will start paying itself off in around 15 to 20 years - when most of your components are starting to fail.
DeleteYour point is well made, but understated in my opinion. If the greens got their way and we all had to go on alternative energy, our economy would not only collapse, but I'd expect mass deaths to result too.
Alternative energy right now is pretty much a very expensive hobby. It's cool... but it isn't practical. It might help during a temporary crisis, but it will never replace fossil fuels.
Glen - No begging of the pardon necessary. I did not intentionally mean to imply it was a long term solution in a collapse scenario. Merely a way to mitigate the fall short term, I suppose.
DeleteYou are seeing your opinion play out in California to some extent, as the state cannot completely power itself as it has shifted to so-called renewable energy. Trust me, it is a hard summer to be without air conditioning in the Central Valley.
Does it ever reach anything but a hobby status?
Old growth forests are being leveled to meet the wind mill quotas in northern Europe. It's posturing for prestige.
ReplyDeleteWhen my father-in-law handed me the manly bits of the goat he was teaching me to butcher, it was a test. I asked if he really planned on keeping this or not, he grinned with his one good eye and so, "no". I flipped it off to the side and kept helping and learning.
Every green goblin needs a test. Glen nailed it. "Today, we are gonna dig a latrine, and you get the shovel, greenie. Then the lesson on siting with regards to water, etc. The evils of crapping on the ground, smells, vermin, worms, etc. Yeah, going 'green' is not for the squeamish.
One test I failed was grabbing the water bucket by the release and washing the walls of the well down into the drinking water. It came out brown and crunchy, but that was all there was to drink. I learned not to do that on the first go round. Learn the lessons and kept going.
STxAR, I saw that this was happening in Lithuania. This is the most backward, stupidest, most short sighted policy ever. But everyone supposedly feels better.
DeleteGreen and sustainable was what was essentially practiced through at least the Middle Ages (there is a reason we are short on artifacts overall: there were now artificial materials and everyone returned to the earth which is came). Strangely though - and I think this is Patrice's point - you hear very few of the green and sustainable folks advocating this lifestyle (to be fair some, but not many). They like their cell phones and nylon sportswear and fresh ingredients from the world over.
The well lesson sounds like a very good lesson indeed.
This falls in line with a group of protesters in the San Francisco Gay... er... BAY... Area... that decided the time was right to protest pollution and "BIGGOIL." The group's protest involved completely blocking the Bay Bridge... with its members' CARS. Yeah; they DROVE to the protest point, and them blocked thousands of people from crossing the bridge, who sat there idling for hours. People here in the Wild, Wild West are really keen on working from home to save the Earth, but only if they're using the VERY LATEST laptops and IPhones. You know; the ones whose service life is determined by their non-replaceable batteries. I'm leaving this comment from a beautiful, serviceable, Dell laptop running Windows 7. MS decided to stop supporting W7. It's answer when asked "What about me and my beautiful, older Dell?" was "Buy a new laptop." Yeah... Green... Did you ever notice that "going green" involved you "green going?"
ReplyDeleteAs far as solar and wind are concerned, I can see them as SUPPLEMENTAL power sources. Solar happens to work very well here in the West, having more than 300 days of sunlight per year. It is, however, limited. It also uses plenty of oil in its manufacture and transport. Electric cars; that electricity is being generated somewhere, probably using coal or natural gas. I think that, if an environmentalist wanted to be truly honest, he would have to admit that given the pollution created by generating electricity, and its loss coming down the line to the car's charger, let alone the pollution generated during the manufacture of the batteries in the car, a well-maintained gas-powered vehicle would probably be cleaner over all per mile driven!
No, the modern, tree-hugging urbanite isn't going to shed a favorable light on "backwards" sustainable living. Face it; they've already drunk the Kool Aid from the companies that manufacture "the latest and greatest." After all; what money is there to be made selling something that a person buys once in a lifetime, even when that thing is used every day? Like I said; it's not about "going green." It's about "green going..."
