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Sustainability vs standard of living ... ?

Bernie Gunther

Bernie Gunther

Fundamentalist Druid
Here's a discussion of how net energy analysis can be used to model the transition to sustainability. If you scroll to the "Example" bit at the bottom, the author describes some implications for the EU in fairly plain english:
The transition to a renewable-based economy is not going to be easy. We shall need all the oil and gas we can get to fuel it and models show that, even then, it is going to be hard to maintain economic growth while keeping unemployment low.<snip>

A renewable-based economy is certainly possible so far as the supply side - nature - is concerned. The investment requirements are going to be formidable - greater than with nuclear power. The transition will take time and require the embodiment of much energy. To make this transition we shall need all the fossil fuels we can get. And the sooner we start the easier it will be. We certainly will have to start before it becomes 'economic' using that word in its traditional sense.
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source

I often suspect that one reason that the green movement and the traditional left sometimes don't seem to communicate as well as they might, is that the traditional left realises that there are probably implications in the green agenda for standards of living and related issues of material well-being.

So what should happen, when sustainability and economic progress conflict?
 
can't see the west wanting to backwards and nobody in the 3rd world is planning to stay on bicycles.
 
Bernie Gunther said:
Humans aren't bacteria on a petri dish though tobyjug.
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They might as well be, when non renewable resources run out and the long term sustainable population is only about 1/3rd of the current level.
 
By the time they "run out" (sort of) it'll be more like 1/5 - 1/6 I think.

But the very fact we're having this conversation is the crucial difference between us and bacteria colonies. We can figure out ways to avoid starving.

There are plenty of sensible things we could be doing to mitigate that situation but none of them are mandated by the free market and I think the traditional left might have some issues too.

Which is why I thought it might be useful to start a thread on which we can discuss these things.
 
Bernie Gunther said:
We can figure out ways to avoid starving.

.
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Bump off 2/3rds of the population before the shit hits the fan is the likely scenario given the short termism endemic in most governments.
 
Well yes and "let the poor people die" is obviously also the free market solution, you only have to look at New Orleans (although that was more like "treat the poor people as insurgents and let them die unless it'd be really embarassing")

I would really like to think that a species that can play golf on the moon could do better than that though, wouldn't you?
 
like a monkey at a typewriter posting randomly every day for hundreds of years, tobyjug has finally made a good point ;) - that our electoral system encourages short-term thinking among governments - and also voters I suspect - so even if a green-minded party got in they probably wouldn't have the mandate or the will to really develop for sustainability.
 
I don't have a whole lot of hope for reform via state power as the GPEW does. I'm much more inclined to place my trust in communities, realising they're in the shit and doing something about it together.
 
Bernie Gunther said:
I think the traditional left might have some issues too
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I've heard it suggested that the problem with 'the left' is that 'they' consider the problem of the means of production to be solved, in that the real problem lies with the distribution of the fruit of that production.

I mean, the notion of "To each according to their needs" starts to look a bit wobbley when a population with a systemic dependence on cheap energy is faced with a dwindling resource base and rapidly falling production, as the UK is with regard to North Sea Gas, for instance.

Bernie Gunther said:
Humans aren't bacteria on a petri dish though tobyjug.
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Reminded me of something a chap named Ed Iglehart once wrote on a list I subscribed to:

"A small population of ravenous beasties once found themselves in Paradise. The climate was just right; the environment was loaded with food and drink, and everything was just perfect. They therefore increased and multiplied and subdued their living garden, but, what with all that being fruitful, eventually there were so many of them that food was becoming scarce and they were being poisoned by their accumulated waste products (whatever eats also excretes) and suffered a die-off.




...The brew was decanted into barrels and pronounced excellent." :)
icon8.gif
 
One thing that I've always meant to ask one of our marxist gurus here. Is there some bit of marxist theory where the substitution of oil energy for labour is explored in depth? I've never managed to really find anything like that in Marx, but there's quite a lot of him, so perhaps someone can here put me right?
 
