The dark, wet days of early summer in the northeastern U.S. are fitting for how it seems many are feeling these days. As we’ve transitioned into a new season on the calendar, the weather hasn’t followed suit. And as we’ve entered a new era after the economic crash of 2008 and the looming threats of climate change and peak resources, much of the world speaks not of these issues but guardedly anticipates a return to normalcy [sic]. I don’t believe that’s going to happen.
What will indeed happen is anyone’s guess but there have been a number of plausible scenarios thrown out in the public domain recently. From Holmgren’s Future Scenarios (see review here) and Bryn Davidson’s Dynamic Cities Project scenarios to the possibilities envisioned by people like Kunstler and Duncan, there are optimists that include those who believe (wrongly, I think) that technology will be at the core of the solution and others who feel that a steady transition to the local may be feasible (I hope so but am skeptical). More pessimistic theorists suggest that some form of collapse will ensue or a disruptive decline and decay of modern society that would be less acute but no less devastating. Regardless of how post-industrialism transpires, there will certainly be significant changes in the economy and new governmental models to oversee the new landscapes. The more tumultuous the transition, the less likely that the power structures will be benign.
If you haven’t caught on the the reality of the political conversations and maneuverings in Washington related to energy and climate change, it should soon be clear to you that nothing substantive is going to happen. Nothing. Posturing and smoke screens will be the order of the day and in the end, the energy lobby and other business interests, unions and manufacturing groups, regular old citizens and chamber of commerce reps will all have their say and their words will once again rule the day. Will you be surprised? Confused? Wasn’t this all supposed to change now that we have a “progressive” democratic president and a supermajority in Congress? It should have been clear to you through the euphoria of “change and hope discourse” that it wasn’t really going to be all that different than before. Certainly the faces have changed and the rhetoric has been toned down. But the central core philosophy and culture remains the same. Free markets, growth, consumption, lifestyle centers, gated communities, iPods, Twitter, corn syrup, and Jenny Craig are still our reason for being.
Yet as I intimated at the beginning of this piece, there is an undercurrent of discomfort, a constant feeling of unease and that something is out there, looming, waiting to either flood over us or creep up slowly in our midst. And I also feel that many believe that we should be doing something, preparing, changing our lives, meeting the challenge. But what challenge? And how should we go about it? The mainstream media isn’t really picking up on this and water cooler discussions remain stuck on sports and reality television.
Jason Bradford articulates the disconnect in his article on The Oil Drum when he observes that a tractor pull in Willits, CA drew ten times as many people as the relocalization events that he’s hosted in the city. The metaphor could be that we can take breaks during our powder cocaine rehab sessions and freebase (or do crack). Are we really so nuts? Is it possible that our culture is irredeemable? As long as there are strong countercurrents to the efforts to course correct our civilization richly funded by the very enterprises that benefit from the status quo, the messages and information necessary to shift the culture will not carry enough water to make a significant difference.
Scholars of propaganda are aware of the amount of research and funding that undergirds the messages being developed and broadcast to counter climate change science, peak oil estimates, noted threatened ecosystems, and numerous other incursions on the natural world and indigenous cultures by industrial capitalism. The number of law firms, public relations firms, think tanks, and foundations that are funded by extractors, polluters, manufacturers, financiers, bankers, and other members of the culture of growth and development is staggering and their bankroll is essentially global wealth personified. How do you compete against this? Or, how do you compete with this on their own home playing field?
Bradford raises other interesting questions in his post that shed some light on why efforts to (pick one…or more: save nature, save humanity, protect the biosphere, reverse climate change, meet the threats of peak resources, develop a sustainable society…) are so difficult. There is what he refers to as “dueling neurotransmitters” that one one hand warn that an activity like tractor pulls is bad for the earth (in several ways) but that we are also luridly attracted to the spectacle with its noise, visual appeals, crowd induced excitement, and other social, psychological, and physiological attractants. I can personally relate to this dichotomy of feelings regarding a destructive aspect of our culture with my own family’s relationship to the industrial system that was the foundation of our society. My grandfather used to bring his children to downtown Cleveland on weekends to see firsthand the power and majesty of industrialism including steel mills, ore boats, trains with West Virginia coal, and other trappings of manufacture. While much of this had been dismantled by the 1980’s, there was enough left for my mother and I to pay a Sunday visit to Jones & Laughlin Steel to photograph the eerie snaking and hissing steam pipes and view the coke furnace billowing steam from a safe distance. I admit as an avid and staunch environmentalist that there was and still remains a thrilling respect for the power of these operations. Just spend an afternoon at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI and you might get a feel for what I’m talking about.
And that’s a problem. Unless we can shed that part of our psyches that continues to revel, love, respect, lust, and worship the trappings of industrial culture, we will never have the will and resolve to cast it aside and establish something sustainable. But until that happens, it seems likely that this tension between recognition that we need to protect ourselves and our planet on one hand and the love and devotion we have for the products and conveniences of modern civilization on the other will continue to result in the type of torpor and passiveness we’re now experiencing.
One final thought on this current period of relative inactivity give the threats facing us. Post Carbon Institute Executive Director Asher Miller provided a disturbing scenario when in his article Disaster Transitionism he posits that military and xenophobic (and probably corporate) types are very likely planning for the very threats that they publicly denigrate and scoff at which would result in a far different type of future than many of us hope to transition to. Leaving the planning for the future to these sorts once again would be an abdication of responsibility of epic proportions. Whether your interest is to plan for the future in a positive and hopeful manner as is offered by the Transition Initiative or something less community oriented and preservationist focused, at least recognize the threats and proactively seek to prepare for the other shoe to drop.