Pete - Oddly enough, the Bay Area has a regional transit system (Bay Area Rapid Transit, or BART for those that do not know) that will allow you to get off fairly close to the Bay Bridge, as I recall. One could always walk there and then protest I suppose (Yes, the irony of the whole thing is rather delicious).
DeleteYou bring up a good point about the best and newest. Until the idea of "building for a lifetime" is reintroduced (you know, another one of the old fashioned ideas) the irony (and things needing to be disposed of) will continue. I am almost at the point of needing a new computer after 7 years; I am reasonably bitter I cannot keep this one longer but replacing the hard drive simply is not economical.
The point about manufacturing is a taken point not well addressed either, not just in the energy used but in many of the components (which again are greatly petroleum based; no wood computers that I know of). And in states like California where your power may go off at a whim, what good is an electric vehicle you cannot charge.
Sadly (and to echo yours and Glen's point), it is going to take this foolishness costing actual lives to begin to get people to critically think about such things.
Green people are the biggest hypocrites when it comes to whining about BIG OIL, and using all the things they stupidly refuse to realize come from petroleum.
ReplyDeleteIt's like when they tried to do away with the old incandescent light bulbs and told you you had to switch to CFL bulbs which are really a Hazmat nightmare in the general home. When was the last time you had to worry about poisoning yourself when you broke a lightbulb?
Good post, TB. Good comments, too.
Linda - In some ways we all have the issue of not knowing what thing are made of, partially because we were never educated on it. Items just "appear" in stores; I can scarcely ever remember questioning what they were made of.
DeleteCFL bulbs are a splendid example of a solution which created as much of a problem as it solved. To dispose of them, we were told, the government would "ensure" that the manufacturer's were billed to make sure that happened. The fee was included in the Cost of Goods by the manufacturers - and then the price was immediately raised for the consumer. Now we have a Hazardous Materials situation every time a bulb is dropped and we pay more.
I have to tell you I am finding myself spoiled by the level of thoughtful comments here. I really do have the best readers and responders (you, of course, being front and center).
I think this illustrates the huge disconnect between humans and their perceived realities. I also think that the disconnect exists partly because of deception and partly because of ignorance.
ReplyDeleteBecause of deception because "green" and "sustainability" (for example) have been promoted as the "in" trends. I'd say advertising and politics are the worst offenders here, because the goal is to manipulate people to a desired end, i.e., pushing a product, service, policy, belief, behavior, etc.
Because of ignorance because we humans are so far removed from naturally created processes, that we truly don't understand them. I speak from experience here. When we bought our homestead, our intentions were good, but it took years of working with plants, animals, and the soil to realize that we really didn't understand those processes. And especially, we didn't understand our role (i.e. as humans) in how natural systems work. Trends are irrelevant.
The only way to make true sustainability work will be at a huge cost. That cost is lifestyle. As it is, we want lifestyles that require obscene amounts of energy and that create an obnoxious amount of waste (which is pretty well hidden from public view). We can't eat our cake and have it too. My personal opinion (which is weird, I know) is that industrialism is the culprit. Capitalism and socialism are just different sides of that same coin. People are arguing over the wrong things. I say (here comes more weirdness) that only a return to a land-based lifestyle, community, and economy--i.e., agrarianism-- has a hope of the responsible stewardship of creation.
Interesting discussion, T.B.
Leigh - Very good insights. Deception and ignorance are both at play. Deception is, as you indicate, driven from advertising and politics but is really driven by power, be it financial or political. The power to determine what people do (by control) or the power do what you want (money). Most of the true "green" people I follow have neither of the issues. They may be trying to make a living at a fair wage and may even promote their theory, but it is never from a position of control but rather from a position of example (I can do it you, you can as well).
DeleteIgnorance - Yes. Unknowing ignorance as you so clearly point out from your experiences, but ignorance none the less. Most of us are one to three generations removed from "the world". We base our understanding on high school chemistry and biology or National Geographic shows we see about "Nature", never comprehending all of the cycles that go into making something grow or produce. There are immutable laws of nature that all our wishes and trends cannot change, and we will butt up against them every time.