Bernie Gunther said:
Here's a discussion of how net energy analysis can be used to model the transition to sustainability. If you scroll to the "Example" bit at the bottom, the author describes some implications for the EU in fairly plain english: source

I often suspect that one reason that the green movement and the traditional left sometimes don't seem to communicate as well as they might, is that the traditional left realises that there are probably implications in the green agenda for standards of living and related issues of material well-being.

So what should happen, when sustainability and economic progress conflict?
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Whoa there. Is it me, or did you just conflate "standard of living" with "economic progress"?
 
Monetise externalities. Instead of the bullshit carbon trading we have now, levy a tax which represents with a good degree of accuracy the cost of pollution and it's consequnt external costs. Spend the money collected on massive grants and subsidies for environmentally sound projects. Watch the market frantically scramble to become as green as humanly possible.
 
In Bloom said:
Whoa there. Is it me, or did you just conflate "standard of living" with "economic progress"?
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IB - You may find this useful:

Quality of Life Versus Standard of Living

Quality of life and standard of living are often used interchangeably. But in fact they are two different concepts that are not necessarily related. Standard of living is generally measured by levels of consumption and thus, by levels of income. Satisfaction of basic needs of food, clothing and shelter are all standard of living issues. Quality of life is related to feeling good about one's life and one's self. One can have a very high standard of living and a low quality of life. And one can have a low standard of living and a high quality of life.

cont.
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Bernie Gunther said:
One thing that I've always meant to ask one of our marxist gurus here. Is there some bit of marxist theory where the substitution of oil energy for labour is explored in depth? I've never managed to really find anything like that in Marx, but there's quite a lot of him, so perhaps someone can here put me right?
Click to expand...

At the time Marx was writing 'cheap energy' was coal.

not a marxist guru.
 
In Bloom said:
Whoa there. Is it me, or did you just conflate "standard of living" with "economic progress"?
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I swapped them around in my first post because I wasn't quite sure which to use.

The model I mention in the first post has the following outcomes: Economic growth, Manufacturing output, Material standard of living, Primary energy demand, Carbon dioxide output, Self-sufficiency in energy and Unemployment.

So for example in one scenario, you get low CO2, good energy self-sufficiency but unemployment is up and standard of living is down, because you've diverted so many resources over the next couple of decades to replacing oil-based infrastructure.
 
Bernie Gunther said:
So what should happen, when sustainability and economic progress conflict?
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What should happen is that the great and the good forgoe their chateau life styles and come and live in the real world.

However, can you imagine any liberal theorist proclaiming that economic progress does actually conflict with sustainability? I think they already have several pages of measures that they will assure us will keep us bound to their smooth-sailing view of the seven seas.

But from an ealier thread it was mentioned that labour backbenchers are very familiar with peak-oil theories. So perhaps we need not worry at all.
 
Well it's not just peak oil. It's a whole raft of issues including, at some stage, peak oil. Climate change, phosphorus depletion, degradation of croplands etc.

The problem as I see it, is that to achieve sustainability in say 20 years time, we'd need to start investing seriously in it now. Our food systems depend on cheap oil, on croplands that are being degraded, on ecosystem services that are failing and on methods that are literally dumping non-renewable nutrients down the toilet, our housing stock is mostly designed to assume lots of cheap coal or oil and horribly energy-inefficient, our transport networks assume lots of cheap oil etc.

Unfortunately the free market sees no need to invest unless vast state handouts are available as encouragement, and then only in big capital projects like giant wind farms. I also think there is a potential conflict with many left agendas, because these are often focussed on material well-being and it seems likely that this may conflict with sustainability as a resource priority.

Now I suspect that there might be ways round this, quality of life might increase despite material well-being measured in consumer goods decreasing.

... but figuring all this out requires dialogue, which I'm trying to encourage.
 
The government aren't interested in sustainability in 20 years time.. They're still looking 30 years ahead. They reckon that by cutting emissions and new technology is going to save the day.

