How to run a civilisation?
I can’t help being reminded of the extraordinary work of Jared Diamond’s books where he details how previous civilisations whether the Greenland Norse or Easter Islanders chose to let their cultures collapse because they were unable to comprehend the effects their ‘business as usual plan A attitudes‘ had caused in the collapse of their life supporting eco systems.
I was haunted by one paragraph detailing how Islanders had followed ‘tradition’ over centuries and hacked down trees to burn their dead on funeral pyres. Eventually their ‘traditions’ hacked down all the trees and there were none left to make canoes needed to go fishing or trade with other islands.
In another example, some norwegians took their livestock mentality and ‘business as usual culture’ to greenland ice shelf. They survived for centuries and eventually starved to death because they ‘would not adapt’ to live with nature and imposed their ‘traditional culture’ on the landscape. The Norse society’s structure created a conflict between the short term interests of those in power and & the long term interests of the society as a whole. Much of what Cheifs and Clergy valued proved eventually harmful to society. Ultimately the Cheifs’ found themselves without followers and the last right they secured themselves was the privilege of being the last to starve.
They both started as intelligent societies. They both died out.
I often ask myself if this could happen again
Last year i read the Living Planet Report 2008 not once but twice. I stuck pages 14-15, 16-17 & 18-19 on my kitchen wall. About 53 countries are living beyond their countries natural resources just as Jared Diamond details in previous societies; and England is one of them. 53 countries that we trade with are in a similar position to us, take a good look at pages 16-17.
I am reminded of the significance of this when Mr Leape one of the reports authors said. “Most of us are propping up our current lifestyles, and our economic growth, by drawing – and increasingly overdrawing – on the ecological capital of other parts of the world.”
So in my business I’m over trading (a term used in business when you lack cash flow to fund your survival) except i’m using this over trading in terms of ‘depleting natural capital’ and we’ve been drawing successive countries into over trading with us and other countries in the name of ‘economic growth’ using another cheap commodity oil.
To put this in perspective each of us in the UK rely on imported goods that take an average of 1.24 Million litres of other countries water to produce them. That is half of the volume of an olympic sized swimming pool every year.
In todays world why is it important to consider our own ‘business as usual’ traditions?
Firstly we’d be stupid to ignore the hard learned lessons from our ancestors, secondly without a plan B the collapse will come as a bigger surprise than the minor economic collapse we’ve just had, we can print our way out of economic collapse but not ecological collapse.
I know most of us are all busy at work and deep in plan A but it is our aim at TransitionLinks to to bring awareness to an emerging lifestyle that is quickly evolving that might be called plan B. It might be the only plan you’ll need.
Why is plan A failing us so badly?
Remember i’m over trading on other peoples resources, i’m not a big business but i’m part of 70% of other small family firms and global multi nationals who are even better at over trading than me.
Lets take OIL – Has anyone talked to you about OIL like this?
Ok so ask your bank manager tomorrow to explain how peak oil will affect your business, go on ask them i dare you. Ask your lawyers, your accountants your advisors and suppliers, even you peer group and business colleagues.
I know that peak oil will put increasing pressure on my customers, on their supply chains, on their staffs ability to get into work in the mornings. It will put me and them out of business, perhaps in less than 5 years from now. I used to think that this was a distant problem, but now i accept that no amount of panicking will bring back stable oil prices. I am now understanding that our plan A lifestyles are dependent on less than 10 years of stable oil prices and i’m working on how this will effect business and other organisations in Bolton.
The signs of over trading and peak oil are so obvious that i had to contact my local and national ‘leaders’ just incase they had plan B that i didn’t know about. So i contacted MP ruth Kelly and Gordon Brown. (8th October 2009 – still no answer on this) but i’m not that important i’m only one of the 70% of UK family firms that employ the most people in the UK.
How do these ‘leaders’ compare with leaders from previous collapsed societies i wondered?
Lets take CAPITAL. You’ve never heard capital explained like this, i guarantee.
“The consequences of a global ecological crisis are even graver than the current economic meltdown.”
“Most of us are propping up our current lifestyles, and our economic growth, by drawing – and increasingly overdrawing – on the ecological capital of other parts of the world,” Mr Leape said.
The full report about this is available from this link.
http://www.panda.org/about_our_earth/all_publications/living_planet_report/