(An aside: Is this not the same root of many people's issue with God? Believing, based on their experience and education, that there cannot be a higher power when in fact all sorts of things are beyond their control. Acknowledging this is no less difficult than acknowledging that all the water and soil in the world will not inherently make a sweet potato slip grow).
I do not know that your assessment is incorrect at all. Industrialism is a culprit, to be sure - but I would argue commercialism is also a culprit as well. Not just that we can manufacture so many things, but that we want certain things manufactured (our new phones, for example, or even my beloved books).
Your argument about a return to agrarianism is the same that my heroes of the Agrarian Faith (now so designated) - Masanobu Fukuoka, Sepp Holzer, Gene Logsdon, Wendell Berry, Joel Salatin - have said and are saying. Such a return would, as you indicate, create extreme changes in lifestyles and indeed in the very nature of our live themselves. It is something that so many could not do not because of inability (which would present its own set of challenges - how could we address those) as much as from their unwillingness to surrender their necessary lifestyle.
Thank you for the thoughts Leigh. You have sent my mind off in other directions (with books I have, of course) about the same sort of ideas.
And as I mentioned to Linda, I am incredibly spoiled by my readers and their thoughtful comments.
Your agrarian heroes are mine too! :)
DeleteYou put some finer points on what I was trying to say, thank you! I agree, it's power that's the driving force behind deception. That's the best nutshell term for it. What's worrisome is that its voracious appetite is seemingly unchecked these days.
You also make an excellent point about commercialism, which I think is born out of industrialism. They seem to fuel one another.
If the Great Collapse does indeed happen (which is not out of the realm of possibility), then it will be a real wake-up call for all of us.
We both have excellent taste then Leigh!
DeleteI think the Great Wake Up Call is here, it is just a question of how many people are actually paying attention.
When asked how to describe myself politically, I generally say I'm a fiscal conservative environmentalist. For me, the big picture isn't about whether or not the electric car is considered green or if windmills are the truest form of green energy. For me the big picture is that we are at least trying to adapt to our changing reality of what we are doing to our planet. Yes it may be crude and even laughable compared to what we have 50 years from now but it is a start. It is certainly better than the alternative of doing nothing and waiting for our inevitable demise.
ReplyDeleteI remember that first computer I was exposed to. It was cumbersome and had a very limited application for use in our household other than playing some games on it for entertainment. It wasn't even close to perfect but was the first step towards the computers of today that really run our lives whether we like it or not. My hope is that the "green energy" movement will feel the same way when we look back fifty years from now.
Ed, my one thought might be that the difference between what you are describing and what actually exists is, in an ironic turn of events, the market.
DeleteMy example would be the same as yours, the computer. Prior to 1978 or so (I remember the TRS-80), computers were generally large, bulky, and not really designed for the home market except for enthusiasts. What changed that was the market and the changes the market demanded. The difference - my quibble - is that in fact the market is not defining these changes. We are being told what we should desire and how we should do it.
Simple example: In homes, the biggest difference you can make in energy usage for heating and cooling is insulation and good windows. Insulate the heck out of them and they will pay you time and again with reduced energy usage. It is a relatively low cost solution. Instead, you get something like the state of California mandating solar on every house: expensive, depreciating in terms of value and usefulness (see Glen's comment above), and not really solving the issue. But we all feel better.
I maintain that had the market not intervened in the electronics world, we would still be using room sized computers. There was nothing pushing the manufacturer's to change and get better/smaller/faster. Instead of mandating the solutions that some groups seem to think we need, open the flood gates to what the market can do - the sort of "define where you want to go but let people define how they get there". We would make a lot more sensible process than creating blades we can do nothing else with but bury or creating waste that we can only bury for centuries.
interesting post and I tend to agree with things from all perspectives. People think green and think the environment and I believe many want to push things in the right direction..but they have bias and they are thinking about things as in: I want to be green but still want to live the same lifestyle I had. To me these are at odds. I have been off grid for 13 years. Yay for me but in many ways I waste been more due to having a truck. But whatever the case may be I hope the gren trend continues and becomes a norm which shapes our every action.Big Brother is watching..did you put that Orange rind in the compost bin? ;)
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