How do you manage dialogue with someone that is only pretending to listen?
 
newharper said:
At the time Marx was writing 'cheap energy' was coal.<snip>
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Fair point. Surely somebody in the mainstream of marxist thought has had a proper go at understanding sustainability issues though?

I was rather hoping someone here might have suggestions about where to find this. I know plenty of anarchists have done some pretty interesting (if occasionally confused on technical issues) thinking in relation to these issues.
 
Bernie Gunther said:
Fair point. Surely somebody in the mainstream of marxist thought has had a proper go at understanding sustainability issues though?

I was rather hoping someone here might have suggestions about where to find this. I know plenty of anarchists have done some pretty interesting (if occasionally confused on technical issues) thinking in relation to these issues.
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I'm not sure precisely what you're after- a start might be

John Bellamy Foster professor at "pinko" University of Oregon Eugene 'Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature'

James O'Connor 'Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism'

They defend that one of the overlooked reasons the Soivet Union came unstuck in the 1970s when it had weathered more difficult storms earlier on was that it faced "limits to growth" and that it was reaping the whirlwind of its unsustainable environmental policies.

I don't agree with everything they say.
 
sihhi said:
I'm not sure precisely what you're after- a start might be
<snip>
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Much appreciated sihhi. While I'm at it, thanks also for your good honest challenges the last time I tried to get some sort of dialogue going in here about this kind of thing.
 
Bernie Gunther said:
Much appreciated sihhi. While I'm at it, thanks also for your good honest challenges the last time I tried to get some sort of dialogue going in here about this kind of thing.
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That was a good thread- where's it gone?

Soil degradation which you mentioned on that thread- good pictures maps here:--
http://lime.isric.nl/index.cfm?contentid=158

For once, people in Turkey were talking seriously about it on radio... govt people saying we're making investments buying new tractors new machinery new everything-- but it's not making any difference like it used to before.
People saying we should stop exporting peaches and watermelons and get back to doing maize.
 
I found a long and fairly wide-ranging interview with Foster online. He has some very interesting things to say and I'm quite tempted to order his main book.
<snip> When you start looking concretely at the forces that are generating this crisis, it becomes clear that they are inseparable from the basic dynamics of the global capitalist system itself.<snip>

My main point here is that if environmentalists adopt a single-issue approach, then they will simply drive workers into the arms of capital. To be politically effective and to connect with a broader base, they need to directly confront the issue of class. Most people in capitalist society are working class, and the environmental movement isn't likely to get very far if it gets too middle- or upper-class in its orientation, or simply ignores class issues and says that the fate of laid-off workers should be left to the sanctions of the market.

Environmentalists need to avoid presenting people with a stark choice between protecting the environment and protecting the means by which they live. Instead, they need to have a political program that addresses the social and material needs of workers at the same time that it strives to protect the natural environment. This would help to develop a common labour-environmentalist political strategy that is capable of promoting real change.
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source
 
Bernie Gunther said:
I found a long and fairly wide-ranging interview with Foster online. He has some very interesting things to say and I'm quite tempted to order his main book.
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Be careful because it is very heavy going- it analyses lots of obscure Marx which isn't read much nowadays and it looks at Proudhon, and crazy people like Epicurus and Thomas Malthus.

It basically says Marx was the best out of the bunch and was aware that ecological collapse (just like mass war) could occur if the capitalist class was not sufficiently internationalist and forward-thinking enough...
 
Bernie Gunther said:
..............I think the traditional left might have some issues too..............
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I think you're in danger of being dismissed as a lifestylist, Bernie. :D





(I agree with you)
 
Bernie Gunther said:
Well yes and "let the poor people die" is obviously also the free market solution, you only have to look at New Orleans (although that was more like "treat the poor people as insurgents and let them die unless it'd be really embarassing")

I would really like to think that a species that can play golf on the moon could do better than that though, wouldn't you?
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"If letting poor people die" is the free market solution, hammers should be banned from sale because they don't feed people either.

The free market, is a system, it's a tool, with a purpose, nothing more. No one is pretending otherwise.
 
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