Imagine, if you will, a teenage boy, a utopian dreamer, always thinking about how to “save the world”, wandering through a county fair. In amongst the usual merchants he spots a booth run by an organization called Technocracy. A book with the title “Is There Intelligent Life on Earth?” catches his eye and draws him in. Being shy, he grabs a few pieces of literature and wanders off. Upon reading these it seems to be the very utopian dreams he has had, and this organization claims to have the “blueprints”. He and his father quickly join the organization and become deeply involved in it.
The boy, of course, was me. After many years I gradually drifted away from the organisation. M. King Hubbert, a co-founder of the organization and author of the “study course” left the organization in the 1940s, reportedly due to dissatisfaction with the way the organization was run, not with the ideas. I would like to think that he and I would have been in agreement on a number of points.
However, my purpose here is not to critique the organization, but rather to focus in on one of the key points the Technocrats made, their idea of “energy accounting”. Essentially they proposed replacing the “price system” (our current money/debt based system) with one which used energy measurements. The Technocrats paired this idea with the “abundance” of available resources, which seems paradoxical, since the idea of measuring energy resources becomes much more relevant in an era where energy is scarce. But when Technocracy’s ideas were put together, the resources available seemed nearly limitless. It took another 40 years for us to get our first taste of energy scarcity (I have vague memories of my parents waiting in long lines to fill up the gas tank) This is the point where we needed to start looking carefully at where our energy is coming from and where it is going. Sadly, this never happened.
The more general lesson of Technocracy is that we need to look for opportunities to apply scientific methods to everything we do. The more we can quantify things with objective measurements (whether energy or otherwise) the less prone we will be to being misled by snake-oil salesmen or vacuous politicians. This also means that if evidence is shown that what we are doing is ineffective or causing harm, we need to re-evaluate what we are doing. Sadly the Technocracy movement never figured this out, and even more tragically, we, as a culture, have veered farther from this ideal than we were when the Technocracy movement first started.
An old friend of mine and I often needle each other about various things. Since I became vegan he will often try to find various things to change my mind. The latest was that he sent me a link to Allan Savory’s TED talk. I watched it through twice and read a couple of critiques of it. I also watched What’s Wrong with TED Talks?, but that’s another topic.
One thing I noted was the enthusiastic applause in the video and the love-fest in the YouTube comments. Why is that? And why did my friend forward this to me? Because he was telling them what they wanted to hear. The key point of his talk is that not only is it acceptable to eat that hamburger, but it is necessary as it is the only way to feed the world and reverse climate change.
But we should all know to be suspicious of people who tell us what we want to hear, whether they are salesmen, politicians, priests, or economists.
The problems we face, whether environmental, political, economic, personal or spiritual, will not be solved by doing things which are easy or comfortable. We aren’t going to fix anything by driving our SUV to Walmart to get some Chinese grown beef, to eat while we sit in our recliner watching reality TV or Fox News. But let’s narrow this discussion back to Allan Savory’s talk.
I would say there are only two points in his talk which are of value: 1) desertification is bad and 2) “mimic nature”. Though I would say the latter, while useful, is overly simplistic. Simply mimicing nature is not enough. We have created a set of problems which nature is not going to be able to solve except in geologic time scales. Rather, we need to look carefully at how nature works and, using the best design practices, put together new ecosystems which sequester carbon, provide food, retain water. Limiting ourselves to what nature has done in the past isn’t going to get us there.
There could well be circumstances where carefully managed livestock could be beneficial to the environment. However, I doubt there are many places where this is the only option, as he insists. I am further doubtful that there aren’t ways to carefully manage plant communities in ways which could be more beneficial and more water and energy efficient. Geoff Lawton’s efforts in Palestine come to mind.
Furthermore, he leaves out one big detail. Water. What are these cows drinking? A single cow needs 6-14 gallons of water per day. Where does all this water come from? You can grow a lot of plants with that much water.
And I noticed an interesting verbal sleight of hand near the end of his talk. When showing a map of all the arid areas of the planet, he claims that “only animals can feed people from about 95% of the land”. Given the context, I know that when he said “the land” he meant the arid land in his chart, not the whole earth. But, I suspect that some people, too busy salivating at the thought of being able to eat all the meat they want with a clear conscience, may hear it the other way. However, even in context that is quite a generalization. If we rephrase that statement we can see how ridiculous it is: “Of all the thousands of edible plant species there are none which can produce yields on 95% these arid lands.” Really?
