The End of “More”
I was reading the other day when I came across the phrase “producers attempt to make up their losses “on volume”" and it struck me that so much of the current mess we are in comes from this notion that overproduction–that “more”–is needed in order to make a gain;¬† to make things right in the world. A day after reading this, while it was still fresh in my mind, I was listening to the conversation of a farmer and his wife. She had just asked her husband, given a bum year, if he felt a farmer could make a living on 1200 acres, to which he replied most certainly. Yet, they both admitted that there were many who felt 5000 acres wasn’t enough to earn a living in agriculture. Those farmers have bought into the myth of¬† “making up their losses “on volume”".
We are at an amazing turning point but I’m not sure everyone thinks so. I am not sure most are even paying attention to what is happening or even care, as long as there is “more”. We are about to crash into the ceiling where “more” won’t be enough. It isn’t going to be pretty. It will be a hard, brutal knock which sends us plummeting into reality. The current trend towards a global economy, a “New World Order”, an empire run by corporations and their political minions, is all about “more”. But no one is waking up to the fact that there isn’t any “more”. Overproduction, wasteful corporate and industrial practices which view resources as limitless and renewable–yet, not investing in the future of that renewability–and a blind capital greed over anything which can be mined from the soil, dredged from the seas or spewed into the air, have left us on a tenuous pinnacle. Having climbed up a mountain of our own debris to see what else there is to acquire, we are blind to the fact we have used up everything to get where we are.
But, where are we? In 2009, we are the bastard children of the industrial revolution. We have inherited none of the riches, but all of the dross: pollution, sickness, debt, lies, and a pit so deep it is hard to see the light from. In 2009 we are standing at the coal face in dire need of making up for lost time. Faced with Climate Change, Peak Water, Peak Oil and Peak Soil there is much work to do and little time to do it. The pending economic collapse cannot be stayed much longer by spending what we don’t have. Yet, the political, industrial, agricultural machine paints a picture that “more” is around the corner. The myth of “Better living through Science” hasn’t died yet as long as there is “more” to be gained–more wealth, more control, more power. If we continue, even another year, on the present course we will be beating the proverbial dead horse–trying to get “more” from something which is spent. Going nowhere fast, nowhere at all.
Our limitless search for “more” must end. We must learn to be content with what we have. Even be thankful for it.¬† We must learn how to alter the technologies used for limitless expansion to rebuild a future where “more” isn’t necessary. We must realize that throwing more energy, a bigger machine, better technology at an issue isn’t the solution. As Wendell Berry has so eloquently put it:
“That human limitlessness is a fantasy means, obviously, that its life expectancy is limited. There is now a growing perception, and not just among a few experts, that we are entering a time of inescapable limits. We are not likely to be granted another world to plunder in compensation for our pillage of this one. Nor are we likely to believe much longer in our ability to outsmart, by means of science and technology, our economic stupidity. The hope that we can cure the ills of industrialism by the homeopathy of more technology seems at last to be losing status. We are, in short, coming under pressure to understand ourselves as limited creatures in a limited world.”
These limits, the lack of “more”, have got to cause us to look for solutions closer to home. There is no “out there”, no other world we can colonize and destroy like we have this one, no global remedy to save us. This is one case where “United we stand, Divided we fall” does not apply. The reality of Globalism won’t work in a future without “more”. In fact, the precepts of Globalism–free trade, open markets, commodity agriculture, and cheap oil for shipping and overproduction–have placed us solidly in the bulls-eye of disaster. When there isn’t enough fuel, how will food and commodities travel the globe? When the soil is so eroded and polluted that it will no longer grow even bio-engineered crops, how will the world be fed? When the pharmaceuticals, pesticides and chemical fertilizers pollute our drinking water and watersheds dry up because of climate change how will people live, let alone grow and sell crops around the world?
This is not something we can simply adapt our way out of, because that will take too long. Changing light-bulbs may be a feel-good fix, but it is an empty, symbolic gesture.((In reality, the new energy-efficient, eco-light-bulbs cost cost more, last less time and are more toxic than the older, inefficient ones, so how can they truly be better?)) We need real solutions, fast. We need to turn “more” into less, and less into enough. We need to stop our dependence on fossil fuel now, and realize that trying to grow our way out of it with Ethanol was a mistake. We need to stop trying to technologize our way out of difficulty, because it only traps us in an never ending loop of trying to prove unproven technologies. Meanwhile, we are going nowhere and may, in fact, be damaging what little we have left. Once we stop looking for “more” we will be able to realize that “less” is enough. Less chemicals, less oil, less mis-placed technology, less corporate-political interference, will free us to utilize what we have left to provide enough for everyone.
We need to “re-prioritise the local“, to break ourselves free from the myth that bigger, better systems will provide for us into the future. We must return to true economies of scale–smaller is better, bigger is wasteful. We must re-invest in our communities, in our neighbors. Among the first casualties in the quest for “more” were family, community, and neighbor. Society has abandoned its responsibilities and left everything to be looked after by “more”. Our children are left in the care of others, schooled by the same institutions creating the fantasy of “more”. Our parents are left to linger in stagnant pseudo-communities of the aging, sick and dying while we work to pay that their knowledge and experience¬† be sequestered away. It is a fractured reality. By re-investing in the local, by making community and neighbors a priority, we will invigorate social structures in ways long forgotten. By reducing the mileage goods and foods travel we will be decreasing our dependence on war-gotten gains. We will put an end to the hemorrhaging of money and jobs from our communities. If we don’t change our pace today, the change of pace tomorrow may come as a shock. By creating local systems now we will be buffering ourselves from the inevitable troubles climate change, economic unrest, and peak everything will bring. When we finally wake up to the end of “more” perhaps we can free ourselves to find real solutions to provide a future with “enough” for everyone.
Technorati Tags: peak oil, peak soil, peak water, sustainability, globalism, economic unrest, localism, agrarianism
About The Author
I agree that far too often, science is viewed as some sort of magic bullet. I’m not anti-science, but rather anti-science-abuse. I think a lot of the issues we’re facing stem from greedy people using science in ways to benefit themselves without considering the potential consequences to anyone else.