Actually, there is a third key point of his talk: killing 40,000 elephants is a horrendously stupid act. While it’s possible he pulled his head out after that one, I’m not sticking around to find out.
I have been a member of the Helsing Junction Farm CSA for four years now. In their recent newsletter they were asking a variety of questions mostly related to two topics: should all veggies come from the farm or is it ok if they buy veggies from other farms or even wholesalers, and the quality of the produce. Here are my thoughts.
My motivation for joining a CSA is probably different from most. Industrial agriculture has spent the last half century or so destroying family farms, biodiversity and our health. On a personal level, we have distanced ourselves from the seasons and the reality of food production, further subjecting small farmers to our fickle sense of convenience. Reducing food production to mere consumerism is an insult to farmers and a capitulation the worst attributes of humanity. So for me, joining a CSA was a concrete way to speak out against this, to reconnect myself, directly, with a small farmer, and make all our lives better in the process.
I have always felt a CSA share is an investment in a farm. In exchange I get a box of veggies every week, containing whatever they managed to harvest that week. If that means that I get ears of corn with bugs in them, or if I get few tomatoes because of poor weather, or even if I get potatoes with lots of dirt on them, so be it. To me, these are positive things as I know that veggies are not going to waste because they don’t look pretty enough for Whole Foods shoppers, and I know that the farmers will not suffer due to circumstances beyond their control.
I have heard of some CSAs who buy more produce from other farms or from wholesalers, but I am generally opposed of such things. Extricating myself and the farmer from the vagaries of the “market” is a prime goal for me, so introducing a wholesaler into the relationship would harm that goal and I would be opposed to it. However if several CSAs cooperate (as my CSA cooperates with Provisions CSA), I am all for it.
All in all, I am extremely happy with my CSA: I have gotten some wonderful vegies and I feel good to be supporting local farmers.
When I first read Greens are the enemies of liberty I didn’t even think it was worth responding to. Kind of wrestling with a pig. The article is a mess of strawmen, broad generalizations and hysterics, but amongst this there are a few vital points to contemplate.
He rightly fears authoritarianism, and I think everyone, aside from those in power, fear that too. There are people on every side of every debate who might want to impose their will on others, but to generalize an entire movement in such a way is fallacious. I certainly have no such desire, as domination and hierarchy have been the source of most injustices throughout history. However, he does confuse demands for legal proceedings (i.e. “criminal tribunals”) with authoritarianism. Justice and revenge are very different things.
Ah, but here’s a key point, he says
Liberty – true liberty – requires that people see themselves as self-respecting, self-determining subjects, capable of making free choices and pursuing the “good life” as they see fit.
It’s interesting to see what he leaves out: responsibility. By this standard, if I want to dump all my garbage in my backyard that’s my business, my “free choice”, and the fact it attracts rats which invade your house is your problem. Ultimately his point of view is that we act in a moral vacuum: if I ask for you to clean up your yard, I am “imposing my will” on you; and that any time a society tries to force you to take responsibility for your actions, or impose penalties to mitigate the consequences, this is tyranny.
But the reality is that everything we do has consequences, some minor, some severe, some good, some bad. I think it is fair to say that someone who denies that there are consequences is delusional if not sociopathic, and someone who acknowledges these consequences but doesn’t care is selfish and narcissistic. I would be scared of either sort of person. However, if someone agrees that there are consequences, but simply disputes the degree of consequences, then at least we can have a discussion in which reason and morality might lead us all to a better place.
Here then is the “promotion of guilt” he decries: The “free choices” he wants to pursue are seen, increasingly, as having negative impacts. It is too bad he finds himself on the wrong side of this cultural phenomenon. Culture evolves, and ethical codes change. Slavery, rape, killing heretics, child abuse and human sacrifice were all seen as normal at various times in history, fortunately most people now consider these forms of oppression as unacceptable. Taking responsibility for what comes out of your tailpipe, what goes down your drain, and what goes in your trash is just the next step.